Netflix lifts limits as Apple enters online movie rental market

We men­tioned Net­flix dur­ing our IS 7010-T class dis­cus­sion last Thurs­day. Accord­ing to USA Today, Net­flix has changed some of the restric­tions on its broad­band movie rental ser­vice yes­ter­day, in antic­i­pa­tion of Apple’s entry into the same market.

Net­flix will allow most of its cus­tomers to view TV shows and movies from its 6000-title library with­out the old cap of 17 hours usage per month. I would assume that most Net­flix cus­tomers were under these lim­its in the first place.

Apple will roll out a 1000-title online library next month, and renters will have 24 hours to watch their video before it expires in a puff of DRM.

Net­flix uses an on-demand model that lets view­ers watch the title at their own pace.

While Net­flix charges a sta­ble monthly fee, Apple will charge a fee for each title viewed. The Net­flix­pric­ing model seems much more flex­i­ble to me.

Apple’s ser­vice will use Quick­Time and iTunes, so it sup­ports MacOS, Win­dows and AppleTV boxen.

The Net­flix ser­vice requires Win­dows Media Player 11 and a Win­dows OS – it’s pos­si­ble to run this soft­ware suite on an Intel-based Mac with some help from Boot Camp, or per­haps an emu­la­tor solu­tion like Par­al­lels Desktop.

Keep in mind that online movie dis­tri­b­u­tion requires a great deal of band­width. Pric­ing is one way to man­age viewer demand, of course.

Tagged as: Apple, bandwidth, broadband, DRM, Internet, mac, media, Microsoft, movie, Windows