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Blockbuster Total Access VS Netflix


keggerz
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Which is better?  

34 members have voted

  1. 1. Which is the better online service?

    • Blockbuster Total Access
      10
    • Netflix
      16
    • Puddy(why?)
      8


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i voted netflix, but my only experience with blockbuster has been in-store, not the mail service. maybe blockbuster has changed, but i stopped going there because they never carried unrated movies (or unrated versions of popular movies) and most of their stuff was full screen instead of widescreen (although that may have changed). netflix turnaround is two days for me (send movie back, they get it next day, they send out new movie same day, i get it next day). blockbuster may be better, but i just have a general distaste for that company.

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Blockbuster for me, no question. Returning the mailed movies to the store not only gives you a free rental, but immediately prompts them to mail the next one in your queue. You get the next movie in a day or so. I'm in the 3-out-at-a-time plan. I almost always have 3-5 movies at the house at a time and only pay the one monthly fee.

 

I can't imagine NetFlix being any better because they don't have the stores.

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I don't use either service, but when I first saw Blockbuster's Total Access commericals, I remember saying that would be lights out for NetFlix. At the very least, a better option for consumers since you not only have the option through the mail, you also have Blockbuster's extensive store network.

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Netflix just announced plans (see article below) to let us subscribers watch the movies over the internet without downloading them first. This will be included with our current pricing plan. I guess this is how they are taking on Blockbusters competitive advantage of using the physical store.

 

I've been a Netflix member for about a year and have had zero problems.

 

 

Netflix offers streaming movies to subscribers

1/16/2007 10:02:57 AM, by Nate Anderson

 

Netflix subscribers will soon get access to movies delivered over the Internet, finally allowing the company to live up to its name. For those with the bandwidth, this is a nice (and free) extra, but users with slow connections will want to stick with DVDs.

 

The new service streams movies to Windows PCs instead of downloading them first. This has the dual benefit of 1) appeasing content owners who worry that full downloads of their movies might be cracked and 2) providing instant gratification to customers in need of a cinematic fix. Netflix claims that, with the aid of a one-time browser applet download, customers can begin watching films within 15 seconds of clicking the "play" button.

 

Streaming high-quality video with little buffering requires a fast connection. Netflix says that its new technology throttles the streaming speed based on available bandwidth. Users will need a minimum of 1Mbps to watch films, but these will be far below DVD quality. 3Mbps connections are required to watch movies in their native resolution (no support is currently planned for high-definition content). With the increasing ubiquity of broadband, this should pose no problem for most power users, but plenty of 768Kbps DSL connections (and slower) still dot the landscape.

 

The new service will be rolled out gradually but should be available to all Netflix subscribers by July. The amount of video that can be watched on the PC varies depending on the subscription plan. Users with the $5.99 plan will get six hours of online viewing each month, while those with the more common $17.99 plans get 18 hours. The decision to offer this in terms of "hours" rather than "movies" could potentially frustrate customers who don't want to wait until next month to see the second half of Casino Royale, but it does allow for stopping, starting, and switching films without developing some convoluted definition of what it means to "watch a film."

 

The initial selection is fairly thin, with only 1,000 titles available (out of more than 70,000 available on DVD), but this was the same number of DVDs that Netflix launched with back in 1999. It's probably just as well; Netflix has made clear that they want to roll out the new technology slowly to make sure that everything works correctly. As CEO Reed Hastings notes, this isn't a market that is going to pay big dividends for a few years yet.

 

"While mainstream consumer adoption of online movie watching will take a number of years due to content and technology hurdles, the time is right for Netflix to take the first step," he said. "Over the coming years we'll expand our selection of films, and we'll work to get to every Internet-connected screen, from cell phones to PCs to plasma screens."

 

The move does help Netflix in the short-term, though, by giving them a new selling point in their war with rival Blockbuster. Blockbuster has been aggressively advertising its DVD-by-mail service on TV and touts its Total Access program as a major advantage over Netflix.

 

With Blockbuster's plan, though, users still need to drive to a local video store to collect a new film; with Netflix, it can all be done at the PC. Of course, these movies still need to be watched on the computer, but it's clearly in Netflix's interest to develop an online distribution channel that reaches all the way to the television.

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Netflix just announced plans (see article below) to let us subscribers watch the movies over the internet without downloading them first. This will be included with our current pricing plan. I guess this is how they are taking on Blockbusters competitive advantage of using the physical store.

 

I've been a Netflix member for about a year and have had zero problems.

Netflix offers streaming movies to subscribers

1/16/2007 10:02:57 AM, by Nate Anderson

 

Netflix subscribers will soon get access to movies delivered over the Internet, finally allowing the company to live up to its name. For those with the bandwidth, this is a nice (and free) extra, but users with slow connections will want to stick with DVDs.

 

The new service streams movies to Windows PCs instead of downloading them first. This has the dual benefit of 1) appeasing content owners who worry that full downloads of their movies might be cracked and 2) providing instant gratification to customers in need of a cinematic fix. Netflix claims that, with the aid of a one-time browser applet download, customers can begin watching films within 15 seconds of clicking the "play" button.

 

Streaming high-quality video with little buffering requires a fast connection. Netflix says that its new technology throttles the streaming speed based on available bandwidth. Users will need a minimum of 1Mbps to watch films, but these will be far below DVD quality. 3Mbps connections are required to watch movies in their native resolution (no support is currently planned for high-definition content). With the increasing ubiquity of broadband, this should pose no problem for most power users, but plenty of 768Kbps DSL connections (and slower) still dot the landscape.

 

The new service will be rolled out gradually but should be available to all Netflix subscribers by July. The amount of video that can be watched on the PC varies depending on the subscription plan. Users with the $5.99 plan will get six hours of online viewing each month, while those with the more common $17.99 plans get 18 hours. The decision to offer this in terms of "hours" rather than "movies" could potentially frustrate customers who don't want to wait until next month to see the second half of Casino Royale, but it does allow for stopping, starting, and switching films without developing some convoluted definition of what it means to "watch a film."

 

The initial selection is fairly thin, with only 1,000 titles available (out of more than 70,000 available on DVD), but this was the same number of DVDs that Netflix launched with back in 1999. It's probably just as well; Netflix has made clear that they want to roll out the new technology slowly to make sure that everything works correctly. As CEO Reed Hastings notes, this isn't a market that is going to pay big dividends for a few years yet.

 

"While mainstream consumer adoption of online movie watching will take a number of years due to content and technology hurdles, the time is right for Netflix to take the first step," he said. "Over the coming years we'll expand our selection of films, and we'll work to get to every Internet-connected screen, from cell phones to PCs to plasma screens."

 

The move does help Netflix in the short-term, though, by giving them a new selling point in their war with rival Blockbuster. Blockbuster has been aggressively advertising its DVD-by-mail service on TV and touts its Total Access program as a major advantage over Netflix.

 

With Blockbuster's plan, though, users still need to drive to a local video store to collect a new film; with Netflix, it can all be done at the PC. Of course, these movies still need to be watched on the computer, but it's clearly in Netflix's interest to develop an online distribution channel that reaches all the way to the television.

 

i am looking to do Blu-Ray and not streaming HD wont do me any good :D

 

but I did finally find the pricing for Blockbuster $17.99 for unlimited(same as Netflix) but Netflix does have some smaller plans

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I'm paying Blockbuster $15.93 / month and I get 2 at a time.

 

Once I've watched my 2, I can take them back to the store and I get 2 store movies plus I get 2 more in the mail as Gonkis mentioned above.

 

We get movies WAY faster than we could watch them.

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I had both a couple of years ago, stayed with netflix because they were a little faster on turnaround, they have NC-17 movies that BB won't carry, almost all movies shipped to me have been WS rather than full screen, and I like their website better. You read a review of a movie coming out today, you can put it in your "save" queue and it will pop up in your queue a couple weeks before its DVD release. I also think in general the customer reviews are better (you'll see the useless "That's two hours of my life I'll never get back" comment far more frequently on BB), and there was just all kinds of info about the movie that BB didn't have.

 

From glancing at the site, though, it does look like BB has improved their website quite a bit since I was a member. You do get one free game rental a month at BB, and the store return may allow you to watch more movies or get a cheaper plan. It's rare that I have time to watch more than three movies a week, anyway, so I'll stick with what works. And, for me, going to a store sorta defeats the thing I like about getting movies through the mail. If I desperately need the movie that night, I can spare the $4 for the once or twice per year that need arises.

 

So, you can get a free game rental with BB, or you can get a '70s hard-core porn film that features bestiality and an old snuff film on Netflix (and I'm not talking about Caligula, although you can get that, too). And netflix pioneered this stuff, and had it not been for them, BB would probably be renting movies at $6 a shot with double late fees by now, so I kinda like supporting netflix for that reason, too.

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Blockbuster for me, no question. Returning the mailed movies to the store not only gives you a free rental, but immediately prompts them to mail the next one in your queue. You get the next movie in a day or so. I'm in the 3-out-at-a-time plan. I almost always have 3-5 movies at the house at a time and only pay the one monthly fee.

 

I can't imagine NetFlix being any better because they don't have the stores.

 

 

 

yeah returning the movies to eh BB store for an instant free rental makes it a no brainer for me. Those babies will lay around for days if I actually have to use snailmail to return them

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yeah returning the movies to eh BB store for an instant free rental makes it a no brainer for me. Those babies will lay around for days if I actually have to use snailmail to return them

 

 

days or even weeks sometimes. Same here. Now I'm in the damn store every week.

 

We get more movies than I could watch, but I must have rented every Spiderman, Scooby doo, Dora, Barbie flick in the place twice over for the little ones.

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I had both a couple of years ago, stayed with netflix because they were a little faster on turnaround, they have NC-17 movies that BB won't carry, almost all movies shipped to me have been WS rather than full screen, and I like their website better. You read a review of a movie coming out today, you can put it in your "save" queue and it will pop up in your queue a couple weeks before its DVD release. I also think in general the customer reviews are better (you'll see the useless "That's two hours of my life I'll never get back" comment far more frequently on BB), and there was just all kinds of info about the movie that BB didn't have.

 

From glancing at the site, though, it does look like BB has improved their website quite a bit since I was a member. You do get one free game rental a month at BB, and the store return may allow you to watch more movies or get a cheaper plan. It's rare that I have time to watch more than three movies a week, anyway, so I'll stick with what works. And, for me, going to a store sorta defeats the thing I like about getting movies through the mail. If I desperately need the movie that night, I can spare the $4 for the once or twice per year that need arises.

 

So, you can get a free game rental with BB, or you can get a '70s hard-core porn film that features bestiality and an old snuff film on Netflix (and I'm not talking about Caligula, although you can get that, too). And netflix pioneered this stuff, and had it not been for them, BB would probably be renting movies at $6 a shot with double late fees by now, so I kinda like supporting netflix for that reason, too.

 

 

I'm in the process of deciding which one to go with. I'm doing the 2 week free trial with BB right now and then I'm gonna try Netflix for two weeks. You're saying BB doesn't offer pron but Netflix does? I can't find any on either site.

Edited by Sam
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I'm in the process of deciding which one to go with. I'm doing the 2 week free trial with BB right now and then I'm gonna try Netflix for two weeks. You're saying BB doesn't offer pron but Netflix does? I can't find any on either site.

 

 

hm, i never noticed porn on netflix, but, in my experience, blockbuster considers unrated and nc-17 movies as "adult" content and fails to stock them (again, this was my experience years ago with the stores; maybe a blockbuster subscriber can say whether this is still the case). i know that netflix will automatically send you HD versions of movies if you opt for them. i'm sure blockbuster does the same, but i haven't checked.

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I'm in the process of deciding which one to go with. I'm doing the 2 week free trial with BB right now and then I'm gonna try Netflix for two weeks. You're saying BB doesn't offer pron but Netflix does? I can't find any on either site.

 

just make sure that you cancel in time or you are gonna get charged(at least that is how I read it)

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I'm paying Blockbuster $15.93 / month and I get 2 at a time.

 

Once I've watched my 2, I can take them back to the store and I get 2 store movies plus I get 2 more in the mail as Gonkis mentioned above.

 

We get movies WAY faster than we could watch them.

 

 

+1

 

And when u return the envelopes to BB, it seems within a day your next movies are shipped out. Ive never been without a movie in my house that i havent watched yet..

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