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Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

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Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#211

Post by tracker1 »

dylan604 wrote: post #102
apparent wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have tried to get my wife to pause some of our subs but she absolutely refuses. She says "we're not poor" (we are not) and apparently just wants to spend $70/mo on these damn things. Even if costs were lower, I still think we should not have so many, since it spoils our kids. I don't want them to see TV as "we have access to everything all the time". I want them to see that there are tradeoffs, and understand that…

> "we have access to everything all the time" I remember when there were 3 networks. I remember when those networks stopped broadcasting content around midnight by playing the national anthem and then playing bars or just going off the air. I used to think the concept of UHF is kind of lost, but then realized it's kind of just what YouTube has become-weird, random, wacky content produced by just about anybody that ca…

And Saturday morning cartoons from 5am-1pm... then they started rolling back the non-toons earlier until no more Saturday morning cartoons.

Phoenix, AZ had a local variety kids morning show, "Wallace and Ladmo" that anyone from the area born before 1985 or so probably remembers.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#212

Post by layer8 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #172
MrDOS wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resolution isn't the only problem. SD resolution (particularly PAL) is quite tolerable, if it's well-encoded from a good source. DVDs are not well-encoded, and the sources are typically poorer, too. DVDs store MPEG-2 Part 2 (H.262) video streams. It's an extremely old, inefficient codec. (It was published in 1996! Next month, it'll be 30 years old!) It looks best when the encoder is given a bitrate limit north of 20…

I have both Blu-ray and DVDs and I've found its the content that determines which is good enough. Kids in care not one bit about image quality. Obviously: people still like retro games, too. But then other movies, like anything by Villenueve or Nolan, or Baraka, really want to be on 4K Blu-ray. But kids movies on DVD are perfectly fine, and sitcoms like Community. (Personally I'd pay extra to NOT see Pierce in 4k). I…

Yes, for older TV titles, the main reason to opt for Blu-ray is the better sound quality. Although DVD supports uncompressed audio (LPCM), that was rarely used outside Japan, and regular stereo audio typically used pretty mediocre compression.

When using subtitles, another reason is the higher-resolution fonts.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#213

Post by layer8 »

dylan604 wrote: post #45
craftkiller wrote: post #23

At this point, I'm surprised the streaming services aren't grandfathering people into their current plan+rate like the cellular networks do. It would encourage people to keep their subscription active to keep their rate rather than cancelling it and signing up again when there is a specific show they want to watch, while also avoiding the price increase frustrations. PS: Thanks for the reminder about the price increa…

I've been doing the "pause" option not just for Netflix but multiple streamers. Adding up all of the streaming subs totaled as much monthly as the cable bill I did away with which made sense when everything was on Netflix. Now each studio has their own platform with similar per month fees. There's not enough content to justify that much monthly expense.

One thing to pay attention to is that Netflix deletes your watchlist if you “pause” for longer than ten months.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#214

Post by autoexec »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #84
donohoe wrote: post #21

Not a lawyer but... if you have the DVD its legal to make a backup digital copy. I am thinking the same thing. Most recent movies are available for under $20 per DVD - and there are tons of deals. You can get the 4 lego movies for $5 on DVD on Amazon right now. A "Tom Cruise 10-Movie Collection" is $12. You get the idea. Get the DVD. Make a legal backup. Keep the physical DVD in storage. You now "own" the movie (or T…

If you buy one that has a VUDU code, and go on moviesanywhere.com you can now link your VUDU account, your Apple iTunes account and your Google Movies account, and whoever else, and the movie unlocks on all those other streaming services. So if you buy a BluRay movie, you can stream it on your favorite streaming service provider thanks to MovisAnywhere (run by the movie industry - the one rare good thing they did). I…

It's good to note that moviesanywhere.com, Kanopy, and VUDU (now Fandango at Home) sell your data and use it for market research (in addition to other things, there's no telling what it will be used for after it's sold). That said, for those of us in California "Kanopy does not sell your information. Kanopy does not share your information with third parties for money or other valuable consideration."

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#215

Post by dylan604 »

tracker1 wrote: post #211
dylan604 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "we have access to everything all the time" I remember when there were 3 networks. I remember when those networks stopped broadcasting content around midnight by playing the national anthem and then playing bars or just going off the air. I used to think the concept of UHF is kind of lost, but then realized it's kind of just what YouTube has become-weird, random, wacky content produced by just about anybody that ca…

And Saturday morning cartoons from 5am-1pm... then they started rolling back the non-toons earlier until no more Saturday morning cartoons. Phoenix, AZ had a local variety kids morning show, "Wallace and Ladmo" that anyone from the area born before 1985 or so probably remembers.

Dallas had the Mr Peppermint Show that was syndicated to a few places around the country.

By the time the Saturday morning cartoons were gone, there were 24/7 channels for cartoons and kid's entertainment.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#216

Post by sfRattan »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #112

I feel like netflix is definitely very cheap, with OpenClaw or whatever your favorite agent is, it's trivial to subscribe to watch one show and then have it cancel immediately.

The idea of using an LLM to manage media streaming subscriptions seems completely bonkers-nutso-crazy to me. Then again, I don't have streaming subscriptions anymore. I'll grant that streaming platforms played dark-pattern games with cancellation a decade ago, which is part of why I dropped all of them, but iOS and Android are both pretty good about routing subscriptions through their respective app stores and enforcing standardized, easy cancellation for end users.

The amount of energy in your brain it takes to do this basic thing versus the amount of energy in a datacenter somewhere, and the slide into cognitive atrophy that must result...

There are things I'll happily use LLMs to accomplish, but offloading day-to-day executive function will never, ever be on that list. And every day I understand and sympathize with the ethos of the Butlerian Jihad more and more.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#219

Post by tim-tday »

donohoe wrote: post #21

Not a lawyer but... if you have the DVD its legal to make a backup digital copy. I am thinking the same thing. Most recent movies are available for under $20 per DVD - and there are tons of deals. You can get the 4 lego movies for $5 on DVD on Amazon right now. A "Tom Cruise 10-Movie Collection" is $12. You get the idea. Get the DVD. Make a legal backup. Keep the physical DVD in storage. You now "own" the movie (or T…

It is, but it is illegal to break the copy protection.

So if you have the license, download a legal fair use back via “alternate distribution channels”.

Re: Netflix Prices Went Up Again – I Bought a DVD Player Instead

#220

Post by snvzz »

lelandbatey wrote: post #175
adamors wrote: post #63

I cancelled all my streaming, and replaced it with a €20 seed box w/ Plex + radarr/sonarr etc. Have everything I want (and nothing else) and movies/shows don't get pulled without me doing it. Won't be turning back anytime soon. Physical still has the downside of needing space. I have space for books, but not much else.

Do note that there's a ton of media that is not very available via sailing the seas. For example, reality TV has very low availability, typically only currently airing seasons at best. Thus if you're trying to convince a family to cancel all the big streaming platforms, you may have a hard time when they learn that they can't watch old episodes of "The Real Housewives of the middle of nowhere" from 2012.

>Do note that there's a ton of media that is not very available via sailing the seas.

This is an argument for preservation.

i.e. everything should be available via sailing the seas. If something isn't, and you know where to obtain it, do your part.

Many films and records have been lost because nobody cared to do it.

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