So Netflix finally shipped me Quo Vadis, which apparently is split over two discs. Wouldn't you know it, Netflix only offers the first disc for rental. Thanks for half the movie!

Did you email them about this? It seems kind of idiotic to something like that.

You'll probably get both discs of Quo Vadis at the same time from Netflix. I got both discs of Visconti's Ludwig, which for a while was confusingly listed as 1 disc with the film and one "bonus" disc. I had both in my queue, but received both discs as the "disc 1" shipment. Go figure.

You know, this thing of new releases going to "very long wait" on release dates is very often short hand for "oops, we don't have it yet", IMHO. The 1975 "Moses und Aron" film just got pushed back to January from New Yorker, but Netflix still is going by the old release date (already passed), I guess, because it's now "very long wait"!! So, add one in the bullshit category for old NF.

It's because you disparaged their ratings system.

After lining up what purported to be Joe Berlinger's documentary Brother's Keeper and pressing "play", imagine my disappointment when the names Jeanne Tripplehorn and John Badham flashed across my monitor... sigh. Oh well, maybe she'll get naked.

I've updated the original post with a few new titles expiring soon.

One thing I've noticed though--sometimes a title will initially show up with an expiration date in the coming month, but then at some point during the month the expiration date will go away, meaning I guess that they renewed the license for that title. So it is possible that some of the films shown as expiring on a given date may actually still be available for some time to come.

Big WTF here -- just got Lost Highway from Netflix, assuming it would be the recently released disc. Whatever I got looks like it was ported from a vhs and is obviously pan & scan. Was there a previous R1 release? I didn't see it on the DVDBeaver page...

At any rate, BAH!

Yeah, you must have got the old version.

Huh... my understanding was that it was OOP. Well shit! They need to rectify that sitiation.

They put them back into the pool along with the new releases once it goes back in print. It was discussed earlier in this thread, I think.

I noticed a review of a random movie the other day that is currently shown as "Save" on Netflix. It wasn't a review really but the user said that he had found that if he creates a profile especially for OOP titles that are shown as "Save" and puts only "Save" titles in this queue, that eventually Netflix sends him these OOP discs. I haven't tried this out, but I may eventually if I find something I'm that desperate to see.

This is theoretically possible, since some time ago I had a few titles in my queue that still said "now" even though they were Save titles when I actually looked them up. The Golden Coach was one, although they later got that back in stock anyway.

This is an interesting site. It slithers into your Netflix account and figures out how cost efficient you are being with your rentals. I have no idea if this poses any kind of security risk or anything, but it was kind of neat to find out I'm paying $0.65/rental, or $0.18/movie if you count instant viewing.

Well, I'll take heart that you're watching enough Netflix for the both of us—I haven't had time to watch much this month, and will have even less as Sundance arrives in January.

In the crapshoot category, I know I've seen complaints in the review section of some silents, including Keatons, from customers who received super-crappy public domain editions.

Nic Roeg's Puffball is available for instant viewing.

Yes, and that's one that is actually only available through instant viewing.

I've got the Roku player hooked up to the HDTV via HDMI cable. On 1/1/09, Netflix upgraded the software to be able to broadcast in HD, so the quality has improved fairly significantly. I'm hoping the content will improve as well.

What? You aren't satisfied with the first three seasons of Airwolf? Sometimes I feel so... alone >sniff<

So Netflix has started doing something pretty neat. Whenever you have a title in your queue that has to come from a different distro center, they just add an extra disc to your At Home queue while you wait for it to make its way to your mailbox. It's so rare that you get an opportunity to praise a big company, so here I am!

Yeah I had that happen a couple weeks ago - I thought it might be a one-time thing, I didn't realize it was a policy change. Very nice indeed.

If this is true, then it is commendable, and just one more reason why Netflix is ever so much better than Blockbuster. It reminds me of a vagary of my own though--the absolute longest it has ever taken for me to get a movie from Netflix was Bresson's L'argent. Not only was this not available from my local shipping facility, but it arrived at my house cracked, not once but twice, and in roughly the same place. (I haven't ruled out the possibility that they sent me the same cracked disc twice in a row.) Factor in the additional shipping time to send three discs back and forth across the country, one after the other, and you're looking at about three weeks in total just to get one damn movie in the mail. (Totally worth the wait though )

Happening since December 11 and reported here.

Hard to see a down side (in spite of my automatic assumption that every service change made by a large corporation is an attempt to screw me personally). Only thing is, if (like me) you're anal-retentive about planning what you see & when, you have to keep an eye on what you leave in that on-deck spot in your queue.

Theoretically, you could game the system a little bit, if you've noticed what kinds of discs tend to come from distant shipping centers: Alpha and other PD releases, plus TV shows from small labels like S'More or Timeless, for instance. Maybe OOP stuff right before it drops out of the system completely. But they're only able to do this because they have their stock pretty well distributed, so you'd only be able to up your percentage of bonus discs a little.

I am benefiting from this as Tokyo Olympiad came to me via a remote shipping center and they sent Detective to hold me over. The really neat thing is that I have as long as I want to watch Detective and can use my other three rentals as I normally would.

Have you actually tested that out? In my experience, when they send you a bonus disc, the next disc you send back (regardless of whether or not it's the bonus disc) does not trigger a new disc to get sent to you. You don't get another new disc from your queue until having sent back two discs. So if you watch the bonus disc and send it back the same time as another one, you are in effect getting a free movie, but if you keep it out, it's the same as keeping out any other disc.

Yes. I sent a different movie back and they are shipping a new one.