Have you considered time-value when determining if Netflix is worth it? If I’m not mistaken, you can get unlimited movies and downloads for $8.99 a month. So, let’s say that you do only watch 3 movies a month. Each is costing you $3.00 from Netflix. Not the best, but still cheaper than Blockbuster.

You said that you use Redbox. How far is the Redbox from your house? Do you drive there? I can imagine that the time and possibly gas, wear and tear etc. expended for the two round-trips to pickup and return a movie at Redbox is more than the $2.00 difference.

I can see a trade with friends as a valid money-saver though, as long as you are not making special trips just to trade movies.

But the real bonus to Netflix is, in my opinion, the ability to watch tv series. We don’t want cable, but through Netflix we’ve been able to watch Weeds, Dexter, The Colbert Report, Comedy Central Presents, and a variety of other programs. I got My So-Called Life, and it was a fun way to reminisce without having to buy the series. I’ve always been very pleased with Netflix and I am a big fan :)

Regarding new vs old movies, I’m usually able to get the latest movies within 2-3 weeks of its release. And, I’ve figured out that, since DVDs are released on Tuesdays, if you return your Netfilx DVDs on Saturday, you have a better chance of receiving the new release on Tuesday, before the waitlist builds up too much.

Depending on where you live, and how you get to the library, it can get very expensive to get supposedly “free” DVDs from the library.

here in the city, we’re a bus or subway ride away from any library branch. So that’s $4.50 to pickup and $4.50 to return. Since you can only take them out for a week at a time, that’s a minimum of $9 if you take out even just one (It’s $1 a day if you are late!). So it makes no sense unless you can get a LOT of DVDs in one visit AND find the time to watch them in a week, which flys by.

I’m surprised that folks who drive don’t also consider the cost of driving somewhere. Everybody can’t possibly live in walking distance of a library? Not to mention such well-stocked ones.

FYI: You can place holds on some DVDs but not all. But again, you’d still have to go in to pick them up by a certain date whether you were planning to do so or not in a given time period.

$9 a month for netflix with pretty much all you can eat, versus $9 a week for the “free” library? No problem for our family in determining which is the better value. And Netflix has so much in stock and literally only a day or two away.

See? I really don’t work for them.

Warning: it’s not exactly plug n play. There is no snazzy interface that makes adding channels easy. Being comfortable with downloading, unzipping, and moving files from folder to folder will help a lot. Clear directions are available but expect you to know how to find a folder on your computer. Once it’s set up though, the interface through the PS3 is just fine; bare bones but efficient and self-explanatory. Also, the faster your PC the better because your PC handles the encoding before it streams to your PS3/Xbox 360/DNLA server.

There’s a decent-sized community that writes plugins and scripts for PlayOn so new “channels” are always in the works. The downside is, the plugins aren’t guaranteed to work since you are, in fact, their beta tester lol. Overall though, I’m very happy with PlayOn and haven’t had any significant issues. It aggregates shows from a very wide variety of sources and puts it on my TV. And no, I don’t work for PlayOn. :p

@ Mary #23

With slow DSL, streaming is really hit and miss, mostly miss. We have Netflix 1 at a time + streaming as well and we’ve only started watching streaming this month because we finally got fiber optic in our neighborhood (we’re semi-rural). We have ~4 download speed now. At the very least we stream at 480p, possibly higher but I haven’t checked. It looks like the quality of a normal DVD, not a bluray. There are minor hangups and hiccups but most shows seem to run fairly smoothly.

Previously we had 1.5 like you. Quality depended greatly on original stream encoding. Some shows were at least watchable, along the lines of a well-used VHS tape. Slightly grainy but still watchable. Many many shows, however, were so blurry I couldn’t even make out the faces of individual characters. I couldn’t tell who I was looking at. If you’re nearsighted, it was like watching without glasses/contacts. In addition, shows would stop for a minute or two to buffer the next section several times during viewing. A call to Netflix netted the answer “Sorry, call your ISP. You need greater bandwidth.” (Not a slam on Netflix. The guy was very nice; there was just nothing he could do to help.)

So no, I don’t recommend Netflix streaming for you.

Anyone who is considering going to something like Netflix might want to keep this in mind. If we could find a way to get a signal or if we moved to another place where we could get a signal, I would drop cable in a heartbeat and go this route.

The other bonus is, with that as an option, the few times we actually do go out to the movies, it’s something we’re really engaged with and interested in. The last movie we saw in theater was “The Hurt Locker” four months ago, and I still recommend it to everyone I can.