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Netflix BD disc rental discussion thread - Page 280

post #8371 of 8471
2/11/13 at 10:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mgkdragn View Post

All true .. that's why I stick with proven companies that are not going anywhere .. and maintain backup and then backup the backups ..

We're being pushed to streaming for a number of reasons .. and it's a push that I don't think is going to go away at this point
The problem is, even the proven companies aren't guaranteed.

All it takes is someone like Microsoft, Google or Apple to snap them up - then shut them down because they compete with their own services, often without a migration policy. Even if they don't shut it down, the second option is to just let it languish with no further development or screw it up to the point it becomes undesirable to use it.

Even worse, though, is when they decide they need to find a way to monetize what they paid for. Then it's ads, ads, ads.....

Of course, none of the above has to happen for a service to fail. All it take is for something more trendy to come along for the peoples to latch onto and away the old company goes.
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post #8372 of 8471
2/11/13 at 11:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by NetworkTV View Post

The problem is, even the proven companies aren't guaranteed.

All it takes is someone like Microsoft, Google or Apple to snap them up - then shut them down because they compete with their own services, often without a migration policy. Even if they don't shut it down, the second option is to just let it languish with no further development or screw it up to the point it becomes undesirable to use it.

Even worse, though, is when they decide they need to find a way to monetize what they paid for. Then it's ads, ads, ads.....

Of course, none of the above has to happen for a service to fail. All it take is for something more trendy to come along for the peoples to latch onto and away the old company goes.

Believe me, I bought my first PC in 1982 .. I've seen outfits come and go ..
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post #8373 of 8471
2/11/13 at 11:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mgkdragn View Post

Believe me, I bought my first PC in 1982 .. I've seen outfits come and go ..
1983 - IBM PC Jr. for me. IBM thought they had the next big thing having cartridge drives, similar to Atari systems. Back then, they were faster and had more storage than floppies.

Before that, it was all Apples since, back then, they were big on getting them into schools. I spent a lot of time hunting deer and fording the river in "Oregon Trail"....

On the subject of Netflix, I tend to worry about them getting bought up by someone who wants a quick buck in the stock market. Shareholders are about the worst thing that can happen to any successful company.
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post #8374 of 8471
2/11/13 at 11:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by NetworkTV View Post

1983 - IBM PC Jr. for me. Before that, it was all Apples since, back then, they were big on getting them into schools. I spent a lot of time hunting deer and fording the river in "Oregon Trail"....

I hear that .. I remember many many nights where my spouse and kids at that time knew me best by the glow of the CRT .. as I learned DOS and then later tried to master LOTUS 123 .. those were the days .. the young turks of today have no idea .. biggrin.gif
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post #8375 of 8471
2/11/13 at 12:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NetworkTV View Post

Some new releases, but mostly catalog titles. Classic movies, TV series - a large mix. Most of what I put in my queue isn't available for streaming.

I will say, though, Netflix has a great selection of anime to stream. The thing is, I get all that on disc, too. I don't need to pay the extra $8.


With over 9000 titles to stream, 8 bucks is a bargain and a lot more convenient then renting discs. If I want the ultimate in picture and sound it's BD's for me, which pretty much applies to newer releases.


Ian
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post #8376 of 8471
2/11/13 at 12:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mailiang View Post

With over 9000 titles to stream, 8 bucks is a bargain and a lot more convenient then renting discs. If I want the ultimate in picture and sound it's BD's for me, which pretty much applies to newer releases.


Ian

It's about a Billion Hours of content .. I don't know what that breaks down to on titles but more than 9K .. the Billion Hours is what they put in the shareholders material ..

It's spawned a whole new sub industry ..

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/netflix-movies-streaming_n_2527180.html
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post #8377 of 8471
2/11/13 at 3:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mgkdragn View Post

It's about a Billion Hours of content .. I don't know what that breaks down to on titles but more than 9K .. the Billion Hours is what they put in the shareholders material




http://www.avsforum.com/t/1450510/netflix-adds-3d-and-super-hd/420#post_22947115




Ian
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post #8378 of 8471
2/11/13 at 3:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mailiang View Post

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1450510/netflix-adds-3d-and-super-hd/420#post_22947115




Ian

Don't quite know what that link has to do with my post .. my info comes straight from my shareholders material .. are you saying they are lying and AVS knows better .. ?? Because if that were true ..

It's about a Billion Hours of content .. I don't know what that breaks down to on titles but more than 9K .. the Billion Hours is what they put in the shareholders material ..
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post #8379 of 8471
2/11/13 at 4:03pm
I believe that billion hours is streaming hours (per month) and not content storage hours.
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post #8380 of 8471
2/11/13 at 6:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjames View Post

I believe that billion hours is streaming hours (per month) and not content storage hours.
It would have to be.

Even if you assume as many as 5000 movies being made a year worldwide for the last hundred years, that's still only 500,000 movies. IMDB claims 503,435.

Let's assume that between modern features (average of 90 minutes), epics (well over 2 hours) early cinema (30-40 minutes) and shorts 10-30 minutes), we get an average of 80 minutes.

That equals roughly 40 million hours - total.

Even if we double the number of films each year to 1,000,000, we still only end up with 80 million hours.

Now, let's say there are 20,000 TV shows produced every year for the past 60 years with an average episode count of 18 episodes (early shows had as many as 35 episodes a year while newer shows are around 22, with cable running between 10 and 16). That's less than 22 million hours - and that's not taking into account that not all the shows were an hour. We can also negate daily soap operas, news programs and game shows that aren't available for streaming.

So, our grand total comes to just over 100 million hours - assuming everything ever made were available via streaming, which it certainly isn't.

In other words, to get that "billion hours" number, it has to be how many streams occur a month, not the amount of hours of the catalog.
Edited by NetworkTV - 2/12/13 at 7:11am
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post #8381 of 8471
2/11/13 at 8:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NetworkTV View Post

In other words, to get that "billion hours" number, it has to be how many streams occur a month, not the amount of hours of the catalog.

I would wager that they are counting the number of titles clicked x their length to come up with those numbers. Probably half the titles in my Viewing Activity has been viewed for 2 minutes or less and I bet they are counted as being viewed. Don’t you just love the creative bookkeeping.
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post #8382 of 8471
2/11/13 at 8:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mgkdragn View Post

Don't quite know what that link has to do with my post .. my info comes straight from my shareholders material .. are you saying they are lying and AVS knows better .. ?? Because if that were true ..

It's about a Billion Hours of content .. I don't know what that breaks down to on titles but more than 9K .. the Billion Hours is what they put in the shareholders material ..


Just posting my source.


Ian wink.gif
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post #8383 of 8471
2/11/13 at 9:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NetworkTV View Post

It would have to be.

I know, that's why I posted smile.gif I went at it the opposite way as you and got the same result. Figure 100 hrs per series. All we need is a million TV series and we got a cool hundred million hours. Great, then all we need to do is find nine hundred million hours of movies. Hmm ...
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post #8384 of 8471
2/12/13 at 7:11am
Looking at my post above this morning, now that I'm a bit more awake, I realized my math was skewed due to calculating minutes as hours:
Quote:
Even if you assume as many as 5000 movies being made a year worldwide for the last hundred years, that's still only 500,000 movies. IMDB claims 503,435.

Let's assume that between modern features (average of 90 minutes), epics (well over 2 hours) early cinema (30-40 minutes) and shorts 10-30 minutes), we get an average of 80 minutes.

That equals roughly 40 million hours - total.

Even if we double the number of films each year to 1,000,000, we still only end up with 80 million hours.

In other words, with roughly 500,000 movies total at an average of 80 minutes (I'll call it 90 minutes to make the math easier), we actually only end up with 750,000 hours. If there were potentially 100,000, it would still only be 1,500,000 hours.

What that means is, there would have to be well over 300 million movies in existence just to make even half that billion hours number, assuming TV took care of the other half.

Even if we throw in every studio feature, short, independent, student and experimental film ever made, we're nowhere close to that number.

BTW: in contrast, 25,245,552 hours of video is uploaded to Youtube every year. That would be over 250 million hours in the last decade, though I would assume the upload rate wasn't as high all those years.
Edited by NetworkTV - 2/12/13 at 7:23am
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post #8385 of 8471
2/18/13 at 3:00pm
I don't know if others have seen this with NF, but it has happened to me several times recently. When I manipulate the order of requests in my queue, I do so knowing the popularity and relative availability of discs. I often keep discs that have a wait (whether it be short, long, or very long) in the bottom of the queue and move them higher when the wait disappears.

Lately when that has happened and I have moved the disc to the top, it suddenly has a long or very long wait again. Several examples: Downton Abbey season 2 about 6 weeks ago finally no longer had a wait. I moved it to the top of my queue and since then it has had either a "long" or "very long" wait listed, and I've nver gotten it even at the top of my queue. I also have been working my way through Battlestar Galactica. I am up to season 3 and recently moved it to the top of my queue. It had no wait listed when it was towards the bottom. Now it has "short wait" listed. This also happened for Justified. I have season 2 in my queue. When the "long wait" status suddenly disappeared about 2 weeks ago, I moved it to the top of the queue. Now it has had either a long or very long wait since.

Is this some type of throttling? Has anyone else seen it??? Or does Netflix's computer just have something against me????

SMK
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post #8386 of 8471
2/18/13 at 3:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RoyGBiv View Post

I don't know if others have seen this with NF, but it has happened to me several times recently. When I manipulate the order of requests in my queue, I do so knowing the popularity and relative availability of discs. I often keep discs that have a wait (whether it be short, long, or very long) in the bottom of the queue and move them higher when the wait disappears.

Lately when that has happened and I have moved the disc to the top, it suddenly has a long or very long wait again. Several examples: Downton Abbey season 2 about 6 weeks ago finally no longer had a wait. I moved it to the top of my queue and since then it has had either a "long" or "very long" wait listed, and I've nver gotten it even at the top of my queue. I also have been working my way through Battlestar Galactica. I am up to season 3 and recently moved it to the top of my queue. It had no wait listed when it was towards the bottom. Now it has "short wait" listed. This also happened for Justified. I have season 2 in my queue. When the "long wait" status suddenly disappeared about 2 weeks ago, I moved it to the top of the queue. Now it has had either a long or very long wait since.

Is this some type of throttling? Has anyone else seen it??? Or does Netflix's computer just have something against me????

SMK

Somebody else rented them before you got to it .. NF has a lot of customers ..
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post #8387 of 8471
2/18/13 at 3:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by RoyGBiv View Post

I don't know if others have seen this with NF, but it has happened to me several times recently. When I manipulate the order of requests in my queue, I do so knowing the popularity and relative availability of discs. I often keep discs that have a wait (whether it be short, long, or very long) in the bottom of the queue and move them higher when the wait disappears.

Lately when that has happened and I have moved the disc to the top, it suddenly has a long or very long wait again. Several examples: Downton Abbey season 2 about 6 weeks ago finally no longer had a wait. I moved it to the top of my queue and since then it has had either a "long" or "very long" wait listed, and I've nver gotten it even at the top of my queue. I also have been working my way through Battlestar Galactica. I am up to season 3 and recently moved it to the top of my queue. It had no wait listed when it was towards the bottom. Now it has "short wait" listed. This also happened for Justified. I have season 2 in my queue. When the "long wait" status suddenly disappeared about 2 weeks ago, I moved it to the top of the queue. Now it has had either a long or very long wait since.

Is this some type of throttling? Has anyone else seen it??? Or does Netflix's computer just have something against me????

SMK

Why not just leave it at the top of your list so that you get it at the earliest time? They'll just bypass things they don't have available and go to the next selection in your queue they can supply...I just leave all mine with waits at top of the list and seems I sometimes don't have to wait long at all.
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post #8388 of 8471
2/18/13 at 3:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovinthehd View Post

Why not just leave it at the top of your list so that you get it at the earliest time? They'll just bypass things they don't have available and go to the next selection in your queue they can supply...I just leave all mine with waits at top of the list and seems I sometimes don't have to wait long at all.

That's what works for me too - long waits and coming releases to the top. It will often go from long wait to shipping seemingly.
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post #8389 of 8471
2/18/13 at 3:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovinthehd View Post

Why not just leave it at the top of your list so that you get it at the earliest time? They'll just bypass things they don't have available and go to the next selection in your queue they can supply...I just leave all mine with waits at top of the list and seems I sometimes don't have to wait long at all.

That's what I do .. and if something near the top of my list suddenly pops up no wait, I bump it to the very top immediately ..

Some titles they seem like they have so little stock on, one person rents it and it's suddenly long wait ..
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post #8390 of 8471
2/18/13 at 7:51pm
Yes there is no problem having long waits or no waits anywhere in the queue. Netflix does an excellent job sending you the next available title. Unlike Blockbuster.
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post #8391 of 8471
2/19/13 at 9:52am
Actually, I started moving things around as I mentioned above because Netflix hasn't done a good job of sending the next thing in my queue that is not on a wait. Despite many other things seemingly being available, they will often send something from the middle of my list. I even replied to this thread as I did because it just happened again. I have a mild interest in seeing the Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes sequel (so mild I can't even remember its exact name), and my recollecction is that it was 23rd out of 47 things on my list. Numerous things above it do not have anything next to the title suggesting a wait, yet that's what was just sent to me. In the example above, Justified was listed two days ago as not having a wait, and I expected I would get it. Instead I got this and something else (I have a 2 disc plan), and now Justified says "long wait."

SMK
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post #8392 of 8471
2/19/13 at 10:18am
A good time for a reminder that the queue display on your web page is not updated in real time. So something that is showing as available may not actually be available at the time a disc is checked in and out. Likewise, showing as "long wait" may also not be accurate at that specific time. I think it's best to leave everything in your preferred order in the queue rather than moving things around. You can't beat the system or speed it up, but it is possible to slow it down by re-ordering things based on what is showing at that moment.
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post #8393 of 8471
2/21/13 at 10:03am
My experience is that there is a lower threshold to get a wait status the higher you are in the queue.

I have demonstrated to friends that moving a title from position ~175 (with no wait) up to #1 immediately resulted in it getting a wait status right then and there. Move it back down and the wait goes away immediately in realtime.

This only happens for a few titles. Usually ones hat are recent but not "new" releases, or older titles that have become rare through attrition in the Netflix system, presumably.
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post #8394 of 8471
2/24/13 at 5:20am
For me the "week's releases" page is MIA, anyone else finding this?
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post #8395 of 8471
2/24/13 at 6:02am
It's there for me using Firefox. Slim pickin's though when it comes to blu.
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post #8396 of 8471
2/24/13 at 6:51am
OK its back now here, I was getting a re-direct before.
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post #8397 of 8471
2/24/13 at 10:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by badboi View Post

It's there for me using Firefox. Slim pickin's though when it comes to blu.
There are quite a few Blu-rays. It's just the movies on them aren't very good this week... wink.gif
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post #8398 of 8471
2/25/13 at 1:34pm
For years, I've set my queue up to have new releases at the top, titles with a wait status, then available titles in somewhat random order. I always return at least one title on Saturday to get the new release on Tuesday.

Last Saturday, I returned two titles expecting to get "Company Of Heroes," a 2/26 release and one other title. Over the weekend, I had a little time to burn and re-ordered my available queue by highest to lowest star rating. When I checked Netflix this morning, instead of shipping "Company Of Heroes", they are shipping "True Grit" and "A Bridge Too Far."

The only explanation that I can think of is that "True Grit" (projected 5 stars) and "A Bridge Too Far" (projected 4.75 stars) have higher predicted star ratings than "Company Of Heroes" (projected 3.5 stars).

Has anyone else seen/noticed this?
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post #8399 of 8471
2/25/13 at 3:30pm
It has become hit or miss when it comes to getting what is on the top of one's queue. I have put a title at the top of the list as soon as it is listed on Netflix and the last two times have not received it. Would be interesting to know how Netflix determines who gets what and on what basis. It is not a huge deal because I can wait and there is always something else on my queue. It is not optimal, but very occasionally Netflix will send me two titles, even though I am on the one BR at a time plan because it had to come from one of their centers that was in another state and was not available from my closest Netflix center. Can't really complain because there is always so much to watch.
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post #8400 of 8471
2/27/13 at 12:23pm
"Hit or miss" has not been my Netflix experience so far. Until I re-arranged my queue, I've always received the new weekly release when mailing a Blu-ray on Saturday.
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