Netflix: Streaming vs. DVD

[englishteacheralex]

I was an extremely early adopter of Netflix, as I have never had cable in my life. Back in the day, I had the 3 DVD in the mail plan. There were huge quantities of movies available, some very obscure. Really, I could get almost anything I could think of, I recall. Plus, they used to recommend me movies that were fantastic and that I'd never heard of.

When I got married in 2013, I cancelled my DVD service and jumped onto streaming with my husband. I've never liked it. There's hardly anything I really want to watch on it. Mostly my husband watches stuff on it, but it's never anything he's really excited about, either.

I've been toying with the idea of going back to DVDs and canceling the streaming. Does anybody still do this? How is it, these days? Still the enormous selection from my memory?  It'll be a tough sell with my husband, and my toddler loves Dinotrux, but I think I might be able to talk them into it. Husband wants to read more books.

[missundecided]

I'm on the 2-DVD-per-month plan. Not a great value, per disk, admittedly. The subscription does force me to watch my selections, though, instead of queuing them up for "maybe one day" like I do with the streaming. I think you can sign up for a free promotional period to see how their catalog is. I use Netflix to supplement what the library doesn't have in their coffers already.

[Cranky]

We also had netflix very early, and I just dropped the dvd plan last year. Frankly, netflix is closing the processing centers and the turnaround wasn't as fast. There is certainly a lot more available on dvd than streaming, though.

My library has a great selection of dvds, though.

[misshathaway]

I've been toying with the idea of going back to DVDs and canceling the streaming. Does anybody still do this? How is it, these days? Still the enormous selection from my memory?

I did. Netflix streaming does not have a movie selection that compares to DVD for older titles. One thing I love to do is go through review shows back catalogs and get their picks from Netflix. There is seldom a wait for a movie circa 2011. I live on the outskirts of a major city so I get good turnaround of about 2 days even on the very Mustachian one DVD a month. Paying less than streaming and getting, for me, more value. But I also record OTA on my Mac and I have some streaming with Amazon Prime.

My mailman probably thinks I'm a luddite.

[Frankies Girl]

We really like older, foreign and otherwise unavailable shows/movies, so we have the streaming + 1 DVD at a time plan.

We supplement by using our library system, especially for television series since it would be impossible to binge watch a series in one night (our turnaround is 2 days). You'd be surprised at how much is available, and how easy it is to request a purchase for the county system as well.

[Spork]

We have streaming plus 2 DVDs a month instead of cable tv.  They're just not the same sets of content so -- yes, it would be easy to prefer one over the other. 

[pigpen]

We really like older, foreign and otherwise unavailable shows/movies, so we have the streaming + 1 DVD at a time plan.

Same here. I think the DVD movie selection is considerably better than streaming, but we like streaming for TV. Both together come to $17.48/month.

[Davids]

Why not just use redbox. There are so many of them around and usually the selection is pretty good if you want DVD rentals

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

Why not just use redbox. There are so many of them around and usually the selection is pretty good if you want DVD rentals

It sounds like she wants backlist titles, too.

I really think the library is the way to go for DVD. I have streaming because I no longer have a permanently installed DVD player. It's a pain to set up, but when I do, it's for something I got at the library.

[JLee]

IMO if you want movies, Netflix isn't the best way to go anymore (at least not the streaming version).  The have a lot of excellent original content now, though.