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Comment by muhfuhkuh | Hacker News Reader

So, how many discs do you rent a month? Because if it's <5, then I'd say, okay, you'd be better off without the $8 netflix. But, if it's more...

We love netflix at home. They're seriously starting to ramp up on TV series licenses and 80s and 90s hit movies now (where we as Gen-Xers go for our nostalgia trips).

And, I'm starting to see some AAA blockbusters show up from the recent past (<5 years ago). So, it's coming along nicely for our needs and definitely for the price. I've never understood how people who say "well, cable has bigger hits faster", but not only do you have to pay $50+ for digital HD cable, but >$10 on top for HBO/Cinemax/premiums, and pay to "rent" on-demand recent hit movies.

Now that is the ripoff.

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Haven't you heard of Amazon Instant Video? It has no subscription fee and has the latest movies for rent, on demand, and the highest they go is, I believe $3.99. I don't have a cable or satellite TV subscription at all but I have a PS3 and can use Amazon Instant Video with it, I believe there are devices that you can get to use it if you don't have a current gen video game system.

Personally, I don't like Netflix's streaming video model, I much prefer that of Amazon's but I would definitely like to see the price decrease. Having a large library of movies (mostly older, some fairly recent), doesn't do me any good unless it has the movie I want to watch at that time. I don't watch all that many movies so when I do watch one I want it to choose from any movie to do so, not be limited to a subset of movies for which they were able to negotiate rights to stream them.

I think the "buffet" model of streaming content works for TV shows a lot better since they're shorter and most people are more willing to watch what they consider a "sub-optimal" choice of a show than a movie.

> and the highest they go is, I believe $3.99

So that's 2 movies a month for roughly the same amount? With Netflix, I watch 2 movies a day. Have to agree that the offering is a little sparse, but it's a much better alternative than watching regular TV.

> With Netflix, I watch 2 movies a day.

You watch too many movies :)

He didn't say everyday :D

Perhaps you watch too few?

For me, when I watch movies I want to choose from the latest releases, I don't watch that often so its simply not a suitable substitute to watch an older (usually at least 10 years older, if using Netflix) movie.. For TV shows, however, I'm much more willing to watch what I consider to be a "suboptimal" choice, since its shorter. I think a lot of consumers share my sentiment in this, however I can see how if you watch a lot of movies it would be too expensive with Amazon's offering.

Amazon Instant Video doesn't work on an Xbox 360, which is what I use for streaming Netflix. The rentals work on my Tivo, but not the free streaming included with Amazon Prime. And it doesn't work on my iPad at all.

Netflix works in all these places and works well.

Just in case you didn't know, they recently added Amazon Instant Video support to the PS3.

Amazon Instant Video has a sort of an annual subscription fee option: if you sign up for Amazon Prime you can watch many videos for "free". Since some who sign up for Prime wouldn't sign up if not for the Prime Instant Videos, it is being used as a video subscription service.

The thing you're talking about is quite comparable to the iTunes Store. Most, if not all, of the videos that are free with Prime Instant Videos can also be rented one at a time by people who aren't Amazon Prime members.

I also think paying for rentals one at a time makes more sense for watching movies.

It really depends on the prices.

$0.50 a viewing would be great, but I wouldn't take it over $10 a year for access to the same library.

The videos that are accessible for free for Prime members are really a small subset, and it's very difficult to find anything worth watching there. If I'm looking to stream something, I still have better luck with Netflix.

It's small, but it's growing. I have bad luck with both Prime and Netflix when I'm trying to pull up something in particular. I can easily find something to watch on either of them.

I've never found anything on Prime that hasn't been on Netflix... Maybe 10 times now or so I want to watch something on netflix that is dvd only so I go to amazon prime and look to see if they have it and while they typically do, it is not prime eligible.

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