Streaming-media titan Netflix is reportedly looking to smooth relations with major US cable companies and convince them to make Netflix content available via next-generation TV set-top boxes. The company has been in talks with cable providers including Comcast and Suddenlink, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing anonymous …

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Monday 14th October 2013 21:42 GMT James 51

And still no native BB client.

I've love a lovefilm client for any platform besides kindle fires but that ain't going to happen.

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1. Monday 14th October 2013 21:58 GMT JDX
  
  Wow, they even have a WP7 client!
  
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Monday 14th October 2013 22:14 GMT Robert Helpmann??

Not That New

This isn't an entirely new idea for NF. Our Blu Ray player included a client for their service. It is several years old already. This is more of an expansion to better cover the market rather than a foray into new technology.

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1. Tuesday 15th October 2013 22:08 GMT Michael Wojcik
  
  Re: Not That New
  
  Not "entirely new", no, in the sense that it's been the plan from the very start, as Reed Hastings has said in more than one interview. That's why they named their DVD-by-mail service "Netflix", and not, say, "Postflix".
  
  Streaming via set-top boxes, and preferably set-top boxes that people already have (like cable boxes and DVRs) or would buy for other reasons (game consoles), was always the idea. The DVD-by-mail scheme was just to accumulate capital and build market recognition while waiting for broadband penetration to expand and for a substantial market of consumers to get comfortable with the idea of streaming.
  
  Personally, I haven't had a Netflix account for years and I have little interest in streaming TV, but that's because I don't watch much of it anyway and as it is the wife and I can't seem to get through what we accumulate on the DVR. But if I were a more eager viewer, Netflix through the cable box would sound quite convenient. Of course there are many options for that already, but if the cable provider were to add it to the box they already give me, it saves me even the minor effort of getting something like Roku.
  
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Tuesday 15th October 2013 01:00 GMT David Kelly 2

Distributed Servers?

Curious if Netflix offers distributed servers to ISPs the way Akamai does? Could do same for CATV.

My Samsung UN46C8000 has a Netflix client which hasn't been updated in a long time but sorely lacks closed captioning or language control. Lately Netflix has changed the defaults on most Anime to Japanese, and I don't understand Japanese well enough to watch on my Samsung. Oppo BDP-103 does much better.

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1. Tuesday 15th October 2013 07:45 GMT AlexV
  
  Re: Distributed Servers?
  
  In a word, yes. That's one part of what the Open Connect system offers (follow the link from the article). The other is to offer free peering at a common exchange.
  
  It all gets a bit complicated with transit fees and a raging argument between Netflix and ISPs like Comcast and Time Warner, but the basic argument is that the ISPs think that Netflix are using their capacity to deliver to users and should pay for that (and so are unwilling to sign up for OpenConnect as that would result in Netflix not having to pay them any transit at all). Netflix is more of the opinion that it is the ISPs users who are requesting Netflix data, and Netflix are doing the ISPs a favour by making it available at all - they certainly see no reason why they should have pay the ISPs extra for data which the ISPs paying customers are already paying for.
  
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