Blame my girlfriend for having French Kiss on there.

January 14th, 2008 at 8:07 am

Netflix has a history of uniquely interpreting the word “unlimited.” They caught some PR flak – and rightfully so – for their practice of “throttling” customers who watch a lot of movies. In this, if they decide you are watching more movies than they want you to, especially those with a high demand, they will hold up the shipment of said movies to you. This, despite selling their services by telling customers they could have an unlimited number of movies as long as it was only 2, 3 or whatever number your plan calls for at a time. Sigh. I like Netflix but I wish they wouldn’t be deceptive like this.

January 14th, 2008 at 8:15 am

Too bad it’s not mac-compatible.

Of course, those of us with Macs pay the same as those with PCs – a class of users who has far more rights / access to the service – but I’m not holding my breath waiting for a discount.

January 14th, 2008 at 10:11 am

Netflix may have some sucky moments, but as a comparison shopper, I tried out Blockbuster’s “online rental” service, where you can also return DVDs to the store to expedite the service.

Ewwwww!!! I ordered 3; they sent me 1, and that was a week after I subscribed. After cancelling my subscription (luckily during the free trial period) they claimed that the 12 movies in my “queue” weren’t enough and that they only had one in stock at the time of the order. These were NOT obscure art film movies… not even “French Kiss.” Also, you can only return “in-store” 2x a month.

Haven’t tried the “online viewing” option yet, but that would require me to re-hook up my speakers that don’t seem to be working correctly.

Still, not to defend Netflix as all that is good and holy (it ain’t) but it’s still better than shlepping to the video store, or enrolling in Blockbuster’s competitive service…..

January 14th, 2008 at 1:31 pm

Oh, and as a low-techie aside, what is “IE6″?

January 14th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

internet explorer 6, the buggiest and least-secure browser out there.

i wish they supported firefox.

January 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm

Yeah the PC only thing is pretty weak. Luckily my girlfriend has a PC laptop.

I’ve used this service a few times over the past several months now. I connect the laptop to my TV with the S-video connection, and use a separate cable to run the sound into the stereo. The first time was a pain, but now it’s pretty smooth.

Netflix does not have the bugs sorted out though. The video streams really choppy at times. It’s subtle, and only shows when there’s something like a river flowing in the shot. But it drives me crazy enough to turn it off.

I don’t know why they even use a browser for viewing. It should run as a separate application. That would fix a lot of issues instantly.

January 14th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

The guy who plays Dr. Wilson in House, M.D. was the same “kid” in Dead Poet’s Society who kills himself. I just found that out today and decided to rent the movie. I saw it at the theatre when it first came out. I knew that guy looked familiar.

You can blame my husband for Close Encounters.

January 14th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

Thanks for ruining the ending, Melly!

Actually, DPS is one of my all-time favorite movies & made my American Transcendentalists class a breeze. The red-headed guy (the character’s name was Cameron) was in my major in college, so we had some classes together — AND he had a guest appearance on “House” during season 2.

Sac-Eats might have some Netflix tips since we’re on a Mac here at home, use Firefox, and it seems to work just fine — unless you guys are talking about some fancy computer stuff about which I know nothing.

January 14th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

I’ve rented Dirty Sanchez through Netflix and it rocks the kasbah. I’ve also got a copy of The Bridge from them that I plan on watching tonight.

January 14th, 2008 at 6:47 pm

JLT – don’t you have the IE tab plug-in for Firefox? Works great for the few pages out there that require Bill Gates’ f’ing joke of a browser.

January 14th, 2008 at 6:50 pm

magpie, thanks for that! i didn’t realize there was such a thing but will download it now!

January 15th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

unfortunately the IE6 tab plugin is not mac compatible. Darn!

January 15th, 2008 at 3:57 pm