Netflix not coming to NZ anytime soon :(

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Netflix not coming to NZ anytime soon :(

1 | 2 | 3

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#551004 28-Nov-2011 15:02

dclegg:
sbiddle:
dclegg:
We tried to use one of our existing options the other week, to catch a show we forgot to record (TVNZ On Demand via the PS3). It was unusable to the point that we had to give up 30 minutes in.

Who is your ISP? There have been a number of people say TVNZ and TV3's service is terrible on Slingshot.

Telecom. I have no qualms with their performance generally.

The TVNZ On Demand experience is terrible. Not only does the UX leave a lot to be desired, but video playback stopped every few minutes, taking a few seconds to recover. At about 30 minutes in, playback stopped again but never recovered.

Are you using the Telecom DNS servers? Do you have the latest version of Flash?

NonprayingMantis

6434 posts

Uber Geek

#551014 28-Nov-2011 15:13

dclegg:
freitasm: Yes, but then they can't blame our model. It's their choice of CDN... They could use Akamai, as Apple does.

Thats only one part of the problem though. There is still the issue of relatively low data caps. I have a 60GB cap, and I regularly get the "80% used" warning email from my ISP. This is without streaming a lot of video content.

If they were serious about it they could partner with ISPs to offer unmetered access – just look at isky – Orcon, Slingshot, Vodafone and others all offer iSky unmetered.

dclegg

2806 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#551018 28-Nov-2011 15:15

sbiddle:

Are you using the Telecom DNS servers? Do you have the latest version of Flash?

The router is configured to automatically get the DNS server settings from my ISP. My TVNZ On Demand experience was via the PS3s built in support, which itself is just a thin veneer over its browser. The PS3 firmware is up to date.

EDIT: The DNS servers currently being used are 202.27.158.40 and 202.27.156.72

PenultimateHop

637 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#551023 28-Nov-2011 15:24

It will be a combination of things that ultimately boil down to a poor (or none at all) ROI for offering the service in New Zealand.

Content licensing; CDN availability; access loop performance; willingness of enough NZ users to pay enough; etc

mackiwi

28 posts

Geek

#551038 28-Nov-2011 15:33

I use itunes for movie rentals, and watch TVNZ ondemand via the native PS3 feed.

itunes rentals works very well via the appleTV, but with TVNZ ondemand the streaming quality is rather lacking on my 54" set, pixelated as all hell.

I dont seem to ever be close to using up my 80GB a month - but likely would be if some options for buying TV shows online were actually available in NZ - its retarded that the only options are either crappy quality streaming or pristine quality HD downloads from illegal sources.

do you hear me TVNZ/TV3? I Actually want to GIVE YOU MONEY for TV shows!!! ....but you refuse to sell them to me.

dclegg

2806 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#551045 28-Nov-2011 15:38

mackiwi: I use itunes for movie rentals, and watch TVNZ ondemand via the native PS3 feed.

itunes rentals works very well via the appleTV, but with TVNZ ondemand the streaming quality is rather lacking on my 54" set, pixelated as all hell.

I've asked Santa for an Apple TV with the hopes of having a similar setup. And as we are a household chocka block full of iOS devices, I also intend to use it for streaming media from those devices, as well as share the contents of our iTunes library.

I've tried a few solutions to try and get the latter to work, including the oft recommended PS3 Media Server, but they all have their shortcomings. And in fact I found PS3 Media Server to be the least reliable of all the options I tried.

Regs

4066 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Snowflake

#551072 28-Nov-2011 16:38

mackiwi: I use itunes for movie rentals, and watch TVNZ ondemand via the native PS3 feed.

itunes rentals works very well via the appleTV, but with TVNZ ondemand the streaming quality is rather lacking on my 54" set, pixelated as all hell.

I dont seem to ever be close to using up my 80GB a month - but likely would be if some options for buying TV shows online were actually available in NZ - its retarded that the only options are either crappy quality streaming or pristine quality HD downloads from illegal sources.

do you hear me TVNZ/TV3? I Actually want to GIVE YOU MONEY for TV shows!!! ....but you refuse to sell them to me.

TVNZ/TV3 probably have to pay extra for the digital distribution rights, and the probably have to pay hansomely to get full HD content out that way. The money you want to pay them probably wont cover what they are forced to pay back to the content disctibutors...

I'm assuming here that itunes has wordwide distribution rights to all the content you rent off of them. They probably pay a small fortune for that. They have the advantage of all those devices pre-running their software, a captive market if you will. Netflix wont have that same advantage and would have to take a bigger risk to get global distribution.

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

PenultimateHop

637 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#551079 28-Nov-2011 16:53

Regs: I'm assuming here that itunes has wordwide distribution rights to all the content you rent off of them. They probably pay a small fortune for that. They have the advantage of all those devices pre-running their software, a captive market if you will. Netflix wont have that same advantage and would have to take a bigger risk to get global distribution.

I don't think so - - iTunes in different countries has very different content available (including for AppleTV users). There are a number of countries where AppleTV isn't supported at all.

I have a couple of iTunes accounts in different countries for this reason, but that's technically against their T&C and probably their upstream licensing too.

nigelj

856 posts

Ultimate Geek

#551084 28-Nov-2011 17:00

freitasm: As I said on Twitter, this is a lame excuse. Other providers use cache and CDN to distribute content locally, which reduces the reliance on international links.

But as the article said, it's a multi-faceted issue for Netflix, while everyone has focused on bandwidth caps (which I think is a valid excuse, no point on doing business in an environment that to get customers to use your service, you are going to have to negotiate with every ISP to provide some mechanism of allowing free/local streaming access (Sky did this with iSky, but they have local knowledge and in same cases pre-existing arrangements).

The other issue, is that the main part of Netflix's business, DVD-by-Mail (which although iirc has been spun off into another company in the US) was sown up a couple of years when DVD Unlimited/Fatso/<can't remember> merged up to become Mega-Fatso. In addition, content rights for streaming may all be nabbed by Sky/etc.

I could have predicted this years ago though, there are many, bigger customer bases awaiting Netflix all over the place. They'll focus on them first.

crackrdbycracku

1168 posts

Uber Geek

#551094 28-Nov-2011 17:16

What we need is a 'Sam Morgan'.

TradeMe isn't nearly as big as eBay. Thing is Morgan saw an opportunity to fill a gap in the New Zealand market with a New Zealand product before eBay got around to filling the gap themselves.

That TradeMe isn't eBay doesn't matter when you sell it for millions. NetFlix will get here eventually, pretty much everything gets here eventually. But we could get a streaming service based here by New Zealanders.

I think the big problem is Sky. They just set up SoHo to cash in on the 'I want to watch what the rest of the world is watching' market.

This showed two things;

Sky are able to get the rights for overseas content at a rate they think they can make a profit from.
Sky think the satellite pay TV bundle still has legs. SoHo isn't some kind of pay per stream thing, its an additional channel you pay extra for like Rialto.

Sky will fight to defend this market. It is interesting that the stuff on SoHo is kind of 'mainstream' mind you, not documentaries or art house films or such.

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

Regs

4066 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Snowflake

#551234 28-Nov-2011 22:54

trademe and ebay sell a 'service', not products. they dont have to source products, or negotiate distribution rights. in order to fill this 'gap' in the NZ market, you're going to need very deep pockets to buy content and hope that you can recover the costs and become profitable in years, not months. that is, assuming there is still content to buy....

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

jonb

1771 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#551392 29-Nov-2011 12:10

theregister.co.uk summarises it thus:

crackrdbycracku

1168 posts

Uber Geek

#551400 29-Nov-2011 12:24

Regs: trademe and ebay sell a 'service', not products. they dont have to source products, or negotiate distribution rights. in order to fill this 'gap' in the NZ market, you're going to need very deep pockets to buy content and hope that you can recover the costs and become profitable in years, not months. that is, assuming there is still content to buy....

I see your point.

Mine is this:

New Zealand is really too small a market for NetFlix, or similar international outfit, to bother in as the potential return is to small. Therefore, there is an opportunity for a 'home grown' operation to move into the market first and gain market share, tiny in world terms but significant in NZ terms.

This is the comparison I was drawing with Ebay / TradeMe. I will accept that is is a very broad brush comparison.

As you say with the need for 'very deep pockets', access to content and a business plan that will not see fruit for many years this isn't easy.

The obvious candidate would be Sky and they are not killing the golden goose, satellite pay TV bundles, to do this.

Another possibility would be a dominant ISP? Or at a real stretch a consortium of ISPs?

Or, what the hell, let's form a political party and make movie and TV show streaming over broadband national policy! We would get those guys over on the "What if I don't want to vote" thread to vote for us.

I humbly submit my name as party leader.

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

Ragnor

8219 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#551410 29-Nov-2011 12:36

crackrdbycracku:

Mine is this:

New Zealand is really too small a market for NetFlix, or similar international outfit, to bother in as the potential return is to small. Therefore, there is an opportunity for a 'home grown' operation to move into the market first and gain market share, tiny in world terms but significant in NZ terms.

I don't see any opportunity for a small home grown operation as the regional rights to most content is prohibitively expensive or already tied up with existing players.

Given the Internet, hopefully the concept of regional rights will die off.. content will be treated as a cheap commodity and companies will charge for providing quality services.... this is a way off yet though and the distribution industry are doing their best to try and stifle/ignore the reality.

crackrdbycracku:

The obvious candidate would be Sky and they are not killing the golden goose, satellite pay TV bundles, to do this.

You mean like http://www.isky.co.nz/ ?

Clearly it would be crazy for them to cannibalise their existing business too fast, but they aren't un-prepared or ignoring the future.

crackrdbycracku:

Or, what the hell, let's form a political party and make movie and TV show streaming over broadband national policy! We would get those guys over on the "What if I don't want to vote" thread to vote for us.

I don't think the government has any real business being in the entertainment industry, I'd rather they spend their precious limited money on law/order, justice, education, health, infrastructure.

Behodar

10502 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#551420 29-Nov-2011 12:57

Netflix sent me a promotional email a couple of days ago asking me to join. I sent it back to them along with a link to the "not coming to NZ" article and told them to make their mind up (obviously with more tact than that!)

1 | 2 | 3