Hi-
my wife and I have been discussing signing up with NetFlix DVD rental service, and wanted to know what you all thought of it. The idea almost seems too good to be true.
Is the turnaround time on DVDs as fast as they claim? Also, are the DVDs just sent first class mail? My wife is especially concerned about what should happen if something got lost in the mail.
Anyway, opinions would be welcome. I am excited by the prospect of being able to see all of those horrible B horror movies and anime that my local store does not stock, but I don’t want to lose my shirt over it.
btw- we are in Arkansas, if that makes a difference.
It’s honestly a little slice of heaven for Mrs. Chastain and me. We’ve found movies you just can’t find at your local Blockbuster, and they come to me, not the other way 'round. It’s fantastic.
I can only speak for myself. Living in Phoenix, if we mail out a movie to Netflix, it’s generally received the next day, and we have the new movie in our queue to us in another day. Of course, I’ve heard there’s a hub in Phoenix, so that turnaround time may increase by a day for other areas. As far as movies getting lost in the mail, I’m sure that happens from time to time, but it’s never happened to us. I imagine you’d simply make a claim, and they’d send you another copy.
Yes, it sounds too good to be true, but it’s true. It is fantastic. The turnaround time, in my experience, is fantastic (1 day each way). $20 a month for basically all the movies you can handle is great. And, even if you only get a movie a week, you’re still OK because you don’t have to drive to the rental store.
Definitely get Netflix, if you like to watch movies at all.
Mrs Magill and I really love our subscription. Turnaround time is about a day or two, and we haven’t had a problem with anything getting lost in the mail, but since their customer service has been outstanding, I don’t see a problem in the future.
The feature I’ve been enjoying is renting series I never caught the first time around. I don’t particularly want to buy a season a Angel to catch the for or five episodes I’ve missed, but I can add the DVD to my list. IMHO, it is well worth the $20/mo.
My friend went absolutely nuts with the NetFlix horror section a couple years ago–anything you want to see, they have. You’ll absolutely love it, and it’s much easier than going to the video store. I would not be at all surprised to hear that Beth had some sort of attack trying to decide what to rent first.
As I recall, turnaround time was only a couple days, and I don’t remember anything getting lost at all … the only customer service problem we had was with canceling the account.
The do send it first class mail. If one gets lost you simply report it lost on their site and they send you another one. You don’t have to pay for replacement but I think they do watch how often things get “lost in the mail” on the way to your house. I’ve used Netflix about a year and in that time I’ve only had 1 disc fail to arrive when expected. It did arrive eventutally – when you report a disc “found” it wipes the “lost” record.
I, too thought there “kust had to be a catch” when I heard about the service. There really isn’t, though.
Another satisfied Netflix customer here. Id’ venture to say that every good thing you hear about Netflix is true. Turnaround time for us is about 2-3 days. Never had a problem with wrong shipments, lost shipments, damaged DVDs, or anything.
Netflix has EVERYTHING. I’ve satisified my Documentary addiction several times over.
I live in a very small city in Georgia and it takes a week for mail to get from my mother in Alabama to me, but Netflix has never taken longer than two days. Very content.
My one beef with Netflix: there’s a section where you can request that they stock certain movies and I’ve written them numerous times for numerous movies (the miniseries COSMOS, J.W.'s Pink Flamingos, many documentaries and foreign flicks), always making sure first that it’s in DVD and even including the ISBN and the price, and they’ve never once added one. However, it’s still like shopping the aisles in the largest video store you can imagine; they have whole categories of movies that wouldn’t even have a single disk at the largest Blockbuster.
Hey Jess! I didn’t know that you hung out here too! hugs from stonebow and FaerieBeth
Well, I think that we’re going to take the plunge and go for it. I like my local place, but we’ve pretty much seen what we’re going to see. I just wanted to make sure we’d not get cheated over this.
BTW, I’ve joined other movies-by-mail services through Blockbuster and Wal-Mart and cancelled both as soon as the free membership was over. Neither was anywhere near as quick and the selection was a fraction of Netflix. (I also joined a- ahem- specialty video service that I cancelled due to incredibly slow service.) Netflix’s empire of distribution centers avoids that.
It’s great. Put the DVD in the mail Monday AM, and the new one is deliverd on Wed. The only complaint I have is that their web site doesn’t give you much help in finding hot new DVDs. I rarely get a suggestion that I want when I explore the various “recommendation” links. But in terms of delivery service and availability of DVDs, they’ve been fantastic.
Another satisfied Netflix customer here! I joined about a year and a half ago, and have nothing but great things to say about Netflix. You can find nearly anything you want, the turnaround time is always impressive. I love that they stock television series on DVD. These are impossible to find to rent at any outlet in my town. Netflix is responsible for my Buffy and Angel fandom because of this.
Oddly enough, Netflix was a lot better for me when I wasn’t working and couldn’t really afford it; I could go through about 4 movies a week. Since I got my job though, I’ve been paying $20 a month to keep 3 discs on top of my entertainment center. A look at my queue tells me that I have a movie they shipped to me on January 5th (“The Transporter”, if you care) that I still haven’t gotten around to watching. For some reason I just wind up vegging out in front of the TV instead of putting a DVD in. I really ought to either unsubscribe and save the $20, or start watching the damn movies.
Anyway, if you plan on watching more than a movie a week, it’ll probably be worth it not to have the hassle of driving to the video store. You just have to decide on Tuesday what you want to watch over the weekend.
I’ve netflixed since September and the service has been GREAT. Only once have I come across a disc that was too scratched to be read well, and customer service took care of that replacement quickly.
THe only thing…if you “run out of time” and can only watch a few a month, the subscription price isn’t worth it, but since the turn around is so quick (at the most within 4-5 days), if you do have the time, it’s well worth it.
I’ve really enjoyed their diversity. They even have some indie titles that are hard to find in the video store.
I’ve Netflixed for several years now and couldn’t be happier. This year, my husband and I have been watching the entire series Stargate: SG-1 from the beginning all the way through. Turnaround time varies, but is usually 2-3 days from the time we mail one back.
I have had 2 movies lost in the mail, and 1 movie with a bad scratch. The sleeves come with a checkbox you can fill out if 1) the movie was scratched or damaged, or 2) if the wrong movie arrived.
They definitely have much better selection than any of the video stores near me, and you can’t beat the price!
Another positive recommendation here. It really is as good as they claim. I live near San Francisco and never had a turnaround time of more than 1 day.
I also had two discs lost in the mail when I tried to return them, and Netflix handled it well – they would send nag notices for a while, even after I’d reported it lost, and then just wrote it off. I think unless you’re habitually losing them, it’s not that big a problem.
I don’t use the service anymore, because when I started working longer hours I’d have no time to watch them, which means you end up paying something like $20 for one movie. That’s the only downside to the service, really – since it is a monthly bill instead of a pay-per-view arrangement, you have to watch movies regularly to make it worth the investment.
When I got a little more time and decided to sign on with another service, I chose GreenCine instead of NetFlix. They’re based in San Francisco and are a direct competitor (read: rip-off) of NetFlix. I went with them because they have a much, much more diverse selection of the kind of movies I wanted to see – anime and Japanese movies in particular. They also have a lot of neat UI stuff, like letting you set-up sub-lists so that you’re guaranteed to receive movies in order (for instance, if you rent all the discs of a TV series).
There are a lot of downsides: there’s a slower turnaround (averages around 3 days for me); they have a wider selection but not as much supply, so a majority of the movies in my queue are just not available; and the attitude of the website is just impossibly smug. Netflix is the better service overall, but if they don’t carry what you want then GreenCine probably does.
The turnaround time makes each film cost a little more than a local rental. Other complaints: “extras” discs are not included and must be requested and rented separately; you get the disc alone, and none of the information that’s included with some of the better packaging; and the recommendations are entirely random and unhelpful. (“You like ‘Rashomon’? You’ll love ‘Happy Gilmore’!”)
