On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 11:09 PM, David Bruggeman <[email protected]> wrote:
> Yeah, I could watch some programs on my computer, but the selection is a > bit limited, and I've not tried it. I am under the impression that if I > bumped up to a plan that allowed streaming directly to the TV via a > 'Netflix-ready' device, then those instant choices would expand. I may well > be wrong on this point. > > But it does seem that there's still some content that's only available via > disc, so I probably wouldn't go up to instant only, but instant plus discs. > Your point about instant offerings being pulled without warning is an added > reason to keep the discs. > I would say the selection on instant viewing is more than "a bit" limited. I don't know what the ratio is exactly, but it has got be something like only 25% of the entire netflix library is available for instant viewing. That is still quite a lot of viewing options, and I have a long list of stuff in my instant viewing Queue that I have not gotten around to yet. My son and I watched almost all of Dr. Who, MI-5, Torchwood, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer this summer on instant view (the more recent seasons of all but Buffy were disk only). They have some good foreign films and a lot of good documentaries on instant view as well. But there are a lot of idiosyncrasies - in addition to the one I mentioned with Top Gear, for many shows individual episodes in various seasons are for unexplained reasons "disk only" - most notably and lamentably for me, Columbo. I can't imagine that show has an issue with music clearance, but they have several episodes each season not available on instant viewing. In most cases I would rather watch a less preferred show on instant viewing than wait for the DVD. My son and I have developed the habit of picking one television program to watch via the disk, and just set the queue to send us the next one as we get to it (we have been working our way through Voyager recently, which does not suck quite as much as I had been led to believe, but when he gets out of school for Christmas break we will settle in for some serious New Who action). Paradoxically by the way, I most often watch DVD disks on my computer (I-Mac), since my office cheap-DVD player no longer reads disks, and instant viewing most often on my television set via the Wii. The main reason I don't like watching television on my computer is that I almost always am working at my computer while watching television, so I need my monitor. If Netflix were still a disk-only service I am sure I would never have kept it past the free trial period. One more advantage of instant viewing over disks - the same account can access programs from several (3 or 4) different devices. This means that for the same $8.99 (now $9.99) my daughter in New York and my daughter in Santa Barbara and my wife, son and I in NoCal can all enjoy the service (it seems though that only two of us can be watching at the same time). They can't really use the disk service (well, I guess I could mail them disks that come to me and then have them mail them back to netflix, but that would be cumbersome - and risky, knowing my daughters). I should figure out my cost per program per month some time, but between the three different locations, I'm sure it is something like ten cents per program. But, my main point at the start of this thread was that I hope Netflix's recognition that most of its traffic is moving towards instant viewing means they will be significantly increasing the instant viewing library soon. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
