Besides Transformers, the boys have been re-discovering some gems from the past.  They’ve watched Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends on Roku via Netflix.  They don’t seem to get how cheesy it is and instead simply enjoy the superhero stories.  They’ve also watched Batman: The Animated Series and The Super Mario Bros Super Show.

It seems that some shows (or show concepts in the case of Transformers) don’t really age all that badly and kids don’t always need a flashy new show to be entertained.  Sometimes, an older show will entertain them just as much.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you have a show that you grew up with that your kids enjoy watching?

P.S. If you haven’t already, go visit FollowerHQ and let me know what you think of my Twitter application.

P.P.S. For a bit of fun, try my other Twitter Application, Rout. It’s a +F in Fun!

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #118

Although our DVD plan has ended, Netflix allows you to keep your DVDs out for a limited time before sending them back.  Currently, we have Captain America: The First Avenger and one of the Batman: The Animated Series DVDs.  By Saturday, we should be done with these and ready to send them back.  Then, our mail will no longer see any of those little red envelopes.  Part of me is really sad about this.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you subscribe to a DVD rental service (either Netflix or some other?  If Netflix, has the recent price increase made you change your subscription?

P.S. Happy 111111 Day. Or, if you know binary, Happy 63 Day!

P.P.S. If you haven’t already, go visit FollowerHQ and let me know what you think of my Twitter application.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #113

Yesterday, Reed announced that they’ve scrapped the split concept.  Netflix will remain one company.  Users won’t have to manage two different queues in two different accounts on two different sites just to differentiate between Streaming and DVDs.  Still, I have some concerns.

Moving Too Fast

Reed released a statement in which he said: “there is a difference between moving quickly — which Netflix has done very well for years — and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”  That “too fast” line concerns me.  Does he still think splitting the company was a good idea?  Were all the customers’ shouts of “No! Don’t do this!!!!” interpreted as “Hmmmm….. Maybe try this a little later, perhaps?”  Is Qwikster really dead, or is it just waiting in the wings for a better release opportunity?

Granted, I’m not going to write off that a DVD-Streaming split can’t be done well.  The current “let’s split things up” plan seems to have been as detailed as, well, “let’s split things up.”  Basic user questions in the comments of his initial split announcement were answered with “not sure about that”-type responses.  Perhaps if they go over the plan again and fully flesh it out, they could succeed.  If they decide to do so (or even if they don’t), here are five pieces of advice that might help them repair their image.

1. Get a focus group

I’ve made my share of jokes about focus groups, but when they’re done well, they can help a company avoid a fiasco like this.  Problems with ideas could be hashed out in a small group instead of on an Internet-wide level.  If your entire plan needs to be scrapped after major modifications, nobody will see you turning left, right, left again and then just canceling the whole thing.  You’ll actually look like you know what you’re doing.

2. Focus on the customer

Yes, you need to make nice with the studios to get content.  I appreciate that.  Still, keep in mind that we are your customers (either current or prospective).  If our experience is significantly impacted, even for something that you consider to be an improvement, we might not react well.  Think about what you can do to make us enjoy using your service more.  After all, us using your service is what earns you money, not us canceling because we see less value in your service.

3. Change isn’t always good

People are creatures of habit.  Small changes, even ones for the better, can often face significant resistance just because “It’s always been done the old way.”  Don’t introduce too many radical changes at once.  If you need to do a major overhaul, let people “preview” it as a stable beta and gradually make it live after people have gotten (somewhat) used to it.  If possible, give users the option to use the cool new feature or fall back to the older, but more well-known way of doing things.

4. Customers like bundles

If you want a Streaming Only plan, you pay $7.99.  If you want 2 DVDs at a time, you pay $11.99.  If you want both plans, you pay the total of the price of both plans ($19.98).  Take a page from the cable companies and phone companies and offer bundling discounts.  Got a Streaming plan?  Add 2 DVDs at a time for 10% off ($10.79).  A 2 DVD at a time subscriber getting the same total price for adding Streaming would see Streaming being added at a 15% discount!  Sure, this is only a $1.20 a month savings, but people will see “10%” or “15%” and think “What a great deal!”  It will act as an incentive for people to add DVDs to their Streaming plans or vice versa.

5. Limits are bad

There’s an issue with Streaming plans: They are limited to one stream at a time.  In a world where people stream Netflix shows via Roku boxes, smartphones, iPads, XBox 360s, Nintendo Wiis, and more, why are we limited to only one show at a time?  Why can’t my wife stream a movie in one room while I stream a completely different one in another room while my kids stream some cartoons in a third room?

Currently, the only way around this 1 Device At A Time restriction is to buy the DVD plans.  2 DVDs at a time gets you 2 streams.  3 DVDs buys you 3 streams, etc.  Wasn’t the Streaming-DVD plan split supposed to address this issue?  If you must impose limits, provide us with reasonable ways of increasing those limits.  Paying $11.99 a month more just for 1 more stream (assuming you don’t want DVDs) isn’t reasonable.

Why not let us pay $1 extra per month to add additional concurrent streams to our account?  I realize that there’s a problem with people sharing their streaming account with family and friends, but don’t punish your good users to get at your bad users.

What We’re Doing

Over the course of the price hike and split, we went back and forth as to what to do.  Canceling completely was never really an option.  We’ve all grown too fond of streaming via our Roku boxes to go Netflix-free (for the moment).  DVDs were on a short leash, however.  What began as a fun way for all of us to quickly get movies and TV shows morphed into a way for *ME* to get movies and TV shows (sometimes to share with the boys).  B had a limited amount of shows she wanted to watch and, once those were through, the queue was pretty much all-me.

Another strike was when I realized that I didn’t have much time to watch the DVDs.  They would sit unwatched for a week or two before I watched them.  I would then forget to return them for a week.  Two DVDs at a time is nice, but not if it winds up being 3 DVDs a month for $12 a month.

The third strike was our local library.  They have a decent selection of DVDs to choose from.  The ones they don’t have, I can either get from RedBox or perhaps find elsewhere.  (And no, I’m not talking about piracy.  I meant legally get elsewhere.)

In the end, our DVD plan was an expense with little return.  Though it pains me, since I still love the depth of content there, we’ll be cutting back to Streaming Only on our next billing cycle.  Netflix, the ball is in your court to win us back as well as keep us from ditching Streaming as well.

Needless to say, folks were *NOT* happy.  Many people talked about cancelling one of their plans or leaving Netflix entirely.  In fact, the loss was projected to hit one million users.  It didn’t help when they announced that they’d lose the Starz titles on streaming.

I myself toyed with cancelling.  We love both their streaming service and their DVD-by-mail service, but it was just going to be too much money.  Still, I couldn’t give up access to that many titles.  Plus, there was another issue.

I heard rumblings that the Streaming Only plan was limited to one stream.  I contacted Netflix about the limit and they confirmed this.  They added that I could get more streams by paying for DVD plans.  2 DVDs-At-A-Time got me 2 streams.  3 DVDs would get me 3 streams and so on.  I questioned how this gelled with the claim of separating the DVD and Streaming offerings and didn’t get a clear answer.  (Just a “we’ll ask our manager and get back to you” that never materialized.)

I figured that perhaps this was an “on paper only” limit that wasn’t enforced.  This hope was bolstered by reports from my Twitter followers that they had watched much more than 2 streams at the same time despite being on Streaming Only.  Then, it looked like Netflix decided to enforce the restriction.  They claimed that users weren’t restricted, but people kept seeing errors when they tried to view more than 1 stream.

Clearly, things were not heading well for Netflix.  They had shot themselves in the foot and were bleeding profusely.  It was time for quick and decisive action.  In a blog post, Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix, apologized for the pricing snafu.  At this point, I was ready to forgive him.  He could have made it all better, addressed the problems, and I would have gone back to being an avid Netflix supporter.  I might have even forgiven the price increase.  Instead, he shot his other foot.

You see, Netflix is going to be dividing into two different companies.  Netflix will handle all of the streaming services.  Meanwhile, a new company called Qwikster will handle the DVD-By-Mail services.  This makes no sense for a few reasons:

Queues Will Be Separate

Currently, if you want to find a movie to watch, you load up Netflix, type in the title’s name and you can see whether it’s available via streaming or whether you need to add the DVD to your queue.  Once the split occurs, you’ll have to log into your Netflix account to check whether it is available via streaming.  If it isn’t, you’ll have to log into your Qwikster account to add the DVD to the queue.  This is two separate searches that used to be one search.  Customers don’t like having more work added to perform simple functions.

User Accounts Will Be Separate

Since they will be separate companies, billing and account information will be separate.  Need to update your credit card number?  You can’t just sign into Netflix and do it there.  Now you need to sign into Qwikster as well.  Like before, more work = unhappy customers.

Bad Social Media Planning

As Gizmodo points out, Netflix doesn’t own the @Qwikster name on Twitter.  This would be a problem if it was just some average person.  Unfortunately, the person who owns it is a “foulmouthed pothead” (Gizmodo’s words).  Netflix now must either pay the guy a lot of money to get the Twitter handle or get another handle and deal with constant confusion caused by someone who was there first.  This could have been solved by a free search on Namechk.com or any other similar service.  You don’t announce a service until you have all of your ducks in a row.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So what am I going to do?  Well, it really pains me to cancel the DVD-by-mail, but I think that’s what I’m going to do.  I don’t want to.  I really value the service.  However, at every turn, it seems Netflix is trying to tell me that they intend on making it harder for me to be a customer.

So focusing on just the streaming, I have two main questions for Netflix going forward.  First of all, will the streaming limit still be in place?  If my kids are watching a streaming movie on the Roku in the living room, will my wife and I be unable to stream to our bedroom Roku?  Will additional streams be available as a purchased add-on?  If so, how much will they cost?

In addition, the blog post claims that more streaming selection is on the way.  Honestly, I won’t mourn the Starz loss that much.  I went to look at the Starz content and the first 10 pages or so only revealed a handful of movies I’d like to see.  If Starz is demanding tons of money for a poor selection of content, then Netflix was right to ditch them.  The problem will be what they do with the saved money and how they negotiate for streaming rights.

You see, in the past, Netflix has used their DVD rentals as leverage.  They agreed to withhold DVD rentals for 30 days in return for lower DVD prices and more streaming selection.  With the offerings separate, though, they can’t do this.  They will need to negotiate for streaming offerings on their own.  If history is any guide, the studios won’t want to play ball.  In their mind, streaming reduces DVD sales.  (Never mind that I would have either rented or done without all titles I saw via Netflix.)

If this separation is for real, they’ve weakened their studio negotiating position.  If Quikster-Netflix will still negotiate as one unit with studios then this split is purely a matter of making customer’s lives harder.

Either way, it’s a bad move by Netflix.  Now they have two feet bleeding.  They need to act fast because they have little time to turn this around.  I’m not sure they can, to be honest, but to have any chance, they need to start making intelligent, customer-friendly decisions and FAST!

Netflix is claiming that this is to help customers out and save them money.  Let’s look at the old pricing structure.

Right now, we’re on the 2 DVD at a time plan so we pay $15 a month.  (Well, it reflects on our bill as $16 and change.  That’s probably due to taxes or something.  I’ll let this slide for now.)  To get a similar plan under Netflix’s new pricing structure, I’ll need to buy the $7.99 Unlimited Streaming plan and the 2-DVDs-At-A-Time plan for $11.99.  Total monthly bill: $19.98.  That’s a 33% price hike.

Do I get anything extra for this hike?  More movies than I’m currently getting?  Newer releases?  Quicker DVD mailings?  Anything at all?  Nope.  I get the privilege of paying them 33% more for the same service they’re providing me now.

My first thought was maybe we should reduce our plan level.  We could go with 1 DVD at a time and streaming for $15.98.  This would be a 6.5% price hike for reduced services.  Or maybe I could go streaming only for $7.99 a month.  This would save us $7 a month.  Sure we wouldn’t have access to Netflix’s impressive DVD selection, but there are ways of replacing that.

Bye Bye DVDs, Hello Streaming Only?

But is Streaming Only a real option?  While doing some reading, I came upon a question on Twitter that asked whether the Streaming Only plan limited the number of streams.  The answer was: “All streaming plans will be limited to one stream.”

Now I was confused.  So I called Netflix and asked them.  I was told that going Streaming Only would indeed limit the user to only one stream at a time.  So if B was in the bedroom watching Netflix on our Roku and the boys wanted to watch a cartoon in the living room, they couldn’t.  Or if the boys were watching their cartoon and I wanted to catch up with a show on my laptop, I’d be locked out.  So much for the “unlimited" in Unlimited Streaming!

Increase The Streams, Just Don’t Cross Them

Still, I wondered, how does one increase one’s available streams.  Surely, Netflix wouldn’t doom everyone to a single stream.  Not with Netflix on Roku boxes, built into TVs, Blu-Ray players, iPads, etc.  It turns out there is a way to get more streams: Buy the DVD plans.  If you buy the 2 DVD At A Time plan, you get 2 streams.  The 3 DVD plan gets you 3 streams and so on.

But wait.  Netflix’s “justification” for this price increase plan change was that they were separating out the DVD and Streaming portions.  Let’s reread their blog statement again to be sure:

We are separating unlimited DVDs by mail and unlimited streaming into separate plans to better reflect the costs of each and to give our members a choice: a streaming only plan, a DVD only plan or the option to subscribe to both.

It certainly sounds like they are making the two (DVD and Streaming) completely separate entities.  Doesn’t tying the number of streams available to the DVD plan purchased contradict this statement?  I called back and asked and was told that they would forward this question to a supervisor higher up in the chain.

I’ve heard some reports from people that they have Streaming Only now and can do 2 or more streams at the same time.  This might be a quirk in the system or an upcoming change.  Either way, I’ve got to look at Netflix company policy and not “what you can get away with now.”  Even if they don’t come down on people and enforce the 1 Stream At A Time rule on September 1st, they could in the future.  And that would vastly undermine the value of their Streaming plan.

The Real Reason For The Price Increase

I’ve actually been anticipating this price increase for awhile.  Back when most of the content providers inked deals with Netflix, they saw the company as a “last stop” for content.  They figured that a show/movie would come out on TV/theatres and then go to pay-TV (for movies), then to DVD, then to rental DVD and then finally to streaming.  Along the way, the content providers figured, people would pay each time to view their content.  People would pay for premium cable channels and then buy the DVD/Blu-Rays and then pay to have it streamed.

Instead, people saved their money.  They cancelled their subscriptions to HBO, Cinemax and other premium stations.  They didn’t buy the DVDs.  They waited for the shows/movies to appear in the Netflix DVD and Streaming queues.

In addition, more and more people noticed the value of Netflix and joined up.  Many of the deals specified a limit to the number of people who would be signed up to Netflix and able to view the streams.  Netflix blew by those numbers.

Now, the content providers are seeing red.  Or green.  Or a mixture of both.  (“Seeing grey?”)  They are angry that so many people are streaming videos and want more money.  A lot more.  Some estimates figure that Netflix will need to pay ten times as much just to keep their same streaming content.

Hey Netflix, Here’s What You Should Do

Still, a 33%+ price increase all at once doesn’t sit well with most folks.  There has been a great uproar on Twitter, Facebook, Netflix’s blog, individuals’ blogs and pretty much anywhere else Netflix users can be found.  They don’t like this and many are willing to go without Netflix or downgrade their plan.

This is the Netflix Apocalypse in the title.  People fleeing en masse will mean fewer subscribers to shoulder Netflix’s additional content fees.  This can only result in more steep price increases which would drive more people away.  Netflix is at the cusp of a downward spiral into oblivion.  There is hope though.  If Netflix did five things, I think they could defuse this situation to a great degree.

First of all, Netflix should admit they blundered.  Admit that this new pricing scheme was a mistake and that, while rates will need to increase thanks to upcoming content price increases, this scheme was poorly thought out.  They need to do this quickly while they still have a shred of sympathy left.

Secondly, increase prices gradually.  Don’t make the increase 33% all at once.  I know you need to raise more money but the way to do this isn’t by slicing your customers’ jugular.  Announce a series of 5% price increases that will ease everyone into the new pricing scheme.

Third, grandfather in all existing users.  Get rid of that September 1st date for existing users and let us keep our plans as is for now.  It’s ok to say that switching plans will get you a new pricing arrangement, but give us loyal users at least six months on our existing plans before we see any pricing shift.  Maybe require existing users to pay for a certain number of months up front to lock in the old rates.  This would get you more money up front, keep people from jumping ship as quickly and would help keep people happier (as they’d perceive that they were getting a bargain).

Fourth, fully untangle the Streaming and DVD plans.  Give us at least 2 or 3 streams at a time on the Unlimited Streaming plan.  Make additional streams something you add onto your streaming plan, not something you obtain by buying a DVD plan.

Fifth, give us bundle discounts.  Learn from the cable companies.  If you buy Internet, TV, and phone service from the cable company, they charge you less than the price of each of those service separately.  This encourages people to sign up for more services.  Similarly, when I sign up for Streaming and DVD plans, my final price should be less than the price of the Streaming plan + the price of the DVD plan.  This will encourage people to buy multiple plans which will get you more money.

If Netflix doesn’t take some, more or all of these steps, I think they’ll be facing a mass user exodus.  If they delay too long, people might leave even if the September 1st deadline* is changed or even if the new plan structure is scrapped entirely.  Sadly, I think we’ll be one of those leaving/downgrading.  We might stick with Netflix Streaming Only for awhile, but if we bump up against that one-stream rule too much then we’ll need to rethink even that.

Please, Netflix, recover from this major blunder.  All of us who are leaving don’t really want to go.  We love your service and want to stick around.  We just can’t justify it with the changes you are making.

* Although the plans change on September 1st, you might see a price increase early.  When your plan renews itself, you’ll get the new rate.  In my case, I was informed that this will take place on August 7th.  So instead of 6 1/2 weeks to consider what we’re going to do, we have a mere 3 weeks.

Later on, I actually won a Roku and tried out Netflix.  This resulted in a four part series titled Netflix, Roku and Cut Cable, Oh My!.  (Here are links to part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.)  During this series, I revised my estimates, including purchasing equipment to receive OTA signals and a TiVo box to record shows.  I also cut back on Amazon VOD and purchased DVD estimates.  At the end, I wound up estimating a savings of $40 a month.

Since it has been about year, I figured it was time for a follow-up.  First of all, our cable cord is still fully intact.  Despite our calculations of what we would save, it turns out that too many of the shows we like watching are on cable TV.  Still, our television landscape has changed dramatically in the past year and it doesn’t bode well for the future of the cable cord.

First of all, that three month Netflix trial turned into a paid-subscription.  Yes, this is $13.99 extra a month, but it is well worth it.  We get 2 DVDs out at a time and unlimited streaming.  Thanks to our Roku box, we can watch videos streaming from Netflix on our television.  The kids have taken to this the most and will watch the same shows over and over.  They even request “Roku” (by which they usually mean Netflix on Roku) over regular TV on a regular basis.

NHL and JSL have discovered classic cartoons such as Pink Panther and Rugrats and will watch their antics over and over.  (Note to Netflix and Nickelodeon: Please get more than just the first 4 seasons of Rugrats on streaming!)

Amazon VOD has gotten almost no use.  About the only time I’ve used it was when I had a credit to use up.  Even then, my purchase has gone unwatched since the boys love Roku so much.  Still, were I to cut cable, I could see buying Mythbusters this way, but not much else.  A season of Mythbusters on Amazon VOD would cost about $43.50.  At that rate, I might be better off waiting and buying it on DVD.  (I still wish Netflix could get the DVD season sets instead of the “random episode” collection DVDs.)

Paid rentals and DVD purchases have gone virtually extinct.  Yes, we’ll buy the occasional DVD, but this is a rare event.  Meanwhile, our trips to the library to take out DVDs have become a nearly weekly event.  The boys get excited to go to the DVD section and pick out 1 DVD each.  Then they can’t wait to get home and watch it over and over until it is time to return it and pick a new DVD.  This is quite a deal since it is essentially free.  “Essentially” because it is paid for via our taxes, but I can think of worse ways to spend tax money than beefing up our public libraries.  Besides, the boys almost always get books while there too.  We’ll leave with three or four DVDs and a big bag full of books.

Still, there are cable channels that we just love watching too much to cancel.  If these shows were available in a streaming model (say, via Hulu Plus, Netflix or some other provider), we would gladly subscribe to those and ditch the cable cord.  Until that happens, though, I don’t think the cord will get sliced.  Of course, as more content goes streaming and as we watch less and less non-streaming content, the cable cord’s lifespan seems more and more limited.  I’d probably be safe to declare that we won’t cut it in the next year, but I wouldn’t be as sure about the next 3 – 5 years.

Thanks to the one two punch of Netflix Online and Roku, I’m pretty confident that my kids would survive a cut cable cord without too much screaming.  So where does this leave cable in our household?

For now, it hasn’t been cut, but don’t confuse being uncut with being safe.  We’re currently looking into many options ranging from cutting to going with an alternative service like DirecTV.  (Any DirecTV reps out there who want a technologically savvy daddy blogger to do a review on your service? )

My original conclusion, meanwhile, has been revised.  Previously, I determined that we would save about $15 per month if we cut cable.  However, I soon realized that that relied on two erroneous assumptions.

The first was that we would buy $15 in DVDs every month.  We really don’t buy many DVD movies because we tend to watch them once or twice and then add them to the stack.  Kids movies get a bit more play, but there’s only so many times you can let your child watch a show before you go insane.  Now, we tend to rent our DVDs via Netflix or our local library.  DVD purchases happen pretty much only if a deal is extremely good or for a Chanukah or Birthday present.  Our total DVD purchase budget is probably closer to $30 per year than $15 per month.  This increases the Cut Cable savings to $27.50 per month.

The second assumption was that we would frequent Amazon VOD.  Apart from having Mythbusters episodes, I just can’t see spending a lot of money on this service when I get essentially the same thing "for free" with my paid for Netflix subscription.  (Yeah, I know Netflix isn’t free, but you know what I mean.  I don’t have to pay $1.99 just to see another episode of Heroes.  It’s right there.)

The only thing I might pay for is the aforementioned Mythbusters.  (TechyDad want big boom!)  At $1.99 per episode and an average of 25 episodes per season, I’d only be paying about $24, or $2 per month, for this Amazon VOD.  This is far short of the $26 a month I initially assumed and raises the Cut Cable savings to $51.50 a month.

I’ve also re-thought my setup.  I don’t need to invest in a media streaming setup.  I just need to manage our existing DVDs better.  So I’ve used EMDB to catalog all of my DVDs.  I plan on making a list out of it and laminating it for the kids to refer to.  This way they’ll be able to point to an item on the list and have B or I put it in rather than wondering just what we have to watch.

The only tripping point at the moment is how we would hook our existing TVs up to receive over the air broadcasts (do we need to buy any equipment for this?) and what DVR to buy to replace our cable company issued one.  TiVo is a possibility, of course, but the monthly fee ($129 per year) would eat into our Cut Cable savings.  Still, even after TiVo, we would have over $40 left per month in savings.  The first six months of savings would pay off the purchase price of TiVo.  After that (and possibly a few months paying off equipment to receive digital OTA signals), we’d be in pure savings mode.

Alternatively, we could switch from Time Warner Cable to DirecTV.  The one year locked in rate would save us $28 per month over cable.  Either way, money talks, especially in this economy.  Unless things radically change, I don’t think our current cable connection has much of a life left in our household.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary 3 month preview of Netflix for review purposes.  However, after my preview period, I intend to remain on as a paying Netflix member.  As stated, I won the Roku box during an online giveaway.  The reviews expressed above are my own and were not altered in any way by Netflix, Roku or anyone else.

When we last left our intrepid Cable Cutting hero, he was talking about Netflix streaming devices.  There are many of these on the market, to be sure, but my favorite is the Roku box.  This small box, and I’m talking palm of your hand small, will easily fit into any home theater arrangement.  It is easy to set up, navigate and has plenty of content available on it.

Once your Netflix Instant Queue is set up, the titles appear nearly instantly on your Roku box.  If your title includes multiple episodes, say because you’re watching The Addams Family, you can jump to a specific episode easily .  Fast forwarding and rewinding, though inexact, are simple to master.  Simple enough, in fact, that my 6 year old figured it out quickly and now is not to be trusted near the remote.  Not because he’s going to mess something up, but because he *will* fast forward/rewind/change the video when I just want to watch what’s playing.  In fact, all of the controls are easy to master.  If I hand NHL the remote, I can be certain that he will find a show that he wants to watch and will be able to play it with no problem.

The only problem we ran into was constant wireless network connection losses.  However, considering I’ve been experiencing these on my laptop as well, I think this is more of a problem with my network (more specifically, my router) than with Roku/Netflix.  Even when the network is acting funky, though, reconnecting is as easy as clicking "OK" a few times.  Assuming that the network cooperates, that is, but you can hardly fault Roku or Netflix for not being able to connect to a trouble-making router!

Since introducing them to the Roku, my children’s viewing habits have changed.  Whereas before their "default" choice was Noggin, The Disney Channel or possibly PBS Kids, they have rapidly made Roku one of their favorite choices.  Why, after all, bother with waiting until their favorite show is on when you can just click and play.  JSL has learned to ask for "Wiggle Roku" for his favorite Wiggles videos or "Bobby He Can Build It Roku" (Bob the Builder on Roku) and NHL has found enjoyment in some of my old favorites: Inspector Gadget, Super Mario Brothers and The Pink Panther.

Previously, I had mentioned how Netflix wasn’t resting on their laurels.  Well, Roku isn’t either.  While Netflix on Roku might be enough to justify the $80 – $130 price tag (depending on which Roku box you buy), Roku also offers access to Amazon Video on Demand, which has some great movies and TV shows, and Major League baseball.

Those offerings require extra purchases, however.  Amazon VOD requires you to pay for each video while MLB insists on a yearly subscription fee.  To increase the value of your Roku box, they are branching out to other content providers, most of which will be free for all.  Their Channel Guide allows you to customize your channel listing to include Motionbox, Mediafly, blip.tv, twit.tv, Facebook Photos, Revision3, Frame Channel, Flickr and Pandora.  These options just came out, so I haven’t explored them fully.  Still, I got a taste for how much more content they have just made available via Roku and I like it.  Clearly, Roku is trying to position itself as the go-to box for streamed media content.

Coming up next, will the cable cord survive being cut?

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary 3 month preview of Netflix for review purposes.  However, after my preview period, I intend to remain on as a paying Netflix member.  As stated, I won the Roku box during an online giveaway.  The reviews expressed above are my own and were not altered in any way by Netflix, Roku or anyone else.

Previously, I mentioned that Netflix is keeping up with the changing rental climate.  One of those changes is online viewing.  I’m a big believer that the future successor of DVDs isn’t going to be Blu-Ray or some other super-incredible-ultra-high-resolution disc, but no disc at all.  All of the pieces are in place or nearly so.  Internet speeds are fast enough in many areas to support video streaming. Video codecs can alter video quality to account for changes in bandwidth.  Wireless technology allows for devices (*cough*Roku*cough*) to stream Internet videos without needing any wires (save for the power cord).

In fact, online viewing, though I expected it would be good, completely changed how I and my family watch TV.  There is a selection of movies and television shows that are available for instant viewing.  This selection is admittedly smaller than the mailable DVD list, but the blame for that rests with content owners being reluctant to let their videos touch anything Internet-related.  Netflix is constantly adding new titles to this list, though and I suspect that the pressure to add videos to Netflix’s online selection will only increase.

When you find a title that you would like to play instantly, you simply press the Play button.  Alternatively, you can add the title to your Online Queue.  This is like the mailer queue except titles never arrive/leave.  They simply sit there for you to watch whenever you want.  As nice as computer-based viewing might be, it gets much, much better once you add a device such as a Roku.  Using that, you can stream the content right to your television screen.

In many ways, it is just as altering an experience as first getting a DVR was.  When we first got a DVR, was were amazed with the freedom that we had.  Suddenly, we didn’t *HAVE* to be at home to watch shows we liked.  We could record them and watch them later.  Now, we don’t have to be limited to what the TV networks are showing in our area.  We can watch old shows that have gone off the air, see shows from overseas or see titles that might otherwise suffer from a censors’ axe on network television.

Best of all, we can watch them without ever fiddling with discs.  If you are sitting on the couch at the end of a long day, you might not want to go over to your stack of DVDs, root through them to find the specific disc you feel like watching and then play it.  Instead, you might want to just sit on the couch, select a movie from your Instant Queue and hit play.  Netflix makes it that simple.  And with more and more devices supporting Netflix, you should be able to easily fit a Netflix streaming device into your budget.  You might even already have one in your home.

Coming up next, speaking of Netflix streaming devices…

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary 3 month preview of Netflix for review purposes.  However, after my preview period, I intend to remain on as a paying Netflix member.  As stated, I won the Roku box during an online giveaway.  The reviews expressed above are my own and were not altered in any way by Netflix, Roku or anyone else.

Regular readers will know that, a few months back, I won a Roku box from Buck Daddy.  After getting it set up, I wondered just how I was going to use it.  This led to my Cutting the Cable Cord post and eventually to a trial membership with Netflix.  While I knew the features that were going to open up to me, I was unprepared for how they would change my television viewing habits.

You’ve Got DVD Mail

The basic Netflix DVD mailing system is quite simple.  You browse their website looking for movies or TV shows that you would like to watch.  Given Netflix’s incredible selection, it isn’t hard to quickly generate a long list (or Queue as it is called on the website).  Aiding you is a "More Like" feature.  When you add a title to your Queue, a screen pops up that not only confirms that the addition took place, but recommends additional titles to add.  Clicking on one of those brings yet another "More Like" screen up.  In this manner, you might attempt to add one title, but wind up adding a dozen.

It also means you will be exposed to titles that you might have otherwise never have even heard of.  I wound up watching The IT Crowd, a British sitcom about office workers in an IT department, and Tripping The Rift, a TV-MA computer animated show about aliens and robots on a starship, thanks to this feature.  In each case, I would have never had even known that they existed but now I’m a big fan of each.

Netflix has many distribution points, so chances are you’ll receive your video quickly.  We’ve been averaging about 2 days between notification that the disc was mailed and its arrival in our mailbox.  And Netflix helps ease mailing the DVDs back by making the mailer envelope double as a postage paid return envelope.  Simply stick the DVD back into the mailing envelope, rip off a perforated side, peel off a protective backing on the envelope’s glue strip and seal the envelope.  Then back in the mail it goes to Netflix.

Overall, we were very satisfied with this system.  As I said, the movies arrived rapidly.  And, since you don’t need to return them by a certain date, you can keep them until you’ve watched them all.  As of this writing, I still have the first disc of Dinosaurs out until I get to watching the last episode or two.  Meanwhile, we’re managing our queue to make sure each family member gets the chance to have something out.  Looney Tunes for NHL and JSL (ok, and me), Weeds for B, and Mr. Bean for me.

All along the way, Netflix seems to be all about communication.  We get notified when a movie is sent out and when it is received.  We even get e-mailed questionairres asking about the quality of their service.  In the one instance we had of a disc having troubles, Netflix made reporting and getting a replacement for the bad disc a cinch.  They strike me as a company truly determined to not rest on their laurels.  Sure, they may be on the top of the Online DVD Rental game now, but things can change quickly.  Netflix seems determined to keep up with those changes.

Coming up next, Netflix ups the ante with online streaming…

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary 3 month preview of Netflix for review purposes.  However, after my preview period, I intend to remain on as a paying Netflix member.  As stated, I won the Roku box during an online giveaway.  The reviews expressed above are my own and were not altered in any way by Netflix, Roku or anyone else.