Time Warner provided a little more insight today into how it will use Flixster to fend off competition from Netflix. The movie-listing and info service that Time Warner bought earlier this month will provide a user-friendly interface for people who want to manage their home video collections in the digital cloud, the company’s CFO John Martin told an investor conference sponsored by Barclays Capital. Consumers will be able to “upload your existing physical DVDs, have the ability access them across multiple devices anywhere you want, have the ability to manage your collections with social aspects as well, go in, have friends see what movie collections they have, (and) see who has been watching those films,” he says. Martin called it “a very big idea” that Time Warner will describe more fully soon. The initiative comes as Martin says Warner Bros expects 2011 to be an “all-time record year.” But the big driver will be television, which accounts for “roughly half of the profits.” Although Warner Bros earns “in excess of our cost of capital in the film business,” television is “off the chart in terms of returns.” Broadcasters picked up 27 series from Warner Bros for this fall — including 12 new ones. The total is one more than last year and enables Warner Bros to boast that it’s still the No. 1 supplier of TV shows. Martin says that he, along with everybody else, is still waiting for the upfront ad sales market to break open. When it does, “all of the sign posts seem to indicate that the upfront is going to be extremely robust.”


that’s a lame idea. DVDs are dead. I don’t see how this competes with Netflix since WB’s concept is to upload one’s existing library. Where’s the streaming? The purchasing of on-demand movies? Although I do like the idea of accessing your movies across all devices/platforms. Though that sounds familiar….oh yeah, it’s called APPLE.
Really? Apple allows you to access your purchased content across ALL non-Apple platforms? Oh wait, they really don’t. Try again.
So basically you’re paying for the privilege to ignore the DMCA without getting sued? Will this only work for Time Warner titles?
I don’t think people will want to spend the time to upload 4-8 gigabytes per DVD. At least, not at the upload speeds we’re currently getting from Time Warner High Speed Internet (about .001 gigabits/second).
Best part is they will likely charge for excessive bandwith use so you will pay time warner for the dvd upload it back to time warner and pay them for the privledge and then pay them again for watching your own movies. Sure that makes plenty of sense.
Looks like you don’t realize that Time Warner Cable, I’m assuming your local internet provider, and Time Warner Inc., the company who purchased Flixter, are two completely separate companies. So, insinuating that this program allows Time Warner Inc. to suck additional cash from you in just ignorant.
Time Warner Cable is no longer part of Time Warner.
Is this honestly the thinking of big media? What a shame. Why would it not be as simple as having the movie file existing in the cloud and I just prove that I own it? Let me watch in on Facebook. Why in the world would I take the time to upload a DVD? Not only counting against my 250gb of usage on Comcast for something pointless and if they understood technology they would realize a much easier way to do this.
This is dumb. Unless part of their plan involves building a time machine and going back to 2002.
DVDs are dead. Physical media is dead. If you want to compete with Netflix, figure out a way to put your library online and make people pay for it.
Amazon is already doing this for music with their Amazon Cloud. I love it. It took me 2 days to upload all of my music, but now I can listen to my playlist’s from anywhere, via any hub.
I would love to be able to do the same thing with my DVD collection. Watch any movie I own on my iPad, Android phone, or any TV hooked up to the internet? I’d spend a month uploading all of my movies for that service. Bring it on!
um.. wtf?
DVD is done, but I’d love a way to archive my collection, like a Kaliedascape, except not super expensive.
TW should pull their heads out of their ass. DVD is dead. Get a grip.
This idea could be great… it’s the first attempt anyone has made at keeping consumers interested in actually owning a movie. If people can not only keep the collection they have now but also aquire new titles digitally (not have to upload them) then it will be just like have a shelf full of movies again with out actually having the shelf. People will be able to own their favorites in the digital realm and control and manage their collections as opposed to waiting for them in the mail or complaining about not being able to stream them or the streaming quality…
p.s. I love Netflix but at this point it’s just a stop-gap to people actually being able to control what they want to see. The studios need to get their shit together and get everything into a digital purchase-mode or direct subscription-mode where all titles from that studio’s library are available directly to customers via on-line distribution. Stop playing around with crap like Flixster and Facebook and just sell to the public.
Physical media is not dead no matter how many hipster douchebags declare it to be.
Among other things, I’m thinking that this idea will prove to be incredibly illegal. The DMCA expressly addresses this sort of thing, and the courts have backed them up.
Amazon is already doing this for music with their Amazon Cloud. I love it. It took me 2 days to upload all of my music, but now I can listen to my playlist’s from anywhere, via any hub.
I would love to be able to do the same thing with my DVD collection. Watch any movie I own on my iPad, Android phone, or TV without a player? I’d spend a month uploading all of my movies for that service. Bring it on!