We use Netflix quite a bit, especially the kids. We have streaming and 1 DVD at a time. I use it with my laptop when I'm on the road. Currently, I'm watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia from the beginning. As has already been mentioned, I hope they get better streaming choices. I would pay more for that. I am anxiously awaiting Arrested Development! Still, I watch an appalling amount of network TV and cable channels. I also watch more football than is healthy for a person. You can have my DirecTV remote when you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
We have Netflix and DirecTV, too. DirecTV has an obscene number of movie channels. We've got the package that gave us all of the movie channels for 3 months absolutely free. At the end of the trial, I'll probably just stick with HBO, but for right now, I have about 2,000 movies that I can watch any time I want. It's insane.
Another Hemlock Grove trailer. Seems like an odd follow-up to HoC. They probably are aimed at entirely different audiences - and if the baseline for success is 2-3M viewers, there's no need for significant overlap - but it might give an odd impression for Netflix's branding, that you'd have an HBO-ish prestige series and then something that looks like a bloodier version of a CW show. [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WweCmgr7fyA[/yt]
What's frustrating sometimes with Netflix - that has nothing to do with Netflix and more with me - every friggin' time I decide "I'm going to buy that season of that show on DVD because it's cheap and I dunno how long it'll be before Netflix gets it and I want it now!" they put it on Netflix like 3-4 weeks after I buy it! Case in point the last season of Weeds - I thought "Well maybe it'll be a while before it's up on Netflix - took them ages to get past Season 3, sure Season 7 came out pretty quick, but that could have been a fluke." Hah oh well. DVD still sort of trumps streaming if you like a show since obviously you don't get the special features, commentaries or bonus content from retailers like Target or Best Buy when they toss in an extra disk. But it took them months to get Mad Men season 5 on Instant Stream - so it's sort of weird how some take longer and others are up practically in time with the physical release, short of a few weeks - even like Archer Season 3, that took a few months but still, it was a lot faster than their getting Season 2 up. I love my Netflix subscription - sure they have a lot of 'meh' movies and tv shows too - but there's so much content that really if anyone runs out of stuff to watch, has a very narrow interest in movies and tv or judges it on a few weeks of using it and only looks at the main page and goes "eh nothing I want to watch" - there's a lot of good stuff hidden around too. Honestly now that I have a Roku box in my bedroom, I hardly use the cable box in there anymore. Now that Time Warner has a Roku app for quite a few stations and all I'm waiting for is their On Demand to get an app like they have for iPad/Android/PC I would really consider dumping my second cable box. Between Netflix, TWC and Vudu - if there's something I REALLY want to see or get a freebie - or there's a show that isn't up on Netflix yet and I figure - frak it I'll just buy it. Now the thing that we really need to work on as a WORLD - is making broadband internet ubiquitous and cheap - I feel sorry for my friends in Canada or Australia where they're kinda stuck with data caps and expensive internet.
^ We should talk, I have a few TV series I'd like to see on Netflix. Can you go out and by the DVD sets so your magic can kick in and I can watch them on Netflix? I'm excited, because on Saturday, we're getting a ton of Cartoon Network/Adult Swim shows, including Justice League, Batman Beyond, Batman: The Brave and the Bold[/url], Samurai Jack and more!
AWWWRIGHT! I've been dyin' to see more of Justice League - that was on juuuust before I got cable again after like 12 years of just going with basic tv lol Although it's funny - I mean I bought the Knight Rider dvd sets for like ten bucks at Best Buy last year around my birthday and then... Netflix streams it all again LOL Same thing with Farscape - they did every season except for 4 - so I buy four at Walmart -and guess what... it winds up on instant stream! I wish Street Hawk would get on there - not that it was so great a show - but it's been ages since I've seen it and while I have most of the series on VHS that I taped off tv back in the day - I don't have a working vcr anymore. But I WAS tempted to buy some Robot Chicken DVDs so it's nice to see those on there finally. I never could justify buying the disks, other than for the special features -since really a whole season is only a few hours - each episode is only 15 minutes or so. Same with Metalpocylpse and other Adult Swim shows.
These days I just rip my dvds to the computer, and watch it on the computer. If I feel like it, I'll connect the computer to the big screen tv via hdmi. But yeah, it seems like a waste buying dvds/blurays of mediocre stuff that is available as flat fee streaming, which I'll probably only watch once or twice. Many tv shows seem like that, including Knight Rider and Streethawk.
Yeah I mean pretty nearly all my tv show dvds - entire run of SG1 I think I watched through a couple of times and I haven't touched in ages. And to think how much I spent on them too and this was before they got really cheap - I think I paid like $35-40 a season on Amazon and then in store. Now heh under $20 a season - amazing though how inexpensive even Star Trek dvds can be found for - remember when the first TNG and DS9 sets came out - they were like a hundred bucks a set or something?
I remember the sky high prices around a decade ago. Though I didn't bite at the time. I haven't really bothered buying the Star Trek tv season sets on dvds/blurays, other than the movies and season 1 of TNG. Even with the very impressive picture quality and restoration of season 1 of TNG on bluray, I came to the realization it would end up collecting dust on my bookshelf. Though I've gotten more mileage out of watching the Star Trek movies on bluray/dvd. I probably won't bother buying any of the other Star Trek season sets on bluray, unless they show up in the bargain bins for $10 or less. (It'll be a pure impulse buy at such a price).
I wish Netflix gave users the ability to block movies and shows that don't interest them. Trying to find something tolerable in their science fiction section is often impossible, at least when it comes to streaming. I suppose there is the instant queue, but as far as I can tell, there is no way to sort the titles in it, besides doing so manually. And that doesn't help the process of wading through their streaming catalogue, when I want to see something new.
Well I have this feeling that sooner than later they're going to do a more 'logical' sorting system - at least I hope so - honestly it shouldn't be that hard to make a more navigable Instant Queue - especially since set top boxes with Netflix running on them are getting cheaper and more capable - but they're still a pain to add things to your queue or navigate when you just want to get to what you want. Being able to make like folders would be cool or your own categories. Like say one that's just Star Trek, one that's Cartoons, one that's Dr. Who/BBC stuff, one that's movies you like, one that's movies you watch when you're drunk... It would also be nice to not have every movie you've ever watched show up as a suggestion or something, I can understand they want to "Be helpful" but y'know what... be helpful by just making more direct categories or letting me put stuff into my own little section. I've been using Netflix for like almost 5 years now - I really truly don't need suggestions on what to watch. I have like 200 things in my queue and I know how to navigate the site.
I too wish Netflix offered finer filtering abilities on site. Typically, I use a third party (non NF owned) site called instantwatcher. They allow you to survey the entire US Streaming catalog, with filtering by genre, release year, and ''Added to Streaming'' date, and more. All info on the site comes directly from Netflix (via a program they offered to web developers giving them access to their data, that they are now slowly limiting to the established developers, with no new access granted to new site developers). http://instantwatcher.com/genres/41?order=date(titles.created_at)+desc,+alphabetical_title+asc
I just got back from vacation so I missed that - yeah, sounds great! Netflix is the place for crazy sci fi that won't get watered down for the mass market or even an audience the size that SyFy expects. Another article, which has an interesting quote from Netflix. And I agree with the comments above that Netflix needs to redesign their streaming interface, it's basically a parade of junk that I occasionally pick through when I'm extremely bored to find something weird to watch. They also need to think of ways to let Netflix viewers communicate with each other - yknow, like this thread, except way bigger and better. When I watch something on Roku, I should be able to at least leave a comment about it. And I'm still flummoxed that they aren't doing more direct communication with subscribers through the streaming interface, such as a standard "what's coming from Netflix Originals" button that lights up when there's something new. Click, and you find out Arrested Development just released new episodes or whatever. Why rely on e-mail and online ads when they have a captive audience they can reach, basically for free? How about a countdown widget you can add, that tells you X days to Arrested Development? It's nuts that they're based in (or adjacent to) Silicon Valley, there in Los Gatos. They have plenty of UI talent to draw upon right in their backyard.
If Straczynski is a popular content creator for Netflix instant, I wonder why they don't have Babylon 5 or Jeremiah?
He doesn't own the rights. That's a studio issue and he has no say over anything he has made gonig to Netflix.