Netflix, Blockbuster (and others) Online/Kiosk Discussion Thread - Page 3

Sorry. I was going from 3 to 8. The first two never came into play for me.

It would be interesting to see how many you could get on the 1-out plan.

larry

I tried reporting a missing DVD and it wouldn't let me until it was something like 4 days or so after the projected date. The DVD did come, I was just used to next day service from the P.O.

larry

I downgraded my package from the 3 out at a time to 1 out at a time for $10.59 per month, (as I got HD-TIVO & started recording movies in my que & removing them from netflix) & average about 6 out per month! This comes to about $1.76 per movie, which sure beats the local Blockbuster in terms of price & selection. So I find that to be a very good value & well worth it!

Steve

Steve, that's not bad at all. I'm happy paying less than my video store - $3.99 plus tax!

larry

Yeah, I agree! I would even be willing to slightly pay a premium for rare or foreign movies on DVD, but most B & M places I have been to, rarely have them! I have even printed & brought my Netflix que of 500 movies with me & rarely do they have obscure titles. So Netflix is by far the way to go! (though I wish they didn't cap the que at 500, ha! But one could just create another que for overflow!)

One other thing, would anyone know or have a link or a contact within Netflix regarding a question I have. How do they determine their listing as far as audio soundtracks? Many times I check & it lists Dolby Digital & when I check a movie on like amazon.com or IMDB.com it will say that it has a DTS soundmix & when I get the movie it does have DTS. I just wonder how accurate their info & listing is. I would find such accurate info very helpful in deciding to rent certain movies from Netflix.

Steve

OK I called NF in regards to a disc that was apparently lost in the mail.
I was tired of it tying up my queue as they would not ship another one until they received it. So, not only did they free up my queue so I can now receive 3 DVD's again on my 3 out plan. But they also gave me a bonus rental so I can have another free rental. This made me feel better.
While on the phone with the NF rep, I asked him if receiving 20 DVD's per month on the 3 out plan was too high of an expectation. He said it should not be a problem. He stated, that it was best to get them all sent out by Monday morning. If I got all three discs sent out by Monday, they would receive them in a day or two and get my next movies sent right back out.
Has anyone tried this and had any success?


Craig

It's all BS. Go to their site and read their terms of service agreement. They come right out and state that they will throttle your account.

Allocation, Delivery and Return of Rented DVDs

We reserve the right to allocate and ship DVDs among our subscribers in any manner that we, in our sole and absolute discretion, determine. In addition, we will, in our sole and absolute discretion, determine the quantity of DVDs we purchase for any particular title and the level of staffing and number of shipments to be processed at each distribution center. As a result, we may not always send you the top choices from your queue, and we may not ship out your next DVD on the same day that we receive one from you. At present, our goal is to ship you the DVDs listed highest in your queue. Also, we currently try to ship you DVDs from the distribution center closest to you so that you get movies quickly. Often, on the same day that we receive a DVD from you, we will ship the next available DVD from your queue. In certain instances, your next available DVD will not ship until at least one business day following our receipt of your returned movie. This can occur, for example, when your top choices are not available to you from your closest distribution center or the number of shipments to be processed by the distribution center on that day has been exceeded. When this happens, your DVD will likely ship on the next business day and may come from an alternate distribution center.

Some people may slide for a while but they will catch up and start throttling your account in some way ("in our sole discretion" = you watch too many movies). I had great service for 6 months and it has gone straight downhill in the last 2 months. For example, I mailed 2 DVD's in early Monday morning from the same city as the distribution center. It took until Thursday for them to say they "received" them.

It probably is... but if that is the case, then they will loose my $$.
Until then, I will give them a chance.
Four days to receive the dvd's when mailing from the same city!!!
Can you drop the off directly at the distribution center?


Craig

But if you get too many movies in a given month than THEY lose $$$! I forgot the exact formula but its out there, on what Netflix costs are & how many movies is their break even point per month per customer, where below X amount per month are their best customers & they make the most $$ on, & above X amount of movies per month are there worst customers in terms of profits & they actually lose $$$$ with these customers. Anyone have a link or info handy? It is very interesting.

Bottom line as far as I am concerned is that there is not a more cost effective B & M or online locale to rent movies!

I'd like to see a link too. Maybe the hackingnetflix site has it. From what I've read here from empirical data the price is about $1.50/disc to us. Postal rates have gone up too.

larry

Why bother with renting movies anymore? If you have cable or satellite you can purchase a movie for 2.99 or 3.99, record it to DVD (a DVD -R costs pennies) and you not only watched a movie of your choice but you have your own copy of it for archiving and later viewing. No return hassles, no waiting for movies in the mail or standing in line, watch what you want anytime you want etc. I haven't rented a movie in years--can't imagine ever going back to that arcane system.

If any cable provider or Sat provider allowed the purchase of vast libraries of movies, would seem they would make a killing!

For example, I would love the opportunity to purchase ALL of the 500 movies in my Netflix que for $2.99! But this would simply be a supplement & NOT replace Netflix as it would still cost quite a bit more.

BTW, what cable or sat provider do you have? Are you given the choice to purchase & record 100's of movies? Or is it just the most recent?

I have DirecTV & did purchase Madagascar for the kidz for $4.99 I believe, but thought it was well worth it, since it was in HD & I recorded it on the HD-TIVO & the kidz can watch over & over! Hopefuly D* will have even more HD movies via pay-per-view in the future!

Try this one...

http://www.manuelsweb.com/netflixcalculator.htm

Not a bad idea if you want to keep the movie and the movie on cable/sat equalled DVD quality. PQ of SD movies from cable/sat are "OK" at best. This is sorta like MP3s vs CDs played on decent audio gear. There is a difference.

larry

Agreed.

Craig

I have standard Directv right now, will be moving to hi-def soon, but I have found that the picture quality on the PPV movies and premium channels like HBO is quite good and on par with commercial DVDs. Although the signal is somewhat compressed, you are still getting near the NTSC standard of about 450-500 lines of resolution. Most people cannot tell the difference btw a commercial DVD and a DVD recording at the best quality of the same movie. The blockbuster movies are shown widescreen. Obviously PPV is limited to recent movies, but for older movies you have HBO, Starz/Encore, Cinemax, IFC, Sundance and TCM. The large majority of rentals are recent first run movies anyway.

Interesting. But that data was based on what Netflix said in 2003. $2.00 per disc. Most empirical data now looks like $1.50 per disc. ATM I'm at 4-out plan and only plan to do 4 per week. We'll see what happens.

larry

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/ is an invaluable resource too for those that are interested!

i have had netflix for about a year and a half. I have been pretty happy with the service. Only had 2 damaged discs--they sent replacements immediately. they usually turn around in 2-3 days--only a few times was it more. When we first got it we used it religiously and the first month we saw 19 movies through them with the 3 at a time plan. that is $1 a movie when you figure the sales tax. Since then we have still been averaging 10-12, still way cheaper than Blockbuster, Hollywood video or even the local grocery store rentals. I did some research before I went with Netflix. There are a few articles that were written comparing Netflix to Blockbuster and WalMart--all of them recommended Netflixbased on selection and turn around time. Plus, I had some friends that already had it and they were having good luck as well.

Over the last few years I have gotten more and more into independent, off-the-wall or what I like to call "artsy-fartsy" movies and I have found Netflix's selection to be adequate. There have been several that I wanted that they did not have, but none of the major local video chains had them either. Typically this is because it is not released on DVD and was/is a direct to Video release. However, there were exceptions. Still, the selection is better than you will find anywhere else that I have found, not perfect, but the best easily accessible solution.

I really enjoy it and I really don't know anyone couldn't find it better/easier/cheaper than renting from your local store.

I have both DirecTV (now only basic) and Comcast cable. Even if the PQ was as good as current DVDs and OAR was available for all movies, the selection is just not there.

larry

Hmmm...
I am getting Stars and HBO as premium channels and it does not come close to DVD in my opinion. Of course the HD feed does, but not SD.
I have a Toshiba 16x9 RPTV that is about 3 years old that we watch most of our SD satellite tv from. Then we watch all of our HD and DVD down stairs in the theater. While satalite is certainly watchable, it does not compare with DVD in my opinion.
DVD just looks much more crisp in my opinion.

Craig

I have got an idea - tell me if this would do anything to speed up service or if it would just mess them up, maybe even slow it down -

usually the Netflix po box in my own town is where they get shipped to and from, but sometimes I will get one that takes several days to get here and its from out of state, sometimes across the country. then you watch the movie and drop it back in the mail and of course the netflix envelope is pre printed with the return address, again way out of state and it takes ages to get it back to them.

Here is the idea - what if when mailing it back you covered over the pre-printed address with the local in town Netflix PO box? It would get there the next day instead of taking days to mail.

Good? Bad? Illegal?

Sounds intriguing! But I would contact Netflix first before attempting it! Not familiar with how they track or supply inventory for each factility. But considering they have numerous national facilities, sending it back to the closest one seems like the best option for the fastest delivery! Keep us posted if you decide to do it or call first.

Agreed. For me, Netflix is all about selection. Also, with cable/sat/ppv movies you get none of the bonus features. I often enjoy the bonus features (sometimes more than the movie itself), so really there's no comparison. I'll take the "arcane" system until something is as good or better.

I've been doing this for some time. Just make sure that you replace the PostNet barcode as well as the PO Box/City.

My technique is to print out the local Netflix address as an "envelope" using Microsoft Word; photocopying a return envelope with your local distribution center address would also work. I then cut out the replacement address and Postnet fields and fasten them onto the Netflix mailer with transparent scotch tape.

Another strategy which some people use is just to double-up the discs in one of their return mailers addressed to the local distribution center and throw away the mailer with the remote address.

There are very few movies that I want to watch again - at least not anytime soon. So for me, renting from huge selection at Netflix forabout $1.80 each is a lot better than deal than PPV from a limited selection at $3 or $4. More important, Netflix is a standalone service, whereas PPV is not even available until AFTER you've already paid $30-$60 per month to your cable/satellite provider.

I have Netflix plus over-the-air HD plus a mythtv recorder for OTA HD. YMMV, but I don't think there's any better deal for $18 a month.

I've done it both ways. I didn't even put on the new bar code, just scratch it out with a pen. The P.O. will put on the correct bar code.

The best method is to mail 2 or even 3 discs back in the same envelope. I have about 10 extra envelopes sitting on my desk.

Skip

If I'm into a movie so much that I'll wade through hours and hours of bonus features that is more than likely a movie I'd buy anyway on sale at BB for 17.99 or so.

Of course I don't know whether I'm going to be into a movie "that much" until I get the disc. I'm not knocking your choice, but it would cost me $200 per month to follow your model, buying 11 discs per month for $18 each.

Not sure if that's the same Manuel who trolls over at Hackingnetflix, but if it is then I wouldn't trust any data from an application he's written. He's been a constant and vocal Netflix basher for a very long time and has caused many long arguments on Hackingnetflix. Not in any way unbiased.

Again, not sure if it's the same "Manuel", but I have a feeling...