Netflix sneaking in DVDs for HD-DVDs

By Mike

February 27, 2008 in DVD, Technology

Just a heads up out there if you are a Netflix subscriber and own an HD-DVD player. I know, there aren’t many of you dumb enough to have purchased an HD-DVD player like myself, but just in CASE one of you is, here is some crazy news.

Awhile back we posted that Netflix was going to go exclusively Blu-Ray in the coming future, which was a huge blow to HD-DVD at the time. Well, that “future” is apparently “now.”

Well, EngadgetHD is reporting that Netflix is silently switching out any HD-DVDs you have in your queue with normal DVDs.

I think that kind of sucks personally and a better, more customer-friendly strategy, would have been to honor those renters with the HD-DVDs already in their queues, and block others from adding them.

Regardless, if you are noticing funny things in your Netflix queue, this is why.

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DVD, Technology
blu-ray, hd-dvd, netflix

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The Trousered Ape 7 months ago 1 point
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But they did announce they were dropping the format...so I'm not sure why this is an issue or PopCritics worthy.

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Mike 7 months ago 1 point
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Well, the announced they were of course, but they are doing it NOW, so if you have HD-DVDs in your queue, you might want to know why they are gone.

But the main issue is that they shouldn't just remove them, they should honor the people who have them in their queue, but just stop purchasing new ones.

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The Trousered Ape 7 months ago 1 point
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Not trying to be difficult, and I understand your point, but I do not agree with it. I would feel the same exact way if they did that to Blu-ray, but the bottom line is that they made a business decision to phase them out immediately (apparently) and I do not know if you can fault them for that.

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Mike 7 months ago 1 point
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Yeah, but why does "phase out" mean they have to get rid of them? Why not honor the people who have them in their queue? What good does it do them to just get rid of the disks?

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The Trousered Ape 7 months ago 1 point
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The only "good" that I see is that it frees up inventory space and shipping costs. Plus if there are less than 1,000,000 with HD-DVD players, it just might not be cost effective to keep them around.

All of that is just speculation on my part.

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Mike 7 months ago 1 point
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Inventory space, lol...they are DVDs without covers more than likely, sitting in little envelopes...100 of them take up like a square foot? :)

Anyways, it just sucks if you were waiting for a movie like Bourne Ultimatum on HD-DVD, it's next on your queue and when you open your mailbox, you find the DVD version.

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Cap'n Schwartz 7 months ago 1 point
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They cost more than DVD's, they are phasing them out immediately so they dont have to track people about getting them back and such....

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The Trousered Ape 7 months ago 1 point
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Regardless of the volumen of space - all of that costs money. Buying the discs, storing them, mailers, labels, shipping costs, money lost if the disc is stolen or lost in transit, any employee intervention during the process - they are paying them to handle those discs when their time could be spent doing something else more productive, etc. Why keep paying for a format that is on its way out?

I do not see any real good reason, from a purely financial standpoint, on why they should maintain their current stock.

And I'm sure they have more than 100 discs, but I get your point.

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The Trousered Ape 7 months ago 1 point
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Yep - what Cap'n Thumbs said...

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Mike 7 months ago 1 point
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This is a fun argument here, but I still don't get your point. Yeah, STORING them maybe...but the rest of it is nothing.

Okay, scenario:

1. Guy has HD-DVD in queue.
2. Shipper walks over, grabs the disk to send to Guy
3. Shipper puts it into an envelope and mails it off
4. Guy gets it and relishes the final moments in his now defunct HD-DVD player

So where is the extra cost there? The HD-DVD has already been purchased, it's the same size as a normal DVD and it costs the same amount of time and effort to go pick it out and to mail it.

The only thing I see is storage space...but other than that...

I think they are just wanting to go all Blu-Ray and therefore don't care about getting rid of their inventory to do so.

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The Trousered Ape 7 months ago 1 point
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But they can pay the guy the same whether he is picking a DVD or an HD-DVD, however, if they are paying him to pick, stuff, and mail an HD-DVD that is costing NetFlix money when the employee could be doing something more productive like stocking/cataloging/shipping, etc. the new arrival of Blu-ray discs... :)

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Mike 7 months ago 1 point
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Such an ass :)

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The Trousered Ape 7 months ago 1 point
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Such a homo sapien...

The Trousered Ape's last blog post..Who Is Jesus? - Part 3

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Cap'n Schwartz 7 months ago 1 point
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Its like when your parents tell you to go to your room in a discussion... you've known you won!

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