An article over on MacObserver provides details as to Netflix’s new “Watch Now” service, which streams movies to a user’s hard drive.
Netflix Director of Corporate Communications Steve Swasey provided additional details to MacObserver’s inquiries regarding support for the Macintosh platform, stating that the initial rollout was PC only and that Netflix had invested US$40 million in the service. The “Watch Now” system makes use of Microsoft’s DRM 10.0 software via a browser plug-in and there are currently no plans to formally support Mac users in the short to medium term.
Click the jump for the full story…
An article over on MacObserver provides details as to Netflix’s new “Watch Now” service, which streams movies to a user’s hard drive.
Netflix Director of Corporate Communications Steve Swasey provided additional details to MacObserver’s inquiries regarding support for the Macintosh platform, stating that the initial rollout was PC only and that Netflix had invested US$40 million in the service. The “Watch Now” system makes use of Microsoft’s DRM 10.0 software via a browser plug-in and there are currently no plans to formally support Mac users in the short to medium term.
Swaysey commented that a third party application such as Flip4Mac may work, provided Macintosh users configure their browsers to view WMV files. Flip4Mac doesn’t currently support the DRM streams Netflix is planning to use for the service.
Swasey also commented that Netflix didn’t view Apple as a direct competitor given its different business model over the iTunes Store, which allows the user to directly download the file to a hard drive as opposed to Netflix’s streaming architecture. With the “Watch Now” service starting up and Netflix offering access to approximately 1,000 movie titles, several movie studios wanted their movies to be streamed in a controlled fashion as opposed to downloaded, thereby releasing only 1,000 of Netflix’s 80,000+ movie library. Swasey expects this restriction to be eased in the long term.
If you have any comments, feedback or ideas about this, let us know.