Netflix and cracked Blu Ray discs

[Paladin]

I just cancelled my Netflix subscription, and thought I'd rant about it here to get it out of my system. 

I don't rent that many movies, so I was reluctant to sign up to begin with because I'd have to rent enough movies to balance the monthly fee.  When they offered streaming videos to Tivo devices and I bought a Blu Ray player, I decided to join up and see how it went.

I was happy enough with the service, although I occasionally got a scratched disc or a streaming movie would get jerky for a while - the occurances were well within acceptable limits.  Then I started to add more Blu Ray movies to my queue, and the problems started.  Each one of the last 3 Blue Ray discs I've received have been cracked on the outside edge.  A little research on the web showed that this has been an ongoing issue for some time with Blu Ray discs.  Evidently the way they're made makes them more resistant to scratches, but also more brittle.

The reason I cancelled my account was reading that the problem seems to be that the Netflix mailing envelope causes the discs to get cracked while going through the mail processing equipment.  Evidently the post office has asked Netflix to change the envelope to reduce the problem, but Netflix doesn't want to do that.  People who join Blockbuster Video seem to have less of a problem, most likely related to the fact that their envelopes are a bit larger and hold the disk further away from the edges where mailing equipment would grab hold.

I couldn't see keeping the membership for the streaming and regular DVD's, and then going to the local video store to rent Blu Ray movies.  As more movies come out on Blu Ray this problem seems to be snowballing, and yet Netflix refuses to make changes to correct it.  Presumably due to the increased cost of mailing supplies and postage.  So here you have a company that would rather have customers jump ship to competitors than fix a known problem.

I'm sure at some point Netflix will loose enough customers or get enough bad press that they fix the problem, and I'll probably even rejoin at that point.  It just really ticks me off when a company turns a blind eye to a known problem rather than admitting it and correcting the situation.  I wouldn't have cancelled my membership if they at least sent out a notice stating that they were aware of the issue and working on a fix, but I had to find out about it by searching the web.

I guess not all areas have the problem, it seems to depend on how the mail is processed.  I hope no one here with a Netflix membership has the same problems but if you do, know that you're not alone!

[Bobodude]

I have been a Netflix user for about 5 years with the 3 at a time plan.  During that time I have recvd maybe 3 or 4 cracked disks out of nearly 1000.  I think that is a pretty good average. I started renting blurays in the last 6 months and out of 100 or so disks I have yet to recv one cracked disk. I get my disks from the Reno distribution facilty. Maybe your distribution point has a USPS center that has faulty processing equipment. I have not tried the streaming feature as most customers in my area complain of jerky or long wait periods during the movie while it buffers.  I tried BB and had a horrible experiance.  After recv the first 3 disks, it took them 8 days before I recvd the next set. Nexflix sends them in 4 days even though nearly all of my que picks are either long or short waits.  BB had a better availablity than NF.  Where else are ya gonna go?

[jdkmunch]

I love netflix.    I get all bluray disks and enjoy the movies immensely.     I have streamed occasionaly -  I have a laptop with an HDMI port and just pop that into the TV.  The only complaint I have is that the quality is not there yet.    Compared to the bluray it looks like SD.   


Never any problems with pausing.     Now I just waiting for FiOS to complain cause I'm downloading terrabytes a month.  But that's a thread for another day.