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Main => Everything Else => Topic started by: HaRuMaN on January 31, 2011, 01:30:55 pm
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Just rented Despicable Me on Blu-Ray from Netflix... pop it in, try to watch the shorts before watching the main film. I get some pop-up message saying that only the main film is available since this is a rental, and if I want to watch any of the extras, I have to go buy it...
:timebomb: :badmood: :banghead: :timebomb: :badmood: :banghead:
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I don't know whether to laugh or be outraged.
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So HarumaN rented a movie and took it in the shorts...?
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So HarumaN rented a movie and took it in the shorts...?
:hissy
Short films... gah
Also, just rented Inception (again, on Blu-Ray). The disc had the movie, and audio menu, and that's it. No chapter selection, no bookmark feature, no special features of any kind...
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I picked up a few previously views movies at Blockbuster that were the new "Rental" stamped version. Just the film. I'm ok with it as I only paid about $4 each.
I usualy only have time to watch extras on 1 out of four DVD's anyway...though I do like the outtakes. I will probably try to avoid them in the future.
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There has always been contention between the movie industry and the rental business - remember the VHS days when there were retail versions and rental versions of movies? The rental versions were list price of ~$80-100 even when the retail versions had dropped in price to $15-20 for new releases. The price structure was meant to ensure high revenue to the studio for all rental titles. Any rental shop caught renting retail copies was subject to a massive fine and generally shut down (it happened in my home town).
The DVD market sent things sideways - there wasn't a negotiated higher price for DVDs for the rental market, and the studios were scrambling to find ways to secure revenue. Now video shops could afford to buy dozens of copies of new releases (instead of just a handful) and make them widely available on DVD release date. Why buy for $20 when you can rent for $4? The rental stores would just then sell them used for $8-10 and recoup 1/2 of their investment for the movie on top of the rental revenue. Studios started offering 'rental versions' of DVDs at REDUCED cost to rental companies to reduce the value of the rental (fewer special features if any) as well as make it more difficult to offload copies at reduced cost.
I remember during the vhs->DVD transition seeing commercials for movies coming out to video - they would almost always say "Rent it on VHS or buy it on DVD Tuesday!" - emphasizing that it was OK to rent a VHS, but you should buy it on DVD....
Now with Netflix and other direct rental outfits, things have changed again. Throw BluRay into the mix, and i'm not surprised that rental versions are starting to spring up. It really does defeat the value of the BD medium though, unless the version of the movie is making use of the extra storage, it's just wasted space....
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And all the while the slow creep of increased bandwidth quietly whispers the death of physical media, and with it, any sense of ownership over content.
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If you stream a Netflix movie, do you get "extras" ?
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If you stream a Netflix movie, do you get "extras" ?
nope - movie only
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My VCR never told me things like that, or when I could skip ahead or whatnot.
Jesus. Thats ---smurfin--- ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow---. I would have been outraged. Thats unbelievable. Does Netflix make their own DVD's and Blu-Rays? My GF brought to my attention all the discs say Netflix on them when we started getting season discs of Dexter. Then Inception and Get him to the Greek said it too. So what the ---fudgesicle--- do you have to do in order to see the extras, or the ---smurfin--- shorts? :lame:
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And all the while the slow creep of increased bandwidth quietly whispers the death of physical media, and with it, any sense of ownership over content.
It's been so long since I used physical media its unbelievable.
Last week one of my disks failed in my media server/arcade cab, so I turned it off until the new disk arrived. Because we don't have TV signal coming into the house (no terrestrial, no satellite, no cable) I was forced into digging out some DVDs from the loft. After much hunting through boxes I found some only to find my DVD player doesn't work.
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I have never heard of a damn "rental" version. Man, the industry gets you anyway they can. Then they wonder why people pirate stuff. :dunno
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Over the pond we have I Love Film. I get some movies which are the basic, but sometimes there are special features.
For the little bit extra we can select a Xbox 360 title. Well I haven't seen any yet.
The streaming service is not very good.
Turn around times are very good though.
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As long as they dont edit rentals, I have no problem with it. Anyone remember back in the 90's when Blockbuster, Musicworld and other rental places carried censored versions of certain movies, but it didn't say so on the box when you rented it.
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I dont see what the big deal is, I never watch the extras.
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It happened to me when I rented Scott Pilgrim from the Redbox. Had the stamp and all the special features were disabled.
But I actually don't mind it so much either - I actually thought it was a good idea from a business standpoint. DVD's (and BluRays) were always priced to own and if they have to cripple rental versions to keep prices from going up (theoretically) on movies for the consumer to buy or for the rental company that'll pass those fees to the consumers, so be it. If they're special features I'm interested in seeing it's because I'm interested in the movie itself and would be buying it anyway. I'm only spending the buck for rental or streaming it for the flat Netflix fee so I don't particularly feel ripped off.
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Amazon's video on demand service carries a lot of extras, and offers them free even if you don't rent the associated movie. I don't know if they're any good or the same as you get on the retail version since I rarely watch extras.
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I dont see what the big deal is, I never watch the extras.
I buy some movies more for the extras than the film itself. Rob Zombie's Halloween.....not a very good movie, but the 4 hour "making of" intrigued me enough to get it.
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Haruman, you can borrow my BluRay of that movie if you want.
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I had noticed that with the last few blu-rays I've received from Netflix too. Not a big deal for me though - if I'm renting it, that means I want to watch the movie and send it back. If the movie was one that I like enough to watch all the extras or for repeated viewings, I'd buy it.
I haven't tried streaming Netflix to my TV yet, mostly because the selection pretty much sucks right now - looking at my queue, less than 20% of the movies I have in there are currently streamable. My other reason for hanging onto physical media is quality: blu-rays look amazing on my 52" TV, but I wonder how much quality I'd have to exchange for the convenience of streaming?
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My other reason for hanging onto physical media is quality: blu-rays look amazing on my 52" TV, but I wonder how much quality I'd have to exchange for the convenience of streaming?
Netflix looks pretty damn good if you have decent bandwidth.
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I dont see what the big deal is, I never watch the extras.
I buy some movies more for the extras than the film itself. Rob Zombie's Halloween.....not a very good movie, but the 4 hour "making of" intrigued me enough to get it.
Buying is not renting, right?
I stopped using optical media a long time ago. I'm not a video quality whore by any means but I go so sick and tired of getting 70 minutes into a movie and have the disc turn up unreadable. It happened probably 75% of the time with Netflix. What a waste of time.
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Netflix looks pretty damn good if you have decent bandwidth.
Oh, I gots bandwidth ("fiber to the home" from my local phone co)... Curious as to where you would rate it - DVD quality, better, worse?
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so sick and tired of getting 70 minutes into a movie and have the disc turn up unreadable. It happened probably 75% of the time with Netflix. What a waste of time.
Maybe your mailman doesn't like you... I would say I get an unreadable disk 5% of the time, if that.
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I stopped using optical media a long time ago. I'm not a video quality whore by any means but I go so sick and tired of getting 70 minutes into a movie and have the disc turn up unreadable. It happened probably 75% of the time with Netflix. What a waste of time.
Wow. I've been seeing something much closer to zero percent on my netflix rentals. I think I've had one cracked disk and one that skipped a couple of times but was otherwise fully playable. Everything else I've ever received from them has been flawless.
Netflix looks pretty damn good if you have decent bandwidth.
Oh, I gots bandwidth ("fiber to the home" from my local phone co)... Curious as to where you would rate it - DVD quality, better, worse?
Close to DVD quality, or better for their HD content. The HD stuff they have available usually looks better than the HD content I get from U-verse, despite the fact that U-verse also provides my internet feed.
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Wow. I've been seeing something much closer to zero percent on my netflix rentals. I think I've had one cracked disk and one that skipped a couple of times but was otherwise fully playable. Everything else I've ever received from them has been flawless.
That was 3-4 years ago now. It's not like you can tell by looking that a disc is going to fail towards the end of the movie. Not like my DVD player was crappy, either as it was consistent across 3 of them and a couple PCs. That's why I got into XBMC and started streaming everything. It's a little more upfront effort but LAN streaming just works once set up.
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I've used Netflix since 2003, and I can remember receiving exactly one unplayable disc. As far as I know my mailperson doesn't have anything against me, though. Did you notice any footprints on your Netflix envelopes? ;D
Close to DVD quality, or better for their HD content. The HD stuff they have available usually looks better than the HD content I get from U-verse, despite the fact that U-verse also provides my internet feed.
Sounds pretty good... Now if they can just get their movie selection up, maybe I'll be able to loosen my deathgrip on my outdated physical media.
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I've used Netflix since 2003, and I can remember receiving exactly one unplayable disc. As far as I know my mailperson doesn't have anything against me, though. Did you notice any footprints on your Netflix envelopes? ;D
Close to DVD quality, or better for their HD content. The HD stuff they have available usually looks better than the HD content I get from U-verse, despite the fact that U-verse also provides my internet feed.
Sounds pretty good... Now if they can just get their movie selection up, maybe I'll be able to loosen my deathgrip on my outdated physical media.
Is it just in these forums that I hear about "physical media being dead" or what? I have heard that numerous times on these boards. It confounds me. My only beef with netflix is their poor streaming content. Everything else is great, I have never recieved a cracked disc, or an unreadable one.
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I have been streaming my content without physical media for a while now. Then the other day my 2 year old daughter wanted to watch some Disney movie that I don't have on my media center but have on dvd. So I popped it in the dusty old dvd player....waited through the corporate ads....waited through a bunch of unskippable coming soon ads, waited through a anti-piracy ad where some guy is breaking into a car or some crap, waited through the FBI warning, waited through the intro to get to the menu..took about 10 full minutes just to get to the menu that tells me I can watch the movie. That experience alone is worth having a media center to stream content. What a hassle just to watch a movie.
As for Netflix...when I used them their service was top notch. This was a couple years back. I tried Blockbusters online service too and it was ok...but lacking in comparison. Plus Blockbuster often sent the me the wrong movie or broken discs.
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Netflix has 1000's of movies available for streaming...if you can't find something "good" to watch you are not trying.
You can always turn it off and start something else. I have discovered some really good movies that I otherwise never would have heard of.
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Is it just in these forums that I hear about "physical media being dead" or what? I have heard that numerous times on these boards. It confounds me. My only beef with netflix is their poor streaming content. Everything else is great, I have never recieved a cracked disc, or an unreadable one.
I wasn't totally serious when I said that... I don't really think it's dead, but I think there are definite signs that the "old" model for getting temporary access to content - i.e. renting a physical disc - will eventually go away in favor of streaming. I don't see how it could ever fully replace physical media though, because you'll still have people who want to own their favorite movies in the best quality format. Unless I'm the only one who cares how they look. :dunno
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I've only had to replace two unwatchable rentals from Netflix since I started using the service in August.
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I wonder how much that has to do with the genres being rented. I don't usually watch A list stuff or new releases. I was always scoping around special interests, sports events, D level horror movies, kung fu movies, etc. The discs I was getting were definitely not new discs and often had a waitlist on them.
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joined netflix for years... I think I have about 5 cracked, skipping or wrong discs total...
I think service is good... since first few years, I have 3 discs at once, and I was really working on them.
they also have quick turn around.
I only have DSL, but streaming on a 15 in laptop is better quality than I expect.
never tried on a big lcd, but I would suspect quality should be comparable to dvd, maybe better...
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joined netflix for years... I think I have about 5 cracked, skipping or wrong discs total...
I think service is good... since first few years, I have 3 discs at once, and I was really working on them.
they also have quick turn around.
I only have DSL, but streaming on a 15 in laptop is better quality than I expect.
never tried on a big lcd, but I would suspect quality should be comparable to dvd, maybe better...
It is...and they have HD content as well.
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Netflix has 1000's of movies available for streaming...if you can't find something "good" to watch you are not trying.
You can always turn it off and start something else. I have discovered some really good movies that I otherwise never would have heard of.
+1
Forget about getting new releases... and you'll often be disappointed if you're looking for a specific film. But I've queued up quite a few titles I want to watch when I have a few minutes. I've been able to catch up on 30 Rock, watch some good British sketch comedy shows (A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Monty Python, etc.) and some decent episodes of MST3K. They also have some interesting documentaries.
For new releases or other films, I have many on-demands channels on FiOS, plus my local Redbox.
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I've been with Netflix since 2000 - crazy! I've had at most 4-5 'bad' discs that had issues playing for whatever reason, and I've only ever gotten the wrong disc once very early on. I've also "lost" 2 discs - one was my fault and I put the wrong DVD in the sleeve, and the second one was honestly and truly lost in the mail.
I think there will always be some market for physical media - I'm a video snob and LOVE the high quality HD video on Bluray. I've seen the current 'best' streaming offerings and will admit that it is better than DVD quality by quite a bit, but still pales in comparison to uncompressed BD titles. For most viewing, it's not an issue, but on a 92" screen (1080p projector), you can see the difference. I'll gladly take the convenience of streaming for older 'library' type movies and for TV stuff....
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I'm a video snob and LOVE the high quality HD video on Bluray.
The whole physical media vs streaming issue is a bit of a false dichotomy. There is also the third choice of non-streaming straight up download and watch later.
A movie transfered from Bluray straight to a harddrive with no transcoding (eg: a bit perfect copy) will have the exact same quality as the original disc. There's nothing magical about the plastic it's on. So if we assume that an average Bluray disc is around 50 gigabytes (I believe this is the current max capacity) then we get come up with the following:
A new 3 terabyte hard drive is $209.
3 terabytes / 50 gigabytes = 61.44 movies stored at a time
209 / 61.44 = $3.40 per movie stored.
And that price is only going to drop.
Now this assumes that the cost of bandwidth is negligible. On a modest 10 megabit connection it should take around 12 hours to get a single 50 gig film. Still faster than waiting on the mail.
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No argument here...it's all about the bits, not the medium. I just dont see netflix and content providers rushing to offer full bit rate downloads, hence my comment on physical media.
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http://www.techspot.com/news/42036-mail-service-costs-netflix-20-times-more-than-streaming.html (http://www.techspot.com/news/42036-mail-service-costs-netflix-20-times-more-than-streaming.html)
You never know, once the telecoms finally get us up to some modern broadband speeds, it might happen. If I've got a 100mbit pipe, suddenly that 50 gigs (which would include all the extras and what not) comes down to a transfer time of around an hour and a half. That's streamable territory. If this is the kind of connection 'everybody' has, then the infrastructure to support it is already there.
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I'm still waiting for DSL or FIOS to be available. That sort of access in my home is a pipe dream.
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That sort of access in my home is a pipe dream.
Tubes dream.
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Wow. I've been seeing something much closer to zero percent on my netflix rentals. I think I've had one cracked disk and one that skipped a couple of times but was otherwise fully playable. Everything else I've ever received from them has been flawless.
That was 3-4 years ago now. It's not like you can tell by looking that a disc is going to fail towards the end of the movie. Not like my DVD player was crappy, either as it was consistent across 3 of them and a couple PCs. That's why I got into XBMC and started streaming everything. It's a little more upfront effort but LAN streaming just works once set up.
My rate of bad Netflix discs was probably more like 5-7%. But maaaaaaan . . . when you're an hour and a half into a movie and then suddenly . . . screetch . . . unreadable. It just ---smurfing--- erases the other 93% of just-fine discs. And it feels like it's happening like every other time. That also factored into my use of XBMC. Though I was already using it, I made it a policy that I would never watch a Netflix disc in the player. If it failed during the ripping process I'd just tell Netflix to send another copy and I'd pop the bad disc in the mail, no harm done. It was watching a good portion of the movie only to have the movie suddenly and unexpectedly cut off that just made my blood boil.
Still love Netflix, though. Don't get me wrong.
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It was watching a good portion of the movie only to have the movie suddenly and unexpectedly cut off that just made my blood boil.
Exactly. I don't keep a library of movies around so it's not worth going to all the effort of ripping a disc just to watch it once. I only watch a couple a month and often it takes more than one sitting. I don't keep the TV on in the background while doing other things. I rarely watch a movie more than once.
BTW, tried Redbox recently. First disc I got we set up the cart to watch outdoors on the big screen. 45 minutes into the movie, bam, unplayable. :banghead:
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it's not worth going to all the effort of ripping a disc just to watch it once.
I've got a pretty fast computer. Ripping a movie only takes about 10 minutes. And the effort of ripping only takes about 30 seconds on my part. I can just delete it if it was crap.
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That sort of access in my home is a pipe dream.
Tubes dream.
:laugh2:
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Keep a bottle of polishing wax around.
Tried that too. Toothpaste, novus, etc. Sometimes it would get us ten more minutes into the movie.
shmokes, ripping takes ten minutes on a readable DVD. Being unreadable is an issue with unreadable discs, yes?
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Yes, but you'll find that learning the disc is unreadable before watching half the movie produces something more akin to indifference rather than the feelings of unbridled rage and hatred that are produced by having the movie pixelate and then freeze halfway through a viewing. It really makes all the difference.
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All of my expieriences with Redbox have been terrible, granted, it was only 3 times, but still. 3 strikes and youre out. F you Redbox! :angry: 3 dollars down the tubes! :lol
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All of my expieriences with Redbox have been terrible, granted, it was only 3 times, but still. 3 strikes and youre out. F you Redbox! :angry: 3 dollars down the tubes! :lol
I've had the opposite experience, Used Redbox for the past two years never had a bad disk. I did have to call their customer service twice though. Both times I got to an agent quickly and they took care of the issue. Not bad for a buck per movie. I like the instant gratification. They have the new releases that netflix streaming doesn't...so between the two I can watch anything.
I'm sure if you called them they would refund your $3.
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I've never used Redbox, but i to use XBMC and pre-qualify the movies (ie test that they are good on a PC) before I start watching them. I completely agree, there's nothing worse that getting an hour into a movie and having it crap out on you.
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Yes, but you'll find that learning the disc is unreadable before watching half the movie produces something more akin to indifference rather than the feelings of unbridled rage and hatred that are produced by having the movie pixelate and then freeze halfway through a viewing. It really makes all the difference.
It's better but it isn't good enough. All of this rapidly advancing technology and they still don't pay enough attention to 100% reliable content. What good is a fancy setup if you have trouble getting the damn content?
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Well, of course, you're opting for the compromise to save money. If you purchase your movies outright you will have your 100% reliable content. In the end, you're opting for a used product rather than a new one, and with used products you always run a much higher chance of defects. If you're REALLY jonesing to see a particular movie there will still be disappointment if the rip fails and you have to wait another day or two to get a replacement. But that's never an issue for me. I don't watch movies nearly as fast as they come, so if it doesn't work there's always a line of other movies waiting for me that I've been wanting to see. And then, the failure rate is really low (and even seems as low as it is when it doesn't stick you in the middle of watching a movie).
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My gripe is sometimes the reverse: I want to skip to the movie menu, but that feature is grayed out.
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Just one more reason to rip before you watch.
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Hey shmokes - what program do you use to rip?
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DVDFab. It's excellent.
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DVDFab. It's excellent.
+1
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I've got a pretty fast computer. Ripping a movie only takes about 10 minutes. And the effort of ripping only takes about 30 seconds on my part. I can just delete it if it was crap.
2.8ghz, 2gb ram. Just dropped my DVD of The Dark Knight in there and started DVDFab. Two hours fifty minutes. :laugh2:
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I generally rip the movie using DVDFab free version, then use Vob2mpg to convert to an MPG file, then transfer it over to my tivo and I can watch/pause/etc as much as I want, easily.
When I'm done with it, delete.
I generally don't watch movies over and over, so I don't really keep any ripped movies for long.
And for my daughter, even though we own the dvd's, I rip them to TIVO so she can easily pick, watch/pause them without having to mess with the disks. a 320gb drive in a TIVO series 2 is a wonderfull thing (though I'm getting to a point where I'm +really+ eyeballing a Tivo HD and upgrading to 2 2tb drives....
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I still run two series II DirecTivos here. Great devices once you get content sharing reenabled on them. Can't transfer outside content onto them as drventure describes, though.
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I've got a pretty fast computer. Ripping a movie only takes about 10 minutes. And the effort of ripping only takes about 30 seconds on my part. I can just delete it if it was crap.
2.8ghz, 2gb ram. Just dropped my DVD of The Dark Knight in there and started DVDFab. Two hours fifty minutes. :laugh2:
Is there something wrong with your computer? It shouldn't even come close to taking that long to rip
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+1
That's seriously wonky. It shouldn't take fifty minutes on that machine, let alone two hours fifty. I'm guessing at the least you've got it set to double-pass rip, which takes twice as long as single pass (and doesn't yield nearly enough improvement to justify doubling the time, imo). Even at half the time, though, it's taking way longer than it should on that machine. My machine is 2.66 Ghz, though it's a Core i7 so it's a fast 2.66 Ghz. And I have a ton of RAM. Like I say, my rips usually don't take more than 10 or 11 minutes. You may not be running a Core i7, but it shouldn't be taking more than 15 times as long to rip a movie.
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That was the estimated time. Turns out the actual duration was 2:04. One pass conversion, fixed bitrate 1311kbps, audio 64kbps. Basically the default divx/mp3 settings. I wonder if this particular disc has extra encryption on it. Target hard drive is usb2.0, too. That could matter.
Just popped in Texas Chainsaw Massacre to test a movie with a lot less data and/or encryption. Estimated time an hour nineteen minutes.
It's a straight P4 2.8, I believe.
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That P4 is not near as fast as that i7, I'd expect that P4 to rip a regular DVD in about an hour.
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Just got back home. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre disc took 89 minutes.
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Is everyone talking about ripping AND converting a movie? My system takes about 5-8 minutes to rip a movie and another hour or so to convert to xvid (depending on length). if you are talking about ripping a movie and it is taking a long time you may have to remove the rip lock on your dvd drive. Go here for the instructions and firmwares. (http://tdb.rpc1.org/) Personally, I download a firmware and use this to see if you can unlock it. (http://ala42.cdfreaks.com/MCSE/) It can sometimes alter the firmware for you. Even a factory released one. Not always though.
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
J_K_M_A_N
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Yes, ripping from DVD-VOB to Xvid AVI. I don't have the type of disc space to keep around noncompressed movies.
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That is what I thought but I just wanted to make sure. I know some people don't know about rip lock and it can take an hour to just rip a movie.
J_K_M_A_N