We have had a Netflix account for several years, and generally like it a lot.
I quit Blockbuster because I got so frustrated with late fees — I would be charged a whole new rental period for being one day late on a return. With Netflix, you can keep a movie as long as you like and never get charged a late fee. Their selection is very large, and we usually get movies the day after they are sent.
The main drawback is lack of spontaneity. It’s Friday night, friends or family are over, and you want to watch a movie. But none of the ones you have on hand is appropriate for the audience. So you either end up going to Blockbuster anyway, or playing a game instead of watching a movie (which is probably a better alternative, but that’s a topic for another blog).
Now with Netflix streaming movies, we can choose something to watch on the spur of the moment, for no extra cost. If you have a Netflix account, you can instantly stream a movie or TV show directly to your computer, or with the right connections, to your TV.
Gisele, Derek and I are two-thirds of the way through the first season of “24”, which none of us had ever seen before. We have been watching 2-3 episodes a night for the past week. I was out of the country when Ken Burn’s “The Civil War” was shown, but now I’m watching that too.
Not everything is available. Recently released movies in particular are absent, and even the old ones are somewhat limited. But there are so many movies and TV shows that are available that I always can find something interesting to watch.
You can watch them on your computer if you want, but if you have a Wii, or Playstation 3 or several DVD players, you can stream them directly to your TV. We use our Wii, and the picture quality is very similar to DVD. It required a DVD to activate, but Netflix sent it for free.
I think this is the future of home movie watching, though I’m afraid that the movie studios will feel they aren’t being compensated well enough. We’ll have to see how it shakes out. For now, we can couch-potato as much as we want.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Don // Jun 20, 2010 at 10:15 am
Betty and I have been doing this for several months. We also went the Blockbuster route for a long time but I got really tired of not only the late fees but the rental fee itself.
Our Blu-Ray in the bedroom has it built in as does Betty’s new Samsung LCD TV. The quality is decent and if you find the ones that are HD it’s actually quite good. One drawback for Betty is no captioning. She likes that as her hearing seems to be a little bad.
We also use Redbox once in a while. Their price is $1 a day and they have a pretty good selection of new DVDs. They don’t have Blu-Ray yet but maybe in the not to distant future.
2 Richard // Jun 20, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Sadly for us satellite users this is not an option. There is just not enough bandwidth. I guess it’s the price we pay for being able to live as we do, but I wouldn’t trade the view out my window right now for all the movies in the world.
3 Donna // Jun 20, 2010 at 7:49 pm
I have been watching Season 1, 2 & 3 of Dexter this past month on my Macbook. I take it to bed with me and watch an episode each evening before falling asleep (I know, not good bedtime material as it’s quite bloody!) I’m also with Don on Redbox. There is one in my Safeway a mile away and I get movies from there from time to time, especially when Nathan comes for the night.
And Daryl as you know, I’m starting Battlestar Galactica, but that’s not available streaming. Thank goodness Netflix lets me keep the disks as long as I want!
4 Dale // Jun 21, 2010 at 12:25 pm
The nice thing about Redbox here in Buffalo is that you can take the movie back to any location in town, and there are many – I think every supermarket has one. There will probably come a day when you will have to watch advertising on the streamed movies.