Looks like Netflix is enjoying the economy... they just announced extra charges for Blu ray renters....

Use BlockBuster instead, they are the one that turns the tide in the format war, I sign up with BlockBuster everysince they took the lead and announced to support Blu-ray and I have been extremely happy with their service, also great to have the in store exchange, nothing beats that.

Use BlockBuster instead, they are the one that turns the tide in the format war, I sign up with BlockBuster everysince they took the lead and announced to support Blu-ray and I have been extremely happy with their service, also great to have the in store exchange, nothing beats that.

Blockbuster is barely in business. They really don't have many options.

golly, the news made it sound like huge increases... BR discs cost 2-3x as much as regular DVD's to buy, why shouldn't Netflix charge a premium?? If I had a BR player (waiting for them to come down, seeing better prices, so it's an exercise in patience...), I'd probably pay the extra for the ability to get BR discs.

I hope that the news was at least accurate in sying that the price increase was due to high demand for BR discs - that would mean that BR burners should be coming down and it's a viable delivery format for Hi Def content. THAT would be a welcome shift!

Here's what NetFlix sent out to their customers yesterday:

"You are receiving this email because you added unlimited Blu-ray access to your account for $1 a month. The number of Blu-ray titles has increased significantly and will continue to do so. As we buy more, you are able to choose from a rapidly expanding selection of Blu-ray titles. And as you've probably heard, Blu-ray discs are substantially more expensive than standard definition DVDs.

As a result, the monthly charge for Blu-ray access is increasing for most plans and will now vary by plan. The charge for monthly Blu-ray access on your 3 DVDs at-a-time (Unlimited) plan will increase from $1 a month to $4 a month."

So what it boils down to is a $3/month rate increase. They used to charge $1 extra for Blu-Ray, now they're charging $4.

I understand Netflix's need to stay on top of costs. But this announcement annoys me. They already raised my rates once. And to do it a second time shortly after the first is what pisses me off. I don't mind paying extra. But get on with it and then leave me alone for a while.

Netflix seems to be one of the bright spots in the current economy. In the Feb 2 issue of Variety's VB (video business) newsweekly, they claimed that their 2008 Q4 profit was up 45% and than 700,000 subscribers had signed up for Blu-ray. The company was to re-purchase 10% of its stock.

* Net income from the quarter was $22.7M
* Sales rose 19% to $359.6M
* There were 9.39M subscribers at year's end - up 26% from the year before.

Kind of a bummer but Netflix is still a pretty good deal. The thing that really has me in Netflix corner is their on demand streaming content - it's free and I can stream it through my LG BD300 Blu Ray player. Most of it looks pretty "meh" but it's a great way to watch tons of stuff that you might not rent. Watched all of Red Dwarf, now I'm working my way through 30 rock. Great way to check out stuff quick as well.

It's a hell of a value add, and there is tons of it. I could probably spend 12 hours a day watching Netflix stuff and it's still only costing me around $15 a month.


Edit: well o.k., $20 bucks...

I was wondering why the billing was higher this month. Oh, well... Maybe I'll try Blockbuster, but I do like the option to watch movies online (though studios aren't digging that since it hurts DVD sales).

heath

Well I switched on Blockbuster this afternoon... they have a two week free offer and
don't charge for blu ray... plus if i don't like the movie that was sent I can take it
down the the Blockbuster store and trade it for another one....

I'm also testing out the Vunow box that lets you stream movies and such from the internet.
It supports bit torrent so maybe it'll be a good deal.

VUDU is the best movie download device! VUDU - Home (http://www.vudu.com)

heath

Back when Netflix increased Blu-ray by only $1 per month, it reminded me of a small stack of unreturned disks on top of my desk. I cleared my queue and sent them back, and then cancelled the account. It's not a knock against Netflix. Their service was great for someone like me who was profiled as an infrequent user, everything I wanted was always available now. But it bothered me that if I did use it more frequently, the service would go down, so I decided to end it, and used the timing of the first price increase to do it.

I have a better anecdote for Blockbuster. Years ago, I picked up the empty box for a copy of "Dark Blue" from the shelf that carried a sign, "Blockbuster In-Stock or It's Free" guarantee. At the counter, they told me that movie was not included in the guarantee, only certain movies. I asked them if that meant the guarantee was only for movies they have in stock? She smiled...I asked for a pair of scissors...and cut up my membership card right there. Eew.... In fact, that's when I joined Netflix. How ironic.

I have two movies, Blu-ray (Let the Right One In, which I hear has issues with subtitles, and Sunshine) that have been in my possession for over a month now. Hmmm, time to watch and return them and consider canceling.

heath

VUDU is the best movie download device! VUDU - Home (http://www.vudu.com)

heath

Thanks Heath.... I went to Best Buy to check out the box and the quality of the picture...

Looks good.. went ahead and ordered one...

Sooner or later this looks like the direction that the movie rental biz is going to anyway...

NetFlix streaming is nice and all if you've the bandwidth, but it's great to be able to take a disc and go. There's a portable Blu-Ray player coming out in the not-to-distant future (if it's not out already--although I completely forget the link/company. :( ), and you can't take streaming on the road, and the office tends to frown on such use of bandwidth...

I love our PS3 playing Blu-Ray, as well as Streaming, and I keep reminding my wife to start ordering Blu-Ray titles from NetFlix if she's getting them for home. Unfortunately, she still won't let me buy the Planet Earth series--"it comes on TV way too often to buy it". blah blah blah...

Eventually, the price of Blu-ray will fall. Critical mass and all that. I doubt NetFlix will lower their fee in response (but it *could* happen), but it's still worth it for us. We haven't had any of the frequent user issues that some others have reported, although we do keep 3 out pretty much all the time.

I guess it all depends on what annoys you the most--NetFlix doesn't annoy me near as much as BlockBuster...I don't know why. *shrug*

Thanks,
Matt

Ray,

I love my VUDU--it's the coolest gadget!

Matt,

You can take the VUDU with you, which is cool.

heath

Since I needed money to buy a new laptop I had to put my Netlix account on hold so its been months. Anyway, it has a Blu-Ray burner and a 1920x1080 16.4” LED Backlit LCD screen. I’m tempted to possibly take it off hold this month even though I haven’t paid off the laptop yet.

They may loose some customers because of this increase but they will continue to gain a lot more customers at the same time because of how convenient it is. They have a box just like Apple and VUDO but their also on some Blu-Ray players and the XBOX360. In the future they plan on bringing their service to the Wii and hopefully the PS3. HD-DVD was already dying but Netflix made sure they die quicker by announcing they will favor Blu-Ray. The least Sony can do is not prevent Netflix from providing that service even though Sony would rather be the only one offering online movies on the PS3. They claim people would rather own the movies but it’s really all about protecting their business interests. Still, I think things will work out between them if it haven’t already. The more things the PS3 can do the more it becomes enticing for the buyer. For crying out loud, Sony already offers DivX playback. I mean seriously, adding Netflix wont hurt, I promise.

Anyway, I do believe that the increase has to do with them buying a lot more Blu-Ray discs. Theirs already over 1 million Netflix customers with the Blu-Ray option enabled. Blu-Ray adoption is growing at a rapid pace.

Having NetFlix enabled on EITHER a WII or a PS3 would be awesome!! I have both! :D I just don't have room for an Xbox...

Don't know about you guys but download movie and sound quality is not good, I'm a busy man and if I'm going to burn 2 hrs. watching a movie, I want the best I can get and that is uncompressed wave or DTS master audio with top notch encoding from AVC or VC1 and those only come on Blu-ray disc and not download or streaming.

Khoi,

Have you used the VUDU? The sound and video quality are terrific. I try to watch at least two a month (I don't watch as much movies as I'd like to).

heath

No but a while back when I was looking into it, they only have 65 HDX movies, and it takes about 4 hrs. to download, so not for me, I like to have a disc anyway, I have a short memory, after about 3 years, I forget what the movie is about so that is why I like to collect disc so I can watch them again. (-:, I'm sure the instant HD will be fine for 40" or smaller but I have a 65 inch and I know it is not going to look good, maybe the HDX version would but again, I don't want to wait 4 hours to download, I just want to pop a disc in and watch.

HD is nice, HDX is better. Start the download earlier in the day and watch at night. I don't think the studios allow VUDU, Apple, etc. to sell HD movies yet. I'd love to see movies-over-IP have these features:

1. HDX quality.

2. Purchase or rent HDX quality movies.

3. Day and date releases with DVD, etc. (Twilight is the rare movie that offered it everywhere day and date).

4. Special features! Wouldn't it be cool to have everything in a DVD-style setup? You could watch the movie, listen to commentary, etc., with little loading time. Blu-ray players are slower than my generation 1 DVD player I got for Christmas in 1998.

heath

No pay raise for Netflix execs in 2009 | Entertainment | Industry | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSTRE5356H020090406)

I wonder why no pay raises--they were one of the very few companies making a ton of money.

heath

Blockbuster is facing an uncertain future: Blockbuster gets going concern notice: SEC filing | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE53568L20090406)

I wonder why no pay raises--they were one of the very few companies making a ton of money.My feeling is that they wanted good PR. They can sense which way the wind is blowing.

Also, they have an opportunity to gain market share - but not if they harvest in the spring.

Jon,

Very good point and I thought about it, too.

heath

Heath, Thanks for mentioning the Vudu solution here.... I ordered one from Vudu (the XL version ) and received it Friday afternoon... hooked it up this weekend and I'm very much
pleased with the unit... the hardware is top notch and the quality of the media is great.

They released two Apple Iphone apps for it... one app is setup to allow you to see movies
that you might want to rent or purchase so you can view a list of what is available and rent or purchase say from your office and when you get home that evening the movie is ready to
watch... thats pretty cool.

The second app turns the Iphone into a remote controller to the Vudu box... works great.

I think its a good buy as there are no monthly fees and even if you don't get any movies there is so much there for free to watch and listen to...

Very cool! I love the VUDU and I think it's still one of the best tech gadgets out there. I'm trying out the wireless and it's great, too. Don't need to stretch a 50 foot ethernet cable across my apartment!

I'll have to check out the iPhone/VUDU remote app!

heath

What can I say.
Netflix Coming Soon to PlayStation 3 – PlayStation.Blog (http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/10/netflix-coming-soon-to-playstation-3/)

Netflix through BD-Live to my BDP-350 would be nice.

That is an excellent move for the PS3. Streaming content on-line is rather dismal as it seems to be about 1/4 DVD bitrate. I hope the BluRay streaming is better as modern large screens are more demanding. It had better be as good as HD cable, at least 19.2 MBps, though cable "HD" seems much worse than the bandwidth used.