garfong:I'm pretty sure they were referring to the amount of movies in their dvd library vs watch now. It wouldn't make any sense to artificially limit the database so perhaps you read wrong or the article was incorrect.
side: Yah I'll probably get a hdhomerun, but I'm dragging my feet. As soon as I buy one I know hauppage or microsoft will get my hvr1600 working :)
heres what i read...."What's more, you won’t get a crack at every piece of entertainment in Netflix’s 100,000-piece library. Subscribers to this streaming/Xbox Live service may only choose from a smaller subset of 10,000 movies and TV shows. "
From here...http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25680004/
Reading it again, it does seem more ambiguous about not limiting the actual watch now titles. Although i still think it makes sense to MS when thier rental library could compete with netflix. MS could potentially lose money by people opting for 8.99 netflix unlimited streaming plan rather than renting from xbox live for watever the cost per title. That could also be why they chose to force the gold subscription so they could try and make up some of the losses on thier own subscription fees.
Thats all speculation though on my part, however theres one thing i'll garuntee. None of this will be done by either unless it means some sort of financial profit. After all, if either company was truly interested in pleasing thier customers they would have just sanctioned vmcnetflix.