Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Bad News for Netflix viewers

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under an agreement announced today, Warner Brother DVDs and Blu-rays won't be available to Netflix subscribers for 28 days after they're released for sale. What's worse, Netflix says it expects to reach similar deals with the other major studios as time goes on.

This just might further my mind from subscribing to Netflix. The availability of up to the minute current releases, variety and easy online streaming is what would grab my interest and money.

A lot of the comments on that say exactly what I was thinking: I don't buy a movie until I've seen it. So now WB has delayed my purchasing of a BD for 28 days. Lucky for me, I order everything from Amazon, but I've noticed that the local Walmart doesn't even hold onto most new release titles for much over a month. So anyone with a store like the one here, isn't going to be buying WB titles at all.

Rick, I don't know about where you live, but Netflix has put all the local rental shops, even Blockbuster, out of business. If you want to rent discs it has to be online, or from Redbox. The Redbox here doesn't even carry BDs.

Chris our local Blockbuster just did go out of business this month (our rental source) so for the past couple of weeks my wife has been renting from a $1 a day in-store box (Blockbuster) but the selections are lacking, we've been looking at Netflix but in order to stream online it has to be (from what I understand) hard wired and we are using a wireless router to our PS3.

In the past I've been more of a buyer than a renter due mostly to my impatient trait but I'm really wanting to change that notion and rent more ... too many movies on the shelf that we could do without.

Netflix streaming needs at most 3 Mbps for HD video. You should be able to pull that wirelessly to the PS3 with ease. The Netflix streaming disc knows no difference between how you are connected.

Oh really? I'll have to look into that further ... whenever we tried connecting a couple or three weeks back we couldn't due to connectivity issues and I was thinking I read somewhere that a hard wired connection was needed. Keep in mind, I am far from being savvy with the PCs.

What were you trying to connect to? I read your comment above as you not having Netflix. Do you mean, just establishing an Internet connection in general? If you need help, post here, I'm sure someone (or I) will be able to help.

We don't have Netflix, we were trying to sign up via the PS3 and the wireless router and I haven't looked into it since. I was more interested in the online streaming rather the mail rental. Maybe it was just a bad connection but I believe the reason I didn't pursue it any farther was that for some reason, in the back of my mind I was really thinking I read somewhere an article regarding problems with online streaming of Netflix and wireless routers ... but I'm past 50 so that could be problematic in itself.

I thought it was strange though because my son plays a lot of games through the PS3 online.

Oh, well, the PS3's web browser is pretty poor. I only use it when I want to look up something on IMDb for a movie I just watched. Don't trust it to handle most sites correctly. Just sign up for Netflix from a real computer. Then go to netflix.com/PS3 and request the steaming disc. Since your son is playing online games, it's connected correctly.

Well alrighty then, Thanks Chris ... I'll give it a try and report back!

Google for a "netflix free trial", you should be able to get at least 2 weeks free, if not a full month.

You have to manage your "watch instantly" queue from a computer anyway - you can't add things to the queue from the streaming client.

Give it a try, Rick.

As to the 28 day delay - I have about 150 unwatched things in my queue anyway, so I could not possibly care less at this point.

Actually, the PS3 client lets you browse streamable movies by category, and add them to your watch instantly queue (which is the list that comes up by default when you start the player).

There does seem to be a bug in the scrolling code. I think it leaks memory, as after you've scrolled through about 60 titles, the animation of moving through the list starts to get a little jerky, and then all of a sudden you'll be back at the start of the list. If that happens, I recommend you scroll to the left next time, as to perhaps met up with where you left off from the other direction.

It is definitely easier to manage one smallish list of what you want to stream on the PC though.

I don't have any problem with wireless and my Netflix Roku box.

Thanks Chris and Tom, I do believe we'll give it a try ... stupid me (as usual), didn't bother to check out the plans and details any more after the initial but brief enquiry. After reading this review and a couple of other articles I believe we'll kick start with the $8.99 a month plan along with the 2 week free trial.

Nothing to lose!

I always had problems with Blockbuster on-line rental service. Stuff like, they send me the wrong movie, then when I report that back to them, they tell me to return the correct movie (that I didn't get). I've never had a problem with Netflix.

I don't agree that this is all bad. I don't often need to see a new release right now (dammit) so the blackout period is no big deal to me. One benefit of their agreement is that Netflix will be able to offer a larger selection of titles -- both TV shows and movies -- from the WB catalog for streaming over the internet. This is great for me when I do need to see something right now (dammit).

You can't even get new release on bluray within a month now because everything says "long wait". I was paying 13 bucks per month for 2 blurays at a time, now it is $18 AND now they are delaying new releases? Add about 4 weeks to the 28 days the movie will be in "long wait" status and you're talking 2 months to see a new release on bluray. I'm getting pretty close to cancelling my subscription.

Also, I have had no problem streaming wirelessly to the PS3, but I seldom use it because I find the ps3 netflix interface to be far inferior to he xbox360... The ps3 plays movies fine if u have the patience to scroll through the titles at a painfuly slow speed!

Hmmm. I've had about 200 movies in my Netflix queue for the past 3 years. It's usually a little over a year from the time I add one until I actually get to watch it.

Only 5 of the hundreds of disks I rented from Netflix in the last year were new releases. 3 of the 8 new releases I watched I rented from the local Blockbuster because I didn’t want to wait for Netflix to ship them because there was a wait. Since I wait for months after the theatrical release to see a movie anyway, waiting another lunar month isn’t going to kill me.

What’s bothersome to me is that some companies are shipping “watered down” versions of the movies to the rental places. If part of the agreement it to also eliminate that (hope it is) then I don‘t mind it so much. Though on general principle and following the slippery slope argument I don’t like this at all. What’s next?

Ever use the "move to top of queue" feature? I have only about 10-20 movies in my queue at a time, and at least half of them have been on there for 6-8 months because I keep moving other stuff to the top. I guess I really don't want to see some of them that bad.

OH, just read the part about how this could lead to more instant streaming availability. If that is indeed the case I think it won't be half bad. But if i don't see a noticeable increase in quality streaming releases out of the deal I might be one of many members who cancel their service.

Yes, but rarely. I guess I must of put them there for a reason (a year ago), so I just watch them all in-line. I did top of queue for the latest animation movie (pre-quel) that Dean mentioned. Something about paper, don't remember the name.

“R.O.D the TV?” It’s the prequel/sequel to “Read of Die” a stand alone movie. It covers the time span the movie falls in though both are stand alone stories.

Yeah. "Read or Die" the movie. I just got an e-mail notification that Netflix has sent it.