Comments on: We Signed Up For Netflix

By: thomas

thomas — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:48:54 +0000

Netflix user for years and love it. Dabbled with Blockbuster and didn’t like it, even with a B&M store close by. Netflix streaming will get better just like all other streaming content. If you watch a ton of movies, enjoy old shows, and don’t like to leave the house, Netflix is great.

By: 2million

2million — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:50:45 +0000

I have tried netflix, but think redbox is a better value since if I don’t use it i don’t pay for it.

By: Lazy Man and Money

Lazy Man and Money — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:08:12 +0000

We signed up for the same plan at the writers strike. I think my wife would sooner not pay the heating bill than drop Netflix.

By: Bill M @ Quest Empire

Bill M @ Quest Empire — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:58:13 +0000

Since I have a redbox right near my house, it is more convenient and cheaper for me. I tried netflix on the past and had bad luck with a few broken dvds.

By: Aman@BullsBattleBears

Aman@BullsBattleBears — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:24:03 +0000

congrats on joining Netflix, its a great service. I have tried Netflix and Blockbuster’s similar service. Both are good if you have time for movies which in my case is invalid. The availability has been an issue on movies that I wanted and even had a couple of scratched disks, with Blockbuster, instead of mailing the DVD back, I was able to just walk to the local outlet and exchange disks which rendered a faster turnaround time.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:52:31 +0000

I like Netflix a lot. Its a good combination of convenience, selection and price. The online content is lacking though and most movies we want to see aren’t online.

From this Netflix Q/A it seems not all online titles are available on the Xbox. So unless the Q/A is simply out of date, you might be missing some titles.

Q:
Why are some Netflix titles not available for instant watching on my XBox 360?
A:
Our goal is to have all of our streaming content licensed for all Netflix ready devices. We’re doing well in this area, but it will take some time before we fully achieve that goal. In the case of Xbox 360, a few hundred titles are temporarily unavailable to be streamed via the Xbox game console. Those titles are still available to be watched on subscribers’ computers and on TVs via other Netflix ready devices. We hope they’ll be licensed for Xbox 360 shortly.

By: jim

jim — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:23:50 +0000

Thanks, I had no idea!

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:17:57 +0000

I’ve been using the netflix streaming to xbox for a while now. As you mention most of the movie titles are older movies and tv shows. There are however some newer titles sprinkled in there. I take the streaming movies to be kind of a “bonus” for now, until they get more content in there. I’m sure at some point they’ll be more content available, but for now I think some of the networks/movie studios have hamstrung netflix as far as what they can stream.

for more content to stream to your xbox, check out a software called “Playon”. It will stream Hulu.com, CBS tv shows, netflix and some other services straight to the video section of your xbox.

By: Saver in the City

Saver in the City — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:17:54 +0000

Hey, congrats on the front-page link from MSN Money for your article about the 10 reasons why credit unions rule…what great publicity for your blog!

By: Glenn Lasher

Glenn Lasher — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:59:39 +0000

I would not be at all surprised to find out that Netflix’ online videos are cleared out from time to time in order to make room for others. Movies take up a lot of disc space.

Technical trivia: DVDs and BluRay discs (along with many other forms of digital TV) use a compression sustem (these are called COder/DECoders or “codecs”) called MPEG-2. It’s very effective at delivering a good picture, but limited in its ability to make the file small. Using some more advanced codecs (e.g. AVC), the file for a typical feature film can be made small enough to fit four or more on a single-layer DVD (most movies are shipped on dual-layer DVDs, which have twice the capacity). The same approach can also be used to put HD content on a DVD.

Even so, they are still large files, ranging from 700MB to a GB or two. This can very quickly eat up a lot of disc space.

Add to that the fact that server-grade disc space is expensive, and you have an incentive to recycle.

Anyone care to guess what I do for a living?

By: the weakonomist

the weakonomist — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:50:26 +0000

Blame the movie studios for that one. They put up a movie and “test” it for a few weeks and then pull it down and discuss the results for 6 months.

The same problem exists with Hulu. I wanted to watch a season of some show I’d fallen in love with, but the episodes were like 1,4,5,6,8,10 and the story couldn’t be followed. I gave up and they lost a viewer. I hope the movie studios and TV companies jump into online video in full force for 2009, because I love it.

I don’t do netflix for now because I love red box, but I’m always watching them and know I’ll come back to netflix in the future.

By: jim

jim — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:32:30 +0000

Perhaps there are a certain number of licenses per film or TV show? As more people add it the older people who haven’t been watching have it removed?

By: jim

jim — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:31:54 +0000

Yeah, it is now anyway after the latest Xbox dashboard update. You just add it to your Instant Queue and you can watch it on the XBox.

By: Miranda

Miranda — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:21:51 +0000

We’ve enjoyed Netflix quite a bit since we signed up three years ago. It’s convenient, saving us money and time.

By: nickel

nickel — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:06:52 +0000

One annoyance that I just discovered is that online availability comes and goes. I just checked our queue, and there are about 10 movies things that I added before Christmas that are no longer available. It seems odd that they would put stuff online and then later take it off, but that’s what they do.