Netflix and Blu-ray

[SeahawxBlu]

Just wanted to give people a heads up about this, but it appears Netflix has decided NOT to carry two of the latest Blu Ray titles due to the fact that they are not deemed popular enough. The two titles in question are The Fly (1986) and The Omega Man. There may be more, but these are two I have asked for. I have repeatedly requested these titles be carried, but to no avail. Perhaps if enough people started hammering them, they would get the titles in. Anyone interested in renting these films from Netflix, go to this link to suggest they be carried:

http://www.netflix.com/Suggest?type=0&lnkctr=cu_tr

Cheers!

[Heart&Soul]

I sent them my suggestion for both movies. Thanks for the heads up.

[aqupunk]

Yep sent mine about this a long time ago and whats up with no option for shoot'em up and Rush hour 3 and Rescue dawn on blu ray!?!

[Mystique]

I sent them two for you.

[JasonS]

They also do not carry Rush Hour 3 or Shoot Em Up on Blu-ray. War however is an option to add to your list.

[EricJ]

I suspect it has to do more with Netflix's policy of trying to ignore studio double, triple and quadruple-dip "Special Obscure Movie Quote Editions", if they already have at least one original version of the stocked title still in print.
(Hey, you try keeping up with every single darn Anchor Bay version of Halloween and Evil Dead 2!)

Unless there's been any stated policy from management that they have something against these titles, simple catalog re-release Blu's like "Fly" may not have shown up on their radar, while new-release Blu's like "War" are considered stock parcel for the week.
At least they still take phone calls.

[Bond007]

I'm not happy with Netflix. Still waiting to receive Die Hard 4 and The Simpsons on BD. Regular DVDs always come on time, but it takes me 2-3 weeks to get a movie on BD. Anyone else having this problem? Never had this problem with BD until a couple of months ago.

[mkelley]

Someone here speculated it was they don't want to carry more obscure double and triple releases, but I don't think that's the reason -- they do carry very odd rereleases of major films. But I was amazed they didn't pick up the blu version of Shoot 'em Up -- that's a new release and they should be picking up all the new blu releases.

OTOH, if SEU turns out to be great I'll just buy it on blu -- would be nice to be able to rent it there, though (never hurts for all of us here on Netflix to keep requesting these: if enough pressure comes to bear perhaps even NF will go totally blu!)

[DeeChizzle]

BS. If they only wanted to carry popular titles then that doesn't explain why they don't carry Rush Hour in blu-ray.

[jsteinhauer]

You will notice on the new release television ads, sometimes, that they say for rental "exclusively at Blockbuster" or "only at Blockbuster". I think Blockbuster cuts some deals with some studios on some releases to be the exclusive renter for a short period of time. Most of those that Netflix has not carried right away they have eventually picked up. They may also wait to see what the level of demand for the movie is, especially among those who have BD as a format of choice.

It's another downside of renting. If you want it right away, you have to buy it, or wait. You get what you pay for, usually. It gets irritating to me, too, but after duking it out with myself for a while, I decide that 99% of the movies I see would collect dust and take up space, if I bought them, while at the same time draining money that could have been spend elsewhere. It all depends on what it's worth to you.

[Jack Torrance]

To earlier posters:

I received both The Fly (1986) on Blu-ray on release (for some reason, it was not listed in the regular way and cannot remember how exactly I found it but I did) and Rescue Dawn as well. I guess you just have to broaden your search a bit

Rescue Dawn they did not have on release, and I only just received it just before Christmas (and am returning it today).

[S2K1]

Originally Posted by Bond007

I'm not happy with Netflix. Still waiting to receive Die Hard 4 and The Simpsons on BD. Regular DVDs always come on time, but it takes me 2-3 weeks to get a movie on BD. Anyone else having this problem? Never had this problem with BD until a couple of months ago.

I have only had one BD and one HD DVD come from Netflix, but they both arrived 1 day later. Well 2 days for the HD DVD, but it was over Christmas, so it wasn't a shipping day.

[xwingsct]

I'm not even gonna hold my breath waiting for BD new releases from Netflix.
all of mine have Mega long wait (May be not this life time) on my queue.

I wonder how is it on the HD-DVD side. Do they have a long wait like us too?

[jsteinhauer]

Originally Posted by xwingsct

I wonder how is it on the HD-DVD side. Do they have a long wait like us too?

I almost always get HDDVD's the week they are released. But these are less of a financial disadvantage to Netflix, since they are usually 2-sided (SDDVD), so they don't have to buy separate HD disks.

[GORT]

Originally Posted by SeahawxBlu

Just wanted to give people a heads up about this, but it appears Netflix has decided NOT to carry two of the latest Blu Ray titles due to the fact that they are not deemed popular enough. The two titles in question are The Fly (1986) and The Omega Man. There may be more, but these are two I have asked for. I have repeatedly requested these titles be carried, but to no avail. Perhaps if enough people started hammering them, they would get the titles in. Anyone interested in renting these films from Netflix, go to this link to suggest they be carried:

http://www.netflix.com/Suggest?type=0&lnkctr=cu_tr

Cheers!

I have the FLY in my Queue on blu ray and it is my next movie to be deliverd

[xwingsct]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

I almost always get HDDVD's the week they are released. But these are less of a financial disadvantage to Netflix, since they are usually 2-sided (SDDVD), so they don't have to buy separate HD disks.

Well, it's either there's more BD renters than HD-DVD or Netflix bought more copies of HD-DVD than BD.

[C6 Z06]

Originally Posted by SeahawxBlu

Just wanted to give people a heads up about this, but it appears Netflix has decided NOT to carry two of the latest Blu Ray titles due to the fact that they are not deemed popular enough. The two titles in question are The Fly (1986) and The Omega Man. There may be more, but these are two I have asked for. I have repeatedly requested these titles be carried, but to no avail. Perhaps if enough people started hammering them, they would get the titles in. Anyone interested in renting these films from Netflix, go to this link to suggest they be carried:

http://www.netflix.com/Suggest?type=0&lnkctr=cu_tr

Cheers!

The Fly (1986) is in my Q and available now on Blu or am I missing something.

[mkelley]

As someone who was on Netflix since they started (and even used Blockbuster for a couple of years) I can tell you that how soon you receive movies is directly related to how long you keep them.

It's counterintuitive, but the longer you keep films the higher up in the queue you will go. I almost hate to give away my (successful) strategy, but since we're all blu buddies here I will -- always, always keep at least one movie for a few weeks (usually much longer). If you do this you will be a "good" customer in their eyes and they will shove you up much higher on the list.

With this approach I nearly always get first releases that week no matter how popular they are -- whereas in the past (turning around the movies as fast as I could) I never got them. So if you are on, say, the five disc plan (as I am) you can turn around your other four and get new movies very quickly but plan on always holding one a very long time (it's even better if you do this with two or more movies, but obviously the longer you hold them the less movies you can get).

BTW, I was actually told this by a Netflix representative -- although their official policy is to deny this. This guy said they have a list of folks who turn over movies fast and they always get the "last pick" of films.

[S2K1]

I emailed Netflix about the blu releases as well as Rush Hour 3 as I want that one as well.

[ironrefault]

Originally Posted by mkelley

As someone who was on Netflix since they started (and even used Blockbuster for a couple of years) I can tell you that how soon you receive movies is directly related to how long you keep them.

It's counterintuitive, but the longer you keep films the higher up in the queue you will go. I almost hate to give away my (successful) strategy, but since we're all blu buddies here I will -- always, always keep at least one movie for a few weeks (usually much longer). If you do this you will be a "good" customer in their eyes and they will shove you up much higher on the list.

With this approach I nearly always get first releases that week no matter how popular they are -- whereas in the past (turning around the movies as fast as I could) I never got them. So if you are on, say, the five disc plan (as I am) you can turn around your other four and get new movies very quickly but plan on always holding one a very long time (it's even better if you do this with two or more movies, but obviously the longer you hold them the less movies you can get).

BTW, I was actually told this by a Netflix representative -- although their official policy is to deny this. This guy said they have a list of folks who turn over movies fast and they always get the "last pick" of films.

Yeah, this has been known for a while. It's usually referred to as "throttling". Every online rental service, of every kind (games, porn, movies, or combo of the three), has this in play. Some more than others, but it's there.

I'm on the three-at-a-time plan, and always keep them for at least a week. Luckily, I'm busy enough where I can watch all of them that fast anyhow.