Netflix (Streaming version)

Product

2012

We got a Nintendo Wii machine at Christmas-time and it came with a "free" month of Netflix. We were excited since the avenue for renting movies in a retail setting has really dried up in the last two years. We have rather old TV's and none with an HDMI connection and certainly none with built-in wi-fi. Ordering a movie through Comcast's On Demand is a serious rip-off - isn't that monthly bill high enough already???

So the Netflix offer through the Wii seemed a perfect solution. It was easy enough to get the Wii connected to the home wireless network, quite slick in fact. The Netflix app installed seamlessly and an account was created, so far, so good. The rest, however, is not so good.

I spent a good hour pouring through the initial offerings listed in several different categories only to become more and more disappointed. The movies were old and were repeated over and over within the different categories. OK, well, they have a search feature, surely the movies I wanted were just not "on the shelves" so to speak. I was interested in a Matt Damon movie called "The Adjustment Bureau". It was old enough that it would easily have been on the shelf at Blockbuster by now. Nope not on Netflix. How about that movie "Captain America"? Nope. My son wanted to see and old Ed Burns sci-fi movie called "Sound of Thunder". Not there either. My wife was interested in a TV series called "Justified". She wanted to see it from the first episode because it was one of those shows that won't make sense coming in half way through season two. That also was not there.

We went online to the Netflix site only to learn that the DVD service and the streaming service did not share the same content. Of course they don't share the same subscription either. You would have to pay double to have both. Not going to happen.

I would opt for the the DVD service if anything, but then we would have to weigh how many movies we would watch in a month as it compares to a service like Red Box. I have learned that Red Box is a pretty good deal and it has a slick reservation service too. The only issue I have is that our movie watching habits are schizophrenic and we would probably rent movies we never end up watching or endure daily late fees. Red Box only makes sense if you are disciplined. We are not. The Netflix DVD service is more forgiving for people like us.

Needless to say I will be dropping the Netflix Streaming service - it just not right for us. Perhaps it will get better with time. We can also explore Hulu and other online services once we join the 21st century and get a modern - connectable - TV.

1 of  5 stars



CW