Movielink

Netflix playing hardball with subscription pricing [UPDATE]

Update: Representatives from Netflix have let us know these lower-priced plans are part of a test for selected Netflix subscribers, and the current prices that were lowered last month remain for new and existing customers.

Netflix is cutting the price of two of its most popular plans by $1 today, less than a month after its last cut in July. The pricing hasn't been changed on Netflix's rates page, but the company has been sending out rounds of e-mails to its customers about the change since last night, and made an announcement about it earlier this morning. The … Read more

Cable still best for video on demand

Editors note: This story incorrectly reported that Stage6 operates on an H.264 codec. Stage6 runs on the DivX codec.

The Internet was supposed to be the primo way to distribute movies, but the past week has seen the sector take some body blows.

Google told customers on Friday that it's getting out of the video-on-demand business. Earlier in the week, five of the top motion-picture studios unloaded Movielink when they sold the online VOD service to Blockbuster for around $20 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The cost to develop the service: $100 million.

Even good news … Read more

Netflix to launch movie download service

Netflix is set to launch its long-awaited movie download service over the next six months. The new service, which will be sold separately and also as part of the regular Netflix subscription plans, bills movies on time, not on amount. For instance, plans will have various tiers of movie times, and each streaming movie counts against that time. Think of it as an allowance.

Netflix is also launching a new service called Program which lets users watch portions of movies as opposed to the whole thing, in essence, turning Netflix into a YouTube for movie clips.

There will be about … Read more