Personally, we've never received a title from Netflix that wasn't shipped from a nearby facility, but it seems as if the firm may be resorting to cross-country tactics in order to clear the
apparent backlog of HD titles. According to Andy, during his year-long relationship with Netflix, he has yet to receive a disc of any flavor from a hub other than the one closest to his Connecticut domicile, but just today, he received specific word from the outfit that it would be shipping
License to Wed on HD DVD from Reno, Nevada. Of course, this could just be a total coincidence, but if it truly is an effort to get more high-definition movies out to more customers regardless of location, we all should see those "Very Long Wait" statuses
clear up in the not-too-distant future. Hit us up in comments if you too are expecting an HD DVD / Blu-ray Disc from a faraway hub.
[Thanks,
andyg8180]
posted Jan 21st 2008 8:09PM
I would LOVE it if they started shipping my movies from any warehouse that has them in stock. I'd be HAPPY to wait 3 or four days of transit time to get the movies I want to see. As it is, I have had the same 9 HD movies (mostly Blu-Ray, but also HD-DVD) at the top of my queue for months!
Alternately, I'd be happy to pay another $5 a month to get on some priority account system to get moved up the hierarchy.
If there was another service that offered that kind of thing (higher cost but actual availability of the titles and formats I want) I'd gladly switch. But all the services seem happy to race to the bottom (service/cost wise).
Come on, Netflix, get it together. I spoke with a CSR and they said they cannot buy enough to keep up with demand. I offered to send them a link to Amazon. They also said I cannot choose to have movies shipped from a place where they are available -- that that is an automated process. Bummer! Just like we can choose to prefer Blu-Ray instead of regular DVD, when adding a movie to my queue, we should be able to choose "ship from any location that has my top movie available, even if it means a few more days in transit" option. I'd choose that every time!
This has happened to me many times, with both standard and HD discs, over the years. There's always an e-mail explaining it. I once had a disc sent all the way from California (I'm near Philadelphia), and it took almost a week to get here. At the time (more than a year ago) I wrote to ask if my account could be set to only mail from the local distribution point, and they said no. I'd rather have them skip down my queue for something available locally than to jam up a slot for an entire week waiting for mail from frakkin California!
I don't have any of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray in my Queue on Netflix, but I got the same message for my standard DVD today. In the last year I have never had any movie come from anywhere but Minneapolis, and today I get the message saying it is coming from Kansas City. Interesting indeed!
it has gotten impossible for me to rent HD DVD's or current dvd's. I sent a note to them but no response.
Its standard and it happens. Move along.
Yeah, I'd say this happens to me at least once every few months and not only with HD-DVDs but with standard DVD as well. By percentages, however, I have received more HD-DVDs from other hubs than standard DVDs. It's probably just because they have less of them.
Like Dave, I have it happen on stadard DVD's at least once every couple months. I haven't had it happen with Blu or HD yet though. I think it's simply a coincidence.
I've had that happen five times in the last six months. Only for Blu-rays, never DVD.
BTW - BD owners, a Netflix CSR told me that they have the remastered Fifth Element - anyone rented that recently?
Live in Richmond VA, and most are shipped from right here, but have had them shipped from Kentucky, Cincinati, and Atlanta. And all standard def movies. Still have a standard DVD movie in my que released Dec 2nd saying Very Long Wait.
I have about 20 HD Dvd and Blu Ray with short to very long wait out of about 40 HD and Blu Ray discs. In the last week or two I have had at least three discs shipped from non-local centers.
Maybe the standby time was a good thing. Netflix may be doing us a favor, giving us time to think about our decisions:
"Do you REALLY want to watch License to Wed? Are you sure?"
I've had a few DVD's sent from non-local-ish places like LA. What frustrates me, is they send an e-mail saying it will send the NEXT DAY. Why can't it ship the same day from a different facility?
We're in a strange setup here in Sacramento. We have a local "return address", but the facility is actually in San Jose. The DVD's are picked up from the Netflix PO Box here in Sacramento, and a courier drives them to San Jose (2+ hour drive). Then, the courier returns in the afternoon, and they are "mailed" locally from Sacramento. This guarantees next day delivery / return.
But, I've gotten discs from as far away as Florida. I send them back to my local Netflix... since you can put 2 (or 3?) discs in a single return envelope. I've done that several times and built up a small stack of empty local envelopes for when I need them.
Any Blu-Ray discs I get always ship from NJ (and I usually get mine from Worcester, MA). The way it always works is after waiting all day for them to choose a movie, at the end of the day I receive a message such as:
SHOOT 'EM UP was not available at your local shipping center. Instead, we will be shipping this movie from New Brunswick, NJ on the next business day. As usual, you will receive a movie shipped email confirming the shipment.
And it usually takes 2 days from there instead of the usual next day delivery.
I'm sure some of you are wondering "how does he know". My friend is the network security architect at Netflix (he went to college with my wife). Lucky him; as a Netflix employee, he get the 8-at-a-time program for free...
Never had it ship from a non-local (Dallas area). Of course the newer HD titles rarely ever get sent to me as well. I hope they start doing cross-country shipping to fix this or my membership is useless.
This happened to me last time there was a big BluRay backlog (when 60GB dropped to $499). They started shipping cross-country, incurring an extra day of transit.
But this time it isn't working. They're shipping me Nacho Libre instead, my 15th choice, and the highest disc that is available. It's the last Blu-Ray on my list.
Nothing recent on BD is available. If last time is any indication, this will clear up in another 3 weeks.
Oh, and Netflix. There's no way to find new BluRay movies on your site except by accident! Since BluRay is a category and "new" is a category, that means you can't view new BluRays. I have to go to other sites to find out what came out on BluRay recently and look that up on Netflix.
I live in Knoxville, Tennessee and am on the 4 disc plan. This week I was shipped 1 blu-ray from California, 1 blu-ray from Ohio, 1 blu-ray from Connecticut, and 1 HD-DVD from Atlanta(my actual shipping hub) Netflix definitely has some weird stuff going on right now.
Should have read:
Dear *****,
License to Wed was not available at your local shipping center. In fact, we have a solitary copy, but we've been using our only copy alternately as a frisbee, a coaster and a wheel on our "DVD Monster car". We did get a laugh when you ordered the movie, so thanks for the good times we had looking at your order. You'll be glad to know that in lieu of "License to Wed", we are planning on sending you our homemade re-enactment of "the Office", which will be infinitely funnier and more entertaining than that sorry excuse for a film.
Believe us, we're doing you a favor. Thanks for your business!
-The Netflix team
I've been a Connecticut Netflix subscriber for some time, and occasionally I would receive similar emails for regular DVDs that were shipping from across the US.
Happens to me all the time. This is of course in regards to HD DVD and Blu-ray rentals (which is the only thing in my Netflix queue).
w00t! Reno!
(I live there)
I've been on Netflix since it started and it does happen a lot on DVD's. I rent a lot of artsy titles and they often ship from distant locations.
I'm in Charlottesville and our local shipping location just recently switched from Richmond to Roanoke, so I guess some locations are shifting right now.
I've never had it happen, but i hear it happens with stuff they dont have a lot of. netflix is in a competative market, so they don't really make that much profit. i like their service in general
I have seen that, but only from hubs within the same state. Still, I don't mind waiting an extra day or two if it means that I can see the movies on the top of my queue.
BTW, does anyone know what happened to Blade Runner Final Cut? I can't rent it on BD or HD DVD. It says unavailable. All that is available now is the Director's Cut.
I live in Gaithersburg, MD, and have been fortunate enough to have a shipping center in the same city as me! I just recently had a blu ray movie ship from Madison, WI.
I actually got Dexter (standard DVD) from Texas last week. I live in NY. My email was the same.
I live in Key West, Florida and I keep getting mine from Anchorage, Alaska. WTF is that all about?
I've had about 5 HD-DVD and Blu-rays at the top of my queue for a few months now, definitely more than a "short wait". I have since added movies to my queue and just bumped them to the top. Yesterday, they shipped a movie from the top of my queue along with The Departed HD-DVD, which was about #8 and had a short wait. I had other movies above it with availability listed as Now, so I don't understand why they would send me The Departed now. I can't really complain since it's been on my queue for probably three months now.
i've been having that issue too where i get something thats like #2 or #3 on my queue. i dont get it
That is because you're probably being throttled. Go do a search and you'll find a guy that did an experiment. If you rent more than 9 movies a month they put fake waits on popular movies. I bet if you made a new account those ones that say "long wait" would actually show up as available.
I signed up for Netflix right after I got my HD-DVD player in November. I have only gotten HD discs from Netflix. Twice I've gotten HD discs from Binghamton NY and Lansing MI. I live in Bethlehem PA.
Blazing Saddles HD-DVD shipped from Denver to Albany, NY for me. Took FOUR days!!!
Thanks for bringing this up Engadget! Maybe you can help stir the pot at NetFlix!
Yeah same here, I've had 2 HD-DVDs shipped from across the country.
I cancelled my membership several months ago due to the region skipping issue. While it may indeed be used to clear the queue at Netflix, I believe it is also used as a way to control their expenses. The cost to ship across country is the same while adding days of shipping time to your account which translates to fewer shipped movies during a given month.
of my last 6 movies 2 of them have shipped cross country. They shipped Casino Royale from Florida and Bridge to Terabithia from Virginia.
I think I've gotten that two times so far with the Blu-ray discs in my queue.
I've put several hd-dvds in my queue over the past couple of months. Got one so far: 2001. It shipped from the local outlet (100 miles away). No problems. Everything else has been "very long wait."
With new releases, if I time it right, I can get most anything from the local outlet to arrive on the day the movie hits the store shelves, but if it's an obscure title or older kids' title, they come from all over the place. The worst was a Thomas the Tank Engine title from Washington State (I'm in Pennsylvania), which took 5 days to get here.
But otherwise, still waiting on my second ever hd-dvd from them...
I gotten about 3 DVDs from other shipping centers in the past (Utah, Nevada, and Spokane). Most recently, my fourth was an HD DVD (Terminator 3) which came from Spokane as well. My local is Tacoma, WA...