X
Business

Netflix goes HTML5 for laptop streaming

"We are midway through switching to native HTML5 streaming for our laptop players, eliminating downloads (of Silverlight)," say executives in Netflix's third quarter investor letter.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Netflix said Wednesday that it is midway through a transition to HTML5 for its laptop streaming technology at the expense of Microsoft's Silverlight.

The move, delivered, in Netflix's third quarter letter to investors highlighted a four-year effort to migrate from Silverlight. In the letter, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells said:

"We are midway through switching to native HTML5 streaming for our laptop players, eliminating downloads (of Silverlight) and improving the consumer proposition with a smoother playback experience and longer battery life. This has been a successful four-year effort to get strong DRM integrated into the major browsers."

On other tech issues, Netflix highlighted that it is able to support more set-top boxes and that it is updating its recommendation engine, which now includes visual searches on the Web and mobile.

Among other items:

  • Netflix continued to emphasize its support for net neutrality and reiterated that it wants U.S. regulators to block the Time Warner Cable and Comcast merger.
  • Hastings and Wells weren't surprised by HBO's move to offer Web subscriptions and noted that it has expected Time Warner's pay network to be Netflix's principal rival.
  • As for earnings, Netflix delivered third quarter net income of $59 million, or 96 cents a share, on revenue of $1.22 billion. For the fourth quarter, Netflix is projecting earnings of $27 million, or 44 cents a share, on revenue of $1.3 billion.

Here's the breakdown:

nflxq314
Editorial standards