I don’t know the answers to all your questions, but Netflix only has TV shows after the whole season is over. I think they’re available on Netflix streaming the same time they come out on DVD. Hulu Plus has TV shows usually available the next day (some not until 8 days after broadcast though). It’s the same price as Netflix, and I like it better, but then I don’t like movies.
If you want to see what’s available on Netflix you can just check their website.
I have the streaming and dvd plan. The streaming works great. Loads of things to watch whenever you want. Netflix doesn’t do tv the way cable on demand does, so you won’t be able to watch a recently broadcast show, but there is never a shortage of good things to watch.
I personally like to set up my queue online and then access it through the app.
Netflix gives everyone a free month, so you can try it out and it won’t cost you a thing.
I don’t have it built in to the TV, but I streamed Netflix over the Wii and now a Roku. It works brilliantly as long as you have a good internet connection. I’m not entirely sure what qualifies as “good” though, DSL might not be fast enough.
For the specific shows you mention, the recent Dr. Who run is available to stream up to… the 2010 season. There’s a fairly random smattering of episodes from the older incarnations. Dexter is… not available to stream, but the DVDs are available for the everything but the most recent season.
Generally speaking, the broadcast and cable networks put their shows up about a year after the first run, and a lot are available to stream. The “premium” (HBO, Showtime) networks can be slower slower, and stubbornly refuse to make anything available for streaming.
[rant]IMO they need to quit trying to be so damn “exclusive”. They’re excluding themselves to a shrinking market. I’ve never subscribed to cable, and probably never will. Netflix, Hulu, and a la carte purchases from Amazon or Itunes are serving me quite nicely. As much as I’d like to watch the “premium” series, they sure as hell ain’t worth $90/month for a “premium” cable subscription. And this viewing pattern seems pretty universal among my generation…[/rant]
FYI, I wouldn’t use the mail service. I would just get streaming. The mail service costs $8 extra, and unless you get 8 movies a month via mail it is easier to just use redbox, blockbuster kiosks or the library. I got rid of dvds by mail and just use the library and redbox now after they increased fees by 60% for DVD by mail & streaming service. But to each his own.
Netflix has great TV shows. however they come and go. They used to have dexter, and I saw the first 2 seasons on streaming. But that isn’t on there now. Doctor who is on there, at least the 2005 series is. They have tons of doctor who movies from the 70s and 80s too. However they don’t release them by episodes, they release them after the season is over.
Netflix streaming is a lot better when it lets you browse and search. Some online streaming devices only have your instant queue. I have no idea if the app you mention allows searching and browsing, but the ones that do make it much more enjoyable.
FWIW, we dropped all cable, sat., etc… in our house and rely exslcusively on Netflix for TV entertainment. You can’t beat the price compared to cable, however the viewing is limited on streaming. It isn’t that bad, but there are many series on TV that aren’t on Netflix. We stream through our Wii and have been very happy with it. One thing I really like about the series on Netfilx is the ability to watch it from first episode to last.
On the downside is the limited selection, especially in movies. There are a LOT of movies available, but if you watch a lot like us you will blow through what interest you pretty quickly and be left with things you wouldn’t normally watch. However as a whole I would rate the service pretty high. We are going to be adding Hulu subscription service once it supports streaming through our Wii. Hulu seems to offer more recent shows than NetFlix, although we won’t be getting rid of Netflix, just adding Hulu to it.
You should be able to get a free month of Netflix and in that time you should be able to get a good grasp of:
Do you like the way it works on your TV?
Would you like to watch streaming shows/movies instead of regular TV? (try to use it exclusively for a week)
Do you need both streaming and DVD or are you happy with just the streaming?
I think those things would be the most helpful thing for deciding whether or not to sign up. Also don’t forget you can sign up for both services and drop one if you want. You can also suspend your account for months at a time - say if you are not around much in the summer.
If you join for free do take the time to rate movies/shows you’ve seen to see what you think of their recommendations!
Well, you can do this if all you want to watch is the latest big-budget blockbusters, and if your library has a fabulous collection of older or more esoteric material.
The precise reason that we keep our Netflix DVD subscription is that the selection is so huge, and includes literally thousands of movies that are not available streaming, and that will never come to the vending machines. Want to watch John Sayles’ Lone Star or Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom or Deepa Mehta’s Fire or Pedro Almodovar’s All About My Mother? Good luck getting any of them from Redbox.
I thought I’d chime in because I actually do have the built-into-TV functionality. I like it, but it is a slimmed down version of the website – so it’s not really intended for extensive browsing, just casual looking and using your instant queue. Other than that limitation, I think it’s pretty sweet. It seems to work well enough and I do very minimal queue management on my PC these days. In general, Netflix is ideal for me, who has limited watching time and because I like to watch series full runs (rather than keeping up while stuff is aired).
If you want stuff just after broadcast then Netflix is definitely not for you – streaming is typically available no sooner than DVD release. However it is very inexpensive and on-demand which are the biggest pluses for me.
I do supplement Netflix with Hulu and other content sources.
I only watch movies with Zach Galifianakis in them so I have had no problems. Who is Deepa Mehta? Even when I had DVD by mail I rarely got more than 3 DVDs a month. When it was an extra $1-2 a month it was worth it, but it isn’t worth it for $8. But to each his own.
Blockbuster movie pass is a better deal if you want DVDs by mail but I believe you also need a Dish Network subscription to get it. With movie pass you get DVDs by mail but you also get in store exchanges and extra movie channels on your satellite.
I have both a PS3 and an Apple TV, so I can talk a bit about my experience with cutting the cable bill out of my life completely. I have Netflix (both mail and Watch Instantly), and a program called PlayOn, which gives me access to Hulu, Amazon On Demand, and a number of other online television services like CBS.com, PBS.com, etc. that essentially serve as a poor man’s On Demand.
Netflix Watch Instantly gets their content usually at the same time or after the DVDs are available. I don’t have a big issue with this - there’s plenty of content on there for me to watch. Since I’m using it as a cable substitute, that means full seasons of TV. There are TONS of high quality TV shows to watch on it.
I can keep up with any broadcast television shows (i.e. anything not on cable) via Hulu and the PlayOn channels. Netflix (mail) provides me with movies on bluray. I’m tempted to drop the mail service, and just use Redbox, since there’s now one a block from my house.
Netflix is mostly DVD based, even the streaming. By that I mean that TV shows are not available for streaming based on when they air, it is based on when the company that owns the rights sells a DVD.
I don’t use the streaming very much primarily due to the limited subtitles.
It depends on the company but a lot of the DVDs come in a “rental” version that only allows you to see the film, no extras and you can’t skip the previews (usually you can fast-forward thru them).
In terms of DVD content, Netflix is pretty impressive. However, some of the out-of-print stuff is dropping out. Disc reported damaged and no replacement available.
I had the mail service up until last year. I went streaming only after the price increase. I also cut cable. DVD by mail worked pretty good. However, the increase in cost plus the rumors of a cut in Saturday mail service helped my decision to drop it. I liked the selection, but I’d had it for 6 years so I’d watched quite a large amount of the movies I wanted to see.
I stream through Apple TV and I could stream through my iPhone. The movie selection on streaming isn’t great, there are a lot of sequels to hit films, but the first one isn’t available. I can watch Ghostbusters 2 but not the original.
However, there are many tv series from all decades. There are also quite a few documentaries. I’ve found myself watching these when I want something in the background.
I supplement Netflix streaming with an occasional movie from Redbox. Redbox works fine as long as you reserve in advance. I work very early in the AM so as long as I pick up or return movies at that time, there’s never a line at the machine.
I’m an Amazon prime member, so I could use that as another source of streaming. However, that only works on my laptop. I highly doubt Apple TV will ever be compatible with Amazon on demand, so I won’t be able to use that unless I buy a newer tv.
I subscribe to MLB.TV and NHL Gamecenter, as a baseball and hockey fan, these are my usual source of sports programming. They do black out nationally televised games as well as local (Coyotes/Diamondback) games. That’s a bit annoying, but not worth the hundreds of dollars cable would cost. There’s a sports bar in walking distance for me to catch a game that I can’t pick up over the air or from streaming.
I would recommend not using the PO box unless you go there pretty much daily. It’s just so much easier to get it home delivered and I believe they are taking the risk of a lost in the mail disk.
Also blu-ray quality is great, worth the upcharge.
Streaming, while convenient, seems to have a lack of quality titles. I would recommend trying streaming and decide if they have enough to justify the charge.
We do it & works well on one tv/computer/phone combo. When we add the second TV we get interrupted streaming which means each tv will work for 5-10 minutes and then pause for about 20 seconds. Which is annoying. However, this is not netflix’s fault, it’s centurylink which only has low width bandwidth in our area - something that wasn’t properly explained prior to signing up. We’re told bandwith will be changing within the year but it’ll cost more then too. Still cheaper than cable.
We don’t do the dvd delivery - redbox instead.
I don’t think netflix is great at letting you know what’s available always, you have to surf around. There are a couple on online sights that break it down better, let you know what’s coming up. There is a time delay. It can be a few months, generally you’re a season behind. But we also have hulu plus for shows we just have to watch sooner. For us that’s not a big deal, we’re not into too many new shows & often prefer waiting & watching a series start to finish.
From reading the above it seems like there are a lot of things we don’t like about the netflix streaming. Not the impression I mean to give. We actually like having to look for stuff we actually are interested in instead of just channel surfing until we find the least objectionable. Also, we’re spending less. Our comcast bill for phone/computer/cable (without premium channels) was about 165/month (f88king fees/taxes/service charges. We now pay under 60/month via centurylink plus netflix. I do want wider bandwith though.
It is, if you can jailbreak your Apple TV. Apparently you need access to a Mac computer to do it, which I don’t have (NONE of my friends have a Mac). XBMC, Boxee and all sorts of other goodies are installable (what?, that’s totally a word).
In my experience, if you approach Netflix streaming thinking “I want this movie,” you’re almost surely going to be disappointed. If you go thinking “show me what’s available,” you’ll almost surely find something to watch.
Yep, that about sums up my experiences with streaming, especially with movies.
What really irks me about some of them, though, is the awful quality of the streaming product. I understand that not everything is available in HD, and many of the SD streams are perfectly fine. But there are some streaming versions where the picture quality is mediocre and, to make things even worse, the streaming version is a 4:3 pan-n-scan version of the movie.
I was looking for a movie to watch the other day, and i came across Ronin, a crime drama starring Robert de Niro. I’d seen it before, and quite enjoyed it, so i thought i’d put it on and watch it again. I had to turn it off after ten minutes, because i just can’t watch movies with the edges chopped off anymore.
We have DSL, and when we stream it works fine. But we seldom use streaming.
First. we watch some obscure British series which aren’t available. Second, we are both pretty busy, so having the DVD sitting by the TV is an incentive to watch it, while having everything always available means there is no reason to watch it today. We have a two DVD plan, with two queues, and we probably go through 3 - 4 DVDs a week.
As for mailboxes, we have a slot which leads to a box in our garage, so home delivery is fine. We always drop the finished DVD in a mailbox, though.
