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

There are quite a lot of good newer movies to stream though. The only gap is Hollywood films as far as I can tell and not to get all Morbs, but really who cares?

I kind of like the limited selection that the watch instantly feature has - it's forced me to finally check out a lot of stuff I've been postponing: the Up series (which is pretty awesome to watch over the course of a few days), Carnival of Souls, lots of stuff from the 30's/40's. And it's nice to have all 3 seasons of 30 Rock on hand when I get bored.

not surprisingly my high rating of andrei rublev has me on the "critically acclaimed cerebral foreign" list. they are also suggesting "dark dramas" because i like lars von trier.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/10/nyregion/20100110-netflix-map.html

Looking at the Chicago map, it's kind of hilarious to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Rachel Getting Married being rented most often along the affluent North Shore, and Marley and Me doing much better in the suburbs than in the city.

hilarious or expected?

Hilarious b/c it's expected.

I love Netflix on demand so much, although it has led to me watching way too much Doctor Who.

Just got this, starting off with father ted and only fools and horses

the LA one is making me sad. Can't someone in Compton rent Vicky Cristina Barcelona? Can't someone in West Hollywood see a Tyler Perry joint?

would love to see the maps around the time that Crash came out

<3 <3 <3 netflix for streaming L&O SVU

my nerdy roommate pointed out that the highest frequency "coraline" rentals in boston pretty much lined up with the red line, where many nerds live.

Hilarious b/c it's expected.

Yeah, hilarious like Milk doing well in the gay urban cores and Bedtime Stories doing well in the child-bearing suburbs.

Their streaming selection is much improved from the last time I looked! Just watched La Grande Illusion.

there's a ton of good stuff! I watched Claire Denis "L'intrus" yesterday <3<3<3.. in the middle of Chéreau's "Gabrielle" right now & am reserving judgment for the moment

"La regle du jeu" is on streaming as well btw

Just starting Dreyer's Vampyr now.

in the middle of Chéreau's "Gabrielle" right now & am reserving judgment for the moment

have been dithering over seeing gabrielle so if you want to add to the chorus please recommend/badmouth

i voted it number one in the films of the 2000s poll. it's a masterpiece. utterly unique and magnificent.

I am getting sick of seeing 'very long wait' for every new movie that comes out. I expect it with huge blockbusters, but even Black Dynamite is showing that to me. This didn't used to happen, and I've been a subscriber for years, and am always quick to return movies, so I don't really get why it's so bad right now. Anyone else think this is worse than it has been?

Yes, started in December for whatever reason. This, combined with their blu-ray premium, their delay of new warners discs, and 15 out of 20 blu-rays being cracked, drove me at least temporarily into the dying arms of Blockbuster. I'm having fun with in store exchanges but I don't think the store is going to be around for much longer. The main downsides to the switch are that Blockbuster shipping turnaround is about a day slower, no console streaming and a few titles aren't available on Blu-ray. Blockbuster also lists many new titles as short or long waits, but they seem to ship faster anyway.

Apparently, all the cracked discs are due to the post office running them through machines. When they get enough complaints, they dispatch a fixer to the branch in question. This seems to be a bigger problem for more fragile blu-ray discs. It's worth noting that I've had nothing cracked from Blockbuster.

I'm really annoyed because I've loved Netflix for so long and recommended them to everyone, but it seems like they've lost their way lately on some pretty critical things.

been seeing the 'very long wait' more and more but it doesn't really bother me, Netflix still beats anything else i'd be doing to get the same fix. only bummer is sometimes by the time i get around to renting a new release it's already playing on HBO or whatever and i feel like it was a waste of a rental.

on my local rental charts, the top 5 horror movies include all 3 Underworld movies. I do not know why that is.

Yes, the streaming capability is one reason I don't just dump them. I feel kind of like I helped make Netflix a monopoly (at least for mail-order movie rentals), and now that it is one, it's getting shitty and there's nothing I can do about it other than "boycott" it by canceling. And then I start thinking... I guess it's not that big a deal if I have to wait a few weeks to see a new movie. It's not just new movies, though. I wanted to watch 'Damages', and for some reason disc 1 of season 1 is 'short wait'.

I hope in a few years, subscription-based streaming services will rule the day. The concept of having to deal with having hard copies of movies or music seems old-fashioned.

seems to me that its most very long wait on new releases, which are always the easiest to torrent? i do fine by torrenting the newest stuff and using netflix for slightly older/more difficult-to-find movies

obv thats not a 'legal' solution but

def. agree that streaming would be my choice for the way of the future. id probably pay the $8/mo im paying right now just for the streaming service without the DVD portion.

thing about torrents is I'd rather watch new movies on my tv instead of my computer monitor. I haven't figured out how to stream HD stuff from my PC to the PS3.

u can't do a monitor cable straight into the TV?

For brand new movies you have to make sure that you have return a movie on the Saturday before the movie's release date. In most cases I will get new releases on the Tuesday they come out if I have an next available movie spot on Monday morning. But yeah sometimes its just a forever wait (Paranormal Activity has been at VERY LONG WAIT since it came out.)

thing about torrents is I'd rather watch new movies on my tv instead of my computer monitor. I haven't figured out how to stream HD stuff from my PC to the PS3.

http://tversity.com/

every torrent i've ever seen looks like garbage and most people watch them on their retarded computer screens. not paying the competley tiny and fair amount of money it takes to have a netflix account is some true savagery imo

hey whiney

not sure who youre arguing with

but im glad you feel passionately about something

I've tried tversity and the windows 7 media server, and it's choppy as fuck. I think it's because Wi-Fi is the only way my PS3 can talk to my PC (my PC is in the other room, and it's not worth moving the whole thing). I've also tried using my laptop to connect directly, but couldn't get it to look right (probably due to super shitty video card in laptop).

Alex, that's a good tip - I'll give that a shot next time. I just want to see Zombieland, dammit. It's been sitting at the top of my queue since it came out.

I got annoyed with occasional wifi (old airport express) choppiness and just use a thumb drive. Make a root level folder called VIDEO and the PS3 will see it and play almost anything.

Also, I would just torrent everything but I like watching in Blu-ray quality if possible.

I just recently got my PC video card plugged into my TV and have been watching some movies off my Watch Instantly queue. There's enough stuff on there to keep me busy for a while, but I'm starting to wonder if they will ever manage to expand the list of streaming movies in a truly meaningful way.

hi-def torrents arent too hard to find, especially for big h'wood movies! theyre much larger files, granted, and my shitty laptop cant play them. but a PS3 could.

Does the amount of wait you have depend on how far up your list it is? I've got some new stuff in the middle of my (60+) list so it's not a high priority, but would you get it sooner if you left it at the top?

You get the first available movie that's in your queue.

HD torrents aren't bad at all, but visibly (and audibly) not as good as a real Blu-ray.

I hope in a few years, subscription-based streaming services will rule the day. The concept of having to deal with having hard copies of movies or music seems old-fashioned.

Anyway, there are some 230 DVDs in my Netflix queue and only three of them are listed as having a short or long wait, and I've had fewer problems lately with damaged discs than in the past. I don't use blu-ray yet, though.

xxp But there must be some way of determining who gets an in-demand dvd. A previous Netflix type service I used a while back would give you priority if you had a sought-after film at the top of your list compared to someone who had it lower down. So I would have thought that it would be some combination of amount of time you've waited for it x priority?

Also, some people are saying that the "long wait" times are due to the holidays (new subscribers etc), but I've never had this problem in all my years as a customer.

xp
Sorry that sounded a bit stupid. What I was wondering is if I could put it at the top of my queue and have the 'wait' time appear shorter just because I wanted it more.

"But there must be some way of determining who gets an in-demand dvd. "

Probably but the logic is probably so arcane that I wouldn't bother stressing about it. How many Very Long Wait movies do you guys have anyway that this is such an enormous issue?

xpost

With Netflix it's supposedly whatever is available when they receive your last envelope. They will mail to you your #1 choice if available. If not then #2, if not then #3. Simple as that.

"What I was wondering is if I could put it at the top of my queue and have the 'wait' time appear shorter just because I wanted it more."

It won't change the "wait" time as posted, but you'll get it sooner cuz it's at the top of your queue!

When I paused my service, 8 of my top 10 were "Very Long Wait". It had been that way since the end of November.

Switching to DVD usually made them slightly less of a wait. However, Blu-ray is pretty much the only reason I'm using a mailing service anyway.