Netflix

WATCH ALL THE ANIME!

AND ALL THE MST 3 K!

You US jokers should be damn glad at the selection you have.

But other than that, the selection in Canada does have some good movies, and showed me some i might not have found otherwise. And it's just a really good service.

I just wish their online-only selection was a little less focused towards "latest and greatest". I went looking through their selection for some weird sciencey (yes, including Weird Science) films like My Science Project and The Philadelphia Experiment, but all of the ones I looked up weren't available for online streaming.*

I realize they have to justify the more expensive packages that include mailed CDs somehow, but it's annoying that when I get the urge to watch something I can't without shelling out even more money.

I'm just happy there's an app that lets me watch all the instant streaming on my iPhone. It lets me watch ALL THE Lie To Me ANYWHERE!

The only problem I have with it is that some of the series I try to watch aren't complete. It only has like 4 of 15 discs for Gundam 0079 and they're completely random, like disc 4 and 11-13 (or something) and it doesn't have Jurassic Park, as well as some not-as-famous films that I'd like to watch. Other than that, it's pretty good.

edited 17th Aug '11 11:17:34 AM by NULLcHiLD27

Jurassic Park is being reissued in October so it should be available by then.

And The Philadelphia Experiment 2 is a piece of shit with one of the worst child actors ever.

Yeah, I couldn't recall hearing anything complementary about TPE2. Getting released in all of 2 theaters with a total box office take of $2970 isn't exactly a spectacular recommendation, either.

They have all the seasons of Monk, and all the seasons of Psych. I am happy now.

Sagan I wish this was here. I need to stop buying DV Ds (and getting into Evil, really). This sounds like such good value even if it doesn't have everything. It's paid per month and not week right?

Yup, it's monthly all right. Cost depends on whether you want one or two discs in the mail and/or instant streaming.

The US prices are $8 a month for unlimited streaming and $8 a month for one DVD at a time unlimited, add four dollars more per disk at a time after that.

They recently had a giant cry of anguish from their customers when they decided to switch from "every plan gets streaming," to "streaming costs what it costs, and disks cost what they cost, and if you want both you pay full price on both." I still think there should be a price break for customers who use both, but I agree with their argument that the old pricing scheme was undervaluing the cost of mailing and maintaining discs, and it's still a decent price.

I actually run into the problem of not having the latest and greatest. It seems like most of the movies on streaming are at least two years old, and I'm not sure if I can't find much stuff from before the 80s because there isn't much there or because I've trained it in my preferences too well. When a new release does go on streaming, it goes right back off in three months.

edited 19th Aug '11 3:37:30 PM by TParadox

I'm switching from a three at a time with streaming to a four at a time without streaming. It's two dollars cheaper and I rarely stream anyway.

ALL of the Avatar! ALL of the Full Metal Alchemist (my brother's interest more than mine)! ALL of the Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog! MOST of the Merlin!

Also, I've been trying to find this out for a week or so, and this is a Netflix thread so I'll ask here: why are some things only available until Sept 15 (in Canada)?

I heard they lost the license to a bunch of things.

In the US, they used to get all or mostly temporary licenses for streaming. Every now and then things expire, but not nearly as much as they used to. I imagine expiring licenses are a lot more common in Canada.

I recall with infamy that last year the same month they announced they'd start offering streaming-only plans they lost the license to all their Doctor Who, a very visible demonstration that they were not ready to cater streaming-only.

At the moment, they seem to have a better handle on long-term licenses and popular selection, making their streaming-only a better service. Canada will get there. It's the evil copyright lawyers holding them back, but they'd love to have the whole world pay them to stream if they could.

It's a little worrying that I've heard they may be ending their relationship with Starz, which seems to be where they get their most popular current movies from.

edited 6th Sep '11 2:46:53 PM by TParadox

The recent movies were pulled before Starz ended their agreement. Disney and Sony threatened to leave if they renewed.

However, Netflix is starting a deal with Epix (which is a joint venture between Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate). But I can't see that lasting (with MGM having filed for bankruptcy and Lionsgate having financial trouble, I expect them to sell their shares to Paramount and go to Starz or HBO).

And now Netflix is splitting off the physical disc side into its own separate system, called "Quickster" (which is the slower option... go figure ).

I wonder what Super Genius thought that having people chasing from one service to another to manage two separate queues (no inter-communications between the two, so you have to maintain two accounts each with their own billing, and can only search within the specific service) was a good idea. Not being able to reply without Facebook (don't have FB, don't want it; "Web 2.0" in general can kiss my ass) and making it sound like it's all about him instead of the customers whose money pays the Netflix bills isn't helping any, either.

http://blog.netflix.com/2011/09/explanation-and-some-reflections.html

edited 19th Sep '11 4:50:28 AM by Nohbody

In my experience with Netflix, the queue has been one of the sneakiest ways they've managed to both impress and annoy me.

I spent a year with my service on hold, and I could still add stuff to both my disk queue and my instant queue, even though I couldn't access any of the content.

When I dropped my disk service (months before they announced splitting the price), I was annoyed that they completely cut me off from the disk side of things. I couldn't manage or even access my disk queue, even though when I was paying them no money for no service I could manage both.

On the other hand, while I had both, I would often manually add disk queue titles that became available for streaming to my streaming queue, and then when I dropped disks, one day I noticed that a few of the titles from my disk queue got automatically added to my stream queue when they became available, which I wouldn't have known otherwise because the only way to save an unavailable title for streaming is to have it in your stream queue and then have it fall out of availability.

This rebranding has been a fiasco.

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/19/7844480-twitters-qwikster-gets-offers-trusts-no-one

Since ISPs decided they could totally squeeze more money out of Netflix for streaming, I've noticed a return in vigor to their promotion of DVD services. Bet they're glad they couldn't spin it off or kill it now.

Also, spiffy logo update.

edited 17th Jun '14 10:23:11 PM by tparadox

I have a love-hate relationship with this thing.

It is damn annoying when they don't have something up for streaming, especially when its a show. On the other hand, they let me not break my bank just to watch Evangelion without going to other perfectly legal sources. And for that, I thank them.

I like the instant streaming because I've been able to watch many new series and complete a lot of archive binges. It seems to be relentless in its quest to make me watch My Little Pony, though (I did watch the first episode of FIM online and quite frankly wasn't too interested). STOP IT, NETFLIX.

My only other complaint is that some shows (Pokemon: Indigo League especially) have episodes missing and others only have a few seasons (most notably Samurai Jack and Hetalia: World Series). This has been especially problematic because I can't find some episodes online.

The two things I really want to be streamable are Batman and Stargate SG-1.

Also, Dr Strangelove is leaving NF.

edited 22nd Jun '14 10:20:54 PM by BaconManiac5000