From the oh-no-they-didn’t category: Gizmodo is reporting that Netflix plans to raise the price on Blu-ray rentals.
The company says it will soon charge a “modest monthly premium” to get that high-def goodness mailed to your house. Cheesy? Perhaps. However, CEO Reed Hastings says that, “Consumers are used to paying more for high-definition content.” Apparently he thinks that makes it OK to gouge them further.
To what extent they plan to gouge, we’re not sure. There’s no word on whether it will be an instant extra charge or whether it will depend on how many discs you rent each month. Apparently they are still working out exactly what they can get away with.
Do you get your Blu-ray fix from Netflix and would you pay more for that premium?
Nope, I won’t pay another dime to anyone for my HD content. I’ve been nickel and dimed to death since DirecTV first started my HD content back in 1996. I did not add the latest HD package with HDNet Movies and Smithsonian and whatever other channels they decided we needed to pay extra for and if I have to, I’ll throw the whole thing out and use my bunny ears!
I buy all of my movies from Amazon.com. Now I’m even more encouraged to do so… Downloading is not a high quality choice. I can’t see 50GB downloads coming anytime soon, so that means OVERCOMPRESSED downloads. MP3 for music, overcompressed, lower quality downloads for movies… QUALITY FIRST!!!
Currently, I wouldn’t pay ANYTHING ‘extra’ above the current mothly fee for the ‘privilege’ of renting blu-ray discs.
I am a 2 yr. Netflix customer that recently added BD to my modest home theater and I subsequently added Blu-Ray to my NetFlix account. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t perceive much value in renting ‘hi-def’ DVD’s over SD DVD’s. In some cases, depending on the content, ‘sure’.. I’d opt for the BD version. But, even when I’ve been given the choice, I am inclined to stick with SD since I have several DVD players in the house (connected to SD TV’s) and only one BD player (connected to a 1080p HDTV). I am limited as to where I can play the BD while the SD is ‘universal’ across all the sets and PC’s in my home.
Charge me MORE for that limited-value experience, one that could be argued is of diminished value due to the limited playback options? No thanks. Keep the Blu-Ray and I’ll sitck to SD DVD in that case.
And, for those FEW movies that stand out as ‘must have’ HD experiences, I am most likely to purchase those, anyways. In my opinion, these are few and far between, and limited to truly ‘big’ movies, that truly benefit from the ‘big screen’ experience.—ie. not your average chic-fliks, dramas, comedies, etc. Those movies, I’m JUST as satisfied by the very-good quality SD ‘upconverted’ experience I’m enjoying. Not to mention the simple FACT that BD content is severely LIMITED in choice and availability. Only a tiny minority of movies on NetFlix (or anywhere else on this planet) are available in Blu-Ray. Give me a call when you’ve duplicated your entire SD library with BD discs. Until then, keep your premium price dreams to yourself.
To NetFlix: Think twice before you consider the rental of ‘HD’ content to be worthy of ‘premium’ pricing. I dare say huge swaths of your installed customer base simply won’t tolerate it, or… like me.. will choose to opt-out and ignore it.
Looks like it’s time to switch to Blockbuster Online.
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Blu Ray movies are over-priced just like the hardware. Give me $5 to $10 HD DVD’s… 
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No f’n WAY, Netflix - raise the price and you can shove up all your BDs into your @ss, I won’t pay a dime extra for it, that’s for sure.