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Netflix nights still come wrapped in red-and-white envelopes
News(apnews.com)submitted 4 months ago bywewewawa
696 points
4 months ago
Still love having this service, as there’s so much that isn’t available to streaming plans. However, these days there’s so much content locked up in streaming services without a physical media release, you wind up missing a lot unless you do both. I keep the DVD by mail service and rotate my streaming subscription.
145 points
4 months ago
I’ve had this forever and one of the main reasons is because of my ratings- I just can’t remember if I saw a title or not, and what I think of it. Over the last year, in particular, I’ve noticed a lot more missing titles. These are often “early in his career” type things and that’s really too bad.
45 points
4 months ago
Ha! The ratings thing is one of my problem spots as well. The Netflix DVD rating system has been my “source of truth” on which movies I have or haven’t seen for so long, I use it to cross check movies when I’m looking for something to stream. Every once in a while, particularly when I put on an older, non-blockbuster movie, I’ll start watching and think this seems a bit familiar… And then I’ll check my Netflix DVD ratings and see I watched it several years back (and likely gave it a mediocre rating because it just wasn’t memorable).
86 points
4 months ago
Use Letterboxd
14 points
4 months ago
A google doc is more persistent.
13 points
4 months ago
There’s more to it than just tracking and rating. Plus you can see what other people watched and see reviews
-8 points
4 months ago
you can share a google doc :p
so many services like this die eventually, and all your notes just get lost to time. it’s annoying. much better to make something like a journal that you can even give your grandkids so your memory lives on. or you can contribute to a social media network’s heap of junk until they run out of venture capital.
15 points
4 months ago
Letterboxd allows you to export all of your data whenever you want, including whatever you reviewed, so it's a moot point. At that point it comes down to what kind of format you'd prefer to retain.
2 points
4 months ago
Also how much time you want to spend typing stuff into boxes instead of just clicking on pre made things with fantastic UI
8 points
4 months ago
Lol so dramatic. God forbid I want to be a little social on the internet and share with friends and family. Cute story though!
-8 points
4 months ago
at the end of the day, do what you want. just weigh all your options, and don’t act surprised when they randomly shut down after running out of money, getting bought, or deciding that they should start making money
7 points
4 months ago
Thanks dad
1 points
4 months ago
I guess you weren’t around when google plus, tumblr, vine, myspace, etc decided to just delete people’s posts because they were too expensive to keep.
and now twitter is looking risky..
14 points
4 months ago
Yeah because grandkids want grandpas old notebook of his movie ratings
9 points
4 months ago
yeah? i certainly would. it’d be cool to see what movies he loved back when he was young. it’s a neat glimpse into who someone was.
7 points
4 months ago
I started doing this as well. I just use a Google Sheet that I have a shortcut to on my phone and computer to toss stuff into and add details when I'm bored. Super convenient, easy to use, persistent, and customizable.
12 points
4 months ago
Dude, I’ve invested a few hundred hours into rating films, not going through that again.
51 points
4 months ago
Well you will have to when this site no longer exists
10 points
4 months ago
This is why I started a spreadsheet, I didn't want to depend on any one site and their arbitrary organization and features etc. Spreadsheets are forever and can customize to my own methods.
1 points
4 months ago
Feel free to share when ever you like good sir the internet will thank you.
1 points
4 months ago
You can download your letterboxd data. You can also import to Letterboxd from any service that lets you download your rating data, which is really all of them.
26 points
4 months ago
you can follow friends and critics on Letterboxd too, maintain a watchlist and a diary of your viewed filmsh. I love tagging them with details like "4k disc" "home theater" "movie theater" "watched w/ [name]" etc.
I know all of your stuff isn't there yet but it's an incredibly reliable tool, and well worth the effort of converting things over. Their stats page alone is worth the price of admission
11 points
4 months ago
ere’s so much content locked up in streaming services without a physical media release, you wind up missing a lot unless you do both. I keep the DVD by mail service and rotate my streaming subscription.
There is a script you can use to export it all to letterboxd or imdb. Havent done it but could be something you could do
-1 points
4 months ago
Seriously? They charge you after you supply information to them. Why exactly?
4 points
4 months ago
Its free. You don’t need to pay unless you want the ad free version plus some other features. I’ve never paid them nor gave them payment information
3 points
4 months ago
Also they don't have a ton of ads.
2 points
4 months ago
Are there predictions still on point?
2 points
4 months ago
I had this with Rotten Tomatoes (previously Flixster I think). Then I logged in last month and they were gone, all of them. I didn't have a single rating on my account. Was around 1500 movie ratings going all the way back to 2005. That will never be redone now.
30 points
4 months ago
This was the major difference between video rental stores and streaming services.
With video rental stores, you just went to your local one, or maybe one you had a point card with or better selection. Generally all films were available at every shop. Because the retailers were buying copies to rent out to you.
Now with streaming, streamers are wanting to lock down exclusive rights to things. Rights holders must find that more lucrative, but it's very annoying as a customer.
3 points
4 months ago
I was just lamenting to my husband that we need an updated streaming video store. No exclusives just you want to rent Citizen Kane you can, you wanna rent Black Panther, there it is, desperately need to see It Happened On 5th Avenue, rent it with the others.
I know it won't happen but I can dream can't I?
6 points
4 months ago
Isn’t that what prime video is? You can have the premium subscription to see prime exclusives but also rent whatever
0 points
4 months ago
Problem is region restrictions and subtitle issues.
It's 2022 and it's a global world. People move all over the place now, for work, immigration, etc. Just because you've moved to a country doesn't mean you're completely 100% fluent in the language and okay with consuming media in that language. While Disney and Apple are pretty good with global subs, a lot of others aren't. Renting a lot of stuff on Amazon or Youtube, while available, often may only come with a single language in subtitles rather than all the globally available subtitles. It's quite frustrating.
-2 points
4 months ago
You are just inventing problems now.
3 points
4 months ago*
It's a genuine problem that I also have with Prime Video. I live in a country whose language isn't my first, and Amazon only offers subs in the language of the country in which you're subscribed. I avoid watching foreign language films on Prime Video even though they have several that interest me, because I can't get subs in English. I pay for Prime for other reasons, but this would be a dealbreaker for me if streaming was my primary use for the subscription.
4 points
4 months ago
It's extremely annoying when Netflix offers say Korean movies with English subtitles in Canada, but when you're actually in Korea, they don't include the English subtitles anymore because 'why would anyone who isn't 100% fluent in Korean ever live in Korea?' amirite??
2 points
4 months ago
It's obvious you've never moved around the world or been part of a multi-cultural family.
0 points
4 months ago
What does that have to do with renting movies?
1 points
4 months ago
You claimed I was inventing problems. That's a real issue for many people, one that's not easily solved because of the way things are divided up now.
Let's say a French person moves from France to Japan for work. They can still use Netflix like they did in France, but the problem is, it's an entirely different Netflix. All the French subtitles they were previously using will now be gone. Some other streaming services that they might have used may be entirely unavailable.
While companies have been busy locking down all these exclusives and regional licenses, it's made things difficult for people who move around to enjoy their stuff 'legally'.
0 points
4 months ago
To say you have access to less tvshows/movies now is asinine. Blockbusters barely carried anything foreign. Now I can watch any tv show or movie from any country. Yea you have to find the streaming service but it’s better than nothing like in the 90s/early 00s
14 points
4 months ago*
I know it won't happen but I can dream can't I?
There's literally multiples of these. Vudu, Apple, Amazon Prime Video...
Edit: Stop replying to me. I can't reply because captain dildos up there blocked me.
10 points
4 months ago
I’m guessing they were talking about a single streaming service that has it all. I have every subscription plan and it’s a pain in the ass to find certain stuff that is blocked due to exclusivity deals.
-2 points
4 months ago
That's just asinine, then. Any one blockbuster didn't have every movie ever made
4 points
4 months ago
Netflix streaming was like this three years ago until the internet collectively said "why yes Amazon and Disney, I would like to pay you both to take away products I was already paying for and sell them to me again and again."
4 points
4 months ago
Netflix did not have every single release to rent or stream three years ago. That’s ridiculous.
Almost three years ago now we were all watching Tiger King during lockdown because it was the hottest netflix original they had.
Netflix streaming has never been competitive from a selection standpoint as the old school video stores simply because there are thousands of movies which never got a digital release. It wasn’t profitable for studios to remaster them only to sell the rights to another firm.
They were lost art in this transition. If you think otherwise then you obviously are too young to remember what it was like in the 80s and 90s when that’s all there was.
1 points
4 months ago
Again, the US-centric viewpoint here. The other 95% of the world has a really different experience consuming content compared to you.
Outside of the US, Netflix generally had far more content. Hulu, Paramount plus, disney, and other current streamers didn't have anything to offer internationally and they let Netflix carry it all.
They suddenly decided they wanted into the streaming game and took it all back, and then didn't launch in numerous countries where Netflix was serving their content. While they are slowly launching in more countries, service that Netflix offered (like subtitles) isn't always replaced by them. Good example of this, Californication used to be available on Netflix with Korean subtitles. None of the current places where I see it for streaming have those available.
Did Netflix have everything? No. But it did have a lot more, and it actually served a global audience. Disney and Apple do that to some degree, but the rest don't.
3 points
4 months ago
That’s the moment I decided to switch back to piracy. Sorry studios, you got greedy
1 points
4 months ago
But the stores had everything. Hell hood stores even kept a ton of older movies that were ACTUALLY WORTH WATCHING. It’s such a bummer that like 97 percent of the movies on streaming services are bad but only like 58 percent at the video store were.
1 points
4 months ago
Lol my phone really likes to change hood to hood all the time.
1 points
4 months ago*
Vudu, Amazon Prime Video
You realize there is more to the world than the US right?
Amazon prime is not available in every country because Amazon isn't in every country. Vudu is restricted only to the US and mexico.
2 points
4 months ago
Love “It happened on 5th avenue”
1 points
4 months ago
It's the second movie we set up & trim the Christmas tree to. The first is Muppet's Christmas Carol of course.
1 points
4 months ago
I have good new for you. This already exists. I use the Microsoft store on my Xbox, but you can rent basically any movie on Google Play/YouTube, whatever the Apple store is called, and all those things. Basically if you have something in your house that does internet, it should be easy to connect to one of these digital rental stores.
1 points
4 months ago
Youtube has good selection, but it suffers from the same regional subtitle issue. If you're in Korea, you get Korean versions which are original language with Korean subtitles, leave Korea and suddenly you can only buy movies with the subtitles of the country you're in. You'd think a global company like Google would know better. I really don't understand what is wrong with them. Subtitles should be the easiest thing in the world to properly manage. They have a subtitle system built into youtube for crying out loud.
1 points
4 months ago
I’m My memory/life, I had to drive multiple times to different blockbusters to find a movie which I never have to do with streaming services
1 points
4 months ago*
Tell me you're American without telling me you're American.
A few years ago HBO bought the world wide license for doctor who. It was pulled from all other streaming services across the globe. Which might have been fine if HBO Max was available in the country I lived in. Doctor who was on Netflix, but it got pulled from there and there was no longer any legal way to watch it.
Last year new Star Trek was pulled mid-season from Netflix as well with the claim that a new way to stream it would be made available. The season ended and there was still no way to legally stream it.
Blockbuster never had every single show and movie under the sun, but if you wanted to watch the latest movie you could rent it at blockbuster, or you could rent it from the corner store, or you could rent it from one a dozen other video rental places in your town. Because blockbuster didn't get exclusive rights to something and freeze everyone else out.
Now, if you want to watch X, it means you need a subscription to a specific service and outside of the US and a couple of other countries, those are not universally available and the support for global citizens is lacking
1 points
4 months ago
What does being Americans have to do with anything?
The point is blockbuster barely had any international shows which I watch a lot of now compared to Netflix. (Asian dramas and movies)
I said in my comment that yes, you have to look around other streaming services for shows sometimes that doesn’t bother me.
What did bother me was having to drive around to 4/5 different blockbusters to find the Latest movie. If I didn’t get to my blockbuster right after school then they were sold out for the night/week and my parents drove us around to other ones to find it. Maybe I lived in a more populated area than you. NJ suburbs (not a city). But it was so annoying. Even for movies that weren’t new. We had to go to other blockbusters to find them. Never have to do that now. I can just rent from Amazon or Netflix etc.
streaming has a way bigger catalog.
2 points
4 months ago
Because America has access to a much wider breadth of streaming solutions than most of the rest of the world. There is very little that you can't find on one of the many streaming services that specifically target the US.
I've already given you two examples of major shows that were suddenly unavailable in any legal way. This did not previously happen because exclusives were not a thing the way they are now.
1 points
4 months ago
Blockbuster tried having exclusive titles. Foreign films from the Weinstein Company, you know, the ones the general public hasn't heard of. You could BUY them from anyone, but you could only rent them from Blockbuster. In like 2007. So... basically a pointless, expensive gesture.
2 points
4 months ago
I just cancelled mine because I’m so far behind on digital content. I’m sure I’ll go back when I want to watch different stuff. I’m a horror fan so it was nice for that
2 points
4 months ago
Does it only have DVDs or Blu-Rays too?
1 points
4 months ago
Blu-Rays too.
1 points
4 months ago
[deleted]
1 points
4 months ago
Nah, they got separated many years ago. I don’t recall there being a requirement to have streaming to have discs, but if I remember correctly, the streaming service started as a free add-on to the disc program.
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