Instant watching is a great concept BUT......

[Movieobsessive]

As far as I am concerned instant watching is the future of Netlfix and the industry. Why wait for disks by "snail mail" when you can stream in real-time. However there is one small problem Netlfix seems to have discovered a special place which sells only the worst movies ever made and they are are: 1) all included in watching instantly and 2) Netflix has stopped adding almost any even half-way watchable movies or TV programs. Seriously folks this is not the way to get customers hooked on watched instantly by only giving us the option to watch rubbish. This is a particular shame because Roku (essentially a streaming DVD player) is a wonderful invention that makes watching streaming videos incredibly easy,

[Quah]

I am new to Netflix (less than a month) and I agree with you, MovieObsessive. I joined Netflix for the instant view only. I found the selection lacking. I have been forced (in a sense) to use the smail option to see the movies I want to watch. I would be much happier if I could dump smail and only use Instant watch. I'd even be happy if they limited it to 2 hours or one movie per day.

I use a separate computer, with a gyromouse, connected directly to my wide screen LCD TV and Stereo. It supports Netflix, MP3s etc. like any PC does. I don't need to pay for a Ruko. Netflix movies always start within 10 seconds.

But the worst thing about Netflix is that there is no place, but the forums, that I can find to send comments and suggestions like the following;

I'd like to see something similar to the 'Your Queue' for instant watch, so I could search for movies (like at work) and then find them easier later.

[Spindaddydad]

I'd like to see something similar to the 'Your Queue' for instant watch, so I could search for movies (like at work) and then find them easier later.

Maybe I'm not understanding your question but can't you add them to your "IW Queue?" You can search IW movies at work and them to your IW queue. They'll be there for you later. There is already a queue for mailed movies and a queue for IW movies.

[Quah]

'Add to Instant queue' DOH!
I thought it meant something entirely different.
All those years of grade school and college, and I still can comprehend simple english :]

[Rosette]

They have to get the instant watching permissions from writers, etc.....2) I don't want to pay an extra fee for instant viewing...so no streaming is agreeable....

[Bunghole]

I agree. With the advent of broadband, high quality streaming is an extremely appealing alternative to DVD's especially when the one I've been waiting for with bated breath comes scratched and unwatchable and/or skips for 20 minutes . . . well, this gives me the chance to get my matra chanting in for the day while my Memorex DVD player tries to decide what the code says on the DVD.

I sent an email to netflix.com saying as much, and stating that I'd be willing to pay a premium for "good" stuff. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. lol.

But as you say, crap seems to be the rule on Instant Watch. Netflix.com better watch it or some other site will make an all streaming movie site and undercut their business.

I've been a member for a few months and I've seen most of the good stuff I want to from Watch Instantly while I cruise to the DVD section and there are loads of stuff, yet my queue is 150 long. I get 3 DVD's at a time so that's 250 days to get through that queue considering 1 day to watch 3 DVD's 2 days return and 2 days delivery.

Do they have even the most basic spell checker on this text box . . . if they do it really sucks!

[Movieobsessive]

Perhaps bitching does pay off.

I like to think that Netflix is smart and is listening to us; although changes could be entirely coincidence. I agree with Brody that the recently added WI movie list has improved dramaticaly in quantity (and more importantly) in quality in a few instances. I also note for the first time a response (although rather tangential) from wowwee123 who apparently plays an administrative role in this community web-site. A more detailed/direct response from wowwee123 could be most informative.

For example, I really enjoyed "Fulltime Killer". This martial arts movie had a most unusual plot (a bit silly but interesting non-the less). The Netflix web-site blurb noted concerning the director "Johnny To almost single-handedly saved Hong Kong's film industry, directing and producing flicks that not only defined but also expanded the action genre".

I also enjoyed Sweet Evil described by some as being deriivative of "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle". Although a bit slow Sweet Evil also had a novel plot in exploring the craziness of a surrogate mother with ulterior (homicidal) motives.

Keep up the pressure guys!

[wowwee123]

Have you had a chance to check out the titles that will be expiring in the Watch Instant group?

I'm also working on a new list.

[wowwee123]

There are over 150 titles that will be expiring between September 3rd & Octber 1st. New titles are constantly being added. Titles are found to be expiring at a certain date via the Instant Queue.

Check out the list over here.

Also check out the growing lists of titles based on # of ratings.

[RJP]

I couldn't help noticing that 4 new release titles for this week appeared in my "DVDs At Home" queue as available Instant Watch. However, none of these titles appeared as Instant Watch when they were in my "DVD Queue" list last week. Wonder what that's all about? Netflix now tells you a title is available Instant Watch after they ship it to you? How's that supposed to promote using Instant Watch if you have the DVD in hand? Or better yet, hows that supposed to help you manage your Netflix queues?

This whole system of suddenly adding titles without prior notice, and expiring of titles, usually with notice, is getting confusing for a user to manage - at least this user. Possible solution might to be to at least give users notice in advance when a title will be available on Instant Watch. Then perhaps users can better manage their various queues.

This whole Instant Watch title availability procedure is somewhat of a mystery to me. I'm starting to rationalize that Netflix can only host so many Instant Watch titles (server space limitations), so they add new titles on one end (adding criteria unknown) and drop titles off the other end (deleting criteria also unknown), so the number of available titles meets their limitations that week.

[Watson]

My own guess as to why titles drop off is that simply the contracts to show them are up and are not renewed. The IW service is only about a year and a half old, perhaps many contracts were written for 1 year and are now ending. Could be the rightsholders didn't want to renew, not Netflix. We don't know, and maybe the only way we'll find out is if some magazine or website does an article on the online movie downloading industry and interviews people from Netflix.

[Adrian]

Titles are available on instant at the point where they can be played. They are available to add on DVD a few weeks before the street date. On the Sunday before the street date, we give you a list of new movies (RSS feed or the NR section) but they don't actually street until Tuesday. On Tuesday some of them also become available for instant watching. So when you look at the list on Sunday you don't see which ones will be ready for instant watching. We know this is an issue, and we want to fix it at some point, patience please....

Adrian from Netflix

[wowwee123]

You're correct. I deleted my response.