News - Netflix announces expansion into UK and Ireland

[HEXUS]

TV and movie streaming service to reach UK shores in "early 2012".

Read more.

[Biscuit]

Given the monopoly sky seems to have of the media consumption industry, netflix could do quite well if they come in at the right price with a good library of films and TV shows, especially if they are available before they are aired on sky.

[crossy]

Given the monopoly sky seems to have of the media consumption industry, netflix could do quite well if they come in at the right price with a good library of films and TV shows, especially if they are available before they are aired on sky.

+1, especially if the folks in Virgin are smart enough to try doing a deal with them. Would mean (potentially?) more choice for the consumer and VM have some negotiating room.

[llololloy]

There is no chance netflix will have shows before sky as sky pay huge sums to the US studios/networks have first run rights in the UK.
Netflix will have to outbid sky for UK rights and I highly doubt they could recoup their costs.
Don't forget, most big US shows are on their main FTA networks, their versions of bbc itv etc... and so licensing costs for domestic streaming will be more viable.

[Biscuit]

they have run rights for broadcast but does that translate to streaming?

[Merson]

Given the fact Netflix are already cosy with all the US networks/Film studios this could help them with any potential UK deals. They must know there main target audience will be those looking for US television and films before Sky.

Would love them to do some kind of sports deal but Sky and ESPN have that locked up nice and tight.

[shaithis]

Sky stream over SkyPlayer so I am sure that's written into contracts...

But, series? I am sure Sky will have certain ones first.....as to films...I bet Netflix will show them before sky.

If the price is right I may sub for a while and see what choice and quality are like.

[CK_1985]

I'm living in the US at the moment so I have been spending some time with Netflix - and my experience so far has definitely been a mixed bag.

Selection could probably best be described as 'patchy' - if you're looking for any specific movie the chances of it being available to stream are pretty slim, especially more recent films. TV shows are marginally better, but they seem to be losing some programs because various networks are deciding to set up their own on-demand player services to subscribers only, and pulling the shows from Netflix - so the selection on Netflix is dwindling.

Quality is again a bit of a mixed bag - some shows look fine, but anything with lots of dark scenes or fast-paced action suffers badly from blocking. 'Firefly' was unwatchable, for example. However I should definitely caveat that by saying our connection is only 1Mb so we're probably getting the lowest possible quality - proper broadband connections may well allow for higher quality streaming, but I don't know. The website is not very clear on how they manage bitrates.

We've had mixed experiences with device support too - while the Netflix 'app' on my sony BDP-s370 blu-ray player does work fine, it's often significantly slower at streaming than my laptop. Several times we've had to give up on using the blu-ray player and switch to the laptop half way through a program - otherwise an episode of Family Guy can run to 35 minutes including buffering time. Again, this may be partially down to our poor internet connection (in the middle of Manhattan - ridiculous) but that doesn't really explain why it works fine on the laptop.

Basically we've been pretty underwhelmed with our overall Netflix experience... so while I would never complain about more choice coming to the UK, I'm not holding my breath over this one.

[Biscuit]

Hmmm sounds like it might be a bit of a waste when it has to go against the existing BBC iPlayer 4OD, ITV Player () and Skys streaming service then.

[darklink720]

awesome, cant wait to see its potential over here. Hear its a favourite over in the states