On Netflix

Posted on November 30, 2012
Filed Under Apple TV | Leave a Comment

NetflixMichael Tsai had a post about Netflix today. It’s in response to Dave Winer quitting Netflix. I don’t get this quitting I must confess. Unless you’re truly happy with Apple’s ridiculously expensive rentals.1 What I do is keep the streaming for my wife and kids. My kids love the huge selection of kids shows. They have to be good to get permission to watch, but there’s always a show on they love. My 2 year old daughter adores Fresh Beat Band. Yes there is Amazon streaming which is free if you have Prime.2 Amazon streaming is remarkable for managing to have an even worse selection of streaming titles than Netflix does. Plus it doesn’t work with the Apple TV, just the iPad.3

What I do for myself is sign up for Bluray disk delivery and then rip the disk with MakeMKV and Handbreak. I can then return the disk and watch it at my leisure. Yes the files are somewhat big. But I delete the movie after I watch it so it’s not taking up space on my disk. This resolves the tension where you have some art house film sitting on your shelf for a month because you aren’t in the mood to watch it right then.

Here’s the thing though. While I admittedly don’t watch a lot of TV, this gives me basically every show I want to watch. The few TV shows that I like, but not enough to pay for, I don’t mind waiting a year for. (I’m eagerly awaiting watching the next season of Fringe when it becomes available on disk) The shows I don’t like waiting for, like Justified, I pay for. This may be a problem who want water cooler talk about the latest episode of Dexter or Game of Thrones. But honestly I still haven’t finished watching the first season of Game of Thrones. I’m married and exhausted from kids. I don’t have enough time to do the water cooler talk.

About the only thing I truly missed this fall not having cable was college football. But my team sucked this year so maybe it was a blessing in disguise to keep me from stressing out.

As for Winer’s attempts to make watching video more social, let’s be honest. It would have quickly turned into YouTube styled comments. 

For managing my queue I usually use an iPhone program although this week it stopped working properly and hasn’t been updated yet.

  1. I must confess that I bought the last two seasons of Justified from iTunes. But buying isn’t renting. ↩
  2. If you don’t have Prime you should. You can get huge bags of dog food, cat food and all else shipped to you within two days for free. ↩
  3. OK, if you have a Roku you’re set I guess. But I like my Apple TV. ↩

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