Netflix BD disc rental discussion thread - Page 104

I am thinking about switching over Netflix and have a question. Say my first couple of Blu Rays in my queue have a wait status, will Netflix not deliver anything for a couple of days or do they just move down the list to next available one? Blockbuster has been horrible with this as of late and you really have to manage your queue or they may not send anything all week long.

They'll mail something. You should always have your quota checked out at any one time. Sometimes there is a delay of a day in shipping the next title.

-Bill

After one week of my NF free trial, I remain very pleased. For example, NF has shipped Prison Break: The Final Break and I should get it tomorrow. I placed the BD of this movie at the top of my BB queue before it was released but they failed to ship it when it was first released and then showed that there would be a very long wait before I received it. The same is true of the Dexter, Season 3 Discs, which NF shows as available and are slated to ship next. BB always showed that there would be a very long wait for them, too. Is it any wonder that I dumped BB and moved to NF?

I posted earlier about a glitch with my ability to stream HD movies via the NF app on my TiVo. I solved it after a little experimentation and think that the problem was my fault. After HD streaming had worked perfectly for several days it quit working. I figured out, however, that it happened when I was doing a big backup wirelessly from my MacBook Pro to an Apple Time Capsule. Such backups are bandwidth hogs, which I had known, but forgot before the NF streaming app stopped working. After I completed the backup I was able to get NF streaming to work again and have had absolutely no further trouble. Needless to say, I have stopped doing any backups while watching NF streaming.

I've had this problem all last month. It seems like I have to bump up the movies that are marked available because it doesn't seem to jump to the next available movie. I have the 3 DVD's at a time and I've been with one dvd the entire week

I recently began having problems with cracked Blu-ray discs from Netflix. I've been getting Blu-ray's since Netflix began offering them 2 years ago and have only had 1 or 2 with physical damage. Over the last 6 weeks, of the 12 Blu-ray discs sent to me, 10 have been cracked. The cracks are identical on every one. They're all 1/8"-1/4" long on the outer edge and always perpendicular to the edge. I haven't received a non-cracked Blu-ray in 2 weeks. They keep shipping me more discs and they're all cracked! These discs appear to be mint condition, straight off the line where I'm the first subscriber to get them.

I refuse to believe this is a USPS problem, I've never had this kind of problem in over 2 years. I suppose if the USPS has changed their mechanical sorters recently, this could be causing the problem, but I doubt it. I can't help but feel this is because of a defective batch of polycarbonate substrates being used on recently stamped discs. All the cracked discs are newer releases like Dexter, 17 Again, and The Soloist. The 2 discs without cracks were older releases - Lakeview Terrace and RocknRolla.

The Netflix guy I talked to on Sat. said he's heard "a few" people with cracks like this, the lady I talked to today says it's a widespread problem with the Blu-ray discs. She was obviously reading to me from a script about possible reasons, but I was surprised to hear her say it could be from defective discs being sent to them from the manufacturers. She said they're aware of a problem and are aggressively looking into it. Maybe they could start by looking at the damn discs when they receive them from the manufacturers before sending out!

Anyone else having this problem?

I haven't had any problems, but when people have reported their experiences here, it has definitely seemed to be related to specific post-office locations.

As to a bad batch of plastic: I don't know. I've been getting new BR with no cracks.

-Bill

Cracked discs seem to have been a big problem for NF in recent months although I have no idea why it has happened. The 3 NF discs I have received during the first week of my NF subscription have all been perfect, however.

I think that the only time NF won't send something is when you have every title in your queue with a wait status. Usually this only happens if you have an insanely short queue with nothing but very popular new releases. If the top title or titles in your queue are in a wait status, they'll just move down your queue and send you the first title that isn't in a wait status.

And I think they typically have enough intelligence to recognize a series and try to keep things in order. For example, if there is a season of a TV show on 4 discs with disc #1 in "short wait" and disc #2 "available", they won't ship disc #2 until after they ship disc #1. They'll go to the next "available" item in your queue not in that series, and ship it.

I have always presumed that is not true. It's been a long time since I tested it, but I'm pretty sure I have received series titles out of order in the past.

-Bill

Thanks for the responses guys. It used to be like that over at Blockbuster. They have changed it to where if you don't have an available at the top of your queue then they sit for a couple of days before they ship anything else. It has gotten very annoying.

Let's say I had that problem, before switching over to Blockbuster. However, Blockbuster's service is so terrible that I just took my Netflix account off hold and put my Blockbuster account on hold. I was hoping Netflix had fixed this problem by now, so I'm a bit nervous reading your post. At one point in time I had 8 out of 12 discs come cracked. And that doesn't count that some discs I reported cracked, the substitute was cracked when it arrived. My only solution was when I absolutely HAD to have a disc for the weekend, I would report it cracked BEFORE I received it, to make sure a 2nd one would be in the mail the next day, just in case.

If you look back through the thread, you'll see quite a few posts. For about 3-4 months or so, I was getting abou 50% of my discs from NF cracked exactly as you describe (all Blu-Rays).

The problem appeared around February and went away sometime in June and has all but disappeared (for me) now. I still believe it was a USPS problem...whether they got a new machine or changed the "pressure" setting on the existing one, I don't know. Whatever it was, it was a rough few months there.

There's some discussion starting around here (give or take...just did a quick find)): http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...=#post16449018

If you have, it's a fluke. I've never had that happen and I've had several series have waits on certain discs (Robotech, Young Indiana Jones, etc.). The closest thing was when I had season 1 and season 2 of a series back to back in my queue and one disc from season wasn't available, Netflix sent the first disc of season 2.

In a perfect world, the system would also recognize multiple seasons of a series, but I'm not going to give them any grief of over it.

A couple of things that could cause this issue:

- You have too few items in your queue and they're all high demand, so everything is in wait mode.
- The next disc that shows available now is in a distance distribution center, so it creates a delay.
- The system was going to send you a disc after someone returned it, but it was flagged as damaged before it could be. The system could be searching for an alternative copy.
- Your queue needs a kick start. Sometimes things just get "stuck" if enough discs have waits on them and the system has to dig down far enough. Call in to have someone manually assign a disc to be sent to you.

This is definitely not true.

What is this all about? Check the top listings where they show movies sent and recieved the same day! Also check the Echelon Conspiracy where it shows sent and recieved on two different occasions (I only rented it once). Anyone have this happen?

I don't know what to make of people receiving cracked discs. Hasn't happened to me renting from NF for two years now. Sounds like vandalism to me when someone gets hold of the disc during shipment before it gets to you. I DOUBT NF would send it out cracked!!!

I keep my films that are due to release soon at the top of my queue so that if the release date comes and it's available, I get it.

Yes, that's a serious pain in the ass that Blockbuster does that.

NetworkTV, it's Blockbuster he's talking about. He's on that service now and complaining about that policy (and rightfully so).

Teisco Keep in mind, this is a NETFLIX thread. For answers on the Blockbuster specifics, you should post in the Blockbuster thread.

But all the same, to answer your question, the BB site does a lot of strange and inexplicable things. I recently received 4 disks on the 2 out plan, and two of them were identical. (Still had 3 unique movies out at a time!)

As for how long the BR disk crack thing has been going on, I've now had 3 from BB in a year, and countless from NF. BR's have had that issue since day one and there's plenty of evidence of it here on the forums. Look back as far as 2007 and it was becoming obvious even then. Many of those early posts were deleted. I don't know if there were moderators that had some vested interest in hiding the issues, or what. But, it sure was censored for a long time. If NF wasn't willing to come right out and say in big bold print news story that it was truly an issue, some posters here were simply going to live in denial about it. They went so far as to accuse others of lying about it happening. Even some were self proclaimed "AV Professionals". Obviously, not very professional, professionals... Some even said that broken disks play just fine. It's amazing.

The whole thing is a joke. NF could easily fix the issue if they had the slightest interest in doing so. BB has about 1/10th the trouble NF has and it's the envelopes they use help the disks to be less prone to breakage.

As for defective disks, that's bs. BR's are more fragile, period. I dropped one at home and broke it on the living room floor. They are NOT the as tough as a DVD but they definitely are more scratch resistant..

Just want to add my two cents...I love Netflix...turnaround times are excellent. For instance I put Crank 2 in the mail at 4:45pm today. Netflix by 8am tomorrow will acknowledge receipt and by Saturday I will have another movie! I have never had a cracked blu-ray ever in 5 months of Netflix usage.

Well after being a Netflix customer for the past year, I have switched back to Blockbuster. I just can't see paying an extra $4 a month for blu-ray rentals, and I need my blu-ray rentals. So far I'm pleased with BB, especially at $15.99 a month.

I just went the other way. After having been with BB for about a year and a half I switched to NF because BB's service had deteriorated so markedly. My NF service has been outstanding over the course of the couple of weeks I have had it. There is no doubt, though, that both NF and BB go out of their way to give new customers premium service. I suspect that my deteriorating service from BB was the result of my having been flagged as a heavy BD user, who they didn't much mind losing, anyway. It will be awhile, of course, before I know whether NF will pull the same stunt. Maybe NF's surcharge for the BD option will let me avoid the problem.

I've been a Netflix subscriber since 2000 and performance has improved throughout that time. I have summary rental charts showing the numbers: http://watershade.net/wmcclain/netflix.html

-Bill

Well, of the 3 replacement discs for Dexter Season 3, only 1 had a crack, and fortunately, it was disc 3 of the season. 33% is better than 100% bad discs I suppose. We'll try once again....

Uhm...so remember 12 posts ago when I said:

Well scratch that. Quarantine arrived today with a big ol' crack in it. At least Watchmen (which also came today) is ok. That's alright...I didn't want another movie to watch this weekend anyways.

So far, other than 1 BD that had a small scuff on it, the ones I've received here have been pretty much flawless - occasional fingerprints and nothing more.

Some of the DVDs, though, definitely have had some serious abuse.

I'm at a total loss as to how anyone could not be happy with Netflix. I have been a customer since 2001, have had every single new release (that I've requested) except one in my mailbox on the tuesday it was released, can find nearly every title I want through the service, and have gotten exceptional value given the number of discs I rent compared to what it would cost to watch them on-demand or rented from a b&m.

I can definitely see the frustration with cracked discs, but neither I nor any of my friends have ever had a problem with that. I think I've received maybe two damaged discs in the 8 years I've been a customer. The fact that I can watch titles instantly now is just icing on the cake.

I honestly couldn't imagine not having my Netflix.

Disc 3 Blu-ray replacement that arrived today is cracked....sure would be nice if I could watch the last two episodes... I called Netflix and asked them to send a Blu-ray and DVD in case the next Blu-ray is cracked, I don't care at this point.

I stopped my mailman today and told him about all the problems I've been having lately. He said the main distribution center that handles all of Fresno (~500K people) does not send Netflix discs through the automatic sorters. They receive the Netflix movies in bins that have nothing but Netflix movies in them and they're required to sort by hand according to their agreement with Netflix.

This leads me to believe my original assumption is correct, it's not the post office, it's something in the discs themselves or earlier in the chain of physical custody before it gets to the post office.

I had this problem in spades a few months ago. So I definitely feel your pain and frustration. I believe the blu-ray discs themselves are more inherent to crack. I've seen all the diagrams and comparisons to regular DVDs, but the fact remains that all this cracking wasn't a problem before blu-ray came on the scene. Also, I seriously doubt that Netflix is to directly blame for the discs getting cracked and I'm positive that the discs are getting cracked due to mechanical handling. I say directly because it's been documented here that if they beefed up their packaging it might fix this altogether.

Why you ask? If you search my posts going back in this thread you'll see a few things. One, I had this problem twice. The first time I complained to my USPS offices the problem stopped immediately for about 2 weeks (~6 discs). Then the problem started happening again and was systematic. I couldn't get a disc that wasn't cracked. Probably had 20+ in row damaged. Each time the crack was in *exactly* the same spot on the disc in the envelope. Only incessant and constant complaining to the USPS got this fixed. And it wasn't my local yocal office, it was my local sorting facility.

The moral of the story is stay on Netflix and your local USPS. File a formal complaint with the USPS. And isn't there a Netflix person on this thread now that takes names and zip codes and investigates the problem (again search back in this thread).

Good luck I hope you get it fixed.

I guess you have been very lucky. Over several years, I have received a handful of discs that the player would not accept. A few had hairline cracks and a few had small dimple indentations near the center. About 20 others have froze or skipped. Since the blu-ray price increase, disc availabilty has been much better in these parts. Before that, it was pretty hard to get new releases from December to February.

As far as quick shipping, I know there is a one day ship to/from the nearest center but occasionally, NetFlix will not acknowldege receipt of the disc for 2 or more days. This usually occurs during a high usage period. What a coincidence.

So far at least my experience with NF has been very good. Every one of the 6 BDs I have received in the not quite two weeks since I subscribed has been the disc at the top of my queue, was shipped in a timely manner, and played perfectly in my BD player, a PS3. This is in stark contrast to Blockbuster, who because of slow service and unresponsiveness to complaints I finally gave up on, despite a good size BB store located less than one mile away from me.