Net/Flix

So how does everyone feel about the plan/price changes over at Netflix? It looks like a rather unpopular move so far. I for one don't find their streaming selection comprehensive enough to pay $7.99 just for that alone. I'm actually switching from 1 DVD at a time + streaming to 2 DVD at a time and dropping streaming in response, so they'll actually make a few more bucks a month off me, but many are threatening outright cancellation. I find the convenience and extensive DVD catalog worth paying a little more for vs something like RedBox. But I think Netflix is hoping most people that don't end up paying for both will go streaming only.

They've been billing me $7.99 so far, and they will continue to bill me $7.99.  I literally could not care less.  It's 2011; who uses optical discs anymore? DVDs are SO 16 years ago.

@DCMonkey:You mean if I want to watch those new DVD releases that are not avaliable from streaming, I have to extra now? I am getting angry.

Wish I had netflix here in Holland,..

Would save me hours of downloading via usenet or via torrents,..!

I can't wait for it either. I get tired of figuring out which TheWildHunt-HD.RiPpEdByAxXo-Ors0m40th3rt00l.THX1183-DVDRIP.MKV file is actually the one I want in the resolution I want. Just let me select "The Wild Hunt" from a list of HD movies and play it for me now. I'd cough up $8 a month for that, easy.

it's a shame they shut down FTD, eh Bas?

@blowdart:All the geeks on this forum, and nobody made fun of you for watching Bablyon 5

there's going to be some serious jockeying going on in the streaming video world over the next year or so. i'm all for supporting netflix by paying a little extra because many of their content deals are going to expire in 2012 and you can bet old media content owners are going to squeeze them on the renewal... or give a sweetheart deal to an upstart to lessen netflix's leverage.

i remember reading somewhere that netflix was going to start producing its own original programming. THAT's the future that current content owners do NOT want.

Ugh.  I ran out of recorded TV last week, so I signed up for a free month of netflix streaming.  The selection is 'meh' and every movie I wanted to watch was DVD only.

I knew it was a bad idea and I told myself never to buy anything from a company that advertizes so maliciously online.

I'll never understand why companies come up with a product that's perfect and then cripple it with some rediculous limitation.  It's like they want to fail.

Part of the problem is the studios and brick and mortar retailers still don't like streaming and the studios deliberately delay releasing streaming rights until at least a month after the physical discs have been out. It's also hard to tell if it's Netflix who messes with the availability or if it's the studios who do it to screw over Netflix.

It's in Netflix's best interests to be the one-stop-shop for movies and TV, I doubt they would deliberately be doing things to alienate their customer base.

@kettch:Maybe, but I wanted to watch American Psycho and found that it was only available on DVD.  It's certainly well past it's release date.

I had to settle for a weird Ryan Reynolds movie called 'the nines'.  I'd recommend it if you get the chance.

3 hours ago,kettch wrote

Part of the problem is the studios and brick and mortar retailers still don't like streaming and the studios deliberately delay releasing streaming rights until at least a month after the physical discs have been out. It's also hard to tell if it's Netflix who messes with the availability or if it's the studios who do it to screw over Netflix.

It's in Netflix's best interests to be the one-stop-shop for movies and TV, I doubt they would deliberately be doing things to alienate their customer base.

content owners. they are generally the ones who mess it up.

cable tv for example,  if a cable provider wants to offer one channel they have to agree to buy and show a bunch of others or pay like 5x as much, if they even get the option to buy ala-cart.

that is one reason why they sell only pre-set packages, be cause they are forced to buy them and give you all of them in that pack.

from a pure tech stand point the cable co could allow us to pick the ones we want and block others if the content owners would un-bundle the channels.

@figuerres: I've often thought that I would gladly pay half of what I'm currently paying in order to get 10% of the channels a la carte. It appears as if the channels that the content owners force to be bundled are the myriad of redundant syndication channels that are only there to provide more space to sell advertising.

It's probably going to take somebody to break from the herd and just say that it's their way or the highway.

It looks like Microsoft has finally set a timeframe for delivering TV over the XBox. Have they said anything about what channels/bundles they will be delivering?

We're most likely dropping the disc portion and just using Redbox for our blu-ray rentals. The streaming is nice for old TV shows, so we'll keep that around.

I hear the rate raises are due to lots of their licensing contracts running out and movie studios increasing their fees by ten-fold. If that's true, Netflix won't survive, as no one is going to pay another cable bill for a limited selection of 480p/720p stereo audio movies.

It's too bad; I thought that Netflix would eventually let us turn off the cable permanently.

2 minutes ago,spivonious wrote

We're most likely dropping the disc portion and just using Redbox for our blu-ray rentals. The streaming is nice for old TV shows, so we'll keep that around.

I hear the rate raises are due to lots of their licensing contracts running out and movie studios increasing their fees by ten-fold. If that's true, Netflix won't survive, as no one is going to pay another cable bill for a limited selection of 480p/720p stereo audio movies.

It's too bad; I thought that Netflix would eventually let us turn off the cable permanently.

and there lies one of the problems for them:

*IF* they could get enough revenue and subs for the content owners to see them as real competition to cable and satalite then they would be in a better barganing position and so on.

also today in addition to Netflix there is iTunes and Amazon and Zune all offering content streaming that is close to the netflix model.  I do not know who else is also doing this but it means that the market for this kind of service has been growing and that is also something the content owners will have to deal with.

@figuerres: Except I think netflix is the only one of that group who offers a true all-you-can-eat streaming model. Everybody else is pay-per-episode. Content owners really like the idea of nickel and dime-ing you to death.