Feeling Jilted over NetFlix? There are other choices out there...

I have no problem letting it be known that I was more than a little torqued off about the 60 percent Netflix price hike.  Personally, I have been a NetFlix subscriber for quite some time now.  We only occasionally would rent a physical DVD, and between my wife and I; I was the primary user for the NetFlix streaming through my Wii and PS3 (occasionally through the iPad).  The previous pricing for their subscriptions was nice.  Basically, streaming account with one DVD rental at a time via snail mail for $2 extra.  Bringing it to a $10 cost each month.

Even though we didn't use it that much, it was nice to have when you do want to waste a Saturday afternoon.  Therefore, for the extra $2 bucks a month it wasn't worth my trouble to change my account to a streaming only setup.  However, now that the price has basically rocketed up from $10 to $16 ($15.98 to be spot on).  I'm re-evaluating our options.  So, I figured I'd make my thoughts public in this post.  This is me 'think out loud' about our current streaming/DVD options.

For DVD Rentals:
RedBox is a pretty prominent offering here in my area.  It's nice because you can reserve and hold movies for pickup. And their kiosks are everywhere in this area.  So going out of the way to return a DVD isn't a problem, and I have a couple kiosks closer that the post office is (where I'd normally return my NetFlix DVD's).

If RedBox doesn't have what we are looking for, there is a really good video store about 5 minutes from the house.  Their selection is huge, and they are one of 2 or 3 rental stores still left in our county.  They have movies ranging from the newest stuff to really old (and even some VHS for VCR lovers out there).

And the chances of us adapting to this method for DVD/BluRay rentals is a nonexistent problem, because we have been using these two sources all along.  So we'll continue doing this.

For Streaming:
This is where it gets a little messy.  I like to stream video from the web.  It's just simple to do it.  Find a good site with a nice offering of shows to stream and I'll have a blast.  At least until I watch most of their catalog that strikes my interest or until they quite updating it.  Currently, my streaming options include Crackle.com, Hulu.com, and OVG Guide for searching for shows to stream.

These are all nice offerings, but Crackle is very limited.  And Hulu has a good selection, but I'm not sure if it's worth the $8 a month for a Hulu Plus account.  I liked the fact that with NetFlix Streaming I could watch all of the old Doctor Who episodes.  And I've yet to find a different source for those.  But not a deal breaker for me.

My wife has a smartphone, and I have an iPod Touch, access to an iPad, a PS3, and my android tablet.  Which supposedly all have access to Hulu Plus except for my android tablet (as of this writing).  And I know my wife would use it to watch more current shows than she could find on NetFlix streaming.

I know there are other options, but I may ended up rolling through the free week trial of HuluPlus and seeing what they have to offer as far as selection goes.  Watching ads isn't a big deal to me, especially since I won't be living and breathing on their website all the time.  My other options include: video rental on my Xbox 360 and PS3.  I'm not a big fan of how Apple has setup their Apple TV offerings, so I'll be staying away from that option as well.

Other alternatives if you're shopping around too:
Green Cine: a mail order service much like the NetFlix DVD service starting at $9.99 a month.  I don't know much else about this service.  But here you go. http://www.greencine.com/main

Mspot Movies: they work off of a club or credit style service.  And you can rent digital movies starting at $1.99 and going up to about $4 to $5.  Not bad for the occasional rental, but could get pretty costly with prolonged use.  They do have a Rental Club you can join as well. http://www.mspotmovies.com/

And of source Blockbuster has a mail order style service and some On Demand stuff, as well. 1 Disk at a time will cost you $9.99 a month and 2 at a time will set you back $14.99 a month.

And Amazon has an offering now as well that is pretty limited but is likely to grow: http://www.amazon.com/gp/prime which is $79 a year.

So if you know of any other legitimate sites that can act as a NetFlix replacement, drop us a line in the comments section and let us know!

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Netflix's New Deal? Yep, sucks for those who like DVD's.

Looks like Netflix is going to be raising the price of their Streaming/DVD offering.  For those of us who still get DVD rentals from Netflix and are using the Unlimited Streaming + 1 DVD Rental at a Time offering.  Well we're fixing to get screwed.  In a big way.  Netflix raised the price of this offering not by some measly 25 cents or a simple $1.  But by a whopping 60%.  That takes the price from $9.99 a month to $15.98.

This price is said to include both the $7.99 price for the Streaming only plan and the same $7.99 for the DVD Rental plan bringing it to a total of $15.98.  The change in pricing will start on Sept. 1st with current members noticing the change then, and new customer's will be hit immediately when their first payment is processed.

I understand the whole streaming video is the way of the future for these video retailers, and this is how they'll throttle down the use of the DVD.  However, think about those of us who don't necessarily want to burn our already capped and monitored internet bandwidth for family movie night.  It's a shame, and may cause my horizons to look elsewhere in terms of online video.

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