20 Seconds, and a Movie Has Arrived

Last year, the movie industry raked in more than $40 billion.

What are they doing wrong?

Well, for one thing, most people can’t consume the product — movies — without getting in the car and driving somewhere, to a theater or video store.

Imagine, though, if you could watch any movie, any time, without budging from your sofa, by downloading it. All kinds of companies have been tripping over each other to deliver this movie paradise, including Amazon.com, TiVo, Movielink, Apple, Vudu, Netflix, CinemaNow, Vongo and MovieFlix.

Unfortunately, each service is fatally flawed.

Internet download services offer instant gratification, but most require you to watch on your computer screen, which is nobody’s idea of normal. Set-top boxes like TiVo, Apple TV and Vudu deliver movies to your TV, but erase your rented movies after only 24 hours. DVD-by-mail services like Netflix offer terrific selection, but it takes at least a day to receive the movies.

Netflix Netflix Roku

This week, Roku and Netflix unveiled a little $100 box that aims to eliminate all of those drawbacks. Delivery to your TV, not your computer? Check. Instant delivery from the Net? Check. Eliminate the 24-hour viewing window? Check.

Oh, yeah — and all the movies are free.

To understand what makes the Netflix Player a flawed masterpiece, it helps to understand its history. (This will take six paragraphs, which you can skip if you want just the punch line.)

Netflix is the largest DVD-by-mail service, with 8.2 million members and about 100,000 movies. Its Web site offers terrific tools for finding, recommending and organizing movies that you want to see. The glaring downside is having to wait for the next DVD to come in the mail. (Yes, Western civilization has come to this: complaining that it takes a whole day to get a movie.)

Early last year, Netflix tried to address that problem with Instant Watching, a service that lets you watch streaming Netflix movies in your Web browser. The movie wait was reduced from one day to 20 seconds.

The best part: there’s no extra charge for this. It’s free with regular Netflix DVD-by-mail membership (for example, $14 a month to check out two DVDs at a time). You can watch movies all day long, if you like.

Instant Watching introduced a new verb: movie surfing. Watch 10 minutes of a movie and then decide it’s not for you? No problem. Switch to a different movie.

The only wrinkle: You’re watching on your PC. Only the weird watch “Lord of the Rings” sitting in a desk chair.

“O.K.,” said Netflix. “You want Instant Watching on your TV? We can do that.” And it came up with the Netflix Player, manufactured and sold by Roku (Roku.com).

This thing could not be simpler. I was watching my first movie six minutes after opening the box.

Like all Internet movie services, the Netflix Player requires a high-speed Internet connection. It found and connected to my wireless network instantly and flawlessly. (You can connect it to your home network with a cable if you prefer.)

It connects to your TV using any kind of modern video connection: HDMI cable, component cables, S-Video or even those old red-white-yellow RCA cables. The nine-button remote lets you choose a movie, skip around in it or pause.

Usually, fast-forwarding or rewinding an Internet streaming movie is a hellish game of guess and wait. You can jump to a new spot on the movie’s scroll bar, but you have no idea where you’ll land; you don’t see a sped-up picture, as you do when fast-forwarding a DVD. Only when you release the mouse and wait 15 or 30 seconds for the movie to “rebuffer” do you see where you wound up.

On the Roku box, little thumbnail images of the movie scenes flash by, one for every 10 seconds of movie. When you stop scanning, you still have to wait 15 or 30 seconds — but at least you’ll know you landed at roughly the right scene in the movie.

You’re supposed to line up movies for this box at Netflix.com, where a new, second movie queue awaits. Any changes you make here appear on the box in seconds. On the TV, your wish list appears as a parade of colorful DVD cases on a scrolling shelf.

Having to scurry over to your computer can be a drag, but it does afford three benefits. First, it keeps the player’s on-screen menus extremely simple. Second, it lets you use all of those great Netflix.com tools to find and pick your flicks. Third, it lets Mac fans enjoy Instant Watching (since so far, watching on your computer requires Windows).

CONTINUED: A "no-brainer" for Netflix subscribers

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