As you can see, I’ve been using Netflix for over six years.
In all this time I’ve never had a problem with Netflix. Until now.
We rented ‘Blade Runner: The Final Cut’ on Blu-ray, and the disc was defective. It froze at a certain spot and wouldn’t recover. (Yeah, yeah… I cleaned it and tried again, etc.) So I returned it and asked for a replacement. They sent a high-def disc, but it was in the defunct HD-DVD format! I returned the disc, indicating it had been mislabeled. So what did they send? Another HD-DVD copy. Grrrr…
This time I called and actually got to speak with someone. “Destroy this disc!” I told him. I’m not going to bother asking for another copy from Netflix. I think Bismo owns ‘Blade Runner: The Final Cut’ on DVD. We’ll watch that.
BTW, Best Buy and the Sony outlet stores have stacks of the BDP-N460 Blu-ray player for only $140. If you can use Ethernet instead of Wifi for streaming video, that’s an incredible deal.
Our only problem with Netflix was when a DVD that Katie was watching with her friend Erin inexplicably had part of “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” in the middle of it. It was a Netflix employee who told us the identity of the movie in the middle of the disc, and said all of them would be destroyed because the entire Netflix batch was bad.
They also routinely mislabel operas, but the opera fans usually identify what you’re watching on a Netflix disc in their reviews, even if Netflix doesn’t.
For MOST people, and that’s anybody who doesn’t have a front HD projector or 60+ inch flat screen TV, I would say that Blu-ray is a waste. I’m saying this, having put too much money into the defunct LaserDisc format, which had a loyal, but very small, group of fans for 20 years. Blu-ray is an option for more people than LD ever was, but I feel it’s a niche format, because on a 42″ LCD or plasma, the difference in picture quality just isn’t great enough to justify the expense of Blu-ray, beyond the cost of the TV itself. From a marketing perspective, including a regular DVD along with a Blu-ray copy for only five bucks more is a real winner. That’s how (our sister) Marianne got her copy of “UP’.
The big thing that’s changing everything isn’t Blu-ray, it’s Internet TV. Netflix customers with a good broadband connection — sorry, not DSL — are really missing out, by not having a Roku HD or, if you simply must save twenty bucks, and you vow never to get an HDTV, the Roku SD. The Wii is an excellent alternative to the Roku SD.
Ah, so even the Blu-Rays can arrive all scratched and crappy. Nothing is more annoying than watching a really good flick and then it just … stops. ARRRGHH!!! Glad you told them off. Say, that price is so low, I may just have to spring for one. Is the quality really worth it?