Netflix to charge "premium" for renting Blu-ray Discs
By Darren Murph 
posted Apr 21st 2008 10:24PM
posted Apr 21st 2008 10:24PM
[Via CNET, image courtesy of WorkItMom]
posted Apr 21st 2008 10:24PM
The amount of electronics thrown away rather than recycled in 2007.
The EPA reports that 82% of electronics disposal in 2007 ended up in the garbage (mostly landfills) rather than a recycling center. (source: EPA, July 2008)
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I'll cancel my subscription when that day arrives. As it is, I have to play the waiting list game for every half-way decent blu ray title, no way in hell am I going to pay more just to have blu-ray movies sitting around in my queue.
Just out of curiosity, will you be switching to another rental service? If so, which one?
Hey, if we pay more, does that mean we will get them faster? Maybe Netflix should become like EBay, the people willing to spend more for a movie to get it earlier should get it.
Ok, I will shut up now.
I will be switching to Blockbuster Online as soon as Netflix increases their prices.
I don't mind the idea of paying a few bucks more a month if they actually have the movies I want, in stock. (That's a big IF.)
I am 99% sure it will be a flat monthly additional fee to have your account enabled for Blu-Ray regardless of how many you rent. Why do I say this? Because every other metered plan they have rolled out, with a few exceptions for people that only want to rent one or two movies per month, have been abandoned quickly in favor of flat pricing for an "all you can eat" model... and I'm guess they have learned that is the way to go.
This bothers me a little bit. I've been a Netflix customer since it came into being. Finally, two weeks ago, I picked up a blue-ray player. I switched my subscription over to blue-ray and have yet to receive a blue-ray movie.
If they had a premium in the first place, I'd have understood. I don't like being hit with it now. Hopefully, they'll grandfather in this long time customer.
In full agreement. Been a customer since 1999 and will cancel. I understand that there's extra cost there, but not that many people have Blu-Ray yet and they need to foster growth in the HD rental market.
Everything to do with blu ray requires a premium, why should renting be any different?
Why should it be different? Just because we have the option to have high def movies, we should pay more for it? Nope, doesn't make sense.
amen brother
Easy. Because BluRay was marketed as a DVD replacement. You mind paying five dollars more for a DVD? On the one hand, industry is whining about the slow adoption on HD content- on the other, these same industry leaders are charging more money for what is essentially the same product.
Blu-rays don't really cost a whole lot more. I've never payed over $25 for a Blu-ray, with most being under $20. You just need to know where to look. And that's for the average customer. I'm certain Netflix is able to take advantage of buying Blu-rays in bulk, the only reason they would use this premium is to charge their users extra, as I'm certain Blu-rays aren't costing them enough to warrant this.
I completely disagree with you. Obviously you are overlooking simple facts.
1st. Milk the sheep since it was forced. You pay $400 for a player and $20-$30 for movies, well you can pay more for renting.
2nd. Studios are paying much more for Blu-Ray disc production. You can of course choose to believe it or not, I'm not gonna argue with anyone. So they need to SELL more discs, thus they are limiting rental chains in the amount of discs they can buy. This directly reflects to the pricing that Netflix needs to do on Blu-Ray members.
Any way you look at it, this is nothing unexpected, we knew this would come with Blu-Ray.. one of the reasons why many of us supported HD DVD and it's usage of regular DVD replication factories.
Don't even start to think that Netflix pays some special "wholesale" rate to purchase Blu-ray movies from the Studio. Movie Rental outlets actually pay MUCH MORE than consumer retail... about 5-6 years ago, back in Highschool, a friend's family ran a grocery store that had a movie rental section. I know back then they paid about $100+ for one licensed rental disc, and that was for DVD.
You can CERTAINLY bet that the studios are charging a BIG premium for Blu-ray rental discs. I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix was charged $200 or more for one disc.
I'm sure that extra 50 cents of cost for blu-ray replication over HD DVD is why there is a price increase nfinity. There's much more cost in setting up the disc in HD with very little sold right now. If you're only selling 200k copies of a movie, you know they are spending much more than 200k to get the movie ready to be replicated.
Blu-rays don't really cost a whole lot more. I've never payed over $25 for a Blu-ray, with most being under $20. You just need to know where to look. And that's for the average customer. I'm certain Netflix is able to take advantage of buying Blu-rays in bulk, the only reason they would use this premium is to charge their users extra, as I'm certain Blu-rays aren't costing them enough to warrant this.
highly rank a double post...... weak....
Haha, you knew this was coming. No competition = bad for consumers.
Good for the studios though, that made the decision for us.
Here we go again, another freaking idiotic "HD-DVD is gone now there's no competition" comment. Are people still really this stupid? In the case of home video, competing formats are BAD for consumers. Look at DVD: It's had no "competition" for years and prices steadily dropped. The same thing will happen with BluRay. Now that everyone is on board, the manufacturing process will get standardized and streamlined, the media will get cheaper, since there's only 1 type to make (although I'm not really sure about this, does anyone know if the physical media for BR and HDDVD were the same?) Now that there is one standard, the competition is between the CE companies for the players and the studios for the titles.
Here we go again, another freaking idiotic "HD-DVD is gone now there's no competition" comment. Are people still really this stupid? In the case of home video, competing formats are BAD for consumers. Look at DVD: It's had no "competition" for years and prices steadily dropped. The same thing will happen with BluRay. Now that everyone is on board, the manufacturing process will get standardized and streamlined, the media will get cheaper, since there's only 1 type to make (although I'm not really sure about this, does anyone know if the physical media for BR and HDDVD were the same?) Now that there is one standard, the competition is between the CE companies for the players and the studios for the titles.
Here we go again, another freaking idiotic "HD-DVD is gone now there's no competition" comment. Are people still really this stupid? In the case of home video, competing formats are BAD for consumers. Look at DVD: It's had no "competition" for years and prices steadily dropped. The same thing will happen with BluRay. Now that everyone is on board, the manufacturing process will get standardized and streamlined, the media will get cheaper, since there's only 1 type to make (although I'm not really sure about this, does anyone know if the physical media for BR and HDDVD were the same?) Now that there is one standard, the competition is between the CE companies for the players and the studios for the titles.
Here we go again, another freaking idiotic "HD-DVD is gone now there's no competition" comment. Are people still really this stupid? In the case of home video, competing formats are BAD for consumers. Look at DVD: It's had no "competition" for years and prices steadily dropped. The same thing will happen with BluRay.
Now that everyone is on board, the manufacturing process will get standardized and streamlined, the media will get cheaper, since there's only 1 type to make (although I'm not really sure about this, does anyone know if the physical media for BR and HDDVD were the
same?) Now that there is one standard, the competition is between the CE companies for the players and the studios for the titles.
stupid comment system never works right when I'm at work...sorry about all the posts
This could drive a lot of people to blockbuster.
Blockbuster charges a premium for Blu-Ray as well. Anyway you look at it people will pay more even for rentals. The Blu-Ray way ;)
They would have done the same for HD DVD. At least the Blu-rays don't have to replaced as often.
I don't see anything that blockbuster charges extra for blu-rays by mail. They may charge more for an in-store rental.
Not sure what you are talking about.... ever since I started adding blu-ray discs to my Queue on Blockbuster, I haven't paid an extra dime as compared to when I was renting SD only.
On a separate note, I hope Blockbuster doesn't follow Netflix's move (which Netflix is probably praying that Blockbuster does to make their own move less impactful).
Not sure what Nfinity is talking about.... ever since I started adding
blu-ray discs to my Queue on Blockbuster, I haven't paid an extra
dime as compared to when I was renting SD only.
On a separate note, I hope Blockbuster doesn't follow Netflix's move
(which Netflix is probably praying that Blockbuster does to make
their own move less impactful).
Once they ship, most Blu-ray discs arrive just as fast or take just a day longer than my SD DVD's via Netflix.
So I'll pay a few bucks more, but that means I expect Netflix to ramp up their BD stock. If I am paying a premium I don't want to see half the blu-ray titles marked with with "very long wait" status.
I agree on this. Their stocks now are so abysmal that its faster to go rent it from the store. Depending on what the price hike is, I may take that difference and instead rent the movies in stores.
They better not do this it will not sit well with a lot of customers!
Is this temporary? To some extent people are used to pay a premium for HD but as it becomes more commonplace the prices go down. Maybe Netflix will recognize how wrong this is.
Sure it's temporary. When everyone is renting HD, they'll drop the SD "discount."
Come on netflix stop gouging your customers and worry about putting out
more movies on watch now service and releasing a set top box.
Yeah, forget that high-quality, high definition content, and get to work on more crappy less-than-DVD-quality streaming video and expensive set-top boxes! THAT'S what we need!!
/sarcasm
Been a Netflix user for a few years now and renting Blu-ray since the started offering them. I got my Blu-ray player on a great sale so I did not pay a fortune for it, and one of the main reasons I got one was because Netflix offered Blu-ray Rentals included with my normal subscription. To start charging more now is absurd and when/if this happens I will cancel my membership. Charging extra for a new feature is something you do from the beginning, not after you lured your customers in and got them using it. I will switch to Blockbuster just on principal. Also, just like the cable/sat companies charging extra for HD content, what are they going to do with this extra fee when this medium becomes the standard? Do you really think they will just drop the fee? Nope they will all make that the new standard price, just another way to milk the customer for more $$$.
Come on netflix stop gouging your customers and start putting more
content on the watch now service and release your set top box.
I have been with netflix for a long time BUT they can consider this my notice that if this happens Blockbuster here i come. Like previously stated I refuse to pay more money for blu ray titles to sit in my queue!
Depends on what the premium is. If it's fairly small, it won't bother me, as just about everything is going up in price. But I wonder how they will do the charges. an Extra 50 cents a Blu-ray disc? Maybe? Cause only half the discs I rent are on Blu-ray.
Here I am with at least 10 commercial-free HD movie channels via DirecTV, (with more on the way once HBO gets its act together) and I'm thinking: "Why am I paying yet another $20/month for Netflix?"
JUST as I was about to start up with Netflix. Sheesh. The Blockbuster down the street has about 100-150 Blu Rays for the same price as a regular rental with no mailing involved. Oh well. Fire that Blockbuster membership back up!
Now I regret my decision to dump them even less. I wonder how much the premium is going to be? So much that high volume renters may find upconverted DVD to be "Good Enough" ?
I recall hearing some talking point that implied that higher prices across the board might be the case if blu won out.
Oh well, the choice was made, now let's just enjoy paying tribute to the victor. (except for Fox, who for some reason can't seem to figure out the hi def part of HD Media and Paramount who are busy reaping what they've sown.)
Feh, and once again the consumer picks up the tab by the lack of competition in the market that deeply controlled by the IP owners. Why did blue ray win, dump trucks of money to IP companies. Now we all start to loose one layer at a time.
Who cares Blu-ray for me anyway!
I don't get it. The expense for Netflix really comes from all the shipping charges and the overhead for the distribution centers. Are they that strapped they feel the extrat 5-8 dollars a disc? Now if you tell me they are going to charge extra for those who want to wath the Netflix streaming feature in HD I would say okay. More bandwidth, more cost. I will proabably downgrade my plan if this happens and consume a little less. I keep holding onto the discs too long anyway.
I hate to say this, but i wont mind it if it was $1-2 price hike amonth, BUT, if the trend continues and i cant get a gosh-dang blu-ray movie from my cue, then you gotta be kidding me to think im gonna pay extra for movies i have to wait over a month to even see "short wait" for... I just got michael clayton on Blu-ray today and i had it Q'd up from day one...
My girlfriend has been waiting since Dec. for the new Harry Potter!!!! It's been 5 months on at the top of my list. NF sux
Getting rid of it as soon as they start charging more... but wait, if I never recieve any BD's anyway than there won't be any extra charges
lol
Sounds like they're passing along costs and also letting everyone know they're getting squeezed on the prices.
It's my guess that they're not getting much of a deal for bulk blu raypurchases. Unfortunately, forcing Netflix and Blockbuster to charge more for discs won't drive consumers to buy instead of rent as they manufacturers are probably dreaming (while passing the pipe among themselves).
Sorry guys, but most of the people I know that have gone high def (hd, bd, or hd then bd), have all immediately gotten a Netflix or Blockbuster account.
goodbye netflix, it was a nice ride. The first month this charge shows up on my bill, I will cancel and go to blockbuster online.