So what did you do, streaming only, DVD+streaming or ditched 'em altogether?

We ditched the DVD+streaming and went with streaming only.

Just curious.

I reduced to 2 DVD+streaming. I may cancel DVD at this point, but they still have stuff I want to watch only on DVD.

I'm with Ken. But I feel bad about it.

Until somebody else can provide Netflix-comparable selection available over EITHER streaming OR disc, I'm kinda screwed.

I'm thinking about Blockbuster for discs, though. We still have one locally.

I wanted to like/use the Amazon streaming, but it appears to not really work on very many devices (I don't want to use a PC in the living room any more).

How is the streaming? Isn't it still just 2 channel?

We went with just streaming. If we want a disc we use Red Box.

we're either going to dump netflix altogether or drop down to one disc and streaming. not happy about the split personalities, er, bills...

the streaming is poor quality and for the price, we could buy a multi-disc set once a month since that's all we seem to get to any more.

So.....streaming is still 2 channel or no?

I have become a bit of an audio snob since purchasing excellent speakers, you know.

Playstion 3 offers some 5.1 selections for netflix. audio quality is not spectacular though.

I gave up and quit. I wanted BR and streaming but prices went up 40% for me. We have some Red Boxes around work and a Blockbuster nearby, so I have that in a pinch. Also, I have Amazon Prime so my Roku does that too.

I just dumped the 1 DVD + BD unlimited and went with just the unlimited streaming. I’m constantly watching steaming anime series which just works so much better for me than waiting on disks, disks not being available at all, or ripping them to my computer. I’ll put the savings toward my high speed internet connection since it not only serves more purposes but also lets me watch streaming in HD which makes a huge difference on my big screen.

I may reinstate the disc rental from time-to-time once enough new BD movies come out I want to see or for game rentals since they day that they’re going to be doing that to, though I will look around for less expensive options for both.

The sooner we cancel our DVD rental plans, the sooner everything will be available on streaming. At least, that's how it works in Ideal Land.

I won't consider any streaming until the audio is improved.

I ditched them altogether. My family was watching less and less DVDs and we decided after the price increase that we could just use the occasional pay per view on U-verse if we got the urge.

We don't have internet at home, so I was happy to save money by switching to 3 DVD + Blu-ray without streaming.

<dueling banjos>

Same here, audio has to be improved before I get streaming again, or prices have to drop for places like VUDU. Also, my internet connection is a tad too slow, during peak hours.

Yeah, I knew that'd get your attention.

Attention, shock and pity.

You can come to my house and use my FiOS. Maybe.

Good lord, JP, I didn't know you were Amish.

I kept the 3 disk plan and cancelled streaming. I have Amazon Prime for my occasional streaming needs. I want to drop the DVDs for Redbox, but Netflix has too many older films I still like to watch.

I believe you can get surround with a newer device, Xbox360 say; I'm using an older Roku box and only get stereo.

I'll have to look into Amazon Prime.

Yeah, I want you guys to tell me more about the selection at Amazon Prime. It would still require I get a Roku box or something, but I would like to punish Netflix if I can still get access to what I want.

I think the Roku will do the Amazon. I'll check it out tonight, perhaps. Or perhaps not. The moving boxes, they call to me...

Yeah, Ken, I was looking at the Amazon compatible devices list, and the Roku seemed to be about the minimum buy-in; I don't currently own ANYTHING on their list (except a PC), which seems like a really lost opportunity. Netflix is killing on the streaming because they are on ALL the devices and they have the best selection.

What kills me is that my Roku, although it has all the outputs in the world on it and the software says it will do 5.1, will not get 5.1 from Netflix. At least I get HD out of it, which is pretty awesome.

Here's an interesting article that may add fuel to the fire regarding the Netflix vs Amazon streaming...Netflix To Sell Streaming Biz To Amazon

That said, I'm finding that the savings from the free two day shipping alone has already paid for my $79 annual Prime fee.

Tom, I was drinking water. Now who's going to help me clean all this up?!!?

I decided to back off 3+ BD DVD and streaming to simply 2+ BD DVD. To be far, this decision is colored by the fact that we have a Netflix DVD Depot (or what ever they call the thing) 9 miles from where I am typing this, so turnaround is pretty much quicker than driving to the Red Box.

The whole steaming thing, regardless of where it comes from and how it gets to my TVs is just subpar anyhow. Not sure why you would want to offer a mediocre streaming product and then stick a finger in that poor customer's eye with an immense price increase.

Tom, the incredibly forward thinking displayed by Netflix pretty much precludes your need to crush their gonads in retaliation. Their decision making skills clearly has them on a going out of business strategy anyhow and they will disappear before your stomping boots arrive.

Ray, we ALSO have a Netflix depot basically in our zip code. I can't remember it ever taking more than two days to get the next disk.

I don't understand the lack of love for the streaming. Everyone in our family uses it pretty regularly (via Wii, Samsung BD or XBox) and I have found the experience to be really outstanding. We almost always get HD and I can't remember the last time we had any drop outs or rebuffering.

That article Rick linked to was a revelation. I had always assumed that the goal was to sell the DVD part and keep the streaming. FOR EITHER THING, I would love to see some competition.

I'm an Audio Snob and I have been sober 3 days.

Well, there's your problem.

The Snober or the Sober?

Rob, I TOTALLY understand your discontent with the audio of the streaming. Since I watch mostly TV episodes, it doesn't tend to bother me that much. Plus, if you slap some Mego DPLXII Turbo (tm) processing on there, it's not horrible. If I was streaming mostly movies where I expected the full cinema experience, I would certainly be less whelmed.

Prolly should have spelled it Snobber - it just kinda went with a play on Sober. I did watch some of the new shows "on demand" as opposed to live using PLIIX on the Yamaha and got some decent separation and bass. I just like the movies/DVD/Blu to be the 5.1.

Like Tom I almost exclusively watch TV series on Netflix, in my case it’s mostly anime and the convinence of being able to stream episodes compared to when I had to order, wait for and rip all the disks just so I could make sure I was able to watch the whole series without interruption is much better than disks. I also agree that considering the source apply DSP give me a fine presentation considering the source, though I would never want to watch a mainstream action movie that way.

For what little regular TV programing I watch it comes from Amazon (I order more than enough to justify having prime) and Hulu.

Rats. We've got prime, but I didn't figure we needed the streaming, so I had my wife go ahead and get the Mom Prime this year, which was much cheaper (free?) but doesn't include the streaming. Ah well, we're probably not likely to give up Netflix just yet.

We should develop our own "Streaming 5.1 or 7.1" service. Target the snob market and charge through the nose for the service. It'll work until someone knocks it off for nothing. By that time, we'll all be fabulously wealthy.

I love Netflix streaming. I like to browse the selections and pick out movies I would not bother renting on DVD. If I don't like it, I move onto the next without feeling I've wasted my money. Normally, the movies I watch wouldn't require 5.1 audio anyway, so that's never bothered me much. However, I still think it should become standard if the movie originally has it.

On the amazon.com home page today, new Kindle models are announced, and prices on existing models are lowered. The introductory letter starts:


He's insinuating some other company is in the first camp. Hmmm ... whoever could it be?

hahaha. Good point. I don't dare speak my guess out loud. Customers of said company tend to be a bit defensive. Of course, they were made fun of for years (before it became cool) so one can't blame them too much.

Pretty sure he's not talking about THAT company, Murph. Look at the thread title..

Told ya "They" were defensive. hahahahahah

I just said it was my "guess" not necessarily "The" company they referred to.

It was just an excuse to cause a disturbance.

Look who gets all antagonistic when he hits the moonshine!

d'oh.

Nicely played, Murph.

That's the second time today someone successfully yanked my chain. This does not bode well for my evening...

Wanna go for a hat trick and invite me over for dinner tonight?

Actually, it does, if you know what I mean.

If Ken would stop exposing his chain in public. . . .

EEEEEWWWWW!

I just got this email from Netflix.



It looks like they didn’t do enough market research before rolling out their changes. I sure hope that everyone dumping either disk rental (me), instant watching or both sent them a message.

New Netflix now sits next to New Coke in the marketing hall of infamy.

I would like it if Amazon got their streaming thing together. Not enough devices yet for me (i.e. I don't HAVE any of them except a computer).

Well, get some, Tom....get some.

I still think that the existing Coke we have today is the same as the New Coke they tried to introduce a few years ago. I hated New Coke and I hate todays Coke on an equal leve.

I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't do any research. Ideas or "models" like that get promoted within the corporate walls and take on a life. Even if somebody thinks it is a bonehead plan, they may hesitate to voice their opinion as they are maneuvering through the miasma of office politics.

Speaking of Coke, I found this in that giant cloud out there somewhere. Don't know if it's true or not.

"New Coke was born as a way for Coca Cola to shake off grandfathered deals on the price of syrup to bottlers. Do away with the old formula and make the bottlers negotiate for the new Coke which Coke never intended to keep. As buyers revolted, Coke was "forced" to bring back old Coke which was now a retired formula, so they called it "Coke Classic" and negotiated new syrup deals for bottlers."

The way I heard it was much different. In blind taste tests more people liked Pepsi. So Coke, wanting to have their cake and eat it too, released a cola that tasted like Pepsi. However, even though people were liking Pepsi better (by a slim margin), they *really* wanted Coke to taste like Coke and revolted.

When taking one or two sips, most people prefer Pepsi, but when given a whole serving, Coke wins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Challenge#Criticisms

This seems to be based on very old taste tests. Couldn't determine the exact year by reading the article. I'm also not sure which year Coke changed from using sugar to high fructose corn syurp. But, I'd be willing to bet that they changed more than just which sugar they use.

I still say that a Coke today tastes radically different than a Coke from the 1960's and before.

Exercept from Life's little mysteries

Quote: "For one thing, The Coca-Cola Company has used high-fructose corn syrup rather than sugar in the American version of its soft drink since 1985. That was the year it scrapped the "New Coke" formula— which spent only a few months on the market after the company was flooded by consumer protests — and reverted to a recipe similar to the one it had used up until 1985 (except switching the sweetener to corn syrup).

According to Pendergrast, current Coca-Cola Classic is also made with phosphoric acid instead of citric acid – another change not reflected in the leaked recipe. Small tweaks, yes, but they produce a drink that isn't quite right by today's standards." End quote.

It looks like Coca-Cola changed the formula of Classic Coke at the same time they re-instated in back in 1985. Notice the last sentence, "Small tweaks, yes, but they produce a drink that isn't quite right by today's standards."

If you want the good stuff, get Mexican Coke. They still use sugar. By contrast, Salvadoran (I think) Coke uses corn syrup, much to my dismay after ordering a $1.50 bottle at a restaurant the other night.

Not as bad as ALL DIET SODAS, though.

Agreed. And there is something about the lovely aluminum taste of a Coke Classic out of a can.

Just picked up a case of Mexican Coke at Costco today. $17.99 for 24 of the 12 oz glass-bottled goodness. I'm going to stash half the Coke at work and enjoy the rest of my Coke at home.

Does this make me a Coke addict?

Supposition: Mexican Coke is almost as good as Texas Dr. Pepper.

Discuss.

First order of discussion: a tangent to Dr. Pepper TEN. Sounds interesting. Not for women, though. Sorry, Amie and Mary.

Maybe it’s just me but I drank Dr. Pepper for years and then switched to Diet DP and couldn’t tell any difference in the taste at all unlike any other diet soda I’ve tried.

BTW Doc I thought you were posting a link to a really hot “TEN” babe, sort of false advertising if you ask me.

Out of spite, I will drink Dr. Pepper Ten! Is it wimpy for men to drink diet sodas or something? Are the cans too feminine looking that they must market a diet equivalent to men? I noticed such an effect in Brazil...women mostly drank Coke Light (which is like Diet Coke here) and men preferred Coke Zero. I buy diet sodas based on taste, but it seemed weird how you never saw a man holding a Coke Light can there. Do men just like the taste of Coke Zero better or does it seem wimpy drinking a Coke Light or Diet Coke? They don't even sell Coke Light there anymore. There must be more men in Brazil than women.

Real men only drink Classic Coke from Mexico, with sugar.

Real men don't diet...

I work with plenty of guys who drink diet soft drinks. I've never liked the taste of them, but I haven't tried all of them, either. I tend to just drink water, but if I'm going to have a soda, I'm having the real thing. Mary, I've known some people who prefer the taste of diet sodas, so I see where you're coming from.

I actually like the taste of diet Pepsi, but the aspartame does funny things to my brain.

Yes,aspartame stays in your body. So no diet Coke or anything else for me. The original Coke with my Rum.

edit: sorry, forgot to say "please"

As a diabetic, I should ONLY have diet soda to avoid the sugar. Of course, water would be better for me....

I had a chance to work for Coke International one time. Toured the facility in Atlanta. I turned it down though - Mainly cuz I would not be able to drink Dr. Pepper for lunch. You can get anything to drink free out of the vending area as long as it is Coke or Dasani......

Mmm, Atlanta municipal water...

Long story but it's time we snuck beer into play in this derailment as well.

Re. cans vs. bottles.
I toured a Pepsi plant here once and I asked if I was crazy thinking that small glass bottles tasted best and that the large plastic bottles seemed flatter. They explained to me that the container actually plays a big part in taste. They have to modify the level of carbonation to suit the container and that can mean playing with the recipe in the larger degrees. Although, just changing carbonation levels does noticeably effect flavor, even without a recipe change.

They were moving away from glass bottles at the time and had to significantly change the recipe as the glass could hold a lot more C02 safely than plastic. Cans could hold lots of C02 but he admitted the metallic taste does bleed into the product. He finished with "People like their bubbles."

Somewhat in argument to the "bubbles are good" concept, during my OH SO surprisingly convenient CSE conference that allowed me to visit Axiom during their 30 birthday celebrations, I attended a conference dinner hosted by a celebrity beer taster/expert. We spent the evening eating and following his entertaining directions as he explained the finer points of all the various varieties and styles of beer.

More to the point.. Sometime during the evening, he had us open a bottle, pour half the bottle into a glass and take a sip or two. Then he asked how many people took the time to carefully achieve the perfect pour? In other words, very little foam.

Then he asked us to take the remaining half and dump it into another glass as fast as we could manage without spillage. We let the copious amount of foam disperse and took another drink. The result was surprisingly different and the almost 100% majority preferred the taste of the quickly poured beer.

He explained that C02 is definitely not a tasteless gas and as demonstrated it's actually less than pleasant. I now make a point to pour my beers quickly, a half a bottle at a time to enjoy more of the beer and less of the C02 taste. Not that I'm a stickler though. Pass me a bottle, out on a hot deck with no glass. I have no second thoughts about enjoying it as is.

So, your saying, for the best tasting beer, to pour it fast into a glass and let it foam up big time, then wait until all the foam has gone away before drinking it?

Funny, I'm the opposite. I don't like beers with big heads, etc...as they always taste flat to me.

I don't claim to be a beer connoisseur, though.

To Cat
The foam level depends on your patience. But yes, the concept is to remove some of the C02 and you will have a less bitter beer.

To Mark
I'm a convert on the beer side but admittedly, I'm one of the people who was sad to see the glass Pepsi bottle go because I thought the 300ml glass bottles were my favorite and it had the most bubbles of all. However, there was a big recipe change too when they abandoned glass although he would not tell me more the details. I'm guessing sugar was probably modified for sure.

I've pretty much given up drinking soda. I hate the changed flavors. I hate artificial sweeteners. I need to consume less sweets. I've also slowed way down on beer. I don't like lite beers. I need to lose some weight. I have increased my wine intake. Mostly the cheaper and sweeter wines. I don't know what this is going to do to my weight gain/loss scenario yet. So, far I'm slowly gaining, again. Something's gotta change.

(Perhaps I could cut my arms and legs off. That might slow down the weight gain.)

I don't want to sound preachy as I can be just as guilty as most for bad eating/postponing exercise but dieting without exercise is often not successful and results in short term loss at best. Have you managed to break away from that awesome HT setup you have there lately to go with the diet change? I know I didn't kayak for I don't know how many weeks after I got my new gear setup and it started to show.

I do have a terrible time staying away from HT. That's a fact. My main course of exercise is 30 minutes on a tread mill, using 2 fifteen minute programs that force me to sweat it out. My goal is to do this at least every other day, but the past 2 weeks, I've been a slacker. Been sick with a cold this past week. (I know excuses, excuses.) But will soon be back on track for every other day.

That sounds like a wonderful experience, Andy.

It really depends on beer style.

Carbonation level certainly affects your perception of the flavors of beer. I don't think it is accurate to say that there is universal agreement about this concept or the science behind it.

Releasing the carbonation enhances your ability to perceive lots of different compounds, especially aromatics. It also gets rid of the "bite" that excess carbonation can convey (which is often perceived as additional bitterness).

OTOH, most people don't like flat beer, and releasing all/most of the CO2 early in your drinking experience isn't really conducive to enjoying the entire beverage.

Yes, you *should* pour your beer in a glass if you want to taste it. That's why most Corona is drank directly from the bottle. You guys already know that a huge portion of your perception of flavor comes from what you smell, and it's pretty hard to get a good sniff of something still contained in a bottle or a can.

However, to assert that - for ALL styles - you should effect a vigorous pour is to oversimplify not only the process, but also the tremendous variation of flavors and styles available. Not all beers present the same levels of sweetness, bitterness, etc. Not all beers are designed with the same level of carbonation, and you see style-specific glassware all over the world that relates NOT just to branding, but also to how the brewer thinks the beer is best experienced. And temperature also plays a part into not only perception of the flavors, but also the effectiveness of the carbonation or its release.

What any of this has to do with those robber-baron, rat-bastards at Netflix, I'm not sure.

If we all drank more beer, we couldn't care less about NetFlix...

Problem is - in this value-oriented community - Netflix is probably quite a bit cheaper than beer in terms of $ per entertainment hour.

To Murph,
Kudos to an expert derailer. Well played.

Agreed! Beer is often a great derailer in my experience!

Now considering dumping Netflix altogether.

For a long time they have been adding more anime series to Instant Watch. Well now the dirty rat bastartards have pulled a couple later seasons of shows I had in my Queue and put them back on DVD only. So instead of being able to watch the whole series on Instant Watch now only the first season (s) or so are on Instant Watch and the later/last one (s) are DVD only.

Plus there was no notification in my Queue the ones switched to DVD only, they just disappeared.

Now I have read that some content providers are actually the ones screwing Netfix by only authorizing them to release certain seasons of shows or restricting certain episodes to DVD or not even releasing them to Netflix so you have to buy part or all of the series on DVD/BD to get the missing episodes.

So much for my attempt to do things legit, may be back to P2P again.

Dean we dropped Netflix altogether last week, the time spent watching anything Netflix vs the monthly fee (however low it may be) was just not adding up.

We also canceled the streaming as of today. No more Netflix here.

I plan on keeping Netflix dvd/br until the next price increase. I get things delivered that I can't get on streaming nor in the redboxes, etc, so to me it's still worth it. But I'd have to rethink it if the price was to increase furthur for 2 at a time. I doubt I'd do 1 at a time, but I might.

I’ve actually been watching a lot of Netflix streaming anime because I’ve had a super fast internet connection at a very low intro price for the last 6 months but now with that about to go up from the $20s to about $120 it’s just not worth keeping which means nothing I watch on Netflix will be in HD anymore and most of the SD stuff looks like crap on my big screen.

I hear ya Dean, SD on a larger screen is sometimes not a very good combination.

At all.