Jake at 8bitjoystick has posted his review. A few choice excerpts:

If you actually liked Transformers as a kid you should just rent the original show on Netflix and save your popcorn money. Please for the love of God if you liked Transformers as a kid please please stay away from this movie and whatever you do DON’T BRING YOUR KIDS TO SEE IT. They deserve better and their innocent minds might be permanently scarred from the crappyness.

…

I will not see this movie on DVD and film reviewers that liked this movie should just drool into a cup while watching DVDs of barrels of gasoline exploding and not encourage Hollywood to further sullen my childhood. link

Jake is a fount of knowledge when it comes to all things geeky, from video games to imported Japanese snack food to, well, terrible movies. Check out Jake’s reviews and copious links at 8bitjoystick.com.

In a bold move to maintain marketshare in the face of competition on many fronts, Netflix today announced that it will be allowing subscribers to watch certain movies online.

The skinny:

• You get a certain number of hours per month of online viewing time, based on the price plan you’re on
• The service is free to all Netflix customers, though they’re rolling it out to 250,000 customers a week so their servers don’t get completely slammed
• About 1,000 movies and TV shows will be available initially, with more to come
• Windows only - no Macs, no downloading, no iPods

CEO Reed Hastings says:

“While mainstream consumer adoption of online movie watching will take a number of years due to content and technology hurdles, the time is right for Netflix to take the first step.

“Over the coming years we’ll expand our selection of films, and we’ll work to get to every Internet-connected screen, from cell phones to PCs to plasma screens. The PC screen is the best Internet-connected screen today, so we are starting there. ” link

Netflix spent $40 million to offer this service - a good chunk of change for a company with $700 million in annual revenue. But this is a good future-proofing move for Netflix. Illegal downloading of movies is a force to be reckoned with (check out what’s available on The Pirate Bay and you’ll see the threat)

MovieLink and its brethren haven’t caught on because no one wants to watch all their movies online, but Blockbuster Online has made headway with their “return to store” policy, which not only gets your next film shipped out faster, but also gives you a free in-store rental (presumably because you’re saving the company a shipping fee).

Netflix cannot match Blockbuster’s neighborhood presence, so online viewing is a good compensatory move. Their regional shipping centers have reduced delivery times, and they appear to have recovered from the throttling debacle.

Some predictions:

• Someone will find a way to record the streaming movies (which is a waste of time, because it’s not that hard to copy a DVD)
• Netflix will never offer an unlimited view-online plan, because people could share them
• People will beg Netflix to be in the next batch of 250,000 to get the streaming service

There’s still much room to grow in this department, though. I’d like a movie service that lets me get DVDs, streaming video, or download-with-DRM. I don’t want to pay per rental, and I don’t want to buy a crappy low-res download from ITMS for $9.99. I’d like to be able to put a movie on my iPod without buying it. If it has DRM and expires, fine, as long as I didn’t pay for it beyond my monthly service fee, which should get me unlimited DVD rentals and downloads, with the same at-a-time limits I have now. That’d be nice.

Good move, Netflix. Now, let’s see if your servers can handle the strain of a million geeks a month streaming movies onto their laptops.

Via the Associated Press: “Coming Soon: Netflix Delivered Online”

Pho. Wreaking. Awesome. Real people doing the Simpsons intro routine.

The kid actually skateboards across the roof of “Marge’s” car. Wow.

(Welcome, NY Times readers! Article here)

Are you saving money with Netflix? The recent concern over slowdowns in service has prompted many people to investigate whether Netflix is cheaper than the local video store. This spreadsheet will help you find out.

Netflix is no longer emailing rental histories, so the previous Netflix analysis spreadsheet won’t work.

I have revised the spreadsheet, so now you can just copy and paste your rental history from their website. The upshot is that it now factors in the time it takes for Netflix to ship you a new disc after they receive your previous disc, which the old spreadsheet didn’t do. In other words, any shipping delay, intentional or not, is factored into your cost analysis.

Here’s how to use it:

First, login to Netflix and get your complete rental history. Copy the whole table, or just a certain range.

Second, download the spreadsheet and open it.

Third, select the appropriate worksheet (tab) for your rental plan. It defaults to 3-at-a-time, but make sure you choose the tab for the discs-at-a-time plan you’re on.

Finally, click in cell A2, and click Edit -> Paste Special -> Text (this is important - if you just paste, you’ll get HTML, and it won’t work).

A few caveats:

• It does not include taxes, which vary by region. You’ll want to adjust the plan price to reflect what you actually pay.
• You will need to adjust the local retail rental price to get an accurate savings analysis
• It does not factor in the cost or time involved in going to the video store
• It does not factor in your first few X rentals, where X is the number of discs you get at a time. This is because the Netflix website does not tell you the ship dates when you view your full rental history (though you can view this data for discs rented in the past 90 days).
• It only works for Firefox; IE copies tables differently, so the formulas would need to be adjusted. If you make the adjustment and want to email me the IE-compatible file, I’ll post it.
• If you need more than 1000 rows, you’ll have to fill-down the formula in column D farther.

I got a tip today that Netflix has disabled the “email me my complete rental history” feature. You can now view the last 31-90 days of your rental history and get the shipped/returned dates (which are crucial for determining if you’re getting your money’s worth). You can also view your complete rental history, but it only shows the return date, which makes it harder (impossible?) to calculate how long you had each DVD. This vastly reduces the usefulness of the spreadsheet, and makes it harder to calculate how much Netflix saves you.

Nearly 2,000 people downloaded the spreadsheet, and around 17,000 viewed the post about it after Lifehacker and Digg picked it up, so there is obviously interest in the feature.

I called customer service to investigate (1-888-638-3549). They confirmed that the feature was disabled “for some marketing promotion.” I asked for further clarification, and was put on hold again. John Mayer and I were kickin’ it together in the on-hold music.

After John’s jam session #1 was over, the customer service rep said the feature was being revised, so that it’s viewable online instead of having to go through email. I asked if the ship AND return dates would be shown, and she put me on hold again to check. The verdict? Not sure. Just some type of change coming within 7 days.

She was obviously getting this info from someone else in the department, so I ask to speak with that person. John Mayer and I jam a little more. No dice - the higher-up is not available, even when I mention that I have a question about throttling that I’d like to check about. I leave my number, and am promised a call back within 24 hours.

I will post an update when I have more information (including, if possible, a revised spreadsheet that works with the available data).

From NetflixSettlementSucks.com:

The settlement states that if more than 5% of the class opts out, the settlement is voided. Please join with us and opt-out of this settlement, and send a message to both Netflix and the lawyers that this isn’t fair to customers.

I’m not a lawyer. I don’t even play one on TV. So even though there’s information in the settlement documentation about objecting, it appears that one has to file some serious legal papers to do so. I have no idea how to do this, so I’m settling with opting out. Of course, if there’s a lawyer out there who agrees with me and wants to help prepare the proper objection paperwork pro bono, get in touch. I suspect, however, that any lawyer will think that doing so is tilting at windmills. But getting 5% to opt out isn’t.

The deadline to opt-out is a postmark of December 28th. Doing nothing does not opt you out! Doing nothing keeps you part of the settlement and provides you no benefits.

How to opt out

According to the Long Form Notice posted at the settlement web site, you must send a written, signed request to opt out, and state:

1. Your name, address, email address and telephone number associated with your Netflix account.

2. Your current name, address, email address and telephone number if it’s different from the above.

3. A reference to the litigation (i.e., Chavez v. Netflix, Inc. Case No. CGC-04-434884)

4. Approximately when you became a Netflix member, if and when you cancelled, and what service level(s) you subscribed to.

5. That you wish to opt-out of the class.

send your request to:

Netflix Opt-Out

5654 Geary Blvd., #210511

San Francisco, CA 94121

I’m in. I mean, out. Opting out, that is.

Here’s what we need: A web form that generates an opt-out letter for you based on text box input, printable on one page and pre-addressed to Netflix. Fold, tape, and mail. Can anyone rig that up?

UPDATE: Here is a 1-page letter you can send in to opt out of the class action. If 5% of people do this, it will be voided. Word format | PDF format

Apple announces iPod video. No one is surprised. It looks very cool. And they are selling episodes of Desperate Housewives for it for $1.99.

I’m not going to go into the details, since I’d just be ganking them from elsewhere like I did with the pictures. But it’s worth pondering whether this is one of those “this will change everything” devices, like the original iPod was.

Since the iPod Video supports unencrypted MPEG-4 video, we can expect to see massive filesharing going on. But wait, you say. What about Apple’s famous DRM? Bah. Desperate Housewives eps will be cracked within a week, uploaded to BitTorrent, and downloaded in huge numbers.

But at least they’re making it easy for people to get legal content. I must say this is a great response from Hollywood - perhaps the first sensible response ever - to BitTorrent downloading. If I could subscribe to a show I liked for $1.99 a week, I just might go for it.

The AP article also mentions two new media center iMacs (with remotes) that Apple announced today.

I have been a Netflix member for over a year now, and I wanted to see if I was actually saving money by using Netflix instead of my local video store. So, I made this Excel spreadsheet to determine:

• -How long I kept each DVD, on average
• -How many DVDs I get in a month
• -How much I’m paying for each DVD
• -How much (if any) I’m saving each month by using Netflix

Netflix is kind enough to email you your complete rental history if you ask them to. Assuming you’re logged in, go here and click the “send full rental activity” button at the bottom of the page.

Just copy and paste the listing from the email you receive into this excel spreadsheet: NetflixAnalysis.xls

The Excel file grabs the dates out of the pasted-in data, and tells you how long you kept each DVD, then performs the calculations described above. Directions are at the top of the spreadsheet.

I’m currently saving about $6.89 a month over going to the store for every DVD I currently Netflix. However, I wouldn’t watch nearly as many DVDs if they didn’t come in the mail - there’s no way I would make 6 trips to the rental store in a week. This spreadsheet also doesn’t factor in the savings in gas and driving time over going to the store, nor the value of avoiding the frustration of the store not having the movie you want.

If you aren’t a Netflix member, you might consider trying it.