Our review of Apple’s new movie download service - Stick with NetFlix!

Posted by Joe on January 9th, 2008

Thanks for visiting the NextAdvisor Daily blog. You may want to subscribe to our RSS feed.

Apple is preparing to announce a new online movie rental service later this month that will allow consumers to download movies through itunes and view them on their personal computers and apple devices such as iPhone, IPod and Apple TV.

Both new releases and older titles will cost $3.99 to rent and can be viewed for a 24 hour period.  Warner Bros and Fox will be providing movie titles and several other studios are rumored to be involved but have not yet been publicly confirmed by Apple.  The overall number of movie titles that will be available at launch is unknown at this time.
While this new service is a great step forward in the online movie rental space, it seems extremely restrictive and likely won’t offer a significant convenience or value over dvd rental services such as Blockbuster or NetFlix.  Check out our free online DVD rental guide for more information on these providers and more.

• NetFlix beats Apple to the unlimited download punch
• Netflix continues to innovate, explores movie streaming over Xbox Live
• Netflix to invest in expanding Blu-ray movie inventory
• Best Buy to offer blu-ray rebate to HD DVD owners
• Netflix streaming set top box review

HD DVD vs. Blu-ray - Who will be the next Betamax?

Posted by Joe on January 9th, 2008

Two different high definition DVD formats are competing to bring HD quality DVD entertainment to your home. because we have been reviewing online dvd rental services for some time, we decided to take a look at each of the competing technologies, HD DVD and Blu-ray, in an attempt to bring some clarity to our readers.

High definition televisions, or HD TVs, began to gain prominence in the early part of this decade thanks to a decrease in purchase price of HD TV sets along with a significant increase in the availability of high definition programming offered by major televison networks and cable providers. However, it quickly became apparent that standard DVDs, even in high end DVD players, couldn’t take advantage of the many benefits that HD TVs offered viewers. Due to some squabbles related to technological specifics, two standards emerged to solve this problem.

From our perspective, The Sony backed Blu-ray and Toshiba backed HD DVD formats offer consumers nearly identical benefits including major larger storage capacity, drastically improved HD picture quality and the potential for more interactive elements (using a broadband Internet connection) than a standard DVD.

The real differentiation comes when you start to review the availability of movie titles for the two competing high def DVD technologies. Blu-ray has agreements with six major movie studios including Sony Pictures, Buena Vista, Twentieth Century Fox, MGM, Paramount and, most recently, Warner Bros. HD DVD, on the other hand, has only one major movie studio, Universal, producing DVD content for its players.

Warner Bros had previously published high def DVDs for both HD DVD and Blu-ray, but made the move exclusively to Blu-ray as a reaction to purchase trends they had seen developing wordlwide. Said Kevin Tsujihara, the president of Warner Bros Home Entertainment in America:

We were the only studio publishing both formats, but the consumers that were buying were gravitating towards Blu-ray - particularly in the UK and Japan.

Our two highest rated online movie rental services, Blockbuster and NetFlix, offer high definition DVD movies in both formats, but the number of Blu-ray movie titles is much larger given the sheer number of studios that are releasing movies exclusively on that format.

Our opinion is that Blu-ray will inevitably own the market for high definition DVD and become the defacto standard. So, if you absolutely had to purchase a high def DVD player today , Blu-ray would definitely be the way to go.

That being said, we suggest that consumers wait before jumping into high definition DVD for the meantime. Blu-ray players are still relatively expensive at about $399 and movies cost about $40 a piece. These price will inevitably drop over the coming year which will make the upgrade from standard DVD even more attractive to most consumers.

In the meantime, we strongly suggest that all our readers that frequently watch DVDs at home sign up for an online dvd rental service which will save time and money. We have reviewed several online dvd rental services and you can read our reviews and comparisons in our from online DVD rental guide.

• Blu-ray is last technology standing in high def dvd wars
• Netflix to invest in expanding Blu-ray movie inventory
• Best Buy to offer blu-ray rebate to HD DVD owners
• Netflix continues to innovate, explores movie streaming over Xbox Live
• Our review of Apple’s new movie download service - Stick with NetFlix!

Blockbuster to increase prices by as much as 40%

Posted by Joe on December 21st, 2007

Subscribers to Blockbuster’s online dvd rental service were notified this week of new increased pricing that will go into effect beginning December 27, 2007. The price increase will vary by the type of plan that current Blockbuster subscribers have, but some plans will cost as much as 40% more.

The blog Hacking NetFlix pulled together this information on the increases based off of reader feedback:

Some of the price increases were modest: $9.99 to $11.99, $14.99 to $16.99, $17.99 to $19.99, and even $21.99 to $29.99, but the biggest increase was on the 3-out unlimited plan: $24.99 to $34.99.

Blockbuster is also eliminating the free in store rental coupon that was included each month with many plans. The loss of this unique Blockbuster perk also increases the effective cost of the membership since subscribers are essentially getting one less dvd per month.

Given the increase in price, some consumers may find a better deal at NetFlix depending on the type of plan they currently have and the number of DVDs that want to have out at any given time. Keep in mind that Blockbuster is unique in that some of their plans also include in store rentals from an Blockbuster outlet (even though they are doing away with free in store coupons), something that NetFlix does not offer. so, if in store rental are important to you it is probably best to stick with Blockbuster (although you may want to downgrade your plan if you don’t think you need the extra movies for the price).

We have reviewed all of the major online dvd rental services, including NetFlix and Blockbuster, and encourage our readers to read our in-depth reviews and comparisons to find the right service particularly given the pending Blockbuster price increase.

• Our review of Apple’s new movie download service - Stick with NetFlix!
• HD DVD vs. Blu-ray - Who will be the next Betamax?
• Netflix to invest in expanding Blu-ray movie inventory
• NetFlix beats Apple to the unlimited download punch
• Netflix issues apology, 5% discount