Netflix - Not bad! Qwikster - uh, never mind...

though i haven't used the netflix dvd service since 2010 so i'm part of the problem, and my issues with digital rental are as tied up in the nature of region-oriented legal rights, artificial scarcity, blah blah blah as much as they are with streaming itself, though i think they're all interrelated systems that i am personally victimized by, keeping me from watching splatter: naked blood with ease or keeping any number of cheap '80s horror films that have been recently remastered by arrow/vinegar syndrome with a poorly-transferred DVD/VHS rip as their primary digital versions

xxp

I don't want to harangue companies for elevating obscure trash to a certain level of quality but there are a lot of films I used to see in the past for really cheap which are now released in these exorbitant special editions and honestly I just can't afford them

Yes, there's far more films on my watchlist that aren't streaming anywhere than are. Otoh there's always piracy - at the end of the day it's not like you're giving the artists much money anyway when you're streaming some 80's Hong Kong joint.

Maybe the cousin to the new vinyl reissue movement where dollar bin records are now repressed in these $36 editions and what it winds up doing is escalating the prices of those $1 records along with them

The boutique blu ray market is prob as great as it's ever been but yeah you gotta be a Soldier of Cinema, pre order because it's gonna sell out, deal with exorbitant prices.

I'd argue the upgrade in terms of quality from dollar bin DVD to blu is usually a lot more clear than a lot if those vinyl reissues. Also the extras clearly much better value than with vinyl where half of the time they don't even throw in some new liner notes.

Yeah I mean one can't really compare arrow/shout factory to plain recordings or whatever, the former really do the work. I guess the similarity is where media becomes a boutique market and less accessible financially.

it's kind of astonishing how long their DVD mailing service lasted, considering they de-branded it, didn't promote it and basically tried to suppress all knowledge of it

It must've been somewhat profitable for them to keep it going into the 2020's

Well, they killed off all their rental competition, aside from Redbox (which is long ke barely going rn, and only really had an edge on new releases anyway).

I still watch as many films on DVD as on streaming services. I am lucky to have a decent public library in my city, which is linked to a huge network of other libraries throughout the metro area. As long as one of the linked libraries has a title (and they rarely come up empty no matter how obscure my request is) I can have it delivered to my local within a few days.

It's sad because to me this was something the Internet _got right_

I still miss the days of being subscribed to the DVD service, I was still office-bound so I'd just take the envelope into the office and fly through dvds every week. granted, I'm sure based on the comments above that the inventory got massively shitty, but it was pretty good when this thread was new.

digital Netflix is a Cyclopean chasm of boredom rn.

everything's a damn Netflix original and it either stars Adam Sandler or some guy who played Cocaine Dealer #3 on C.H.I.P.S as the star

and right now there are a grand total of 36 films from before 1980 that are available to stream

jesus

At this moment, Netflix is streaming about 3800 films - less than half of what the average Blockbuster used to carry.

As for films made before 1990? Only 79 titles are currently streaming. If we go to 1980 or earlier, that drops to 36 (!)

✨PHYSICAL MEDIA STILL MATTERS✨

— Kate Hagen (@thathagengrrl) April 18, 2023

out of all streaming services, I think I use Netflix least of all, I keep it purely for my folks. right now most of their investment seems to be in standup

I am lucky to have a decent public library in my city, which is linked to a huge network of other libraries throughout the metro area. As long as one of the linked libraries has a title (and they rarely come up empty no matter how obscure my request is) I can have it delivered to my local within a few days.

― henry s

this is what i also do but there's lots of stuff nypl doesn't have and many of the dvd's are trashed and won't play through. anything the least bit kid-friendly is basically a shiny frisbee.

one single non-profit indie video store in Baltimore has 8x as many films as Netflix

Just last week I got two DVDs from Netflix because no county library branch or my uni library carried them. This sucks.

🏴‍☠️

I am really sorry to hear the announcement of the discontinuation of Netflix's DVD rental service. In the 9 years since I started subscribing I've rented and watched close to 2400 movies. Not only has it been great for accessing classic films, but the whole concept of the queue, which allows you to program a rotating list of multiple directors' films to watch in chronological order, has been really great. It has been an education

I like looking at the history of all of the films I have rented over the years, it's my version of the thread here where everyone posts the films they have recently seen to make a record. I still have close to 500 films in my queue, so I know I have to trim it down to some I really want to watch and some I know I'll never otherwise see after Sep 29th

Netflix DVD has been great for recording one's entire film viewing history, the whole thing is there. Letterboxd seems paltry in comparison. I guess I will have to privately note my own viewing experiences from now on. The Last (x) movies you saw (II) thread - what is that about? - are you all intending that as a place for you to look back on and remember and document your experiences, or is it just a vehicle for conversation? I have never really understood it

I've kept a list since 1992, which I migrated to Letterboxd 10 years ago. Sometimes I'd forget to log something, though, and Netflix rental history was a useful backup.

end of an era

Our last-ever day of shipping out the red envelopes is getting close. You have 40 more days to enjoy your DVD Netflix membership before we send out our final shipments on September 29th. Here are a few ways you can make the most of this final season:
Move must-watch titles to the top of your queue, to increase your chances of receiving them. We’ve also added a handy "move streamable titles to the bottom" option to help you make sure each red envelope counts! (Note that if your queue has no streamable titles, this option won’t be shown.)
Your data will be available until October 27th, so be sure to download a keepsake PDF of your queue, rental history, ratings, and reviews here. Plus, due to popular request, we’ve added the option to download in CSV format!
The last day to change your plan is August 28th. If you’d like to get more discs, browse our plans here.
As a reminder, September 29th is definitely our last day of shipping. Naturally, we hope everyone successfully receives their last shipments – however, in the event that a disc gets damaged or lost in the mail, we will unfortunately not be able to ship you a replacement after September 29th.
We truly appreciate you being part of our final season. Thank you for welcoming our iconic red envelopes into your homes for 25 years. Any further questions? See our FAQ.
—The Netflix DVD team

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/netflix-dvds-mail-ending/675204/

The real reason I stuck it out was the queue. Netflix allows DVD subscribers to save titles to a list of films, which are then sent in the order in which you added them. I’ve grown very attached to this system, and I’m not looking forward to its disappearance. At one point, I had more than 200 movies in my queue—years’ worth of viewing, especially after I switched from three discs at a time to one. Even as I started adding more streaming to my movie diet, I kept one strict rule: If there was a new DVD waiting for me from Netflix, I had to watch that first. Long day at work and not really in an Ingmar Bergman mood? Too bad, buddy. You-from-eight-months-ago thought you should watch The Silence, so that’s what you’re watching.

Got billed yesterday. The one nice part about losing the disc service is now I'm paying them like 55% less a month until I saw 'fuck it' and cancel.

The post office lost one of the discs I sent back on Tuesday, and Netflix has already disabled the customer service arm of DVD.com, so I'm being shorted a disc in my final delivery. All in all, a perfect way to close this thing out.

Great work everyone!

I don't know why they don't just let everyone keep their final selections, but I guess they don't technically own the discs? Like they're just licensing them from the distributors/studios or something.. so they'll all end up in a landfill I imagine

They are letting people keep their absolute final selections, I'm just getting jipped out of one because of the post office.

If you signed up for it, you could also get ten random discs to keep on top of that.

I don't think the word gets better to use if you spell it differently btw

We lost disc service for this?

https://netflixtoken.io/

Is this 2022?