I have the 1 at a time unlimited service and so far so good, been watching instantly for a long time.

Tonight something strange happened. Many, if not most of the movies show as "Unavailable" with this message:

Q: Why do some movies have a grey unavailable button instead of a Play or Add button?

A: Some titles for watching instantly are available for limited time periods. As a result, you may see titles that are no longer available for watching listed as "Unavailable" in your recently watched history. Users on Netflix limited plans may also see titles listed as "Unavailable" if those titles are part of the Starz Play Service, which is included only with Netflix unlimited plans and the Starz only plan.

See how they are blowing smoke, because my account is unlimited. And all the Starz movies are now unavailable.

Is this their way or "satisfying" more customers without having to expand their servers as their customer database grows? Why are they lying? No fine print either.

Guys with unlimited accounts please pitch in, has your access been butchered too?

Thank you Netflix, its been great, Vudu may cost more but i at least i get predictable results and great PQ. After a one month grace period i will
quit if you keep FAPing us.

FAP = Fair Access Policy aka the curse of satellite internet, after you exceed the download limit your speed is down to 56k until the next billing cycle

I think they are having other issues.

I see a big notice on their page:

Movies and TV shows are currently not available to watch instantly.
We’re sorry for the inconvenience.

Wow, what a misleading title. It was just an outage, that's now resolved:

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2009/05/netflix-watch-instantly-service-outage.html

Amazing the assumptions people jump to.

A very misleading title. I even reported it last night when it became clear it was a service outage and not any throttling. Oh well.

Thank you guys for clarifying this for me. All is well now. I wish i could change the title now.

Thank you guys for clarifying this for me. All is well now. I wish i could change the title now.

You can. Just go and edit the original post (you may need to do advanced editing).

Netflix just sent me an email offering a 3% discount on my monthly bill for the temporary loss of service!

I am glad now that you posted and I tried to stream a movie last night! :cool:

Netflix just sent me an email offering a 3% discount on my monthly bill for the temporary loss of service!

I am glad now that you posted and I tried to stream a movie last night! :cool:

I didn't even try to stream a movie and they're offereing me 2% if I say I tried to stream a movie. (3-at-a-time plan)

I think I'll be honest and not click the link. 2% of my bill is like 40 cents.

Just to clarify, i love Netflix, this and my Vudu player get me everything i need movie wise. I stay away from the torrents, too infectious out there.

BTW....

http://blog.netflix.com/2009/05/issue-last-night-with-watching.html

I have had titles in my queue that would suddenly go unvailable. I called Netflix to ask why. I wanted to know if I had exceeded my queue limit or something. The service rep told me that some titles are only available as watch instantly for a certain period of time. This is due to contractual relationship with the studio. FWIIW

Yeah, if you check your instant queue, some of them may be listed with an "available until...."

Right now only one of my movies (out of 87 in my instant queue) is listed that way...City Of Industry available until June 14. I typically check my queue at the beginning of the month to see which movies I have to make sure to watch soon before they expire.

I notice sometimes they will say that then "renew"....at one point THX1138 was listed that way, but it stayed in my queue so I'm guessing they renewed the license or whatever.

Once the date passes (if they don't renew) they get moved to a "saved" section at the bottom of the instant queue....although I just noticed Good Cop, Bon Cop got moved there and I don't remember seeing an expiration date for that.