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How Long Will Netflix Offer DVD/Blu-Ray?

blairh

blairh

macrumors 603
Original poster
Dec 11, 2007
6,273
5,097
I just signed up for Netflix (I know, late to the party). It's very clear that Netflix wants to push their customers to streaming their media in order to cut down on delivery costs of physical discs. I read somewhere that Netflix spends $600 million on shipping costs every year of discs. Insane.

Anyways, currently the streaming library has a pretty weak selection but I know that will change over time. I see the future of Netflix being streaming only potentially (or perhaps only Blu-Ray's being available in the mail). My question to everyone is......when will that day come if you had to guess? Personally I'm kinda dreading the day when DVD's will no longer be available via their mailings. What do you all think?
 
Netflix has a long way to go before they no longer offer physical media.
 
If you were forced to guess, when do you think they'll stop offering DVD's?
 
Considering most people barely get the hang of popping a disc into a DVD player, changing inputs and pressing play. I think it will be quite a while for people to get comfortable with having a Netflix box hooked to their TV let alone a computer for the purpose.

Plus with bandwidth caps and ISP's having a tough enough time handling after work web browsing it will be quite a while before the infrastructure can handle it. It's bad enough trying to watch ABC, Hulu, &c videos in the evening or around 11 at night. So until people can be guaranteed any time day or night studder and freeze free videos it is not going to be used by the masses.
 
velocityg4 said:
Considering most people barely get the hang of popping a disc into a DVD player, changing inputs and pressing play. I think it will be quite a while for people to get comfortable with having a Netflix box hooked to their TV let alone a computer for the purpose.

Plus with bandwidth caps and ISP's having a tough enough time handling after work web browsing it will be quite a while before the infrastructure can handle it. It's bad enough trying to watch ABC, Hulu, &c videos in the evening or around 11 at night. So until people can be guaranteed any time day or night studder and freeze free videos it is not going to be used by the masses.
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Great points. Call me old school but I like having the physical media at my fingertips. Not really comfortable with needing to stream every movie/tv show I want to watch. Plus when I'm in Europe or what not I can still rely on having my DVD's in my carry-on, etc, for my MBP.
 
You should be fine, and blu-ray is not near as widespread as dvd, so I don't see them stopping to offer them anytime soon.
 
As for Blu-Ray, I couldn't care less. But for standard DVD's, at their rate, hopefully never (Realisticly by 2015) They have random movies uploaded and the newest are the ones that I have seen or would never watch. It rediculous :rolleyes:.
 
I love Netflix but with Fox/WB starting to go a month now before new releases hit netflix is starting to make me rethink the only way i stick right now is cause there's alot of great stuff on there on demand they have been adding recently
 
jessica. said:
Netflix has a long way to go before they no longer offer physical media.
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Agreed. Until the current selection is vastly improved and they improve/add subtitles on a majority of their offerings, on all platforms that they offer streaming on (not just platforms that use silverlight - in other words, only Macs and PCs), streaming is simply not an option for me. The day they stop offering DVDs is the day I cancel my membership.
 
Data. Quality. I want lots of it, and I don't care how I get it.

8GB for DVD, 25GB for Blu-Ray, 100GB for 4K when that finally comes out. Way too much for DSL.
 
Some predictions.......

1. All their movies will eventually be available for streaming at some point. When? I'll just guess and say 2 years. I say that soon because they are seriously pushing streaming on their site and they are desperate to cut back on mailings.

2. When their collection goes to all streaming they will offer memberships for subscribers who want to stream only vs. others who want to stream and continue to receive discs in the mail (they are currently contemplating a streaming only membership to people in Europe).

3. When I say "streaming" I mean whatever they currently output on their site. I don't know what that quality technically is or what it is referred to. I'll go ahead and guess it's called SD.

4. HD streaming is still a long ways away (first they need to lock down SD streaming for their entire library) plus current internet bandwidth in homes wouldn't smoothly playback HD streaming content even if it was available.

5. They will eventually phase out DVD's entirely. Seeing how relatively new Blu-Ray still is I'm guessing that format won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

So in conclusion, the safe bet would be that DVD's will still be available for quite a while, but the day will come when they stop offering them (or perhaps make it an additional cost).
 
Mexbearpig said:
As for Blu-Ray, I couldn't care less.
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you could care less because you never watched a properly sourced 1080p material on the latest generation large screen tv / 100" projector in a calibrated setup. (hint: having a peek at bestbuy/sears is not the bluray experience)

It boggles the mind, there are still so many clueless people who think bluray is a gimmick...
 
blair.harringto said:
Some predictions.......

1. All their movies will eventually be available for streaming at some point. When? I'll just guess and say 2 years. I say that soon because they are seriously pushing streaming on their site and they are desperate to cut back on mailings.

2. When their collection goes to all streaming they will offer memberships for subscribers who want to stream only vs. others who want to stream and continue to receive discs in the mail (they are currently contemplating a streaming only membership to people in Europe).

3. When I say "streaming" I mean whatever they currently output on their site. I don't know what that quality technically is or what it is referred to. I'll go ahead and guess it's called SD.

4. HD streaming is still a long ways away (first they need to lock down SD streaming for their entire library) plus current internet bandwidth in homes wouldn't smoothly playback HD streaming content even if it was available.

5. They will eventually phase out DVD's entirely. Seeing how relatively new Blu-Ray still is I'm guessing that format won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

So in conclusion, the safe bet would be that DVD's will still be available for quite a while, but the day will come when they stop offering them (or perhaps make it an additional cost).
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1. This is obviously their goal. However, I read a recent interview with the executives that stated they are still focused on increasing their DVD business and they have plans to do that for years to come. Plus, many studios are reluctant to allow their movies to be streamed. They are becoming the RIAA of the 2010s.

2. Sure, but 99% of the streamable movies are garbage.

3. Honestly dude. Were you locked up for the past few years? Netflix is huge. Many of these predictions are just plain obvious...

4. I get HD streaming from netflix. The Office presented to me in HD, right on my Xbox 360.

5. No s***. I predicted Elvis would eventually die before I was even born.
 
callmemike20 said:
1. This is obviously their goal. However, I read a recent interview with the executives that stated they are still focused on increasing their DVD business and they have plans to do that for years to come. Plus, many studios are reluctant to allow their movies to be streamed. They are becoming the RIAA of the 2010s.

2. Sure, but 99% of the streamable movies are garbage.

3. Honestly dude. Were you locked up for the past few years? Netflix is huge. Many of these predictions are just plain obvious...

4. I get HD streaming from netflix. The Office presented to me in HD, right on my Xbox 360.

5. No s***. I predicted Elvis would eventually die before I was even born.
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With all due respect your condescending tone is completely unnecessary and uncalled for. I'm just sharing my thoughts. Do you really need to talk down to me like this?

I'd like to see that interview you quoted if you know where I can find it online. That would be great news for me.

Why are 99% of the streamable movies garbage? Are you talking the quality of the streams or the movies themselves? I disagree if you are referring to the quality of the films. I recently added about 125 movies to my queue, all great films IMO, and about 20 of them were available for streaming.

What is the quality of the HD streams from your Xbox 360? On par or better than HD movie broadcasts from HBO, etc? If HD streaming is available now then why doesn't Netflix offer them on their website (with regards to the movies that are currently available for streaming)?
 
Well

By the time that Netflix (If they are even around still) decides to strictly distribute Blu-Rays physically, there will be a superior delivery method already available.

Frankly, I am shocked that SPINNING DISCS are still being used and pushed. I see physical memory turning more towards flash based cards or chip type things...
 
blair.harringto said:
With all due respect your condescending tone is completely unnecessary and uncalled for. I'm just sharing my thoughts. Do you really need to talk down to me like this?

I'd like to see that interview you quoted if you know where I can find it online. That would be great news for me.

Why are 99% of the streamable movies garbage? Are you talking the quality of the streams or the movies themselves? I disagree if you are referring to the quality of the films. I recently added about 125 movies to my queue, all great films IMO, and about 20 of them were available for streaming.

What is the quality of the HD streams from your Xbox 360? On par or better than HD movie broadcasts from HBO, etc? If HD streaming is available now then why doesn't Netflix offer them on their website (with regards to the movies that are currently available for streaming)?
Click to expand...

99% of the movies are garbage, and I mean quality of the film, not streaming. You can normally only find some crap movie from an independent studio, or some crap movie from the 80s. The quality of the stream is excellent, IMO; but that's with my 25mb/s, FIOS connection. I would say that the HD quality is on par with that of a 720p broadcast most of the time, sometimes better. AFAIK, Netflix doesn't stream in 1080i/p yet due to the massive bandwidth required.

Netflix doesn't stream HD content to computers, due to the fact that very few people have a computer capable of displaying HD content, most people's screen resolution isn't HD, and on a screen so small, the difference would be negligible. On a 50" TV, you can however, easily notice the difference between HD and SD content.

Also, to stream in HD on a PS3, XBOX 360, or compatible Blu-Ray player, you must have at least 6mb/s of bandwidth available during the entire streaming session.

MattSepeta said:
By the time that Netflix (If they are even around still) decides to strictly distribute Blu-Rays physically, there will be a superior delivery method already available.

Frankly, I am shocked that SPINNING DISCS are still being used and pushed. I see physical memory turning more towards flash based cards or chip type things...
Click to expand...

It's still going to be long time before flash based media becomes the norm. Flash media is still far more expensive than optical based media.

Don
 
Every now and then, I'll find a decent movie for online streaming, but I agree, overall, the selection is pretty poor. If you're expecting to stream a major Hollywood flick that was recently released on DVD/Blu, forget about it.

Also, even more annoying, is movies go in and out of streaming availability. I'll add one to my instant queue, and when I finally get around to watching it later, it's no longer there. That's fine though; with the 2 discs I get a time from NetFlix, plus the fact that I have every HBO, Cinemax, Starz and Showtime channel in HD and a DVR, I already have more movies than I have time.
 
Dmac77 said:
99% of the movies are garbage, and I mean quality of the film, not streaming. You can normally only find some crap movie from an independent studio, or some crap movie from the 80s.
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I disagree. I have 125 movies currently in my queue. The following are currently available for streaming:

Heat, The Third Man, Casablanca, 8 1/2, Amarcord, The Bicycle Thief, Seven Samurai, Vertigo, Bullitt, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Wall-E, Fargo, Punch Drunk Love, The Big Labowski, My Left Foot, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Step Brothers, Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels, Breathless, Rocky IV, Notting Hill, Gomorrah, The Motorcycle Diaries, Serpico, The Rock, and about 6 SNL Best of specials.

So no, I totally disagree that 99% of what is offered for streaming is garbage.

However as yg17 points out above, the fact that films go in and out of streaming with regards to being available is unacceptable. But in terms of newer movies not being available to stream, the studios want to first milk the consumer dollar with regards to DVD/Blu-Ray sales and cable on demand rentals. Not great for us, but I understand why they do it.
 
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