Netflix - is it worth getting?

Quick, and hopefully easily answered, question about Netflix.

When you have a NF subscription is that the only outlay per month?

Here's an explanation of what I mean. At the moment I've got Virgin's VOD service and also Amazon Prime. Both of these have a selection of content included in the subscription, but you're expected to pay-on-demand for premium content, like newly arrived films. I've had a look around NF's site and it looks like it's a "free buffet" of content once you've paid for you monthly subscription. The Prime version of Instant Video looked like it could have been like that too - but it turns out to be pretty limited unless you stump up extra for the newer content (and Amazon's prices are a lot more than Virgin's).

Yes, I know, the best/easiest way to find out would be to take the NF free trial, but there's some articles around the net about problems getting that free trial cancelled.

Kids are pressing me to get NF, but I'm only going to do that if it's a "better" service than what I've already got.

We've never paid anything other than the regular subscription. Completely sold on it now.

The subscription gets you the lot. Which is kind of how LoveFilm Instant used to be, before they sold out to Amazon.

You don't get the absolute latest content, but there is a lot there, plus there's the Netflix-commissioned series, like House of Cards, although Amazon are also starting to do these...

Plus if you've got Virgin already, you can stream Netflix through the app on your Tivo, and it doesn't count towards any quotas.

I get some grief from the kids that the content isn't up to date enough, like Adventure Time is only series 1.

I just purchased the last series of Warehouse 13 on DVD because we watched the rest and those last 6 episodes haven't turned up yet.

But overall there is always something on there to watch and in decent quality with surround sound if you have that, so it seems good value. You are allowed to stream to 2 devices at the same time, which we do fairly regularly. Not accidentally hit three streams yet, I'm sure it will happen :)

yeah it's great, I much prefer the US/Canada selection for a lot of things however.

Netflix is excellent. One price and you get access to everything they have available. Like Animus I use US Netflix though partly for the wider selection but mainly due to every programme having subtitles unlike the UK version. I think you can get a trial to see how you get on with it.

I tired them and thought the quality was horribly washed out on my 60 meg Virgin connection. Colours flat, everything blurry. It may be theoretically 'HD' but the compression was too much. Might have been watchable on a phone - on a TV, yuk.

I had it for a while, never used it - but that was my fault, time etc - now I do watch it often and there's things on there I like.

I'm hooked on breaking bad alone!!! jessie makes me so angry :@

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Originally Posted by Smudger

The subscription gets you the lot. Which is kind of how LoveFilm Instant used to be, before they sold out to Amazon.

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Well, in theory, that was how Lovefilm worked.

I had one of the badged versions of Lovefilm, and while that was the theory, in practice, the newer and more desirable premium content simply never arrived. I had it for about 18 months, and some of the stuff on my very first list was still on it when I got fed up and cancelled. In large part, I dumped it because I got a constant stream of 'list-fillers' that I really wasn't bothered about, and very little of the stuff I particularly wanted.

Crossy, I'm not saying Netflix does this sort of thing, and I am talking about 'DVD's in the post' days, with my Lovefilm experience.

I would just advise a little caution, because many services aren't necessarily quite what the marketing suggests. For instance, buying a virtual server to host a website, with "unlimited" bandwidth. So sure, it's unlimited .... you can suck all the bandwidth you want down the bit of damp string they connect their server to the net with, and that you share with 50 billion other users. Okay, so that's a tad hyperbolic, but my point is with 'unlimited' this, 'free' that, and 'up to' something else .... read between the lines. ;)

Back to Netflix -I don't know, have never used it, and don't really plan on it. These days, I just buy films or TV series I want, on DVD (and no, not Bluray). I know it's terribly old-fashioned in this online, on-demand, streaming, content-protected IP rights world, but it suits me. I don't buy vast amounts, but I do get what I really want.

I've been using Netflix for a while now and, for £7, a month its really good. I can use it on my phone, Chromecast, PC (obviously) and PS4. The only quality issues I've noticed was when I was using wifi. As soon as I used a wired connection to my PS4 it was a lot better.

The UK content is a bit limited but, as others have said, you can use the US site as well.

For the price of a McDs or Burger King it's hard to fault.

how do u get access to the US version, dns / vpn tricks?

First off, thanks all who took the time out to reply. :rockon:

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Originally Posted by Smudger

Plus if you've got Virgin already, you can stream Netflix through the app on your Tivo, and it doesn't count towards any quotas.

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Hmm, Tivo, yes. Invariably when I go searching for something it comes up as available on YouTube or Netflix. :( But, I've got the XL broadband from Virgin, so no quotas. :) Good thought on the Tivo though - means we can use the big TV rather than having to stream via tablet etc.
Just moved to 4G AYCE on Three, so being able to watch something (on my large screen G3 phone) while waiting for one the kids to come out of one of their clubs would be a major plus.

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Originally Posted by HSK

how do u get access to the US version, dns / vpn tricks?

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My question too - I'm curious.
(BTW, like your sig block, I'll have to get the old A1500 out of the loft sometime)

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Originally Posted by Saracen

Okay, so that's a tad hyperbolic, but my point is with 'unlimited' this, 'free' that, and 'up to' something else .... read between the lines. ;)

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I think they are pretty transparent about their offering tbh. It isn't free, it isn't that expensive, you don't get the latest premium content.

Kind of a "good enough" service. So I think it is down to how you look at it, for me although it isn't generally the latest films there is usually *something* on that I want to watch.

Contrast that with NowTV, where you pay through the nose for the latest films, but I pretty much drained them of everything I thought was worth watching in the free month and it doesn't update that often. Compared to that, Netflix get my money.

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Originally Posted by wasabi

I tired them and thought the quality was horribly washed out on my 60 meg Virgin connection. Colours flat, everything blurry. It may be theoretically 'HD' but the compression was too much. Might have been watchable on a phone - on a TV, yuk.

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I find that very odd. If you leave the service on automatic then the first few seconds are quite low resolution while it makes sure you can take higher bitrates.

I have a very small study in my house. It has a 2 seater sofa on one wall, the opposite wall is pretty much filled with a 47" TV :D So we are sat pretty close to the screen, artifacting is really obvious, and I don't have a problem with Netflix.

OFC it could be that Virgin were throttling the speed from Netflix for their own political purposes, apparently that happens a lot.

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Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

I find that very odd. If you leave the service on automatic then the first few seconds are quite low resolution while it makes sure you can take higher bitrates.

I have a very small study in my house. It has a 2 seater sofa on one wall, the opposite wall is pretty much filled with a 47" TV :D So we are sat pretty close to the screen, artifacting is really obvious, and I don't have a problem with Netflix.

OFC it could be that Virgin were throttling the speed from Netflix for their own political purposes, apparently that happens a lot.

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Tried it with several devices including the Tivo, not just the main TV either. All sucky and washed out. Tweaked it to supposedly force highest quality in the menus. Still unacceptably sucky. I can stream iplayer HD easily at the same time as the wife doing the same. Really wanted to like it, but it was pants. Really could do with a cached download option like iplayer has too. Never mind the needing to find a trick to get the full US range of shows - the UK range is dire.

They seem better for TV drama than new movies.

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Originally Posted by wasabi

Tried it with several devices including the Tivo, not just the main TV either. All sucky and washed out. Tweaked it to supposedly force highest quality in the menus. Still unacceptably sucky. I can stream iplayer HD easily at the same time as the wife doing the same. Really wanted to like it, but it was pants. Really could do with a cached download option like iplayer has too. Never mind the needing to find a trick to get the full US range of shows - the UK range is dire.

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Odd, though according to Ars Technica there is plenty of history of ISPs throttling Netflix.

Perhaps it was the material you were watching, there is some variation in source material quality. Guess we will never know. Going from watching Warehouse 13 on Netflix to watching the last few episodes on DVD I found the drop in quality on DVD quite surprising.

I have a Samsung and an LG, both look fine. I also currently have NowTV as their little box was on offer for £12.50 with three months of movies subscription. The LG TV can do NowTV natively, but even without the underpowered little 720p gadget involved you can just see that the quality isn't as good as Netflix. The three months of NowTV is about to run out, I have already cancelled as I can't imagine paying a tenner a month for that service. £4 a month with the bundled little box to play with was a good use of just over a tenner though :D

Again, thanks to all that replied. In the end I plumped up for Netflix at the weekend (the four user setup). Unfortunately, I managed to get the email address wrong, so I had to contact Netflix support late on Saturday night to get it sorted out. They were pretty helpful. :)

Service itself is a bit strange. I'm definitely seeing poor quality when a title first starts, then it's almost as if the app is testing the connection because after less than 2 minutes we're up to quality as good as normal HD TV.

Content is 1st class, although the kids are moaning because it's light on US-generated content (Big Bang, Two Broke Girls, etc). Tried a test yesterday where I started watching something on TV (Tivo app) then stopped it, went out and picked up the film I was watching on app on my phone. Quality - over two bar 3G (Three) - was actually pretty respectable, although the initial start up took a heck of a long time.

Unfortunately for Amazon, the selection on NF is many times better than that on Amazon Prime, so I'll be cancelling my (expensive) Prime membership later this month. Now if I can get £3/month back from Virgin (by cancelling the sport channels that we don't need) then I'll be quids in.

Glad you are enjoying it.

I swapped my Sky subscription for NetFlix, so big saving here.

And yes, I think the system is usually testing the connection at the start. Either that or they are just avoiding you having to watch a spinning "buffering" icon at the start, and tbh a lot of material it is fine.

You can usually go into an options menu and force high quality. That might help, it might not :D

The Wii-U is still the best client I have used though.

You should absolutely get it. Make sure to browse the library via a US vpn for maximum amount of content :)

A little bit off topic, but I would not recommend Amazon Prime just for the Instant Video, not the best selection, I consider it more of an added perk of next day delivery for the whole family, would not pay for it stand alone.

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Originally Posted by Stickwolf

A little bit off topic, but I would not recommend Amazon Prime just for the Instant Video, not the best selection, I consider it more of an added perk of next day delivery for the whole family, would not pay for it stand alone.

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I'd go further than this - the Amazon Instant Video (like a lot of Prime to be honest) is just broken. I'd cautiously welcomed it being added to the Prime menu - and then discovered that it's only some content that's included in your Prime subscription. The rest is the usual rental setup - and like for like pricing shows that it's actually more expensive than other services such as Virgin Media's FilmFlex VOD.

Prime has some nice features - like being able to nominate members of your family to share your "free" delivery. Trouble is that it'd be far more use if other services - such as the Kindle lending library - were also capable of being shared.

If Prime did the delivery only option for a decent price (say £30-40) then I'd be interested. As it stands though, with all that "unnecessary" overhead it's just not worth the money to me. And for that reason I'm cancelling my Prime membership shortly (before it renews).

On the other hand - barring a few lousy setup experiences - Netflix has impressed. Kids certainly love it. ;) Biggest annoyance at the moment is that titles are "leaking" from one profile into another. E.g. I watched Archer the other day and both kids now have it in their "recently viewed" list for their profiles.

Netflix is even better when you use a DNS service to access all regions, unlocking a lot more content than what is available in just one region.

Netflix is really good, i wasn't keen at first but then soon after i fell in love with it.