Netflix

[abowers]

Re: Netflix

I've had a good experience with Netflix. I used it for about 8 months, took a break, then used it for 4 or 5 months. I've had GREAT turn around time. But it depends on where the nearest facility is.

When I was in Rochester NY, the DVDs were mailed to another address within Rochester, so they usually got my DVDs the day after I mailed them. It took 1-2 days for me to receive a new one.

Now I'm in central NJ -- the place where I return my DVDs is New Brunswick (20ish minutes away). It takes 1-2 days for them to receive my DVD and 2-3 to receive depending on when they ship it out (and my mail comes early in the day now).

Anyway, 1 movie per month with unlimited movies isn't a bad deal-- It depends how quickly you watch the movies. I watched them the same or next day as receiving them, so there was a quick turn around time. If you watch quickly - with one movie at a time - you could still easily get one movie a week, if not every 5 days or so. That's 4-6 movies, not bad for $10.

[pyotr]

Re: Netflix

I'd try it out Sweeps, if nothing else, for the experience. I'm sure you've heard of the "throttling" of high-volume users problem. If you go in with the expectation that you'll be able to view 7 movies a week on the 2-at-a-time unlimited program, you will be disappointed. But if you're expecting 2 per week, maybe sometimes 4 per week, Netflix will come through for you. Overall, not a bad deal, especially if you're into non-traditional DVDs. If you're just interested in renting the popular stuff, your local, non-franchise video stores may do better for you.

I was able to view the entire 7-up, 14-up, 21-up, 28-up, 35-up, 42-up British documentary series via NetFlix - unfindable elsewhere. Netflix has a spectacular documentary DVD collection. I saw Grave of the Fireflies and the Musashi Miyamoto Samurai series via Netflix - difficult to find anywhere. You can quit anytime and rejoin if you need a break - I'm in a 4-month-old "quit" status now, but I'll probably re-activate my account once I've accumulated enough DVDs I want to see.

[autoxer]

Re: Netflix

I'm in a 4-month-old "quit" status now, but I'll probably re-activate my account once I've accumulated enough DVDs I want to see.

During my "quit" status, I had a list in my wallet where I kept adding all of the movies that I wanted to see, then when I rejoined, I just put that list in my queue.

I also really liked getting the first season of "Lost" on DVD. Watching them w/o commercials and one after another is so much better than waiting for each episode on TV.

[sakigt]

Re: Netflix

I've found that they've been very good with a 3-day cycle per rental: Day 1, you receive the video (and watch it); Day 2, you put it out in the mail and send it back to them, Day 3, they receive it and put your next order in the mail, and then the cycle starts all over again. This means that you can watch two movies a week with the 1-at-a-time unlimited ($9.99) plan, four with the 2-at-a-time plan, six with the 3-at-a-time plan. The only time that I have found that they exceeded this two days was when I was borrowing a tape that was rare--an unusual documentary that they had to get from a distant facility, apparently.
.

My turn around time USED to be 3 days, now its more like 5.

Not sure why, but if they keep it up, Ill drop them

[greedy4chips]

Re: Netflix

5 days...I thought when your returned DVD was scanned at the post office they were going to send out the next DVD on your request list. Maybe the mailman is watching the movies first? LOL

[sweeps]

Re: Netflix

I got a code for a free month. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for everyone's feedback.

[sweeps]

Re: Netflix

So far, Netflix is not impressing me. My DVDs were supposed to come in the mail yesterday but didn't, and the mail just came today and still no DVDs. I may be a very short-term customer....

[neatdesign]

Re: Netflix

We've had Netflix accounts twice. Most recently we had the 2 DVDs/month for $14.99. There are several reasons why we like Netflix:

1) We can each have our own separate movie queues. This is great because there are movies I want to see that Mark doesn't, and vice-versa. By having separate queues, we can watch the movies we want to see, and once we're done we just send it back and get the next movie in our own queue. That way we don't have to wait until the other one gets around to watching their movies before we can get another one that we want to see.

2) The variety of DVDs available is better than anything else out there. Particularly British tv series, mini-series and movies that Mark wants to see to experience a bit of "home" from time to time.

3) You can "suspend" your account for up to 120 days. This option is made available when you go to cancel your account. This means that your queue is still there and can be added to, but you are not charged until your account is reactivated. We did this recently because we needed to cut back on some expenses, and this was one of the easy ones to cut back on. We've suspended our account until November, at which point we either need to cancel it, or do nothing and the account is automatically reactivated and the monthly charges start up again. Once reactivated the DVDs at the top of our queues will be sent out automatically as well.

4) We live Richmond, Virginia, which is where one of Netflix's shipping centers is located, so there's a very quick turnaround time. The longest we've ever waited for a DVD is 4 days.

~ Jenney

[lrjohnson]

Re: Netflix

I like catching television on Netflix. I'm watching Six Feet Under, The Closer, Weeds, and Battlestar Galactica. I'm planning on trying the L Word, Entourage, The Sopranos, Rescue Me. Also we tried the old M*A*S*H. A benefit is that I don't miss "regular"cable, plus there are a more entertainment minutes on these TV DVDs, average. The older the show, the better: M*A*S*H had around ten episodes per DVD, which is a lot of watching.

We do the one that's 19.29 total with tax, 3 at a time unlimited. We can out our done DVD's right outside clipped to the mailbox; never been one taken, and the mailman picks them up. Getting a rotation groove going is key, and getting a good mix, too. We found that we don't usually want three dramams or three documentaries all at once, it's nice to keep our queue mixed up.

The variety is great. Our turnaround is not bad at all. Our closest places are not super handy or super cheap. Well, one does rent five dvds for $5 for five days, but we never watched all five, and returning them was more of a pain that we expected.

We're happy with Netflix, but can see where not everyone would think it was a great value.