Cancelled my membership because 90% of the DVD’s I was being sent crapped out about half-way through, causing me to have to use the “Instant-Skip” feature on my player, which, in turn caused me to miss a lot of important scenes and dialogue.
Yes, you can re-order the same movie, but what good is that when it only happens again and again?
And it’s not my player. New and my own DVD’s play just fine, and I keep the unit clean.
So has anyone else broken with Netflix for this reason?
Thanks
Q
My Netflix DVDs have played perfect 99% of the time so far. I am surprised by the poor rate and I would still suspect your DVD player. What regional distribution center were your DVDs coming from? Everyone in my region seems happy with Netflix once they try it. I am in central Jersey. I have had more problems with commercial DVDs failing then Netflix DVDs. (they kids seem to wear some out)
Jim
That’s weird. I’ve had a Netflix account for about two months now, and have gone through at least 30 discs, and only one of those has been unplayable. That’s because it was broken in half when it arrived, though.
Is it possible your DVD player is just especially picky when it comes to scratches?
Nope, not at all. I think we’ve only received one movie that was unplayable, in the past year.
We have two DVD players. One will not play anything with any kind of scratch or dust on it. The other has been able to play everything but the copy of The Incredibles we got, that was obviously in the hands of many 5 year olds.
I would also suspect your DVD player. We’ve had Netflix for a year, and go through a lot of movies. When we have had a problem, they’ve sent out new movies as soon as we noted it on our account.
I have been very happy with Netflix, but I do get a lot of disks that freeze halfway through the movie. I found that if I wash the disk most of them will play through with no trouble. I just put the disk under running water and then gently blot dry.
Jim,
They come out of Duluth, Georgia. I have sent Netflix a note with the reason for my dissatisfaction, but they have not replied other than to tell me to send back the one I now have by a certain date, to avoid being charged in full for the disc.
Maybe I’m missing something, but last evening I bought the DVD A Prairie Home Companion new in the box, and it played fine. Netflix’s start to “stutter” and “pixel-up” (my word) about a quarter of the way into the movie, which is annoying as hell.
I have tried to communicate with them before, but if it doesn’t fit the “problem menu”, one doesn’t get an answer.
For me, 3 cracked and one or two with major skippage out of several hundred- not bad considering they are shipped unprotected and subject to poor treatment by Joe Sixpack- my good fortune is probably because most of my choices are classic or foreign films, whose viewers tend to be more respectful of proper DVD handling procedures.
Never had that problem at all. Got one that was broken and one that we had to clean, but that’s two out of a lot of DVDs. And when we got the broken one they sent us a replacement that day, we didn’t have to wait to send it back or anything.
Well, I haven’t considered that it might be my player’s “pickiness” with scratches, but I would expect Netflix to at least do a perfunctory cleaning of each disc before it’s sent back out.
If it is my player’s refusal to play scratchy discs, then that means I would still have to clean the discs myself before playing them, because of the number of them which have the problem.
Either that or get a new player, and why should I do that, when it plays new discs just fine?
We’ve only had two movies not work for us. Both of them were from a Russian miniseries called Brigade. Other than that, we’ve had pretty good luck with them. We watch on average three discs a week and have been doing so for one year.
That is one universal problem, poor customer service. Thankfully my only problem was resolved easily by Email, but not all problems can be. This toll-free number was posted by a board member last year for Netflix: (888) 638-3549. I do not know if you have tried this number.
Netflix discs get a lot of use and abuse. They use a mechanical cleaner from what I can see that might be leaving swirls that your brand of DVD player does not like. Beyond that and the phone number, I have no other advice except to say, I believe your problems are out of the normal.
Good Luck,
Jim
I would say about 30-35% of our Netflix movies freeze up, and it always seems like it’s 3/4 of the way into the movie. It gets annoying sometimes, but usually spraying it with windex and drying it with a paper towel fixes it. Pain in the ass, though
Just chiming in to say you probably have a picky player. I have two DVD players and one of them (a cheapo Apex model from Wal-Mart) will play just about anything, while the other (a brand name model that cost 3x as much) seems to hang up on the slightest scratches.
Oh, and I love Netflix. I haven’t been to a rental store in 3 years.
I find Netflix to be the best service out there. I’ve never gotten a DVD that was unplayable from them. I occasionaly have one skip or freeze up on me. Pulling it out and cleaning them has always corrected the problem for me. Overall I’m very happy with netflicks. I would them to include games and adult movies in there service though. I’ve been very happy with Netflicks recomendations to me. I watch a lot of movies. I cycle through them pretty quickly. Netflicks has always kept me happy.
I tried Blockbuster.com for a while and was disapointed in their recomendation system and their occasional lack of selection. I liked the free in store rentals they offered. It made them worth it for the first 3 or4 months then I found myself hopelessly wandering the isles of the store finding nothing I wanted.
I’m currently on my last leg with intelliflix.com. I signed up for a year service with them. They have been absolutely horrible. It is impossible to predict what they may send me as they rarely send things in order of the queue. I’ve yet to get a game out of them. I’ve received more non-porn movies from their adult movie section then porno’s. I’ve made them very much aware of my complaints. When I requested they cancel my acount after a month they offered me a 60 day free period to change my mind. I’m currently a month into that. I intend to continue with my cancelation as they have not improved any.
I’m willing to try other services but so far netflix has been by far the best. I can’t drop them completely they feed my addiction.
We joined Netflix in December of 2001. We have had one disc come cracked. One disc not play. A couple that were skippish. One lost in the mail that they didn’t charge us for and one we lost which they did.
In 5 years of being their customer, I have seen turn around time slow from a gap of one day (I drop in mail on day one, receive new on day 3) to 2, maybe 3 days on occasion of if theres a weekend or holiday.
I can’t complain. I’m sorry your experience hasn’t been the same. Cancel if you like, but I just can’t believe it’s Netflix and not your player.
I cancelled Netflix for the same reason as you, Quasimodem, and moved to Blockbuster, which has done much better for me in that regard. Unfortunately, the movies are slower with Blockbuster. My Netflix movies came from Worcester, Massachusetts, but I don’t know where the Blockbuster discs come from.
It could be my DVD player, but I’m not going to buy a new one just to keep using Netflix. Also, rental store movies generally work fine in my DVD player, so it can’t be all *that * touchy.
Most mine came from Framingham
I get crappy DVDs from time to time, but if I take them out and clean them, they always work fine afterwards.
I’ve had more than a few arrive broken. However, almost all of them were disks in the various Star Trek series. I’m thinking: 1. These disks get renting fairly frequently, thus they’re in the mail a lot and exposed to the postal service. 2. There are probably a few unscrupulous people who rent a disc they own and have broken and then return the broken one to Netflix, keeping the rented one for themself.
I’ve gotten probably over 200 discs through Netflix, and have had problems with maybe a half dozen or so.