AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

The New York Times
Netflix, which pioneered the business of offering DVD movie rentals by mail, is now offering its 8.2 million subscribers an option to watch movies easily on their televisions without involving the post office.
Working with a small Silicon Valley company, Netflix will begin marketing a $99 device on Tuesday that will allow customers [...]

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paidContent.org
Video retailer Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI), in the middle of a big reorg of its offline rental business, is working on a set-top device for streaming films directly to TV sets, similar to what Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) announced at CES this year with LG Electronics (SEO: 066570). The announcement is expected to come this month, reports [...]

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The Taste of Others - Film in Focus
If pressed, Joe Konstan will admit that he watches “fewer than two movies a year.” Yet Konstan has spent more than a decade creating software that attempts to figure out your taste in movies and suggest what you might want to watch next.
Konstan, a professor at the University [...]

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Getting up to speed on digital downloads - The Los Angeles Times
Rather than visiting a rental store, many are getting movies from online services.
If you’re like most Americans, renting a movie involves driving somewhere or, if you’re a determined couch potato, reaching into your mailbox.
Then you fire up the DVD player and that’s that.
Hollywood would [...]

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Reed Hastings Movie Man - The Wall Street Journal
The marriage of the Internet and the television has had more false starts than those guys in Cialis commercials. Back in 1997, Bill Gates threw Microsoft’s muscle behind WebTV. But that was pre-YouTube, when the Internet was little more than a sea of text pages with motionless [...]

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Best Buy, Netflix Back Blu-ray In High-Definition Format War - The Wall Street Journal
In another move that appears to cement Blu-ray’s position as the winning next-generation format for DVDs, Netflix and Best Buy Co. are throwing their support behind Blu-ray discs.
The votes of support for Blu-ray, developed by Sony Corp., from Best Buy and Netflix [...]

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Think of an Old Film, And Chances Are Good You Can See It at Home - The Wall Street Journal
One way to measure the march of progress is to list the human needs that can now be obtained without leaving home. Heat, water, light: All can be produced on the premises with a flick of [...]

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Apple’s Entry into Movie Rentals Is Good for NetFlix and Bad for Blockbuster - Seeking Alpha
There was a very interesting omission in the coverage of Netflix’s (NFLX) decision to allow most users to stream unlimited internet content. The omission? The word Blockbuster (BBI).
Under the most popular plan that charges $16.99 per month to rent [...]

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Netflix ups the ante on Apple - Hollywood Reporter
It’s not easy to divert attention from Apple on the eve of Macworld, but give Netflix points for trying.
The company that turned DVDs into a subscription service for millions of consumers said Monday that it no longer will put a cap on the number of hours its [...]

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Netflix Now Offers Subscribers Unlimited Streaming of Movies and TV Shows on Their PCs for Same Monthly Fee - Press Release
In 1999, Netflix, Inc., the world’s largest online movie rental service, pioneered unlimited DVD rentals for one, low monthly fee. Today, the company announced it is now giving most of its more than seven million [...]

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