…’s listed as being half-over simply start it at the beginning no matter what. The guide exists only to give those customers a sense of comfort and to show them how much is really here. It’d be easy to come up with 100 such channels and that would give people a real sense of value. It doesn’t matter one bit that’s it’s all artificial. The end user won’t care. More than that, Netflix could charge a premium to the
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…ome screen is basic and intuitive. You scroll horizontally through your chosen channels including three special entries. One is the setup screen where you can set various options (be sure to change the resolution from 720p to 1080p if your TV supports it). The second is a Featured Channel that changes over time. Lastly, there’s a Channel Store entry where you go to add or remove new channels. You simply scroll to the channel or entry you wa
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Anyone that knows me knows that I’m both a Netflix fan and a rather big critic of the service. The company seems to represent a classic example of one that has a great idea but then doesn’t really know how the make the very most of it. The argument against that position is that they’ve caught lightning in a bottle twice. First they decimated Blockbuster by offering their DVD rental product at prices that saved many a fortune ov
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Several years ago the mail-based DVD rental service, Netflix, launched and it sounded like a very interesting idea. My wife and I had spent so much money at Blockbuster, mainly on late fees, that we’d adopted the policy of just buying the DVD’s we wanted instead. With late fees we ended up spending that much on most movies anyway. Netflix seemed like the perfect compromise. We joined. At the time it was $19.95 a month and you could h
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…, purchased, shipped, is simply a huge undertaking for something that clearly has a very finite life expectancy at this point. I don’t believe anyone feels we’ll be using physical media in 20 years and very few in 10. I suspect the vast majority will see it as quaint in just 5 years. It seems obvious to me that this move is designed for one thing only—to make it easy to shut down the DVD-side of the business cleanly without it directl
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For those of you who just recently got an HD TV be aware that you’re already behind the times according to what many manufacturers are up to. First let me give a 50,000-foot overview of the technology issues. Since roughly 1942 until the mid-2000′s, NTSC (as the standard in the US was called) dominated the TV landscape. That’s 60 years of one standard and the biggest change that happened during that time was a comparatively sim
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If you’re over the age of 30 you may not be aware of a huge undercurrent shift that’s taking place and that shift has everything to do with the future of cable television. The fact is that a huge percentage of our populace below the age of 30 have virtually no interest in anything on cable. Why? Because it’s not available on Netflix or other streaming options. It’s that simple. Many of them wait patiently (yes, youth and
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…bsolutely terrific. Her daughter-in-law is played by an old favorite of mine—Elizabeth McGovern (who still looks great at 50). The basic story takes place at an old English estate called, obviously, Downton Abbey. The year is 1912 and the first episode coincides with the sinking of the Titanic which claims two key family members causing a potential financial catastrophe for the main family of the house—the Crawley’s. Don’t get too con
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…very viewing—or at least as often as possible for the same content. Pricing Lastly there’s the issue of cost. After a couple weeks of use one thing became clear. This service is not inexpensive. Take, as an example, the 1985 movie Young Sherlock Holmes. I can buy the HDX version on Vudu for a mere $17.99. What? I can buy the DVD for $4 online or $8.39 at Walmart. In what world does it make sense to pay $18 for the digital-only version of th
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I was just reading a piece on Huffington Post about 15 of the stranger interview questions of late from top companies. I’ve had a reputation for being one of those people who does exactly this when I interview people. Most of the positions I’ve hired for demand creativity so I’ve found that the interview needs to be creative as well. You’re not looking for monkeys who know how to memorize responses in these roles. The que
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