Dopers - how do you like the movie and TV show streaming? How’s it rank vis a vis Netflix?
If I just use the Kindle app (and not a Fire) do I still get a free book every month as a Prime member?
The Amazon site has proven to be a little lite on details…
Netflix has substantially more content, but since there is a lot of stuff only on one service it is probably worth it to have both.
The following statement is a couple years old, so it is possible the policy has changed:
“Certainly, the addition of e-book rentals makes Amazon Prime an enticing service, but take note of the fine print, as reported by the Wall Street Journal: The service is not available through Kindle apps on non-Amazon devices, so you can’t read lent e-books on iPhones, iPads or Android devices. Amazon hopes the lending service will drive people to its Kindle e-readers and upcoming Kindle Fire tablet.”
Our driving reason to get Prime was to get two tv shows, and the shipping was a secondary consideration. We don’t find much on video these days, but the shipping is awesome.
Funny, ours is the reverse. We ship so much from Amazon that it was a money-saving and time-saving deal for us…but the video streaming has been an unexpected bonus, since it supplements our Netflix streaming.
Since this isn’t about content, but access to content, moved to IMHO (from Cafe Society).
other than a few headliner titles, the amazon ebook lending service is pretty much dominated by garbage. Now that I’ve exhausted The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, it takes fairly diligent searching to find something to borrow. 99% of the available titles are C-list, at best.
In terms of streaming video, compared to Netflix their content is similar but not the same. I do watch Amazon prime video moderately often, and find things I like that aren’t available on Netflix.
QFT. I browsed the Kindle lending library last night, and even when I narrowed the search to “classic literary fiction”, I was seeing chicklit, and it wasn’t even what I’ve seen recommended as good chicklit. I bet I looked at 500 “classic” titles and the only authors I’d heard of were Vonnegut and Hosseini. It was almost all romance.
Although I’ve found two in the KLL that I do like – Lee Goldberg (who wrote for Monk) and Christine McKenna.
I was a bit disappointed last week with Amazon streaming. I watched the 3 free episodes of ‘Alpha Male’ and, I guess, because I selected to watch in HD (these episodes were supposed to be free for everyone) I had to enter my pin code once for each episode. I use Roku and entering anything is kinda non-trivial.
Following that, I watched some stuff on Netflix (again using Roku) and did not have to enter a single code (just select the show and press play).
I have not tried watching Amazon streaming any other way so I can’t say how it works there, and I wouldn’t watch on my PC (that’s why I have a 60" TV).
Amazon needs to make the access easier for free episodes (I have already signed in as a member when I get to this point), at least on Roku.
Bob
I subscribed years ago to Prime for the free 2-day shipping, and have been very happy with that. Lately they have started restricting the free shipping on cheap items, so I can’t get a $2 bottle of blinker fluid shipped free on a whim; you can only get some of those small cheap items shipped free with a larger order. It’s too bad but I understand why they needed to change it; they were probably losing money on those transactions.
As far as the video, not as good as Netflix streaming and there is quite a bit of overlap (Avengers, Hunger Games, etc.) but there are a lot of TV shows and older movies. I find that I have plenty to watch. You can browse the Amazon website to see what Prime video they have. A few examples of things Amazon Prime has that Netflix doesn’t are Galaxy Quest, Comedy Central Presents (standup), and Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes (Netflix has 3 now, they didn’t have any for a while, they used to have a lot.)
I can almost always find something decent to watch. Lately I’ve watched:
First 5 seasons of Son’s of Anarchy
First 3 or 4 seasons of Justified
First season of American Horror Story
Seasons 1 and 4 of Tosh.O
X files
Random stand up comedy from Comedy Central
Lots of good older movies.
A few decent newer movies (watched Flight this weekend).
One thing to keep in mind with Amazon streaming: They have it working on the PC, they have it working on the iPad/iPhone, and they have it working on the Kindle Fire, but they ain’t doing squat to bring it to any other android device. Which is annoying as all hell when you wanna watch it on your android tablet or phone.
They also have it on Roku and pretty much every smart TV or Blu-Ray player. For me, 99% of my TV and movie watching is at home. I can’t think of any time in the last year where I’d want or need to watch a show or movie on my tablet. I don’t have cable so if I’m at a hotel or something I’ll watch cable and remind myself why I don’t pay for that crap.
Netflix has a better selection, it is better organized and thus far easier to browse. Amazon is actually a little hard to use and works on far less appliances. On the other hand the years cost is lower and includes that wonderful free 2 day shipping on most Amazon orders.
I have both this year and I am not sure what I’ll do for next year. I am leaning towards dropping Netflix until May as we have enough shows to watch currently. So I would do Amazon for the entire year and Netflix for maybe 6 months.
I’ve got a 24 meg VDSL line, and Netflix streams HD flawlessly, but on the same device (a Panasonic Bluray player) I’m lucky to get ten minutes into something before Amazon starts stuttering, freezing, and eventually failing entirely. If I’m really lucky, it’ll give me the option to carry on in standard def, but mostly it’s unusable for me. Maybe it would be better if there was a way to tell it to play standard def from the start.
I get enough value out Prime’s shipping that I don’t care if the video service exists or not.
I’ve recently dropped cable and am finding myself leaning on Amazon to keep up with the new shows I can no longer get on cable.
So I’ve been catching all the newest episodes of Walking Dead and Son’s of Anarchy. I wish I would have known I could do that before I decided to down load that stupid Itunes player.
There are times where something is available on Amazon that is not on Netflix. It may or may not be free at Amazon - their Prime Instant Video is fairly limited, in my experience. It’s rare that there is something available on Netflix that is not available at ALL on Amazon (either via Prime, or paid).
As I think others have said already (haven’t read the entire thread), the book-borrowing is only if you own an actual Kindle, not just the app. If you’re using that as part of the criteria in deciding which e-reader to buy, don’t - the selection with that is fairly limited as well. Very few books that I’m interested in reading are available to borrow.
After I realized that I had spent over $100 buying tv shows in less than four months on Amazon, it was a no-brainer to pay the $79/year to upgrade to Prime! I also love the FREE 2-day Shipping on almost everything I buy on Amazon.
The streaming video on Amazon works flawlessly with the Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) feature on my laptop. I stream the video content to my system but it plays on my 32" LG 1080p HDTV (unless I choose to watch it on my 14" 1600x900 laptop display).
I am currently watching “The West Wing” which is one of those amazing tv series that I somehow missed when it was on the air!?!? I’m almost finished with Season 2 and have four more to go.
I also re-watched the last few seasons of “The Closer”, the final two seasons of “24” and the brief 10-episode run of “GCB” (Good Christian Bitches) recently! 