Will Spotify expand with full-length movies?

While it would be nice, I doubt any company could handle the bandwidth requirement to supply movies on demand like Spotify does music. Then again, I could be wrong...

I was going to write a very negative post about movies in Spotify, as it would be a terrible brand extension, it would dillute the brand as it is now.
I want an excellent music service, not a piece of software that tries to do everything.
But then I realized, that I do kind of want video. Not full lenght Hollywood movies, not at all.
I could see music videos, concert recordings, documentaries and the likes being a good addition to Spotify down the road.

If Spotify type services are going to be the future of music distribution, they will eventually be the chosen distribution method for movies as well.
Movie theatres are already converting to hd-projectors and the logical next step is a reliable super-high-speed network for uploading movies straight from the distributor. Improved security, cost-reduction and a flexible offering for audiences are among the benefits. It's only natural that once this is available for theatres the same type of service can easily be made downscaled for consumers as well.

Think about it. You pay 30e/month and you can watch every movie ever made as many times you like. That's more than I spend for video rentals in a year, but I would absolutely pay 300e a year for a reliable service like that.

Obviously it requires a little bit more bandwith but wait
5-10 years and we are there.

As it is now spotify uses p2p to distribute songs, so the same could be used for movies, actually it shouldn't be THAT much of a huge increase in BW for Spotify as company.

Nah, I really think that Spotify should concentrate on the music. But perhaps with a different client this could be a clever idea. Perhaps the first "natural" evolution would be music videos in that case...

They've discussed music videos, tv shows etc. along with more targeted ads before.
I'm fairly confident they want the music experience to be solid first though.

Music videos would be the natural next step, but full length, cinema movies sounds a bit too much too fast.

I think Music videos would be a brilliant addition! Imagine watching HAARP for free? Movies would be cool, but it would need a lot of bandwidth :S

Yeah, musicvideos would be the next step.
Full length doesn`t feel so important

Juste wanting to remember a famous idea from free softwares : "One software doing one thing but doing it well".
Few weeks ago I would agree about videos in Spotify but now it doesn't seem to me a good idea because of the bandwith needed, doesn't sound pretty cool ! I prefer Spotify improving their music offer, music quality, even the software. Doing one thing and doing it better than others, maybe after, but now, keep concentrate on the songs.

I'm confused why so many people feel the bandwidth will be impossible, you tube do it, so why cant spotify?
I'm not sure that a separate piece of software would be needed. just a second tab called 'videos'.
but completely agree should only be music videos or music related videos, and professional only. not full length movies, that should be another application.
Ps SPOTIFY ROCKS!

Disco_Steve > Youtube is Google, that's the difference (And Google lose money with Youtube over thatn there is no efficient business model). When Spotify will be a huge network that could shares bandwidth with a small impact on each internet connexion, hd video could be on Spotify.
Moreover if you're getting slow the internet connexion of a new personn on Spotify, what will he think ? "This software is harmful for my internet bandwidth, so, go trash !" That's all. Spotify need to provide the best service ever for having more and more users.
Like a famous open-source proverb : "Going one thing, but doing it well (and better than others in Spotify case)"

+1 for profesional videos or videos from the public but strictly selected, quality first !

Maybe we should let Spotify's technical staff worry about the implementation of this (should their business staff require them too). On the question of Spotify as a music delivery platform then there is one (at least) genre of music that really requires the video aspect and that is opera. Just watched "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk", the Shostakovich opera, on TV and although the opera is available as audio only on Spotify it really isn't the same. If Spotify is serious about providing the full spectrum of music genres then it must supply opera and you can't do that properly without the video.

I'd like to think the business minds that are running spotify have this all planned out, it's the busines model that was probably the hardest thing to get off the ground, now they are sitting on the future of popular media distribution...

music, movies, tv

its not diluting the product offerring in any sense just look at how iTunes began...

technical issues arn't a problem i would imagine more over the main challenges would be just how forward thinking and brave the content owners are prepared to be...

I think they should just continue with music for the time being. They are working incredibly hard as it is and they are damn near to being perfect. Once the music side of things is 100% there then I think they should move forward into other fields. Good idea though.

I guess you have heard about www.voddler.com about now.

Oh dear. All this talk of "bandwidth"
Do you not understand?
Spotify don't host the music specifically. They rely on P2P, i.e. music being stored on lots of computers all across the internet.

The fact that the software caches music on YOUR computer AND that it has many concurrent connections to the internet probably means that YOUR computer and YOUR bandwidth is already being used for the distribution of music.

In fact, for the business model to remain sustainable for Spotify, they probably wouldn't be able to do it any other way. Someone previously mentioned that Youtube loses $1Ms...bandwidth is one of the main reasons why...and THAT ISN'T A PROBLEM FOR SPOTIFY.

Anyway, back to the question at hand. If anyone can do video properly, I think the spotify team can.
"Now it's just a question of proving that the Spotify model actually makes money for artists"
http://tr.im/BOoJ

Well, think about it;

We wouldnt be looking at the same real-time instant access we get with music, a movie is just TOO LARGE whatever the network is like (unless you've got 100mb connection at home, your not going to get your movie entirely in under ten minutes). Downloading whilst playing the movie is possible (and can be done) but the point remains the movie wouldn't be entirely on your system within any meaningful timeframe.

COST:

Your average rental cost of a film is around £3.00. This includes the film itself, the packaging and of course, a little extra both to turn a profit and to make up for any lost, damaged or stolen disks. With a digital supply chain, you can exclude the packaging and replacement costs. More or less bringing a rental down to £1.50 or so.

HOW:

It could be done with a similar method to BitTorrent, albeit a very controlled method (To explain; Person A downloads the film from the server, Person B downloads it from me, Person C downloads it from Person B, etc) This would more or less solve potentional bandwidth problems....

MOBILE:

Mobile movies would be brilliant, but there is one problem; a mobile is not always in a high-bandwidth area, nor are they even always connected to the net. An offline client, that works in a similar fashion to the current one, would be EXTREMELY useful. (IE, Auto-deletes the movie 30 days after last internet connection) but considering the movie industry has really just started to go sour on DRM tech, I consider it risky.