Posted by: Mike on Jun 29th, 2011

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Have you ever thought “I would go to the movies every single day if it wasn’t so expensive?”  I know! Me too!  Have you ever thought “I wish there was a Netflix like service but for movie theaters?”  Me too!

We’re all in luck, coming soon to a mobile device near you – MoviePass is a new service that is “coming soon”.  For $50 a month you can go to unlimited movies at participating theaters, just by opening the app and “buying” a ticket to the movie. Then your phone acts as your ticket to get you entry.

What’s the catch?  $50 a month is quite a bit, unless you plan on going to at least one movie per week.  The other catch is that IMAX and 3D movies are $3 additional to the theater.  Not a huge deal, but still a catch.

MoviePass is currently in development and is only slated to initially be released in the San Francisco area.  I, for one, am hopeful that they’ll do extremely well there and expand out to the East coast as quickly as possible.  I’d go to two movies a day if Christine would let me.

Posted by: Mike on May 5th, 2009

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There’s very few gadgety things in life that I love more than my Tivo(s), and Netflix subscription.  Some people are still holding out on getting a Tivo, citing that they have a “DVR” from their cable company.  Hogwash.  Your DVR sucks. Tivo is king.

With that said, if you buy any of Tivo’s HD line of products, they’re giving you 6 months of free Netflix.  And if you already have Netflix, you can apply a 6 month credit to your account, anyway. It’s not a “new customer only” promotion.

Awesome deal.  And one you should definitely buy!

Buy a Tivo, get 6 months free Netflix.

Thanks to HackingNetflix for the head’s up.

Posted by: Mike on Apr 2nd, 2009

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It’s very rare that Netflix lets anyone around, let alone in their warehouse(s).  Employees sign their lives away when they’re hired, and can’t even talk about the process, let alone document it.

Nightline was lucky enough to get let in, and though I had no idea about this video until a few minutes ago, it apparently aired very recently.

Check out a behind the scenes tour of one of the Netflix warehouses.  ABC doesn’t let you embed video, so you’ll have to make the hop over there to watch it.  Click here to view the video, and be prepared to be amazed.

In case you don’t want to watch it, here’s a few interesting facts:

• Netflix human employees work 3AM to 7AM, and open, inspect and mark received all returned DVDs.
• Their machine that packs the disc for shipping to you, can prepare 300,000 discs per hour. (Per distribution center.)
• There’s 58 distribution centers nation wide.
• Netflix spends an estimated $300 million dollars annually on postage. (Holy crap!)
• It takes the average Netflix employee approximately 6 seconds to open, inspect, and mark as received any individual DVD.

It’s amazing to finally see inside the warehouse. And I totally want one of those t-shirts the employees are wearing!

Posted by: Mike on Oct 1st, 2008

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As someone who recently re-subscribed to Netflix after years of absence, I’m thrilled with this news.

Netflix announced, yesterday, that they signed a deal with Starz Entertainment, to make about 12,000 Starz movies/tv shows available for instant streaming on Netflix.com.

Approximately 1,000 have already been added to the website, and more are being added weekly.  Titles already added include No Country For Old Men, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and Ratatouille.

If Netflix dropped the requirment to use internet explorer to stream movies, I’d use it a whole lot more.  Firefox support isn’t all that complicated, is it?

Posted by: Christine on Feb 13th, 2008

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In addition to the news that Netflix will be dropping HD-DVD in favor of Blu-ray, we now have two other companies joining the Blu-ray bandwagon.

The New York Times reports that Best Buy, clearly an influential power in this field, will be “strongly recommending” Blu-ray to customers as the high definition format of choice.

Further digging the hole is the news that Blockbuster will also be joining the Blu-ray bandwagon. Hacking Netflix reported the news, and received confirmation from a Blockbuster spokesperson who said that they had 250 stores with HD-DVD, and 1700 with Blu-ray. They clarified by saying that the 250 were the first stores they rolled both high definition formats out to, where they watched customer rental trends and determined Blu-ray was the clear winner.

I guess this means I’m buying a Blu-ray player or PS3.

Posted by: Christine on Feb 11th, 2008

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Netflix has driven a nail in the coffin of the HD-DVD format. They have officially gone Blu-ray only, according to Hacking Netflix. Despite my wish that HD-DVD would win, mainly because it’s appropriately named instead of that ridiculous “Blu-ray” crap, it looks like Blu-ray is going to win. Most of the studios and now Netflix, the leading rental place, have gone Blu-ray only.