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Netflix is still in charge and Movie Gallery is still in trouble

23 January 2008 18:57 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 9 comments

Netflix is still in charge and Movie Gallery is still in trouble A comparison of Netflix and Movie Gallery is a study in opposites. In the last year Netflix managed to withstand a challenge for online rental supremacy from Blockbuster and come out the undisputed leader, with Blockbuster apparently giving up on previous online ambitions to concentrate on brick and mortar operations where their primary competition, Movie Gallery, was declaring bankruptcy and closing stores.

The trends for both Movie Gallery and Netflix appear to be continuing in the same direction for the fourth quarter of last year. Netflix today announced a revenue increase of 9% from the same period in 2006. Meanwhile Movie Gallery has filed a motion asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, VA to approve an expenditure of around $1 million dollars for employee compensation related to closing more stores.

There was no mention in the motion of how many of the more than 3,600 Movie Gallery, Hollywood Video, and Game Crazy locations are expected to be closed, although an estimate of "several hundred underperforming or unprofitable potential store closure locations" to be closed in the near future "as part of a ‘Phase II’ store closure initiative.”

Netflix, on the other hand, appears to be positioning themselves to compete with the growing number of streaming and Video On Demand (VOD) offerings, including Vudu and Apple TV by allowing customers increased access to their Watch Instantly streaming video service and a project to develop a set-top box with LG.

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    pcrazy99 (Member) 23 January 2008 20:28 Send private message to this user   
    Good for Netflix! I haven't been to a video store in ages. I just don't see the appeal in driving to a store to rent a video that more often then not will not be in stock. Now I can stream the movies to my house with Netflix.
    jimjeo (Newbie) 23 January 2008 20:35 Send private message to this user   
    Do they still have "Video Stores?"...Netlix has been my chose for years...Late fees?...Out of stock?...Please be kind,rewind...LOL
    cyprusrom (AfterDawn Addict) 23 January 2008 22:12 Send private message to this user   
    The movies choices featured in the "Instant Watch" deal are still poor,but otherwise I am having good experience with Netflix. If I get the movies on Monday and send them back the same day, normally on Wednesday morning I get delivered abother batch.
    khmernize (Newbie) 23 January 2008 22:22 Send private message to this user   
    I love netflix. It's the next best thing to pumpkin pie (if you like pie). I like how they stock old movies that you can never find at the video store. They even have international movies and horrible B movies, haha. I would never switch to anything else.
    atomicxl (Newbie) 23 January 2008 22:26 Send private message to this user   
    Netflix got me back into movies. There are so many movies I never would have watched without them. F-bomb a rental. I wish they'd partner with MS or somebody and let you download HD content to watch. My PC is connected to my TV like 80% of the time. My 360 is always connected... lets make it happen fellas.

    I already pay for Netflix so I feel like it'd be super cheap or no additional cost. MS should spend some a few millions out of their billions in profit into buying Netflix so we can get this stuff on Live or natively supported in WMP.
    cyprusrom (AfterDawn Addict) 23 January 2008 23:06 Send private message to this user   
    I doubt that true HD content over the internet is a viable option as of now. Even the downloads available through XBOX live are not true HD content, just high resolution DVD that might meet the minimum requirement to be called "HD", but probably some are worse quality than a regular DVD. The nice DVD that you back up on your DL disc has a bitrate of around 8Mbps, while the so called "HD" downloads are 6Mbps, or even worse. I wonder how long would it take to download a real HD movie, of close to 40Mbps bitrate, and 30 some GB size...Netflix would've delivered by mail twice that movie before the download is done.

    This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 23 January 2008 23:08

    atomicxl (Newbie) 24 January 2008 10:31 Send private message to this user   
    If its amything like DVD, you don't need anywhere near the size on disc to get something thats visibly the same. Something that takes up 7 gigs on a DVD in MPEG2 can be encoded to H.264 and look identical and take up like 2 gigs. I imagine that Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are similar with stuff encoded at insanely high bit rates not for quality, but just to max out the disc.

    I've got a torrent of a movie in 720p and its only 4.5 gigs. It probably doesn't look as good as 1080 HD-DVD, but i've rented the DVD from Netflix and the torrent looks better than the upscale. There was a survey done (posted on this site) about people with HDTVs that don't know they aren't even watching HD content or are satisfied with upscaled DVDs. This looks better than what they're currently watching. Maybe for the hardcore tech head it won't be enough, but for the average consumer it could be alot better than what they're viewing.
    cyprusrom (AfterDawn Addict) 24 January 2008 17:36 Send private message to this user   
    Believe what you want, if you want to think that the high bitrates used by Blu-ray and HD DVD encoding is just to take up space and has nothing to do with qualuty...? Then why do the HDTV broadcasts are 15-20Mbps if not for quality? What space do they have to fill in?

    http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=511
    borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 18 February 2008 21:23 Send private message to this user   
    It seems that netflix is moving unto bigger and better things.
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