NBC shows to Netflix day after they air

Looks like NBC is going to make some shows available on Netflix watch instantly:

Now, the broadcaster is partnering with mail-order DVD rental company Netflix, announcing deal which will make selected NBC shows available online to Netflix subscribers the day after the air on the broadcast network.

Shows available under the deal will include NBC's seeming-ubiquitous Heroes—already syndicated into the ground on NBC partner networks, via G4 and Mojo—along with earlier seasons of 30 Rock, The Office, and Friday Night Lights.

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Tis the season for Netflix delays

Ahh tis the season, and the USPS is soon to be slammed with holiday well wishers and all the accompanying mail. I live about 100 miles from a Netflix distribution center and I usually get a 3 day turn around. One day there, one day processing, one day back. I've been a Netflix subscriber for about 4 years now and each year around this time the transit time gets a little longer. Last year my Holiday turn around ran from 4-5 days, now this is not Netflix fault, it all falls on the shoulders of the Post Office...but I guess it is to be expected. How is your turn around this time of year?

Netflix releases for 11/27

Ok a couple sleepers for my picks this week.

First Snow



The Namesake

Reed Hastings be inducted into the Video Hall of Fame

From Video Business:

Those being inducted into the Video Hall of Fame will be Steve Beeks, president and chief operating officer of Lionsgate; Reed Hastings, founder, chairman and CEO of Netflix; and Bill O’Brien, co-founder of Video Business and Video Hall of Fame.

All proceeds will benefit Variety—The Children’s Charity.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving All

Netflix still getting a bad rap for lack of Mac support

Have you checked out the new Netflix facebook page? Here is a cut and paste from the comments section, looks like Netflix is still getting a bad rap for the lack of Mac support with their watch it now. Few people realize that it is a licensing thing with the movie studios not a development thing with Netflix.

Will wrote at 7:45pm yesterday
Yes...Mac users are waiting for Watch Now!...Beacon would be cool...it's interesting that Blockbuster's ad agency just fired them due to lack of ad spending but they are spending money on Beacon...like trying to save the titanic with an ice bucket

Jason wrote at 11:19pm on November 18th, 2007
Yeah! Macs users are waiting!!!!

Matt wrote at 5:08pm on November 17th, 2007
when is "Watch Instantly" going to work on the Mac?

Devin wrote at 6:06am on November 16th, 2007
...or at least catch up to Blockbuster with 'Beacon' by allowing me to share things I do on netflix.com with my newsfeed (added movies to queue, posted reviews, rated movie).

Peter wrote at 10:55am on November 15th, 2007
Yes, please build an app for facebook and add beacon to your site.

Jeff wrote at 5:30am on November 15th, 2007
just watched spiderman 3. sandman!

Bernardo wrote at 1:41pm on November 14th, 2007
Please build an app for Facebook! It would be great to interact with our Netflix account and share movies ratings/reviews etc from within Facebook.

Shawn wrote at 11:37am on November 14th, 2007
Been a user for a little over 2 months, and already my account is being throttled. Way to attract, and keep business Netflix!

Jeff wrote at 11:30am on November 14th, 2007
WATCH NOW FOR MAC! PLEASE!!!!

Penny wrote at 10:13am on November 14th, 2007
Please please PLEASE develop Watch Instantly support for Macs, oh-kay? Thanks!

Daniel shared a link at 9:42am on November 13th, 2007
Hey, Netflix. Maybe I would reccomend your service a little more if you would stop throttling the hell out of my queue. And don't give us that BS about how throttling doesn't exist. We know it does.

http://draykenobi.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/throttling-punishing-loyal-customers/

Netflix wrote at 8:57am on November 13th, 2007
We'll use this page as a spot to keep y'all posted on the release of a Facebook-Netflix app -- in the meantime, it's also good to see (by way of the number of fans) how many folks at Facebook would be interested. If you are a fan here, it's easy for us to send an alert to everyone letting you know when it's available...

Eleni wrote at 11:56pm on November 12th, 2007
"Blame it on Fidel" is a good movie I just saw on "Watch Instantly."

John wrote at 1:13pm on November 12th, 2007
Mac support for Watch Instantly plz! K, thx!

Also, we need formatting tools for reviews so we can separate paragraphs! :)

Netflix wrote at 9:05am on November 12th, 2007
Welcome to the Netflix page. Anyone seen any good movies lately?

Managing your Netflix queue with iPhone

*geeksugar has a great post about using you iphone to manage your Netflix queue.

Created by Brent Jensen, iFlix will allow you to reorder, drag, drop, delete, and add items to your Netflix queue — straight from your iPhone.

Netflix releases for November 20

Sorry the posts have been light, I have been nursing pneumonia.

Here are my picks for this weeks releases from Netflix.

Rescue Dawn



Angel-A

Close Encounters dropped by Netflix?

Interesting snippet from a HD forum:

I received the above Blu- Ray disc from Netflix on Thursday and it
would not play on my BDP-S1.

I requested a new copy and here is the reply I got from NETFLIX:

"The title: Close Encounters of the Third Kind has been removed from your Queue. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we will no longer offer this title as part of our rental library. Please check our site periodically as the availability of this title could change."

What is this all about ?

Not sure the reason for this, my email to Netflix has yet to be returned.

Steal a Pencil for Me NFF

cethilk over at flickr has a great photo of a new NFF for Steal a Pencil for Me.

Birthdays anyone?

Wow was everybody born today? Happy B-day to:

Steve Zahn

Riding in Cars with Boys
Sahara
That Thing You Do!

Joe Mantegna

The Godfather Part III
Searching for Bobby Fischer
House of Games

Whoopi Goldberg

Jumpin' Jack Flash
Ghost
The Color Purple

Chris Noth

Sex in the City
Law and Order

Jimmy Kimmel
Garfield
Road Trip

Netflix employees romancing at work

The San Fransisco Chronicle has a great piece on office romances. Buried about half way through the article is a great quote by Netflix spokesman Steve Swayze:

We like to think of ourselves as rule-averse. We hire adults and we expect adult behavior. Personal stuff is personal, and if it isn't interfering with work, it's not worth spending any time on.

Looks like an office romance is just fine at Netflix and in celebration I offer your queue a few films about the ups and downs of workplace love.

Dead Letter Office

Disclosure

The American President

Gosford Park

Netflix rubs salt in the wound of Mac users?

bradchoate has taken issue with Netflix's recent oversight where he believed they use a black MacBook to promote their watch it now. As we all know, watch it now will not run on a Mac unless you are running Windows on it. But Jeremy from Netflix, the designer of the ad, was quick to point out that it is not a Macbook in the image, but a generic laptop created in a 3D application. Jeremy also shed some light on the "no mac" policy of Netflix.

Lack of Mac support is not due to technical reasons... it's strictly the studios refusal to license any content not protected buy MS DRM. Netflix has been fighting that setback for a long time, and continues to do so.

Netflix releases for 11-13-07

Pretty slim pickins this week for releases. For the kids, there is Shrek the Third. Now I saw this in the theater and, to be honest, was not all that great. Timberlake really brings it down.

Shrek the Third



My adult pick is Amazing Grace. It looks like an entertaining period piece about a lawyer that fight for the abolition of slavery.

Amazing Grace

Netflix tweaking the Fanboy Nuclear Option

Back in September I touched on Netflix's new flagging a review option, also known around Netflixholic as the Fanboy Nuclear Option. My concerns were that fanboys would flag negative reviews of their favorite films as "this is not a review" or "objectionable content". I took down all my reviews just to be safe. Looks like I was not just being paranoid.

from the Netflix Community Blog:

Over the past few months we've changed the thresholds and we continue to find cases where folks are misusing the system and thus we revise the algorithm to account for this. The thresholds and algos are also different for "this is not a review" and "objectionable content" (etc) and we know some people who don't like a review just click on everything hoping this will accelerate the removal (it doesn't).

Netflix India

Seventymn, India's equivalent of Netflix, offers access to over 15,000 titles in 14 languages. One cool thing about it is they rent XBOX games. Now when Netflix moves in this direction has been discussed on countless Netflix blogs, but I am wondering if the move will come before the porn card. The way I see it Netflix has two aces in the hole.

One: Console games. Purchase gamefly and move right into video game rentals online. Seems like an easy call, especially if membership begins to decline.

Two: Porn. I know Netflix has claimed many times they never plan on moving in this direction, but people keep asking. Here is a shock, people are asking because they know with Netflix distribution system they would double their subscribers. You just have to deal with all the baggage that will come from offering adult entertainment.

So which card will Netflix play first?

Netflix new releases this week

My picks this week:

Ratatouille for the kids



Into Great Silence a 2006 Sundance Film Festival winner



Pixar Short Films: Vol. 1 just for fun

Hollywood writers' strike...a boom to Netflix?

Well the strike begins now, time to queue up those TV series you missed, since the longer this goes the less new material will be left. Tim Goodman from the San Francisco Chronicle has some great suggestions for series he thinks are pretty good.

My plan of attack is to catch up on some great indie films I missed this year, I am not a big TV fan. Several readers emailed me with the following suggestion.

When the networks start the re-runs, catch up on any of previous seasons episodes you missed. A handy tool for finding out which episodes you missed is the site epguides.com.

Hacking Netflix digs deeper into a new form of throttling

Hacking Netflix has a great post about a new "form" of throttling. The main point of the post is many times a customer returns two movies back in the same envelope and only one is checked in that day. The writer of the letter even goes as far as to claim that the two movie were sometimes checked in 3 or 4 days apart. I have to admit this happens to me also, although rarely. As a collector of Netflix envelopes, mant times I am keeping the drop point envelope and sending two movie back in another, local, envelope. And several times, I have had the same thing happen to me. I always chalked it up to problems at the local distribution center and not really to throttling. It just doesn't happen all that often to me, even though I send many two-fers back. Check out Hacking Netflix's post, it is a very interesting development.

Netflix's Red Envelope picks up "Running with Arnold"

Netflix continues to show its commitment to the indie film. From Variety:

Red Envelope Entertainment, the original content division of online DVD rental outfit Netflix, has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Dan Cox's documentary "Running With Arnold,"