Netflix and Warner Brothers Reach Deal

[Scout101]

Just an odd question, after reading through some of this thread: Why are so many people so happy with the Netflix service, if the common experience seems to be rarely getting new releases anytime near when they come out?

I use the Blockbuster Online service (basically the same thing, less streaming), and rarely get stuck waiting for a new release movie. Sometimes have to wait a long time for old, less-mainstream releases, but I get new releases pretty quickly. I put most of them in when they are in the theaters, and it just bumps them up to available when released, and off they go. I have a blockbuster near me, and instead of mailing the movie back, I can just trade it in at the store for another movie, which helps in the rare cases where a movie I want has a long wait time.

Just seems like everyone is raving about the service, while all having the same complaint about inability to get new releases in a timely manner. I'd be pissed about that, because I'm paying for this service to AVOID having to pay in a store. If the solution to getting movies I want quickly is to go in and pay the store anyway, the service isn't much of a benefit, IMO.

[Hermiod]

J. Allen wrote:

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No, they're not. They're both digital, they both require a server side, they both require an account stored on the server, and they can be viewed at any time and require no physical media. They are very similar. There were no online only games at the level of WoW in 2000. Everquest had just came out and a lot has changed since then.

Also, I'm talking about what's coming. The future. The future is online streaming. We're seeing the first steps now, but the future is online streaming. I'm repeating myself because I have already said this, and you're still talking about paying $15 for something right now. The future is online streaming.

For performance reasons, even with games like WoW you still need client software on your PC and you still need to download the maps, textures, models etc. Your average Internet connection is insufficient. Watching a movie is, for all intents and purposes, a one-way experience. You don't really need a great deal of two-way control.

There are a few players offering to stream games but the technology isn't there yet.

[Professor Zoom]

Scout101 wrote:

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Just an odd question, after reading through some of this thread: Why are so many people so happy with the Netflix service, if the common experience seems to be rarely getting new releases anytime near when they come out?

I'm not a huge new release person. If I'm interested in a movie, I probably saw it in the movie theater four months prior to it's release on DVD.

Netflix has a HUGE selection of DVD's and online streaming...from the mainstream to the niche.

So, ultimately, I'm not getting it to get new releases, I'm getting to see things that I haven't seen.

And their customer service has been fantastic.

I use the Blockbuster Online service (basically the same thing, less streaming), and rarely get stuck waiting for a new release movie. Sometimes have to wait a long time for old, less-mainstream releases, but I get new releases pretty quickly.

Just the opposite with Netflix. And like I said, I don't need to watch something as soon as it hits the street.

Hell, I rarely BUY a DVD the day it comes out, I don't need to rent it that day.

I put most of them in when they are in the theaters, and it just bumps them up to available when released, and off they go. I have a blockbuster near me, and instead of mailing the movie back, I can just trade it in at the store for another movie, which helps in the rare cases where a movie I want has a long wait time.

I've never had a great experience with Blockbuster.

And when I want to watch something right away, and I'm waiting for the next DVD, which is like MAYBE two days, I can always watch streaming on my TV....with a TON of choices.

All for the low price of 8.99 a month...

Just seems like everyone is raving about the service, while all having the same complaint about inability to get new releases in a timely manner.

No one seems to be complaining about not getting new releases, for the most part people seem to be saying here that it doesn't bother them. That's hardly complaining.

I'd be pissed about that, because I'm paying for this service to AVOID having to pay in a store.

New releases seem to be very important to you. They aren't to me, and it seems not important to others on this board.

If the solution to getting movies I want quickly is to go in and pay the store anyway, the service isn't much of a benefit, IMO.

There's also Movies on Demand on cable.

If getting the new releases right away is THE most important thing to you, yeah, Netflix may not be the best thing.

But, if breadth of selection, both on DVD and Watch Now, with great customer service IS, well, then, I'm going with Netflix. My queue is FULL, literally. They will NOT let me add anymore...all of it filled with things I want to see. I'm not hurtin' for entertainment.

[Jptrekker]

It looks like the wave of the future for disc based media is going to be a sell-thru release followed by a rental release a month later--the opposite of the VHS model.

Back in the VHS days, new release videos cost around $80 each (which the rental stores gladly paid) so that that studios could make a profit from the release being sold to rental outlets, there were very few "sell-through" titles (i.e. Titanic, which was a huge sell through title on VHS, compared to Four Weddings and a Funeral was initally a rental-only release). Sometimes, on major releases, the studios would have a 2nd release on video which was at a sell-through price after they had made their money off of the rental market (which was the case for "Four Weddings"). (Back then, for many, if you wanted to purchase new releases you owned a Laserdisc player, new releases on this format were genrally sell-through priced.)

Today, on the other hand, most disc based movies are priced for sell through at release and the studios probably feel that the rental market cuts into that sell through market. Don't be surprised if in the near future most new releases come out first to sell through then a month later to rental, the studios will introduce some carrot to the brick and mortar rental chains to encourage this. The carrot to the online retailers is making their library of titles available for streaming, the carrot for brick and mortar stores might be some type of profit sharing agreement similar to the old rentrak system for VHS where the stores actually rented the tapes from the studio for a low price and then returned them (or sold them as used, sharing the profit--the rentrak system was the beginning of Hollywood and Blockbuster's making dozens of copies of a new release available for rent, you never really saw this before profit sharing, a store might have ten copies at most, in a large store, because the movies were just too expensive).

The new model may have new releases on day of release for a premium price (which will be more than today's rental price, this will encourage purchase instead), then 30 days later for less (probably today's price).

As for Netflix, I don't care about new releases either, we use streaming through our network Blu-Ray player almost exclusively. It has replaced cable in our household and the $17/month is a much better investment than the $50/month bill for cable tv. Our kids don't know that a movie is a new-release or not, they just know if they like it or not. I don't think I have any new releases in my disc queue, mostly TV shows and kids movies.

[J. Allen]

Scout101 wrote:

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Just an odd question, after reading through some of this thread: Why are so many people so happy with the Netflix service, if the common experience seems to be rarely getting new releases anytime near when they come out?

I use the Blockbuster Online service (basically the same thing, less streaming), and rarely get stuck waiting for a new release movie. Sometimes have to wait a long time for old, less-mainstream releases, but I get new releases pretty quickly. I put most of them in when they are in the theaters, and it just bumps them up to available when released, and off they go. I have a blockbuster near me, and instead of mailing the movie back, I can just trade it in at the store for another movie, which helps in the rare cases where a movie I want has a long wait time.

Just seems like everyone is raving about the service, while all having the same complaint about inability to get new releases in a timely manner. I'd be pissed about that, because I'm paying for this service to AVOID having to pay in a store. If the solution to getting movies I want quickly is to go in and pay the store anyway, the service isn't much of a benefit, IMO.

I have never had any trouble with Netflix, the rates are cheaper than Blockbuster Online, and their customer service is top notch. I just get a much better value from Netflix. I tried Blockbuster Online, and they managed to screw up 3 shipments in 2 weeks, their customer service charged me for two "lost" DVDs, and it took a month to get them to reverse the charges, and they were not friendly doing it.

Hermiod wrote:

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For performance reasons, even with games like WoW you still need client software on your PC and you still need to download the maps, textures, models etc. Your average Internet connection is insufficient. Watching a movie is, for all intents and purposes, a one-way experience. You don't really need a great deal of two-way control.

There are a few players offering to stream games but the technology isn't there yet.

It will be. All I was saying is that people are getting used to the idea of playing solely online, and that a game like World of Warcraft would be absolutely useless if the PC didn't have an internet connection.

[Professor Zoom]

J. Allen wrote:

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I have never had any trouble with Netflix, the rates are cheaper than Blockbuster Online, and their customer service is top notch. I just get a much better value from Netflix. I tried Blockbuster Online, and they managed to screw up 3 shipments in 2 weeks, their customer service charged me for two "lost" DVDs, and it took a month to get them to reverse the charges, and they were not friendly doing it.

Wow, you were charged? I've never been charged for lost DVDs. Never.

And I don't think I've ever gotten the wrong DVD from Netflix...I've gotten a cracked one...and upon reporting sent out a new one even before receiving the old.

[J. Allen]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Wow, you were charged? I've never been charged for lost DVDs. Never.

Yep. They didn't believe they were lost. Seriously.

And I don't think I've ever gotten the wrong DVD from Netflix...I've gotten a cracked one...and upon reporting sent out a new one even before receiving the old.

Exactly. Blockbuster's biggest disadvantage (aside from their shipping and charging issues) is their customer service. With Blockbuster I was treated as a leech, someone causing trouble. With Netflix, I'm treated as a good customer, and it is appreciated.

[Hermiod]

J. Allen wrote:

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It will be. All I was saying is that people are getting used to the idea of playing solely online, and that a game like World of Warcraft would be absolutely useless if the PC didn't have an internet connection.

Well, that's to be expected what with it being a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

WoW isn't streamed in the same way a Netflix movie is. The hard work of rendering the environment is still done on your PC.

You're talking about the kind of services a few companies are claiming they can do where you are simply streamed the already rendered video. The problem with that is latency which they're not getting around anytime soon.

[RoJoHen]

Scout101 wrote:

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Just an odd question, after reading through some of this thread: Why are so many people so happy with the Netflix service, if the common experience seems to be rarely getting new releases anytime near when they come out?

I use the Blockbuster Online service (basically the same thing, less streaming), and rarely get stuck waiting for a new release movie. Sometimes have to wait a long time for old, less-mainstream releases, but I get new releases pretty quickly. I put most of them in when they are in the theaters, and it just bumps them up to available when released, and off they go. I have a blockbuster near me, and instead of mailing the movie back, I can just trade it in at the store for another movie, which helps in the rare cases where a movie I want has a long wait time.

Just seems like everyone is raving about the service, while all having the same complaint about inability to get new releases in a timely manner. I'd be pissed about that, because I'm paying for this service to AVOID having to pay in a store. If the solution to getting movies I want quickly is to go in and pay the store anyway, the service isn't much of a benefit, IMO.

I simply have so many movies and TV shows in my queue that I don't even notice if a new release is unavailable for a short period of time. If there is something that I really want to watch as soon as it's released, chances are it's also something that I would like to own. For renting purposes, I don't even notice. There are so many other things that I want to watch.

[J. Allen]

Hermiod wrote:

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Well, that's to be expected what with it being a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

WoW isn't streamed in the same way a Netflix movie is. The hard work of rendering the environment is still done on your PC.

You're talking about the kind of services a few companies are claiming they can do where you are simply streamed the already rendered video. The problem with that is latency which they're not getting around anytime soon.

Yeah, they're not there yet, but they will be. Hence my emphasis on future.

[Scout101]

Great that people are giving their personal experiences as to why this won't bother them, but I still contend that you guys are the "power users" on Netflix, and not representative of the bulk of their customers. Not to say that regular users aren't watching old movies, but I'd wager that for a large majority of the users, the bulk of their queues are filled with new releases, and movies that have come out in the last 3 months or so.

I certainly agree that streaming is the future, though. Could see broadcast television going away completely at some point, being replaced by a version of TIVO-like service where everything is available, and new stuff just shows up on the weekly schedule...

[Spot's Meow]

I wouldn't consider myself a "power user," I only have about 50 movies in my queue at any given time. I don't usually add new releases since I forget to and don't know the release dates anyway. I'd say that almost half of my stuff is TV shows on DVD. I think a lot of people use Netflix for that purpose since it's so much cheaper than buying an entire DVD set for a series. I don't have a lot of old movies, most of the ones I have are from the past 5 years or so. Ones that I wanted to see but never got around to, like Big Fish or Taken.

[Professor Zoom]

Scout101 wrote:

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Great that people are giving their personal experiences as to why this won't bother them, but I still contend that you guys are the "power users" on Netflix, and not representative of the bulk of their customers. Not to say that regular users aren't watching old movies, but I'd wager that for a large majority of the users, the bulk of their queues are filled with new releases, and movies that have come out in the last 3 months or so.

And see, I'd wager the opposite. My experiences and the conversations I've had with others who use netflix, it's about catching up with things you haven't seen, like TV, and not the new releases.

[RoJoHen]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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And see, I'd wager the opposite. My experiences and the conversations I've had with others who use netflix, it's about catching up with things you haven't seen, like TV, and not the new releases.

Same here. I know a ton of people who use Netflix, and they rarely use it to watch new releases. It's all about watching stuff they never saw the first time around or have missed due to scheduling conflicts (most Netflix users I know watch more TV shows than movies).

If people really want to see a new release these days, I think they're more likely to buy it (or to have already seen it in theaters).

[J. Allen]

RoJoHen wrote:

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Same here. I know a ton of people who use Netflix, and they rarely use it to watch new releases. It's all about watching stuff they never saw the first time around or have missed due to scheduling conflicts (most Netflix users I know watch more TV shows than movies).

If people really want to see a new release these days, I think they're more likely to buy it (or to have already seen it in theaters).

Exactly. Well over half of the content on my Instant Watch queue is TV. For example, I just started watching Season 4 of Dr. Who. This is how I catch up, and it's great because I can't afford the season sets of Dr. Who, which makes this win/win.