Netflix

[sophia jane]

Who does it? Love it or hate it? Worth the money? How long does it really take to get your movies?

 

[Salvor-Hardon]

I do it. I'm on teh outskirts of a major metro area so I really do get my movies fairly quickly. I'll send one back and within 3 to 4 days I have the next one, more often 3 than 4.

Love is a strong word, but like is about right. Its convenient for "haed in the clouds" types like me that are always forgetting to take movies back and spent a fortune in late fees.

Good selection of titles though very popular new release may take a while for teh que to get to you.

 

[pinkpunani]

I used it up until a month ago. No problem, I just decieded to try the video store on the corner. I had the unlimited plan, and would usually get my videos a couple days after I mailed my old one's back. I live in a large city, so I am not sure about more rural areas.

 

[MissBri]

 

[Guest]

I've had Netflix for over a month. I like it lots and haven't had any problems. I drop the dvd in the mail one day, Netflix emails the next day saying they received and ship out a new one, which usually gets to my place the following day. I have a tendency to keep rentals longer than I should and Netflix is perfect for my absentmindedness. I have the 2 rentals at a time, unlimited and it's a good thing. Give it a try and find out for yourself. I recommend it.

 

[thebullet]

I swear by Netflix. I have a plan where I pay $17.95 a month, I think, and I get unlimited movies, 3 at a time. The turnaround time is just amazing, usually just a day or two. And the selection is excellent. The problem with a movie store like Blockbuster is that it doesn't take too long to run through their inventory when one is a movie nut like me.

SO I'm getting old movies, new movies, classics, foreign language, stand-up comedy. I manipulate my queue to insure that I always have a comedy in my house on Friday night. I usually have about 20 movies in the queue. You can even order movies that haven't been released on DVD yet. When they are released they are sent right out to you.

Definitley beats sorting through the stacks at Blockbuster, hoping you'll find something you haven't already watched that doesn't suck.

 

[curious_me]

I love it! It takes me about 2 days to get my movies! I think ot's worth it since I have a bad habit of forgetting about the movies sometimes, so no more late fees for me!

 

[impressive]

Add to all that the fact that (a) as a single parent with 3 kids, it might take you three whole days to watch one movie in 15 minute bites, and (b) the convenience of NOT having to mess with unloading the posse from the car in order to return rentals. Huge considerations.

 

[Guest]

we lurve it and if we could afford it, we'd do the unlimited plan.

 

[MissBri]

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I've got about 100 movies in que. But they don't carry porn. Damn it.

 

[MissBri]

 

[BlackShanglan]

Had it and quite liked it. In fact, still have it, but it's been nearly a year since we got our act together to do much with it.

 

[JamesSD]

Who does it? Love it or hate it? Worth the money? How long does it really take to get your movies?

Love it, occasionally frustrated.

If I drop a movie in the mailbox Monday night and it gets mailed on Tuesday, usually Netflix processes it on Thursday and I get the replacement on Friday.

The shipping centers aren't open on Saturday or Sunday, but they do seem to work hard to process discs on Monday. Holidays also bog them down. Discs I mail on Wednesday sometimes don't get processed until the next Monday, as Netflix seems to often take Fridays off as well.

I get 3 at a time and go through 10-11 discs a month. That's less than $2 a disc. This is why I like Netflix.

 

[JamesSD]

I've had Netflix for over a month. I like it lots and haven't had any problems. I drop the dvd in the mail one day, Netflix emails the next day saying they received and ship out a new one, which usually gets to my place the following day. I have a tendency to keep rentals longer than I should and Netflix is perfect for my absentmindedness. I have the 2 rentals at a time, unlimited and it's a good thing. Give it a try and find out for yourself. I recommend it.

Netflix has a reputation of giving priority to new customers. When I first started I had near instant turnaround, now it's around a day slower. Still it's worth the price.

 

[sophia jane]

Add to all that the fact that (a) as a single parent with 3 kids, it might take you three whole days to watch one movie in 15 minute bites, and (b) the convenience of NOT having to mess with unloading the posse from the car in order to return rentals. Huge considerations.

You know, I hadn't really thought of that, but that's a HUGE consideration. Not so much for the return, but for the actual rental. Taking three kids into a video store is NOT fun.

 

[Guest]

I've used the service for over a year. Turnaround is usually 2 to 3 days from returning a dvd to receiving the next. I love the selections and ability to search by cast, director, genre. My queue is usually around 300 so I don't see running out of selections. Most recently I watched series one and two of The Wire.

Twice now I did not receive the dvd that was sent. No problem, no questions; Netflix simply accepted my word and sent another. Also rec'd damaged disks a couple times and rec'd replacements. Once I sent back a disk that was not rec'd; again NF took my word. Best customer service around.

Perdita

 

[JamesSD]

Twice now I did not receive the dvd that was sent. No problem, no questions; Netflix simply accepted my word and sent another. Also rec'd damaged disks a couple times and rec'd replacements. Once I sent back a disk that was not rec'd; again NF took my word. Best customer service around.

Yeah, they're awesome for this. You can do 1-2 lost disc reports with no question. My girlfriend's mail is pretty awful and she was higher than this, and they did end up putting a hold on her account briefly. Still, it was lifted when she called customer service.

 

[yui]

Netflix also has a rather large selection of foreign movies, which appeals to me. Plus, if you have the capabilities, you can burn the titles you don't have time to watch and send them back for the next item in your queue; helps increase the value of the service.

For mainstream titles, I do better at a local video store that has 99 cent Mondays on all movies (new releases, too), but for foreign movies and series, I don't think you can beat Netflix.

 

[thebullet]

Netflix also has a rather large selection of foreign movies

I picked up the 3 movies I had received from Netflix for our Friday night movie and found that all were foreign language flix. I looked at my queue and realized that every movie in my queue was a foreign language flick. Let me tell ya', when you are half drunk on a Friday night, reading a movie isn't the easiest thing to do. We only watch moveis we have to read on non-drinking nights.
___________________________________________________________
While we are at it, let me recommend some foreign language movies that I really love:

Bread and Tulips - Italian romantic comedy
Italian for Beginners - Danish romance - one of my favorite films of recent years
In July - kind of a German The Sure Thing. Very funny
The Closet - hilarious French film with a homophobic homosexual and a straight guy pretending to be gay to intimidate his employers to keep from firing him.
Wings of Desire - German - one of my wife's favorite films
Antonia's Line - Dutch film - sexy and interesting
Z - French - Costa Garvas' indictment of Facism in Greece. Totally relevent today. In my alltime top 10.

_____________________________________________________________

I got all of those movies through Netflix.

I'm still looking for a Norwegian film I saw in 1966 called Dear John (in English anyway). It was essentially a skin flick, but was wonderfully romantic. It was the first full frontal nudity mainstream movie I ever saw (I think it came out a little before Blowup).

 

[JamesSD]

While we are at it, let me recommend some foreign language movies that I really love:
Italian for Beginners - Danish romance - one of my favorite films of recent years

The Closet - hilarious French film with a homophobic homosexual and a straight guy pretending to be gay to intimidate his employers to keep from firing him.

While I didn't hate Italian for Beginners, it was a really odd movie. I guess it didn't really have a "movie" feel to it since the production values were low. The story was amusing, but for me it was good, not great.

I really did love the Closet, more than I thought I would. I didn't have high expectations for French Slapstick, but it really works well on multiple levels. I highly recommend it.

 

[Penelope Street]

Sunday is our movie night, so we're on the one at a time plan for $10 per month. Turnaround time is usually three working days. No problems at all so far. Even though we like to support local businesses, this is so much more convenient and less costly that we're not even thinking of going back to the corner store.

 

[Varian P]

Netflix is my visual media lifeline.

Although I occasionally miss the impulse-grab at the video store, that loss pales beside the joyous benefit of being able to build that queue of flicks. My brain always went blank when I'd walk into the store, and I've never been together enough to take a list with me.

Plus, for TV-less, TIVO-less peeps like me, it's great being able to rent a TV series (carefully chosen for its redeeming intellectual value, of course) and watch all the episodes in order, with no commercials. Joy! (The X Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer should never be sullied by the crass promotion of crest whitestrips.)

I've been doing the Netflix thing for 2 or 3 years, and am supremely satisfied with the service. They even lowered my rate (to compete with Blocksucker and the other annoying megachain pushing their own mail-service rental plans, no doubt).

 

[JamesSD]

Netflix is my visual media lifeline.

Although I occasionally miss the impulse-grab at the video store, that loss pales beside the joyous benefit of being able to build that queue of flicks. My brain always went blank when I'd walk into the store, and I've never been together enough to take a list with me.

Plus, for TV-less, TIVO-less peeps like me, it's great being able to rent a TV series (carefully chosen for its redeeming intellectual value, of course) and watch all the episodes in order, with no commercials. Joy! (The X Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer should never be sullied by the crass promotion of crest whitestrips.)

I've been doing the Netflix thing for 2 or 3 years, and am supremely satisfied with the service. They even lowered my rate (to compete with Blocksucker and the other annoying megachain pushing their own mail-service rental plans, no doubt).

We've had identical experiences, except I've only been a member for 1.5 years or so. The rate drop was in response to blockbuster. And yeah, TV shows on DVD was a big part of my impetus to get netflix. Renting them at blockbuster costs almost as much as buying them!

 

[Casey's Pen]

I use Blockbuster.com. Turn around time was really fast when I first started, but over the holidays, it would take about a week. I like the fact I can queue up the movies I want, including future releases, in the order I want them, then they are sent to be as they come available.

I probably watch more movies now than ever before because I get charged the same price whether I watch one or ten in a month.