Where have you been, dude? Suncoast has been gone for years and years.
…Apparently I have not been at the mall.
Wow. FYE now. I swear I hadn’t seen one that long ago, but I guess I never noticed when they disappeared.
I have a 5 disc at-a-time account - 2 for Kid1, 2 for Kid2, 1 for me. For the kids, we kinda use Netflix as a preview system. If the kids like a movie enough to watch it repeatedly while we have the dvd (we usually keep them for about a week) then we’ll buy the dvd (or the vhs tape if we can find it at the thrift store first). We also use Redbox sometimes for those days when we’re inbetween netflix dvds and are spending the day at home. I don’t really care for Redbox too much because the late fees kill me - I have a hard time remembering to return the darn things in one day, which is the whole reason I signed up for Netlix in the first place. I’m also thinking of buying the Roku streaming player to hook up to our tv so we can get away from using Redbox. We don’t have a HD tv nor do I plan to buy one, and we don’t subscribe to cable/satellite tv service - we use the ole rabbit ears and digital converter which gets all the channels we need.
In any event, if it’s a movie we’re dying to support (like princess and the frog) we’ll see it at the pricey theater, if it’s a movie it would be good to see first on the big screen but not ‘urgent’ we’ll see it at the dollar theater and for all others, an additional 28-day delay is nothing.
Looks across the room at the spinning tower and bookcase packed with DVDs.
I use Netflix to watch movies that I missed at the theater and TV shows that for one reason or another I never watched but have had recommended (I’m currrently watching the second series of the UK Life on Mars). Occasionally after watching something on Netflix I’ll decide that I want to buy a copy so I can watch it whenever I want, so renting from Netflix actually makes it more likely I’ll buy something, not less.
Since Netflix streaming is, in a way, in direct competition with cable TV’s “movies on demand,” it will be interesting to see if the cable companies will be limited too. Or is this a way to get people to use cable instead of the Internet? And as long as you have cable, why not sign up for the Internet through your cable provider too. (see how it works) 
Not everything’s in HD – only relatively new releases, and not all of them (depends on the deal with each content provider). Season 3 of “30 Rock” is a specific example if you’re looking to test one – looks as good as broadcast HD on my 8MB connection.
Frankly, I give DVD/BluRay about five more years of existence, total. Streaming has gone from being a “only a few things, and only lousy quality” to being available at everything from sub-SD through progressive HD from a variety of providers…in about a year. Like it or not, it’s the future, and NetFlix is planning well for that future by making sure they get streaming rights.
Considering I do not keep track of new release dates anyway, a months delay won’t cause me to shake my fist in frustration.
I sincerely doubt that is going to happen anytime soon. There are plenty, plenty of people in this world who watch dvds and do not have computers or internet connections capable of streaming movies. Plus those who have the capabilities might not want to do it.
Yep, and they’ll get relegated to where folks who couldn’t/didn’t want to give up LP’s and VHS are: They can watch in contentment, but they won’t get anything new. Folks less than 25 or so are barely buying anything physical now. Network TV view rates are declining precipitously, and it’s not just folks moving to cable. Newspapers are entirely gone and haven’t realized it yet. Broadband penetration will be almost universal in another half decade (at least in the developed world).
Physical media is not going anywhere for a very long time. And if you think it is, you’re not looking at the big picture.
And that big picture is bandwidth. Sure, you’ve got a nice fat pipe that allows you to stream your HD version of Avatar right to your house in stunning 1080p clarity. But you only have that pipe because Mr. Johnson down the street is using dial-up and Mrs. Jones next door only uses the Internet to email her sister in Des Moines. But as soon as everybody hooks into your big fat pipe and expects to stream movies, that HD picture won’t stream fast enough to be worth it. On top of that, your cable company has likely capped your Internet in this far flung future of five years from now. So downloading that HD movie will mean you’re living on the Internet version of ramen noodles for the rest of the month.
And that’s why DVD and Blu-ray will survive for a long time, they guarantee picture quality and availability in a portable package. No bandwidth to worry about.
We should ask a mod for permission to re-open this as a zombie thread five years from now. Either way, it’d be interesting to see how these infant technologies have matured; the right answer might even be something entirely different that doesn’t exist now.
My predictions: streamed (or downloaded) as the default distribution model, and the 3D TV thing will turn out to be a passing fad that almost no one will buy. And Netflix stock worth 8x it’s current value, since they win either way.
This is a valid concern, unfortunately. I will be very disappointed if the cable companies are still capping bandwidth in five years such that HD streaming is limited, but it would not surprise me. Given that companies like Comcast provide both internet connectivity and cable television services it seems their incentives to provide the best quality internet connections for streaming are limited. I wonder if separating providing internet connectivity from providing content channels might be better for competition in both industries? I understand the barriers to entry that currently prevents true competition in providing broadband, but it sure would be disappointment if we extended that closed market to content providers as well by allowing broadband providers to restrict access to other providers.
In a fully operational market I would expect competitive pressure to create a direct incentive to improve broadband access dramatically, lest the other guy does so first. But the incentive to keep connectivity sucking so that other HD streaming providers can’t steal your own On-Demand business makes me nervous.