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My Netflix Usage

T

Tennesotans

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 23, 2007
15
0
I was looking over out entertainment dollars... directtv, iTunes, Netflix, Tivo...
and I got curious how much I've spent through Netflix... and basically how
much we'd spent on each movie. So -- here are the stats are:

a) we've been members of Netflix on/off since 2003
b) we've been members about 47 months (looking at payment history)
c) we've rented 140 movies in that time. There were MONTHS were the red
envelopes just sat there... the best of intentions ;)
d) our total payment to Netflix is over $900 in that time.

That works out to about 3 movies a month at a cost of $6.47 a movie.

I would have guessed half that :(. I know iTunes selection pales in comparison
to Netflix... but this makes the $3.99 per movies look preeeettty attractive
for OUR needs. Surprising.

(I've recently dropped out netflix subscription to two movies a month...)
 
The only real way to maximum your bang for the buck with Netflix is to watch a LOT of movies frequently. On a 3-disc plan, replenishing once per week, we have 12 movies in an average month. Assuming a $16.99/month plan, we have $1.42 per disc rental, which is cheaper than any B&M rental store, assuming you're watching mostly new releases. So if you can manage to watch 3 movies per week, you would be saving money.

If you're paying $6.47 per movie on average, you're only watching about one movie per week, so you might as well either rent on iTunes or at the local video store.

But Netflix does have other advantages that may or may not apply to you. They stock Blu-ray movies and don't even charge a premium to rent them like the local video stores do. Netflix has a far more extensive library of titles than iTunes or ANY video store. There's very few titles I haven't been able to find on Netflix.

So for me, I couldn't ask for a better deal. :)
 
Looks like Netflix isn't the best for you, but if you take advantage of the unlimited movies a month, it's a good deal. Mine comes out to about $2 or less a movie.
 
i'm loving netflix for watching old tv series. right now, we're hooked on Battlestar Galactica. (a little soapy, but still fun!) as quickly as we're turning those discs around, we're right around $2.00 per disc. much better than 1.99 per episode on iTMS. (unlimited plan, 3 discs at a time)
 
maestrocasa said:
i'm loving netflix for watching old tv series. right now, we're hooked on Battlestar Galactica. (a little soapy, but still fun!) as quickly as we're turning those discs around, we're right around $2.00 per disc. much better than 1.99 per episode on iTMS. (unlimited plan, 3 discs at a time)
Click to expand...

Same here, we're doing Little House on the Prairie with our family - 4 episodes per disk. Way too expensive to do that by paying for each episode.

I'm a grandfathered member of netflix, still getting 4 movies at a time for about $18. With the cost of gas how it is - it's far cheaper than going to the rental store even without the hassle factor.

My first ATV is sitting on my desk right now and will install tonight, but I honestly don't see it replacing netflix anytime soon.
 
I suspect its our Tivo -- we have 50+ season passes... which gives us
at least 2 hours of viewing a night. Adding 3 movies a week is more than
we can handle. The math for television episodes is HORRIBLE... so I don't
think we will be getting rid of Tivo anytime soon ;)

I rented about 10 HD DVDs before they gave up the ghost... I saw a
high "scratch failure" rate with them. Are yall seeing similar for BluRay?
We have friends over to watch "Breach"... 80 minutes into the movie it
hung, I had to skip chapters and rewind to finish the movie :(

Different strokes...
 
I calculate our Netflix usage at just over $3/movie. We've averaged about 6 movies per month. Normally, I would think that was a little higher than I would want to spend, but the convenience of always having a movie on-hand to watch when we want is worth at least a buck. And having the queue as a way of tracking movies we want to see is also nice. So for us, Netflix = teh win!
 
Well, I don't want to go into too much detail because I'm sure I'll get scolded, but I get about 6 movies a week from Netflix, so I'm looking at around 75 cents a DVD. I'll take it.
 
I'm one the one movie at a time plan. I tend to watch one Netflix film a week, so I'm at $2.50/disc or slightly worse.

I think it will stay that way until I can get all the things I need at iTunes (broader movie selection, HBO series, etc.)
 
mindcrash said:
Well, I don't want to go into too much detail because I'm sure I'll get scolded, but I get about 6 movies a week from Netflix, so I'm looking at around 75 cents a DVD. I'll take it.
Click to expand...

YOU'RE A MACHINE... how long is your QUEUE????

;) ;)
 
mindcrash said:
Well, I don't want to go into too much detail because I'm sure I'll get scolded, but I get about 6 movies a week from Netflix, so I'm looking at around 75 cents a DVD. I'll take it.
Click to expand...

I take it you're burning copies of the movies then? That's what I usually do, and I wind up just throwing the movie in the mailbox the same day or day after I get it. It makes it well worth the money.
 
A few reasons I will not be quitting NetFlix anytime soon:

1. Grandfathered. As someone already mentioned, there are some of us who've been members so long that we get 4 out at a time for the price of 3. If we ever change anything in our account, I assume we'll lose that.

2. When I first joined in 2000, I decided to track our usage to see if we were getting our money's worth. I originally figured that if we paid $2-3 per movie it was worth it, but if we paid $4-5 it probably wasn't. Since it was easy, I've kept my spreadsheet up to date. We have averaged over 8 discs/month over the life of our membership, which means that iTunes rentals can't come close.

3. TV shows. NetFlix is great for renting TV. Until iTunes carries TV rentals at a reasonable price, there is no chance that we will dump NetFlix.

4. We did rent one HD movie from iTunes, just to give it a shot (plus, we'd never watched anything HD on our 6-year-old HD-ready TV). We rented Batman Begins. It looked great, but the dialog was often hard to make out. If this was a DVD, we would just have turned on subtitles now and then. But it wasn't, so we couldn't. My wife hated that.

5. Even though I thought "we" didn't care all that much about extras, my wife was saying "what, no special features?".

I still love my AppleTV, and so does my wife. However, I don't think we'll be renting very many movies.

And it looks like I will have to get a Blu-ray player after all...
 
I'll join the NetFlix supporters.

I wouldn't mind renting movies with iTunes, but they have no subtitles or closed captioning, so no deal.

NetFlix for the win.
 
gco212 said:
I take it you're burning copies of the movies then? That's what I usually do, and I wind up just throwing the movie in the mailbox the same day or day after I get it. It makes it well worth the money.
Click to expand...

Yeah...my external drive is going to need to be updated pretty soon ;)

My only complaint about Netflix thus far is that it is taking forever to get popular movies, but Blockbuster would be the same I think.
 
I agree. I will also not be dropping Netflix. With that said, I did drop it from 4 out at a time to 2 out. Between DirecTV HD movie channels, my own DVD collection, Apple TV and Netflix, I find I don't use Netflix as much as I use to.
 
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