Streaming media ....

I will be one of the first to admit that I was profusely against the idea of discarding physical media for streaming sources. After all, with physical media, I can watch it whenever I want (as long as I have a player), I can carry it with me where no internet connection exists, and there's something tangible that I "own."

Netflix, however, has worn me down. I originally subscribed to Netflix and Blockbuster Online for one reason ... I went through a period when I bought instead of rented DVDS and the huge sums spent every week were just ridiculous. Once I priced out the DVD-by-mail rentals, they made perfect sense ... I didn't have to travel to a store, I didn't have to pay shipping, and I could rent enough to get the pricing down to one or two dollars per rental (or less) which was much cheaper than any store could offer.

When Netflix first introduced streaming selections, it seemed like a joke. You could stream as many hours as dollars paid per month, and you could only watch on your computer using Internet Explorer. I remember watching a few episodes of Dexter, but thought it more of a novelty and knew I would never pay for such a small selection only viewable on the smallest screen in my apartment.

Things have changed however ... the selection of titles available has expanded greatly (still nowhere near huge, but definitely bigger). Downloads have gone from limited to unlimited for anyone with even the most basic subscription. More importantly, however, I can watch streaming video on my HDTV as opposed to my computer screen. Sure, at first, I was limited to using a program called PlayOn to stream to my PS3, but now Netflix supports streaming on PS3, Xbox360, and Wii. The official interface is decent (though you'd only want to browse for new titles on your computer, IMO), but more importantly, the quality of the streaming so far has been awesome (until Comcast kills it, undoubtedly). This past weekend I watched a few episodes of the TV show Bones in HD. Other than some pixelation at the very start of the episode, the video and audio was very good. Actually, it was surprisingly good. Actually, I just listed my box set of Bones: Season 2 on Half.com as it is standard definition only and Netflix beat the pants off of it.

On another front of the streaming media battle, Amazon offers what they call "un-box" which, in other words, is a pay, digital-only service. I'm still not keen on the pricing structure of digital-only rentals ($3.99 HD from Amazon, $2.99 SD). Amazon's prices seem a bit high, though admittedly, iTunes and the Playstation Network pricing is even higher. However, I did receive a $4 promotional credit the other day for Amazon VOD, so I decided to rent "The Blind Side" which, in its infinite wisdom, the studio has put on Netflix/Redbox moratorium for 1-month after its release-for-sale, a trend I find aggravating (see also Sherlock Holmes). Now, Amazon does not stream to a TV natively (a big strike). However, the before-mentioned program PlayOn will stream Amazon VOD (in a beta capacity), so I was able to watch the movie on my HDTV. The experience was fairly decent (though it did hiccup once ... not sure if it was the fault of Amazon or the work-around).

It worked well enough that I would consider renting this way in the future ... if the price were better. At the time I looked, it would cost $4 for me to rent an HD version of Sherlock Holmes for 2 days from Amazon. It would cost me $24 to buy the blu ray, with which Amazon would allow me a free rental of the movie to hold me over until it arrived. I understand that studios say that cheap downloads de-value their product, however I can't see how a $10 fee to purchase a download with no need for physical media, cases, disc art, and physical distribution de-values the product, especially given that in 1-2 years, the physical media can probably be found for about that price. I guess this gets into digital pricing, a topic for later ....

In the end, however, the advancement of streaming media is encouraging, especially given the quality of the equipment I have to access it. I feel like we are near the digital/physical tipping point, though admittedly it still may be a few years down the road. I guess we shall see ....