Any experience w/ Netflix Roku?

[cgallery]

http://www.roku.com/netflixplayer

They say they have 10,000 movies in their library for the thing.

They DON'T say what the deal is with new releases. Are they added right away or do the studios prohibit that?

I'd love to hear some personal experiences on the thing.

[Alex Franke]

That's pretty cool. I didn't see a way to browse the movies though.

I wonder if it's the same as the on-demand movies on their site... If so, I did see a couple of interesting ones. One in particular was called Helvetica -- it was a documentary about the font, believe it or not. But it was very interesting.

The on-demand movies were more of the ones you vaguely remember or might find interesting to browse, more than the "gotta see" blockbusters, as I recall.

[dkerfoot]

http://www.roku.com/netflixplayer

They say they have 10,000 movies in their library for the thing.

They DON'T say what the deal is with new releases. Are they added right away or do the studios prohibit that?

I'd love to hear some personal experiences on the thing.

I have Netflix, which includes "instantly" playable movies online. I've looked at the Roku unit, which just facilitates getting them to play on your TV. It seems to be a good value.

Netflix is adding many movies and TV shows to the "Watch Instantly" list all the time. I doubt they will ever add them as soon as they are released to DVD. That will remain a function of what they mail to you. But, by working the two together, it is a very nice service at a very attractive price.

I subscribe to the basic one DVD at a time service. Even with that, if I watch the movie the same day it arrives and send it back the next day, I can watch 2 movies a week. Monday - they ship. Tuesday - I receive and watch. Wednesday, I ship back. Thursday, they receive. Friday they ship. Saturday I receive again.

In the meantime, I can watch any episode I want of "Office" or "Coach" and lots of older movies. The Watch Instantly is a nice, free supplement to the DVD by mail service.

[gerti]

Less then 10% in my Netflix queue are available online, and almost all of these are low-rated movies. So IMHO not worth it until things improve dramatically. Though it would be nice not to have to deal with scratched and skipping DVDs anymore...

[cgallery]

Though it would be nice not to have to deal with scratched and skipping DVDs anymore...

Yeah, that is why we dropped Netflix. We had like six or seven unplayable movies in a row.

[Alex Franke]

Yeah, that is why we dropped Netflix. We had like six or seven unplayable movies in a row.

Really? We've never really had a problem with the DVDs -- other than once getting the "bonus features" disc in a set instead of the movie.

In any case, remember that you need to have a network connection by the TV. I don't think it's wireless.

[dkerfoot]

Yeah, that is why we dropped Netflix. We had like six or seven unplayable movies in a row.

I have had a few that wouldn't play at first. Usually a good cleaning is all it takes. I did get a cheap CleanDr and Skip Dr though. I have only ever had to use the SkipDr once. It actually sands off the top layer of the DVD, so it is a bit drastic, but does work. Usually two passes through the CleanDr is all it takes. Otherwise, some plain dish soap and hot water works pretty well too.

I do think that different DVD players handle small scratches and fingerprints better than others. If you had that many in a row, I would consider replacing the player.

[cgallery]

I do think that different DVD players handle small scratches and fingerprints better than others. If you had that many in a row, I would consider replacing the player.

The disks wouldn't work in the home (Sony) player or my notebook player. Many looked like they were rubbed on sheets of sandpaper. Even new releases looked just terrible.

So my normal routine was to clean the disk before I'd even watch the movie. Then at some random spot into the movie (but always after I started getting into the story, of course) the reader would start skipping unreadable chapters.

When we first started using Netflix the movies worked fine. They seemed in really good shape. It was only after a year or so that we started noticing brand new releases (like we had them the third or fourth week they were out) were terribly scratched.

It almost looked intentional. Like some Milwaukee-area Netflix members were purposely sabotaging the disks.

[dkerfoot]

It almost looked intentional. Like some Milwaukee-area Netflix members were purposely sabotaging the disks.

Hmmm... Perhaps the local Blockbuster crew decided to do some "Covert Ops"... lol

[atgcpaul]

I get the one movie at a time through Netflix and have used their play-it-now
service. However, the selection on play-it-now is pretty bad. I'd group most
of them into the B/C-movie category or if you're from the Philly area, the
Channel-6 Million Dollar Movie at midnight on Saturday night. I don't think
the box is worth it at this point considering I can just hook my laptop to my
TV for nothing. Maybe when their selection gets a little less stale.

[gugie]

I wouldn't buy their unit until I see more ()and better) online content. At any rate, a fairly fast computer with DSL or cable modem can give you the same without adding any hardware (if you already have the computer and broadband connection). We've used it to view Showtime shows and movies and other stuff that's not in our cable package. ABC also has all of their old shows online, some in HD. Because of the writer strike, we were able to view some shows we didn't have time to watch before. It took us about 4 months, but we're all caught up on Lost now. At the one DVD plan for Netflix, it would have taken significantly longer!

I highly recommend hooking up a broadband connected computer to your HDTV, assuming you have both. I purchased a $199 Compaq refurb for just that reason, added a wireless mouse and keyboard. Netflix has tons of old kiddie movies-if my kids haven't seen them, they're new to them!

[gerti]

Odd. My wife and I have been using Netflix since they started out. Used to have very few problems in many years, and half of the (very) occasional disk that had problems clearly had some kind of accident in shipping (cracked etc). Then a few months ago almost all DVDs we got were quite scratched and had problems with skipping (even after cleaning, they were just too scratched). I complained several times (no response). And now as sudden as that started it stopped, and we have not had a problem in a while.

I can see how an episode like that could people turn away from Netflix, we were close. But other than that episode we really like Netflix.

[Kristofor]

I've been a netflix member from at least 2002 (just checked my history page), and in that time I recall a single disc (out of hundreds) that was unplayable. Even ones that look terrible seem to play okay in both the Toshiba and Phillips players I have. I do generally look at the disc before playing and remove any debris/smudges but obviously that doesn't do anything for the scratches.

We were a purple house well before the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war was over. While I preferred many of the pluses of HD-DVD the hardcoat on Blu-ray being mandatory was a big plus. While you still can scratch the discs, in general they are much more durable and arrive less scratched.