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CRASH HARDDRIVE · Mar 23, 2004, 07:23 PM

How many people here have Netflix? Several friends of mine were raving about it. My wife and I were given a trail subscription- now we're hooked.

For those not familiar, it's a DVD rental service that costs a flat rate of $20/month and you order online and as many movies as you want (3 at a time) that are mailed to you on a watch and postage-paid return basis.

I've used this service for 4 months now and love it- questioning how insane I ever had to be to waste $ and time with the traditional movie rentals. I've gotten rid of several 'premium' movie channels since subscribing to it- the luck of the draw of waiting for anything good to be on, and endless repeats of the same crap seems primitive in comparison.

The upsides are no late fees, no physically returning movies, unlimited movies for a flat fee. The downside is that you don't get DVDs instantaneously as you would with a traditional rental. However I find there are now always new DVDs arriving just as the viewed ones are mailed so it quickly becomes a routine.

Anyone else use this service or something similar? (Is there even anything else like it?) This has got to be the rental model of the future, a Blockbuster-buster. In fact, Blockbuster and other rental businesses almost have to be considering getting in on the act and coming up with something similar.

paully dub · Mar 23, 2004, 07:26 PM

Used it last summer, films were quick to arrive, and no problems cancelling the account. If there's a better alternative, I'd like to hear about it because Netflix was absolutely perfect.

Turias · Mar 23, 2004, 07:30 PM

Netflix is great. I only have one complaint: even though I reside in the same city as one of their major warehouses, there is still a 4-day turnaround time for getting new movies, sometimes more.

deomacius · Mar 23, 2004, 07:53 PM

I just got my first set of movies last Friday. Seems pretty nice actually. Just what I need...another excuse not to leave the house!

fromthecloud · Mar 23, 2004, 08:00 PM

I'm a huge Netflix fan. I've been using it for over a year and am on the 'Ultimate" plan. I get to have 8 movies out at a time instead of 3 for $40/month. It basically means that I get 8 movies on Friday, watch them over the weekend, send them out on Monday, and have another 8 for the next weekend. Ordinarily, that would cost over $90 at a regular rental place.

I would reccomend the service to anyone. And the selection of over 15,000 DVD's doesn't hurt either. I think my rental queue is at about 250 movies right now waiting to rent.

mitchell_pgh · Mar 23, 2004, 08:15 PM

I'm in DC, and it's a three day turn around... I've resorted to copying the movie to my Mac and watching it at a later time... If I don't, I only average around eight movies a month... With the copy/send routine, I get around fifteen.

Psychonaut · Mar 23, 2004, 08:21 PM

I always get my DVDs a day earlier than the expected arrival date. The local center is only two counties away. I actually ended up splitting the bill with a friend so we share the movies we get.

No compaints I can think of. Quite satisfied.

powerbook867 · Mar 23, 2004, 08:40 PM

good service and fast turn around in Upstate NY...helluva lot better than Blockbuster, which is the only other option available to me....

wolfen · Mar 23, 2004, 08:48 PM

Love it. Would be even better if my wife didn't undo my picks in the queue.

wolfen

mike one · Mar 23, 2004, 09:14 PM

Originally posted by wolfen:
Love it. Would be even better if my wife didn't undo my picks in the queue.

wolfen

fire her.

j/k

been on it for one month now, absolutely great.
go through about 3-4 movies per week on the basic plan.
have about 50 in the que.

am sad that walmart and blockbuster might start something similar, hope that netflix has a strong enough clientel (sp?) that those two companies can't get a foot in the door. f***in johnnie come latelies.

netflix has been around since the bubble, one of the few companies with a real product. all the best to 'em, seriously they are great.

alex_kac · Mar 23, 2004, 09:23 PM

Loved Netflix. However...we're canceling our account only because we just typically buy the DVDs we want to see anyhow.

wang_himself · Mar 23, 2004, 09:24 PM

Where I live it only is about a 3 dat turn arround period. It is a greats ervice with no complaints.

mitchell_pgh · Mar 23, 2004, 09:30 PM

Originally posted by mike one:
fire her.

j/k

been on it for one month now, absolutely great.
go through about 3-4 movies per week on the basic plan.
have about 50 in the que.

am sad that walmart and blockbuster might start something similar, hope that netflix has a strong enough clientel (sp?) that those two companies can't get a foot in the door. f***in johnnie come latelies.

netflix has been around since the bubble, one of the few companies with a real product. all the best to 'em, seriously they are great.

I think Walmart and Blockbuster are trying to use only a few distribution centers, so won't have as quick of a turn around. That being said, they may let you rent games...

cheerios · Mar 23, 2004, 09:34 PM

Originally posted by wang_himself:
Where I live it only is about a 3 dat turn arround period. It is a greats ervice with no complaints.

^--- yup. Distrobution up in Sac

Mac Write · Mar 23, 2004, 10:51 PM

Too bad it's not available in Canada.

OwlBoy · Mar 23, 2004, 10:59 PM

I love it!

Even more so now that there is a distribution center in Madison (it seems, since all mine go back to madison now).

The DVDs are the the same shape as they would be at your local place most of the time.

(meaning no worse, though I actually think its a tad better)

And the recommendations work well once you rate a lot of movies, rate 100+ and do a few every time you get a netflix email, it will really help you find lots of neat movies you have not seen. (or for me show me movies I suspected I would like, but have not seen. And now will

)

-Owl

SupahCoolX · Mar 23, 2004, 11:19 PM

I love NetFlix and recommend it to everyone I talk to (well, not everyone, but everyone I talk to where movie rental comes up in conversation).
I sent 2 back yesterday, and will have 2 new ones tomorrow- which is great.
The best part is that I can watch all these movies that I wasn't sure I was going to like. If a movie sucks, it doesn't matter. It was free! I didn't spend $8 on a ticket or $5 on a rental for it.

QuadG5Man · Mar 23, 2004, 11:34 PM

I too LOVE Netflix.

I'm on the 5 out at a time plan, which is great. Watched 4 seasons of the Sopranos, every episode in order. Great.....

Going to rent all the "24" episodes next...

vmpaul · Mar 23, 2004, 11:36 PM

Yeah, we're hooked as well. One of the first customers too. We're on the $15/ 2-movies out plan, which they don't even offer anymore. It was one of the original plans they offered.

We've seen practically all the old movies we always wanted to see so now we're pretty much on the current obscure stuff that doesn't stick in the theaters very long. We literally have a 2 day turn-around. Main HQ is in Los Gatos (just miles away) so it's pretty close.

I always recommend it highly to friends and relatives.

The only complaints are they have a skimpy music & documentary selection and the the Coming Soon and New Releases list on their web site is crappy and not very useful. I usually go to Blockbuster site to get a better idea of what's coming out and then just add it to my Queue.

OwlBoy · Mar 24, 2004, 01:04 AM

Originally posted by QuadG5Man:
I too LOVE Netflix.

I'm on the 5 out at a time plan, which is great. Watched 4 seasons of the Sopranos, every episode in order. Great.....

Going to rent all the "24" episodes next...

24 kicks ass, I am doing the same thing!

It saves so much money when it comes to TV shows like this. Renting normally would be a fee every dvd in the set! (I did it once with Six Feet Under at my local rental place, it sucked. (renting that is, not the show, the show rocks) and each DVD has so much (time) on it that I ended up re-renting 1 or 2 discs since I was so addicted and did not wanna miss one ep due to a due date.

-Owl

CRASH HARDDRIVE · Mar 24, 2004, 03:14 AM

Originally posted by wolfen:
Love it. Would be even better if my wife didn't undo my picks in the queue.

wolfen

Heh! I know how that goes. My wife was recently saying: "You just got 4 of 'your' movies in a row, so I re-shuffled the queue juuuust a tad..."

I check, and she's got a stretch of 16 of �her� movies in a row lined up, and she's busting on me for 4!

Luckily we like pretty much the same stuff, otherwise things could easily escalate into all-out queue-wars!

Gankdawg · Mar 24, 2004, 11:59 AM

I'm using Wal*mart's service right now, have been for about a month. It's $15.74/month for 2 movies out. You can choose 3 or 4 movies out for more money. Still in 30 day trial period, but so far, everything is good.

mishap · Mar 24, 2004, 12:45 PM

Netflix is good stuff. I live in Boston and when i get an email at 4PM on tuesday saying something shipped. I have it in my mailbox when i get home Wednesday night.

Eriamjh · Mar 24, 2004, 01:00 PM

I have heard the only bad thing about netflix is trying to rent something old and obscure. There are huge waiting lists for those unsual movies because Netflix only has a few (if not only 1) copy.

Other than that, it seems many people are satisfied.

ASIMO · Mar 24, 2004, 01:13 PM

I only wish their queue system would allow for changes without deletions/removals. It becomes really, really tedious when you have several dozen movies in line.

Turias · Mar 24, 2004, 01:50 PM

Originally posted by ASIMO:
I only wish their queue system would allow for changes without deletions/removals. It becomes really, really tedious when you have several dozen movies in line.

Uh, are you talking about queue re-ordering? You can do that.

ASIMO · Mar 24, 2004, 02:04 PM

Originally posted by Turias:
Uh, are you talking about queue re-ordering? You can do that.

Crap, you are right. I swear those numbers fields did not exist before your reply.

Oookay. Time off from the computer.

Xeo · Mar 24, 2004, 02:25 PM

If I rented more movies, this would definitely be how I do it. I did the trial (or rather, my roommate did but I experienced it too) and it was good. It only took a day or two to get the next set of DVDs after returning the ones you have. I should suggest it to my sister 'cause she watches movies ALL the time. She'd have to start planning a few days in advance but I think it would save her a bunch of money.

As it is, I haven't spent any money on a rented movies in several months.

SouthPaW1227 · Mar 24, 2004, 04:47 PM

Absolutely, NetFlix is awesome

Fothb · Mar 24, 2004, 05:12 PM

Their selection is top-notch. They have all sorts of anime, foreign films, music groups, and lesser known titles that you'd never find at Blockbuster. I heard the complaints about occassional delays in getting titles you want before I joined, but I haven't experienced that at all myself. Being able to work your way through an entire TV series season on DVD (Star Trek: TNG, Sopranos, etc.) is quite nice. They don't offer adult films, DVD audio discs, or video game discs, but for what they do offer the value is exceptional. Lets say you exchange your 3 discs for completely new discs (all at once or one at a time) once a week. That's 12 movies per month for only $20.

vmpaul · Mar 24, 2004, 06:05 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
I've resorted to copying the movie to my Mac and watching it at a later time... If I don't, I only average around eight movies a month... With the copy/send routine, I get around fifteen.

We've been doing the same thing.

I'll save it to my Mac, mail back the original, burn the movie on a DVD-RW when I want to see it. In the meantime my next movie is coming in. I only do it with a couple movies at a time so I'm not hogging HD space or RW's.

DVD-RW's are great for this since I don't usually want to keep the film anyway.

kikkoman · Mar 25, 2004, 09:25 AM

I've been using Netflix for over three years now. I'm on 4 DVDs out for $20 a month plan which they no longer offer. I usually receive movies when expected. Sometimes there are delays which is unusual because the nearest distribution center is in the next state. I watch 6 to 8 movies a month. Overall I'm satisfied with the service and would recommend it to others. I should have bought stock in this company a few years ago.

Q27 · Mar 25, 2004, 01:43 PM

Netflix is a great service when it works. I signed up and was receiving all my movies in a timely manner, and then sending them back. Then they started not to receive some of the movies that I had sent back. Then after so many lost movies they suspend your account, and you have to call the US Postal Service regarding lost mail. This is one of the most irritating experiences that I have had to do. I've tried three different services that send you your movies: Netflix, Walmart, and Film Caddy. Film Caddy took the longest since the processing center is the furthest away from me. I would say htat Netflix and Walmart are about equal on delivery times and service. But Netflix is the only one that movies were lost in the mail. So either somebody in the post office was stealing the movies, or something was going on at the Netflix processing place.

But if you do have a local Blockbuster their flat rental rate is always a great deal. $25/month you can rent as many as you want, just 2 out at a time. But you are almost assured new releases unless you go Friday night to pick out your movies.

OwlBoy · Mar 25, 2004, 01:55 PM

I would not say, all kinds of anime... but they are getting better!

-Owl

spiky_dog · Mar 25, 2004, 06:44 PM

Originally posted by ASIMO:
Crap, you are right. I swear those numbers fields did not exist before your reply.

Oookay. Time off from the computer.

i use the dear, departed netflix fanatic, but netflix freak seems to offer an alternative pretty-gui (vs. ugly html form) way of reordering the queue:

http://www.thelittleappfactory.com/s...tflixfreak.php

for the record turnaround is 2 or 3 days for my parents in oregon state (but not in portland where the distribution center is).

CRASH HARDDRIVE · Mar 26, 2004, 01:16 AM

Originally posted by Q27:
Then they started not to receive some of the movies that I had sent back. Then after so many lost movies they suspend your account, and you have to call the US Postal Service regarding lost mail.

Were you mailing from your home mailbox?

If so, I'd check your neighbor's DVD collection...

I've kinda been wondering about what would happen if discs started going missing in the mail. I'm sure postal carriers are for the most part honest, but all it would take was one dishonest one, or any other person who's in a position to notice and intercept a steady flow of rather obvious red envelopes to and from a given address.

I've also gotten several scratched-beyond-payable DVDs already- making me wonder how often they replace the inventory. How long can the same inventory of DVDs last before ruined discs that have been banged around in the mail countless times are more and more commonplace? There are definitely potential pitfalls.

Ahh well, I'll enjoy it so long as it works!

Q27 · Mar 26, 2004, 07:59 PM

Nope never sent them from my house. Just drive them up to the local Post Office and usually hand them off to the employees inside or drop them off in the box there if they are closed. Have like 4 post offices in the local area that are less than 5 miles from me. After a couple were lost at the one, tried another and they were lost there, and then tried another. But after getting my account reinstated it never happened again. But who knows what goes on, there could be someone working at the netflix processing place that pockets a couple of movies/day without anybody ever noticing.