NetFlix to HD Owners: We Know You'll Pay More (Netflix raises Blu-Ray prices because it can)

tvpredictions.com ^ | April 22, 2008 | Phillip Swann

[Las Vegas Dave]

Interested in HDTV?
Please Freepmail (works best) me if you would like your name added to the HDTV ping list.

The pinged subjects will be those of HDTV technology, satellite/cable HD, OTA (over the air with various roof top and indoor antennas) HD reception. Broadcast specials, Blu-ray/HD-DVD, and any and all subjects relating to HD.

Las Vegas Dave

[Las Vegas Dave]

Pinging the HDTV list..

HDTV pings

[ConservativeMind]

Blu-Ray is more costly to produce, so this makes sense.

[dangerdoc]

Instead of being an improvement in product, the industry has taken the transition to HD as a chance to change their business model.

Their revenue has gone down, rather than looking at their product and realizing that most of their movies hold no interest to the majority of people, they have tried do come up with a way to make more money with a generally lousy product.

We have seen it in the theaters, they are taking more and more money from the theaters leading to $5 cokes and candy.

Now they desperately want us to buy $500 players and spend $30 per disc on lousy movies. They forced Blu-Ray/HD DVD war outcome giving us the more expensive alternative.

Well they have had the opposite effect on me. I no longer buy day and date movies. I may rent a movie if it sounds good and then wait and buy used.

If a movie is HD worthy, I wait until it is on TV, record it with my computer and watch it on my media player.

Well their business model has an upside, my movie budget has gone way down leaving more money in my pocket.

[Hot Tabasco]

I checked out NetFlix and didn't find them to be much of a savings on regular DVD's. As for Blue Ray, my Hollywood Video has one small rack of them and they of course are more expensive than the regular DVD's.

In my opinion, the escalated price for renting the BR's is BS.........DVDs on my Pioneer plasma are just fine and so I'm not about to go into overkill for the sake of BR.

Additionally, I'm now in the habit of getting my DVDs from my local library. Granted, what I pick up are older but at least they are free..........

[MaxMax]

You should check out Windvd 9, it makes regular DVD movies look similar
to HD. If, you have a 720p or 1080i screen the difference is very noticeable.

[goodnesswins]

Red Box is great, too....$1 per movie....for a 24 hour rental

[FORTRUTHONLY]

In other words, Hastings is saying that it's okay to gouge the high-def owner a bit because he/she is used to being gouged a bit.

So using his analogy it's okay to also gouge car owners on insurance rates, auto repairs since they are being gouges on gas prices. This is not capitalism, this is pure greed.

[weegee]

There are fewer blu-ray titles and fewer blu-ray customers than the general public. It presents an investment in non-compatible discs.

Where is the start up company that only offers blu-ray discs and what is there monthly service fee?

[dangerdoc]

There is a product that uses super resolution techniques to increase real resolution. It’s not real time but it does add real resolution to the video.

Toshiba is supposed to have a DVD player coming out sometime around the end of the year with a cell based processor that does super resolution in real time. I wouldn’t expect Blu-Ray quality but it shoud turn regular DVD into real 720p.

[Hyzenthlay]

Now they desperately want us to buy $500 players and spend $30 per disc on lousy movies. They forced Blu-Ray/HD DVD war outcome giving us the more expensive alternative.

I'm still in the 'wait and see' stage - I remember probably only about 7 years ago, when my family was looking at standard DVD players, it was difficult to find one for less than $100, and IIRC the average price was closer to $200. Now, they're dirt cheap and everywhere. Similarly, DVD's used to be well over $20 each, and now you can find them for about $7 at places like Best Buy. Give it some time, and it might just be affordable, but until then I'm sticking with DVD.

[Hurricane Andrew]

That’s what happens when you eliminate the competition (HD-DVD). With only 1 alternative, prices were bound to go up. No surprise here.

[Straight Vermonter]

What business owner doesn’t charge every penny they can for a product?

[Born Conservative]

Sorry, Netflix. I LOVE your service, but my upconverting DVD player does a decent job on making regular DVD’s look good on my LCD, so I don’t care about Blu Ray.

[mowowie]

This is too bad.
Netflix actually lowered my monthly bill a few months ago.
Never seen that before.

[JZelle]

I dropped them long ago for “throttling”.

[Sans-Culotte]

I dropped Netflix after many years when they dumped HD DVD. I had several HD DVD titles in my queue at the time, and they were changed to SD DVD. Some were new releases that I wanted to preview before buying or not (Assassination of Jesse James, American Gangster, etc).

I went over to Blockbuster Online, and was able to rent them there. Indeed, I have rented several HD DVD titles since switching. This new Blu-Ray plan of Netflix' does not look promising either. I'm glad I am rid of them.

[dangerdoc]

“What business owner doesn’t charge every penny they can for a product?”

A business owner interested in growth and long-term health rather than short term profit. I think the American automobile industry would be a good example.

[norraad]

...america used to make cars?

Humph, I did not know that.

Netfkix is beginning to appear to care about "customers".

I called them the other day to give them a throttling about "throttling" ( delaying deliveries sometimes by 3 days for me).

They, of course lied & said they didn't or it was someone elses fault (gee, who could that be?).

But, now my DVD's are arriving at jet speed.

[boogerbear]

BR discs cost them more to buy, it’s not gouging to send the costs to the customer.