Netflix Woes Mean a Gap In Shipments

Loopback writes "It appears that I'm not the only one waiting for my NetFlix movies. It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system. 'Netflix has been facing shipping delays and outages in its distribution centers for the last two days and is fumbling to find a fix. The tab is roughly $1.8 million to $3.6 million in revenue a day.'"

Comments

Fist Prose

[sexconker]

Fist Prose

Re:Fist Prose

[sexconker]

I don't know how the tab can be $x per day in revenue. Are people calling in daily saying "I'm quitting because of the delays!"? I doubt it.

Most Netflix users are mindless fat slobs who wouldn't notice a few days of delay. They choose Netflix not because of the selection, speed, or price, but because they will never have to pay a late fee when they forget to return that DVD they got 3 months ago.

Us nerds get on Netflix / Blockbuster Online / etc. depending on what gets us the most number of movies per dollar as we rip them to our hard drives / burn copies.

Re:Fist Prose

[urcreepyneighbor]

Most Netflix users are mindless fat slobs who wouldn't notice a few days of delay.

Hey, some of us aren't fat!

Re:Fist Prose

[morari]

Us nerds get on Netflix / Blockbuster Online / etc. depending on what gets us the most number of movies per dollar as we rip them to our hard drives / burn copies.

Yep! NetFlix nets me about six discs a week with their three-at-a-time plan. Thank Cthulhu for AnyDVD and CloneDVD! :)

Re:Fist Prose

[Red Flayer]

FTFA:

Members who should have been shipped a DVD today will automatically receive a credit to their accounts, which we will communicate in personal emails.

RTFA.

On a related note, I think it's fantastic that a company decided to 'do the right thing' though they were not obligated to do so. Pre-emptively issuing credits to subscribers whose shipments were delayed? Awesome for the customers, and a nice CR move by Netflix. There are many companies out there who would not take the same stance.

This is in addition to Netflix not getting rid of multiple profiles per account, after a vocal minority of subscribers complained.

Is it really possible that Netflix is a company that actually understands that making their customers happy and loyal is a good business strategy? I wasn't sure there were many of those around anymore.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

"Netflix users are mindless fat slobs... Us nerds get on Netflix"

So, you're a mindless fat slob nerd? You should probably get out of your parent's basement while you can still climb the stairs. If you can.

Re:Fist Prose

[the eric conspiracy]

I'll admit fat slob, but not mindless.

Re:Fist Prose

[the eric conspiracy]

Netflix has the biggest volunteer distributed backup system on the planet. If they were smart they could have planned for this outage and had their customers supply backup disks to other customers who were not getting shipments on time.

Re:Fist Prose

[Kruid]

Agreed, and 24 hours after I received my letter (same as above), I received my next movie.

Not too shabby.

-k

Re:Fist Prose

[Macrat]

Yep! NetFlix nets me about six discs a week with their three-at-a-time plan. Thank Cthulhu for AnyDVD and CloneDVD! :)

I have the 1-at-a-time plan and I get 3 discs per week. :-P

Re:Fist Prose

[Irish_Samurai]

They're even cooler than just that.

I've been using them a long time with the 3 disk unlimited plan. One day my girl broke a dvd. Her response: "Let's just mark it as never arrived."

Being all into personal accountability and shit I told her "no, we'll say we broke it and pay for it. We did in fact break it."

Their response: "Do you want us to send a replacement?"

No charge for disk. Nothing. I guess if you don't abuse the shit they overlook the occasional accident.

Re:Fist Prose

[corsec67]

Living in Colorado, I have more than a few discs that are broken in the mail during winter, I assume due to the cold-hot cycles.

They replace them for free, no comments asked.

It has been like that for the 5 years I have been with Netflix.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

I have reported your post to the MPAA

Re:Fist Prose

[ghoti]

We've also had a few disks disappear in the mail, they either never got to us or they never arrived at Netflix after we definitely posted them. It was never a problem, you just mark the disk as missing and that's it. One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them. I guess they'll cancel your account if you "lose" a disk per month, but they deal well with the occasional problem.

Re:Fist Prose

[Firehed]

You do realize that the money you're saving on not buying or using traditional rentals is going directly to fund your continual battle for more hard drive space, right?

Re:Fist Prose

[merreborn]

IIRC, after you've lost a few, they start charging you for each one you "lose", but refund you if you find 'em and send 'em back later.

Re:Fist Prose

[hardburn]

I imagine that any rental company (online or off) make contracts with the various distribution companies with a clause allowign them to replace discs for cheap. At the very least, they won't pay full retail price. Even at retail price, the cost of replacing a few discs per customer per year is worth it to keep that customer happy.

OTOH, DMCA aside, NetFlix still owns a license on the copyright and can theoretically copy a disc to replace anything lost.

Re:Fist Prose

[cayenne8]

"You do realize that the money you're saving on not buying or using traditional rentals is going directly to fund your continual battle for more hard drive space, right?"

Nope....goes to blank DVDr's.....

:-)

Re:Fist Prose

[pcolaman]

I've never lost or broken one yet, but all of my experiences with Netflix have made me say goodbye to blockbuster long ago. And their customer service is prompt (in that you don't wait on hold for 10 minutes before talking to someone) and courteous.

Re:Fist Prose

[myz24]

With even worse quality. I don't get it

Re:Fist Prose

[volxdragon]

Not necessarily....that completely depends on the terms of their contract with the distribution companies. They don't buy DVDs the same way an average consumer does, because, for one, when the average consumer buys it the use is constrained to "for personal use". Any corporate/renal use contract may look radically different (and they pay different rates accordingly).

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix makes their own disks for many movies now.

Re:Fist Prose

[AngryLlama]

How? If it is going to a DVDr then I assume it is a straight rip... no transcoding.

Re:Fist Prose

[morari]

I don't have that kind of turn around time, unfortunately. I even often times send the film back the very same day it arrives!

Re:Fist Prose

[morari]

Blank DVDs aren't too expensive, really. Quality wise, most films rip and burn at 100%. Those that do not usually end up having the menus and already useless extras cut out so as to manage 100%.

Re:Fist Prose

[cayenne8]

"With even worse quality. I don't get it"

What do you mean worse quality? It is an exact copy (I use dvdbackup, then mkisofs, then growisofs)...

I'd have to guess the streamed stuff is less than dvd quality...?

Re:Fist Prose

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them.

There have been a couple instances now where postal workers were investigated and found to have stolen hundreds of random DVDs from their routes. I also heard of one instance where kids were going through the mailboxes in a neighborhood. Since these incidents are detected, I suspect NetFlix and the post office share data about who loses DVDs and what postal worker's route they are on.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, I'll admit them all. Who do we think we're kidding?

Re:Fist Prose

[__aaahtg7394]

Actually, how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network? When you return a movie, instead of shipping it back to netflix, you print out a label for the next member and slap it on the mailer.

Sure, there's a ton of problems, but it could cut their overhead by up to 60%: they spend half as much on postage and the disks are in flight for one day instead of two each transaction. The savings aren't so much in postage as in inventory reduction: for a popular movie that stays out two days at a time, you cut the postal overhead from 50% to 33%.

Re:Fist Prose

[Warll]

Don't feel bad, you're not a slob just exercise challenged.

PS: Blame it on your genes.

Re:Fist Prose

[felipekk]

And how are they going to guarantee that I'm not going to send the wrong movie (intentionally or not)?

This kind of option could turn out really bad...

Can you imagine if a sick bastard rents Madagascar 2 and sends pron instead of a kid's movie?

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

They do work with them quite closely - to the point of actually setting up little sting operations.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

PS: Blame it on your genes.

i do blame my genes... roddenberry and simmons.

Re:Fist Prose

[Stubtify]

They could implement tracking on each piece, and find out where these are getting stolen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneCode

is the newest version of the barcode to be used on all mail starting next year. It will allow for optional individual piece tracking.

Currently they can also do this with a second barcode called a PLANET code.

These extra barcodes add about 1 cent per piece. The scary part is they probably have figured it out to be cheaper to eat the loss, or let their insurance company eat the loss, than to pay an extra 1 cent per piece.

Their postage costs are actually quite high. There was also talk during the recent (may 07) rate/size changes the Post office implemented of a 17 cent surcharge:

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2007/12/usps-considerin.html

The funny part is that anyone doing the volume netflix is can get direct discussion with the post office. Apparently they pick up at the post office. I believe blockbuster talked about having postmen scan dvd's upon pickup to save time, but I don't know if that happened.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in Texas, I have more than a few discs that are full of bullet holes, I assume due to the drunk-sober cycles. And also, many movies just deserve it.

It has been like that since the beginning of time.

Re:Fist Prose

[localman]

Dude, lose the girlfriend. If she's so quick to pull one over on them, pulling one over on you probably isn't far behind.

Good luck!

Re:Fist Prose

[jcuervo]

How will they guarantee you're going to send a movie at all?

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network?

In my country at least, bulk mailers get substantial discounts compared to consumers, because their mail is properly and clearly addressed, and presorted before it enters the mail system. So instead of the mail company OCRing all Netflix's outgoing mail on arrival to send it to the right distribution depot, it comes prepacked by distribution depot. Less cost for the post company, less cost for Netflix.

It probably works similarly in the other direction; you put a netflix DVD in the post, it gets OCRed, and instead of getting sent to distribution depot foo who sort it again, it drops directly into the 'netflix' bin.

The upshot of this is: Consumer mail gets sorted twice per journey - one sort to the right distribution depot, one sort to the right house. Bulk mail gets sorted once per journey - on the way out from netflix, just the second sort; and on the way back to netflix, just the first sort.

Furthermore if the disks go via the Netflix depot there are obvious benefits for Netflix; they know for sure disks have been sent, they can correct wrong disk errors, they can periodically test disks, they know for sure mail labels are clearly printed and affixed, and they don't need to radically change their already-problematic software system.

In other words, you might never see a direct handoff network because it might not make economic sense due to the existing bulk mail infrastructure.

Re:Fist Prose

[ThomConspicuous]

The only way to pull off three deliveries a week is to drop them at the post office the same night you receive them.
I have the two at a time plan and can get in 6 movies a week if I'm feeling the need.
Most the time I just hang onto them for over a month when I'm feeling like a 'fat slob' too lazy to even watch them.
As it happens, Netflix works nicely for people like me who sometimes have the time to watch the movies and return immediately or just sit on them until I can enjoy a few relaxing days to catch up.

Re:Fist Prose

[tf23]

Hard drives are cheap. And if you rip it to a smaller format (DIVX, mp4 for iTunes/AppleTV) then you can archive even more crap that you'll rarely ever watch again ;)

Re:Fist Prose

[cayenne8]

I tend to use double layer ones for longer dvd's...and single sided for ones that will fit.

Re:Fist Prose

[rfunches]

For about eight weeks the local Blockbuster has been shipping DVDs back to their processing center via Express Mail.

Based on the weight, we figured they were sending at least 100 DVDs per box. It actually turned out to be cheaper at $17-22 per box, minus a corporate account (EMCA) discount and shipped with free $100 insurance, than to send out the DVDs as-is, which we know is nowhere near .17-.22 per piece (which would be about break-even with EMS).

I don't know if it's company-wide but it certainly saves Blockbuster the trouble of "direct discussion with the post office" as any business who hits minimum shipping levels can use EMCA with just a few bits of paperwork. Obviously this is where Blockbuster can realise more cost-savings than Netflix.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, think. Do you want other people to know that you are the next in line for "Boys Life 6"?

Re:Fist Prose

[tcc3]

I assumed he was referring to his daughter. Hence the teaching personal accountability.

Re:Fist Prose

[doyle.jack]

How do they guarantee that when you report a movie lost in the mail that it's not really lost?

Re:Fist Prose

[the eric conspiracy]

By charging you for it it you do it too often.

I think this direct forwarding concept is pretty cool.

Re:Fist Prose

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

These extra barcodes add about 1 cent per piece. The scary part is they probably have figured it out to be cheaper to eat the loss, or let their insurance company eat the loss, than to pay an extra 1 cent per piece.

Luckily Netflix is one of those companies that understands the value of keeping customers happy. It might be cheaper to replace the DVDs instead of track them closely, but replacing them doesn't stop the DVDs from disappearing when the customer is expecting them. If that happens too often, customers will find another company to do business with.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Netflix users are mindless fat slobs who wouldn't notice a few days of delay.

I'm on Netflix because I'm taking a course which requires me to watch a list of movies and turn in a report a week on them (no, it's not a "film" course, it's comparative religions).

I shipped back my last movie last week and am still screwed... hopefully the prof will cut us some slack...

Re:Fist Prose

[morari]

Definitely a good enough plan if you want to buy double layer discs. I'd rather forgo all of the extras and save some money however.

Re:Fist Prose

[sexconker]

With Block Buster Online (back with the original pricing and unlimited in-store returns) I was netting 18 or 21 discs a week. About 80 per month.

Re:Fist Prose

[sexconker]

Netflix would still pay for the postage.
If you're making the person buy stamps, it's a cost to them and an inconvenience. The mailers already have paid postage anyway - why mess with success?

Re:Fist Prose

[sexconker]

Alternatively...

For new/popular titles, the mailer they give you already has the address (but not name - "Netflix Customer") of someone who has the movie near the top of their queue, or is in line waiting to receive it.

The problem with direct mailing is that you can't track it. You don't know when people have returned movies. Then you don't know when to send them new ones. People could just log in and say "Yeah, I sent these 3 out, give me 3 more.".

It's similar to the "I never got it / No really, I returned it!" problem, but it's much more complex. You lose all tracking, and if you allow people to send to people to send to people to send to people, good luck.

You may be able to simplify it by only allowing direct mail customers to send to non-direct mail customers. This itself is still an NP-complete problem (who should send what to who?).

"OMG someone sent me porn!", "OMG I sent my wedding DVD!" and other such issues can be mitigated by printing the sender's address as the return address (or Netflix, with the sender's address on the inside).

With pre-addressed mailers, you wouldn't be able to realistically do more than one level of direct mailing. You could create some crazy flip-flap turn it inside out multi-mailer, and have some crazy scheme for predicting when people will be next in line for a popular movie or when a movie will be at the top of their queue, but you still need to figure out when people will send it out.

Would make for a great experiment with a few (20?) people. It would become a logistical nightmare pretty quickly though.

Re:Fist Prose

[sexconker]

Back when I was doing it, I would get the movies at 11 or so, "watch" them on my pc, and return them to the mail box at the corner in time for the 1 PM pickup.

It was great.

Re:Fist Prose

[sexconker]

Most commercial DVDs are dual layer.

I personally rip out everything but the main movie and English subs. I keep DTS tracks only if they fit without added compression.

Re:Fist Prose

[Bryansix]

If all the movies were available online I would do that too. But they are not and also Xbox isn't streaming them to my TV yet which is another downside. So I mostly wait for a physical DVD to show up. I'm not fat either. I just ran a 5k and I'm going on a mountain bike ride this weekend.

Re:Fist Prose

[sexconker]

Do what?
I was talking about waiting for a physical dvd to show up, then copying it.

That's what most nerds do.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, take it a step further.

What happens when someone decides that it's fun to start putting anthrax in the mailers they forward?

It's not that someone could send any *movie* they want, they can send pretty much any compact object or substance they please. Since it's "Netflix", people are going to have a higher trust level for it than for a random unexpected package.

I doubt Netflix would want to deal with any potential liability implications.

Re:Fist Prose

[dlelash]

"Can you imagine if a sick bastard rents Madagascar 2 and sends pron instead of a kid's movie?"

Or even worse, if he sends Madagascar 2?

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

how about - umm, no. Giving out personal information of other customers is not good business.

Re:Fist Prose

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll admit fat slob, but not mindless.

CowboyNeal, is that you?!!

Re:Fist Prose

[GWBasic]

Actually, how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network? When you return a movie, instead of shipping it back to netflix, you print out a label for the next member and slap it on the mailer.

So, when I want to return a movie, I need to go to my computer and print out a label? With all of the troubleshooting and other boo-boos that occur with label printing; I suspect that such an approach would end up being MORE expensive.

How?

[Endo13]

The tab is roughly $1.8 million to $3.6 million in revenue a day.'"

Really? How? I thought it was all monthly subscriptions.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they're going to be honest and not charge subscription fees for when they're not providing the subscription service.

No, that's too positive. It must be that the herd of genetically-modified sheep they keep to eat damaged DVDs and convert them to compost will now need to be fed from an outside source, costing them lots of money - especially with such short notice.

Re:How?

[Deadstick]

They've promised to credit user accounts for the interruption in service.

rj

Re:How?

[Endo13]

Redundant?? Really? Check some timestamps, you foolish mod.

Re:How?

[Gewalt]

Redundant?? Really? Check some timestamps, you foolish mod.

According to the moderator's guidelines, a question asked that is answered by TFA deserves to be modded redundant. So sayeth /. !!!

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

it appears also now that the instant service is flaky, maybe too many people without DVDs watching online now and overloaded the server?

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Not true at all. Read the this and this. Search for redundant if you'd like.

Redundant is for copying from post, links or comments. Or it's for Me too post, etc. Not for asking a question that is answered by the article, where did you get that idea. Your moderator access should be revoked.

Re:How?

[Gewalt]

You say tomato, I say fruit.

Re:How?

[pfleming]

You say tomato, I say fruit.

What? No funny?

Re:How?

[Endo13]

Not only is your statement illogical and not informative, it's an outright lie.

Taken directly from the FAQ:

Redundant -- Redundant posts are ones which add no new information, but instead take up space with repeating information either in the Slashdot post, the attached links, or lots of previous comments. For instance, some posters cut and paste otherwise legitimate comments in multiple places in the same discussion; the pasted versions are Redundant.

In any case, you clearly haven't the slightest idea what the word "redundant" means. You should do some research before posting the next crap that comes out your ass.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say you're a fruit. So suck these nuts.

Re:How?

[nsayer]

You say tomato, I say fuck you.

Re:How?

[Anonymous Coward]

You say tomato, I say stop sucking dick for moderation you little bitch.

Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

Sounds like the reason I've been disappointed in my trial membership. I'm planning on canceling because why pay if they can't get me movies at a reasonable rate. I'll go back to the RedBox.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[TornCityVenz]

Redbox is a really good service. Recently We've canceled out netflix and gone to useing redbox exclusivly...HOWEVER we did this for one main reasons. - We were'nt returning movies to netflx fast enough to make it worthwhile...we'd get the movie and delay watching it until at least the weekened...sometimes the next. If you turn over your movies fast enough netflix is still a better deal. Redbox is nice if all your looking to see is fairly new releases...but you can't beat netflix when it comes to talking with someone and reliseing they've never seen $clasiccult_movie , you log in put it on your list and soon you be edjumacating them on some fine point of movie history they have missed out on. Also the ability to rent series and have them send you the next episode disks is kinda nice. My wife had always wanted to watch the show farscape, but neither of us had really follwed it. for the next two monthes or so we had netflix send them all to us and we watched it from begining to end. -You can't do that with redbox.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Necroman]

I've had Netflix for almost 2 years now and still love the service. I went without cable TV for a little over a year by substituting in Netflix and video games (it was pretty nice). I'm sorry that you are under a trial account at just the wrong time. In the 2 years I've had the service, there has been a 2 total service interruptions (this being the second). Both seem to only last a day or 2 and they refund you for that one or 2 days where you were not being provided DVDs as expected.

They have a decent selection of movies, and I've found the recommendation algorithm they use works rather well. I've found some amazing movies, TV shows and Animes that I did not know about, but they were recommended to me and I loved them after renting them.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

I tried NetFlix mostly looking for more of a selection but have found they don't have a lot of anime and stuff that I'm interested in. Combined with the slow turn around I don't really feel the love. I used to use Greencine because they had a lot of anime but now they're interface is just horrible and they aren't what they used to be.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Sponge Bath]

...disappointed in my trial membership.

You don't need this outage to be disappointed.
I did the trial membership. It takes about 3-4 business days to receive a disc (if it is not in high demand) and 3-4 business days to be registered as returned. Half of the discs I received were scratched so as to be unplayable (tested on several different players). At that rate (3-4 useful rentals per month) it is not worth the $17 per month.

Excellent concept, poorly implemented.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

NetFlix seems hard to search IMO. As far as I can tell you can't easily specify to only search G and PG movies (for my kids) and to search by topic and so on. Their recommendations might be good but that is really only half the picture without good search capabilities. I run an eCom website so I know that search and recommendations are complicated to make work well but they're a must have. Good search should use the recommendation system to improve results but should still cover basic search options too.

I considered their streaming device for the tv but when I try to watch online with my PC it constantly says that my connection is to slow. I have 15Mb down and have tested it to confirm that is really what I get and I know that nothing else is using the connection. Also their streaming selection seems limited with not a lot that I would really be interested in. I've been considering getting Apple TV too so a NetFlix box seems like just an extra (ugly) device stuck to my tv.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

DVDs are a poor concept IMO. Discs always get damaged or lost. Downloadable or streaming content is a better idea but Netflix's streamed content has several problems. Limited selection, doesn't seem to think my 15Mb connection is fast enough, doesn't work on my Linux box or my Mac, DRM sucks, watching on a computer sucks anyway, their external device doesn't seem to let you play anything but Netflix content, their external device is ugly, and their external device is $100 up front (can't charge a monthly rental fee if I'd rather?), and downloading seems to not be allowed.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[waterwingz]

Maybe it depends on where you live? I have a "1 disc at a time" subscription and routinely get two movies a week. I have yet to receive a disc I can't watch and my only problems (once in three years) was getting the wrong disc ( the cartoon version of a real life movie I'd asked for)

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[mattack2]

I think your experience is very different from the norm. Most people seem to receive a new movie 2 business days after they send back the previous movie.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[residieu]

This is unusual for netflix. Usually you can get 2 discs per week for each of the discs on your subscription. If your trial ends before this problem is resolved, you should think of that rate when weighing your options

I've been using netflix to dip into a lot of older movies I never got around to seeing, or want to see again. RedBox isn't going to do that for you.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[omnichad]

Actually, for 1 disc at a time, it's 8.99 per month. That comes down to $2.50 - 3 per disc. I haven't had more than 1 bad disc in 2 years.

I guess I just don't rent popular stuff. In fact, that's why I like it. I don't use it to watch new releases - I use it to watch the hundreds of movies that came out years ago that are still good. Throw in Watch Now, and it's a great deal to me.

Still, I can see how it's possible to have a bad experience with them.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

I might try a competitor to NetFlix as I haven't been to impressed by their selection. They seem to have mostly stuff of mass appeal. Either that or their search is so bad I can't find the stuff I'm looking for.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Joe Tie.]

The look of the roku box seems a minor gripe. It's 'very' small, and can just be tossed behind the tv if you want given that there's no need to ever touch anything on it again once it's plugged in.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[cayenne8]

"Downloadable or streaming content is a better idea but Netflix's streamed content has several problems."

Yeah, but, with streaming content...you can't "back up" a copy to keep for them.

:)

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[volxdragon]

Make a separate queue for the kids then you can put a restriction on it for G/PG -- I've got that set up for mine and it works like a champ. They can only see and rent G/PG movies (and they get to control their list themselves....of course, I can view their queue as well at any time and make edits :)

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[volxdragon]

Maybe it depends on where you live?

It must - I routinely get notifications of received disks the same or next day after sending them back (I usually drop them at the post office first thing in the morning when I drop my kids off at school). I get notification of the new disks shipping later that day or the next. It's not common, but occasionally I'll end up with a new disk in the mailbox the next day after dropping off the last one...

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[adminstring]

It does depend a lot on where you live...

For me, they always get the movie the day after I mail it, and I always get the movie the day after they mail it. Also, for me, streaming video to the PC in my bedroom works flawlessly and on the 22" widescreen LCD monitor there is very little difference in quality between the streaming video and a DVD.

My sister, however, lives out in the country, so it takes a week for a disc to get to her and her Internet access is so slow that streaming video doesn't work well.

So in both cases, how much you get out of Netflix will depend on where you live and the speed of your Internet connection. I have no complaints about the selection and service, though. Thanks to Netflix I've canceled my cable TV and never need to go to the video store, and I have access to all the movies and (once released on DVD) TV shows I can handle.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[triathlon4life]

I was always really happy with the service. They were quick to remedy any problems. We sent a disc back one time and it was lost. I just used the web interface to tell them what happened, and they took care of it. They kept sending my movies without any interruption.

However, I did show them by cancelling my account when they dropped HDDVD.. DOH!!!!!!!



*I am a legend in my own mind*

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[rho]

I'll go back to the RedBox.

You do that. You sound like a whiner, which will only hinder my service.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[HangingChad]

I've had Netflix for almost 2 years now and still love the service.

I've been a member a little longer than that and still like the service. Only a couple minor peeves. The Mist was on top of my rental que for months after it was released. It was getting to be an inside joke.

They suspended my service briefly one time when they got in a snit with my bank. Both sides blamed the other for the charge not going through.

On the other side of the coin I lost two movies when the maid stashed them in with some papers. I reported them missing, they never said a word about it. We sent them back...8 months later when we moved. Another one reported missing turned up in a jacket pocket the next fall.

For years of service that's a pretty good record.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto. About two and a half years for me, and this is the first service interruption (except for their website also being down for a day, which didn't interrupt the flow of movies from my queue.

For selection, convenience, pricing, and ease of use I really can't recommend Netflix highly enough. (And I have no conflict of interest to disclose!)

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[prockcore]

NetFlix seems hard to search IMO.

It is, and they know it. Remember that big brouhaha last month when they announced they were getting rid of profiles? They were getting rid of profiles because they're looking at redoing their entire front end, and working profiles into the new front end would slow development.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Deadstick]

If I were you, I'd be disappointed in my post office...my Netflix rental history shows 52 DVDs in the last 90 days.

If I drop a disk in the mail on Monday, it goes into "Returned" status on Tuesday, or if I use a box at the post office before about 10 AM, it goes to Returned the same day, thanks to their special handling contract with the USPS. The next disk arrives within two days of that, often the next day. Weekends are the exception: they apparently do processing only Monday-Friday.

In the last couple of years I've received no more than two unplayable disks, not counting one that arrived broken.

rj

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Ariven]

I have a 7mb download (dsl) and dont generally have issues with their streaming... even at work with a 3mb connection I rarely get it pausing to download a bit ahead... but I do have to say it doesnt like to give a big margin ahead of the play point.

One thing to consider regarding the set top box, the instant play movie count is considerably less than the DVD based one.. thats the main thing holding me back from getting the box.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Sponge Bath]

It does depend a lot on where you live...

OK. I live in Austin Texas.
Adjust your expectations accordingly depending on the service where you live.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[timeOday]

We've canceled out netflix and gone to useing redbox exclusivly...HOWEVER we did this for one main reasons. - We were'nt returning movies to netflx fast enough to make it worthwhile.

Huh? You're going to get killed by late fees with RedBox then. The reason you're switching to RedBox is the very reason I'm dropping it; $1.50 sounds like a cheap rental, but it's usually at least $3.50 by the time we return it (e.g. rent on Friday, return on Monday).

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

It's consumer electronics in general. They all look like crap and generally suck (my vcr's up button makes the menu go down and the down button goes up). In general I'm just sick of companies that don't even try to make their crap look or work decently.

Not that the Roku box looks much worse than most of that crap.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

I could. I'm sure whatever the DRM they're using that it can be cracked. If it goes over my network it can be grabbed and stored to disk.

I was actually wondering how hard it'd be to create a fake NetFlix server to serve my own content. I wonder if the traffic to the device is completely encrypted or not.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

A good hack but sort of awkward. I still can't belief NetFlix doesn't let you filter your search results by rating.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

Of course RedBox and NetFlix need to team up so I can get new releases from the local RedBox and get old or rare movies from NetFlix.

Of course criticism and suggestions make me a whiner.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

It'd seem like that is overkill. All they need to do is make it easier to search and refine searches. With all their customer data and recommendations system it shouldn't be to hard to make something pretty nice.

I just run a small eCom site but we're gradually improving our recommendations system (statistics based w/ neural net refinements) and tying it to our search system (Google appliance based) to refine and enhance searches. I'm sure NetFlix has a lot more useful data about their customers and products and many more programmers to throw at the project.

Actually search and recommendations are some of the most interesting things I get to work on in my job. I try to push users to create as much data as possible. Getting rid of profiles would create less useful data which would seem to be counterproductive.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

If they could stream everything they have available and get more anime and other stuff I like available then I'd be a lot more interested. If they could take the box onto my account for an extra $10/mo for the next 10 months I'd probably grab it just for the heck of it and stay a member just because.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to stream from piratey places because netflix doesn't offer me (ME! a PAYING MEMBER!) the use of its streaming play. they must really be stumped about this linux thing. maybe they're in dependency hell. oh wait, it's probably a HELLUVA lot easier to implement for linux and probably in fact has a "no linux" flag somewhere specifically crippling it. just my guess.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Ariven]

Yeah thats something else that annoys me about their set top box, since its running Linux, there should be no problem at all technologically to allow it to do so under a desktop environment

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Spackler]

And I had the exact opposite experience.

My DVD arrives in one day. It returns in one day (I will grant you that I only live 50 miles from the address on the label).

I have had 2 DVDs that were scratched in the 6 months since I started. They were both replaced in a day (and with 3 disks, I had something else to watch). It was older movies that were scratched (can you believe that I finally saw Vanishing Point a couple months ago?). When dealing with DVDs and clumsy customers there is pretty much no way to avoid this. They can't play every movie after return, so yes, occasionally one can be scratched. I would accuse you of hyperbole by saying it is half unless your sample size was very small.

I have been very happy with their service so far. I canceled all my movie channels on cable and just use them. It is way better because I am the one who says what is on tonight. I'd also be curious where and when you were mailing them. I drop them off at the post office on my way to work in the morning after watching it, and up until this glitch, every time the next day they would process a new one and send it.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[PhoenixFlare]

One more vote that maybe it just has something to do with your location.

It takes about 3-4 business days to receive a disc (if it is not in high demand) and 3-4 business days to be registered as returned.

Usually about 2 days each way here (Northern VA/DC Metro area).

Half of the discs I received were scratched so as to be unplayable (tested on several different players)

We've been using the 1-at-a-time service level for a little over a year and 72 discs - only one disc has been damaged (several cracks out from the center), and it only took one 5-minute phone call to get a no-questions-asked replacement.

I can't say I know many details about how they handle stocking discs or sharing between distribution centers, but maybe the other subscribers in your area are just really bad about causing damage or something?

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do your discs come from? How long would you expect postal mail to take to get to/from there?

My distribution center is ~60 miles away. We get movies next day. Since this is the trial, we've only returned 2 discs so far (both during this 'interruption') so I don't know how long the turnaround from sending one in to getting one back will be, but I would expect 3 days based on the shipment timing.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[swb]

Where do you live, in a tent in the middle of Montana?

A disc returned on Monday is a new disc on Wednesday; a disc hits 'returned' status the day after I mail it, and I get a replacement disc the day after. Only twice have I had discs that wouldn't play right due to surface problems. Only *once* have I had a disc they had to mail from some distant sort facility, and that only added 2 days.

The only gripe I have is that they don't sort and mail discs on Saturday. This means that Thursday is the last day you can return a disc and expect a replacement with the usual turnaround. But this is offset by no late fees -- I've kept some discs 3 weeks (in some cases, cycling through my other at-a-time disc 3-4 times) before watching them.

About the only improvement I could see having would be a deal with Tivo for delivering/streaming content and list management. At that point it would become "On Demand" with a nearly unlimited library.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't make any suggestions in the OP, just criticism, which DOES make you a whiner.

Criticism (N)- the act of criticizing usually unfavorably
Suggestion (N)- a slight indication

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[Cornflake917]

You don't need this outage to be disappointed.
I did the trial membership. It takes about 3-4 business days to receive a disc (if it is not in high demand) and 3-4 business days to be registered as returned. Half of the discs I received were scratched so as to be unplayable (tested on several different players). At that rate (3-4 useful rentals per month) it is not worth the $17 per month.

Excellent concept, poorly implemented.

Each to their own. It has been taking one business day (excluding this hiccup they're having) for me to receive a disc, and one business day for them to get my returned discs. I've almost gone through the entire five seasons of The Wire before they sent me the wrong disc once. None were scratched. Not bad for less than 10 bucks a month if you ask me. Netflix has given me probably the most amount of entertainment per dollar out of all the services I pay for.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[againjj]

Depends on what "weren't returning movies ... fast enough" means. I assume it means what it would mean for me: If I were with Netflix, I would receive a disk, have it sit around for a week or two before I decided I wanted to watch something, then I would watch it and immediately drop it back into the mail. OTOH, if I rent movies, I do so when I decide I want to watch something and return it the next day. So with my viewing habits, Netflix would be too expensive since I did not return movies fast enough, but RedBox would be cheap.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[magicchex]

Why a hack and why awkward? That's exactly what separate queues are for.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[magicchex]

Except after the uproar, they decided to keep profiles. I'm thankful it caused such an uproar because my brother and I didn't know about profiles and were paying for two 3-at-a-time Netflix accounts to the same address. Now we've combined them into one 4-at-a-time account with two queues of two movies each. Very happy with the results. And we're saving tons of money.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[magicchex]

They also won't stream onto a Mac. My ex was pretty pissed when I touted the greatness of their streaming and then she found out, after signing up and paying, that she couldn't stream.

lol

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[magicchex]

That sucks that your experience was that poor. I've never gotten a DVD that was unplayable or skipped in any way. If I send out a DVD on Monday, they get it Tuesday and I get my next one Wednesday. I can then watch it and ship it out Thursday, and have the new one on Saturday. Since I have the 4-at-a-time plan, this is basically unlimited movies. Plus I can always boot into XP and stream movies too which works great. Wonder why the difference in experiences.

Re:Not impressed by my trial.

[MikeFM]

You have to create a different queue to change your search options? That seems like a pretty awkward hack to me. I much prefer clicking 'Advanced Search' and clicking on a couple check boxes.

We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[stak]

Dear xxxxxxxx,

Our shipping system is unexpectedly down. We received a DVD back from you and should have shipped you a DVD, but we likely have not. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible, and we will keep you posted on the status of your DVD shipments.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If your DVD shipment is delayed, we will be issuing a credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.

Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-888-638-3549.

-The Netflix Team

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[sexconker]

Well there you go.

What constitutes "delayed" is another issue entirely though - I've had times where I've waited up to a week for stuff (readily available) to ship from my queue.

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[Ice Wewe]

Perhaps the Netflix inventory system runs on a virtual machine, in which case, the outage may be caused by this

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[pcolaman]

I got this email as well. And it's the only problem I've had with Netflix in an entire year. I wasn't even upset when I got the email, but was pleased to see they are proactive when it comes to pleasing their customers. Just goes to show that Netflix knows customer service, and I have been a happy customer with them for this reason. Anyone using blockbuster's online service would do well to give them a trial run. Me and my wife did a little over a year ago and never looked back.

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[JWSmythe]

    I saw this story from my phone, and the first thing I thought was "They got bit by the VMWare bug".

    For some reason, that seems like a company who's done a lot, but also uses lots of whiz-bang technology, just because it's fully buzzword compliant.

    I got the same email at 4:18am on Thursday. When I got home, there were two NetFlix DVD's sitting in my mailbox. At least I have something to watch while they get it back together. :) Since I'm a normal working human, they won't be watched until the weekend anyways.

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[Nefarious Wheel]

I'd be more interested in what their database system is. I'd like to know whether to laugh (you knocked this up in MS ACCESS???) or to cry (LAMP stack MySQL) or to fear (Google BigTables) or to fly ("actually it was in an Access spreadsheet and we just exceeded 32k rows on one little bit of it and the macro couldn't handle it and my cousin who works at a bank put it together one week, and we have most of it on a Notepad file but...).

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[i love pineapples]

I got this email this morning but received a DVD today anyway. Unfortunately, that DVD turned out to be "Attack of the Clones," so somehow I'm not entirely pleased to have been unaffected by the shipment problems.

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[The Clockwork Troll]

Sorry to disappoint you, but it's a grid on a whiteboard.

A great big whiteboard.

With Expo markers - the good kind, that smell.

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[bryce4president]

No way. They could never make any money if they had to use Expo markers to track their inventory. When I was in college we had white boards with Expo markers and it was rather amusing watching a professor go through about 3 markers a week. And that is just notes for one math class...

I'm pretty sure that the only way they can do it and make money would be to use chalk on an old chalk board, demand is low because of these cool new white boards so they are practically giving away the old stuff.

I know it goes against their wiz bang philosophy but I don't think that its too hard to believe that the cleaning crew came by one night and erased a board or two that they weren't supposed to...

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work there.

Yes, they use virtual machines, but no, it's not VMware. It's a few giant IBM SMP PPC systems running virtual Linux VMs.

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[JCSoRocks]

Anyone thinking this is bad needs to cruise on over to TheDailyWtf and read this gem about how this particular auto company does business.

Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed

[comment()]

Apparently it's Oracle. (via reddit)

Netflix sucks if you use linux

[vistahator]

Can't watch movies live.

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[Anonymous Coward]

> Can't watch movies live.

Agreed. Write to them and complain.

I did. It won't matter if I do. It won't matter if you do. There's a *slight* chance it will matter of thousands of us do. They could still ignore us, but at least they'll get a sense that a portion of their user base or potential user base is unhappy about it.

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[AceofSpades19]

how do you watch movies live?, aren't movies kinda, you know, taped?

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[Irish_Samurai]

Total Linux newbie here, so don't kill me if this is inaccurate, but can't you run IE6 under wine? If so, shouldn't you be able to view the streaming movies?

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[BootNinja]

you can use the instant viewing through a windows vm in linux, but IE6 under wine doesn't work because the system uses a plugin that connects to windows media player to control the drm etc. I tried for about a month to get it working and failed. Video quality was poor enough under a vm that I just went back to watching in windows.

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[careysb]

"Taped"

There's a term that's about to the way of "records".

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[prockcore]

The roku player works just fine no matter what OS you use.

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[moosesocks]

Using Parallels on OS X works fine with Instant Viewing for me, even without any sort of fancy video/3d acceleration turned on.

I've got a 1.66GHz Mac Mini Core Duo. By my standards, it's a pretty nice machine, but also certainly not a powerhouse. On the other hand, if you've got something older, it might be possible that it's not powerful enough to decode the video, even without the performance hit of the VM.

I'm sure that if you have a decent enough machine (ie. good enough to use the feature natively without a VM), and decent VM software, you should be fine. VMWare is still noticeably better than any of the free options in terms of performance and stability. Thanks to virtualization, a VM should run pretty darn close to native speed these days.

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[BootNinja]

fair enough. I was running a 2.0 Ghz amd-64 single core with 2Gb of ram. The setup was about five years old minus the Radeon HD2600 Pro AGP which never did have a working linux driver.

Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux

[slashgrim]

..for only $99

I found the problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

They were using VMWare.

DVDs arrived, but no notice

[nazanne]

I shipped back two DVDs on Tuesday then got the notice they were received on Wednesday. Today (Thursday) I got the notice from Netflix that shipments might be delayed, but I also received two DVDs in the mail (the correct DVDs that were next in my queue). What I did not get was the normal notice from Netflix that they had shipped me anything.

Re:DVDs arrived, but no notice

[true_majik]

exact same scenario here.

Re:DVDs arrived, but no notice

[rho]

Yeah, I caught one about at the beginning of the problem, now I'm waiting.

However, I got an email saying they were working on it--which I believe--and that they'll credit my account--which I believe. All in all, Netflix does a great job, and stands behind their service to the best of their ability. I don't have any complaints.

Re:DVDs arrived, but no notice

[postmortem]

lucky you - I've shipped back my DVD on Sunday night and they haven't even sipped back anything as of tonight.

Re:DVDs arrived, but no notice

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same experience. Funny to get the we're sorry email, but then still have the 2 DVDs delivered with the normal 2 day turn around time.

Re:DVDs arrived, but no notice

[keithjr]

Same thing happened to me yesterday, two DVDs showed up which were somewhat overdue (would have arrived by Tuesday based on previous experience). They were correct, but I had no notice that they had shipped. Strange.

Re:DVDs arrived, but no notice

[curunir]

You're lucky. I had two DVDs that I got notified would arrive on Tuesday (sent on Monday). They still haven't come, but I did have the next DVD in my queue arrive yesterday with no notice whatsoever.

The one part of this article that seems a bit off to me...they use the terms home-grown and proprietary to describe the inventory management application as if they're pejorative, but I would be very surprised if there was a commercial product that could meet their specific needs well enough to work for them. I would expect their solution to be home-grown and proprietary. Just imagine if they were having this issue and their inventory management software wasn't home-grown. Right now, they'd be working feverishly with their vendor to fix the issue, but they'd be subject to their vendor's limitations and ability to fix the problem quickly. But given the current situation, they have full access to the code that's running and probably have many employees who originally built the system. And if there are key employees who have since left and still have specific expertise in the details of the current system, they have the ability to expedite the fix by luring those employees back for limited contracting gigs (if you're losing $2m - $3m per day, you can afford to make very generous offers if it will mean getting the app back up even one day sooner).

Anyways, Kudos to Netflix for being very upfront about the problem and offering automatic refunds. It would have been easy to try to keep it secret. Most people would have done what I would have done...wait a few days for the DVDs to get there and then submit feedback that they never arrived. By that time, they would have likely identified the problem and sent the queue items. And to users, it would appear that those items were re-sent and that the originals had either been lost by the post office or stolen out of our mailboxes. But they didn't, the fessed up, which was the right thing to do from the customer standpoint even if it wasn't the right thing to do from an investor standpoint.

How is this costing them money?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Netflix subscription, and it seems to me that this can only be saving them money. If they aren't shipping movies, they aren't spending money on postage. It's not like I pay per movie, it's a monthly subscription thing.

Score another victory for FOSS!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Woohoo! More publicity for FOSS!

Like the man says, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

I bet it is the VMWare licensing bug ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think it is a coincidence that Netflix's problems started on the same day?

Or maybe it is just idle speculation.

Relative Woes

[Nymz]

Haven't we all thought, while at work, how in the hell can this company stay in business when it is run so poorly? Well, all that is necessary in order to stay in business, is to run it less poorly than competitors. And then you imagine how other companies could be worse, and you shudder.

Re:Relative Woes

[the eric conspiracy]

Eh. The company I was working for until last week crashed into a brick wall and exploded. Basically they ran out of money to pay their employees and did an 80% layoff.

Still haven't been paid for the last few weeks of work. I'm trying to decide if the 20% left are better or worse off. At least I am collecting unemployment. They are working without pay.

Re:Relative Woes

[Irish_Samurai]

This is actually a very common phenomena.

The reality is ALL companies run like shit. They really do. People just have this weird ideal put into their head that business moves at the speed of light and everyone in the big tall building is working their ass off to get it done, until you reach the bottom of the food chain and then it's practically welfare.

This is just shit butt fuck all wrong.

Businesses often reach into their credit lines to get over the non productive periods and then pay it back when they get the revenue in. If they don't they just go bankrupt and "sorry to all of you we owe money to".

You got to look at companies the same way as the government does, as weird artificial constructs with all the rights of a person. Then take that person and make them over extended on their credit and living hand to mouth on a colossal scale.

Re:Relative Woes

[tomhath]

FTFA: "Assuming only 1/3 is affected for one to two days, NFLX stands to forfeit nearly $1.8mm to $3.6mm in revenues"

Yea, a company that misses out on that much revenue in one or two days is clearly a total failure. Project out what they earn in the full year and you'll see how bad they're doing.

Re:Relative Woes

[ScrewMaster]

A friend of mine gave a name to the phenomen you're describing: he calls it the "Firestone Theory of Managed Incompetence".

Re:Relative Woes

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really glad you didn't use "poorly" in your last sentence. I cancelled netflix 2 years ago and went with usenet exclusively - have been happy ever since. ;)

Re:Relative Woes

[Anonymous Coward]

All everyone does is complain about how everyone does everything wrong. I'd like to see any one of you come up with an idea and execute it into a multi-billion dollar company.

If the company is run so poorly start your Netflix service and put them out of business. This isn't Russia. Is this Russia? No, its America, competition is good and keeps other businesses on there toes. Oh, but you probably don't have the time to put into starting a company because you're too business complaining and waiting for 1 day turn around of the next movie in your queue.

Jesus Christ, what does anyone exact for $20 a month, people think that they should have the world. You can't even take your family to dinner for $20...

My movie has a long wait and it's not here on time, what will I do with myself... Wahhhhhh...

Re:Relative Woes

[austin987]

You got to look at companies the same way as the government does, as weird artificial constructs with all the rights of a person. Then take that person and make them over extended on their credit and living hand to mouth on a colossal scale.

If by 'all the rights of a person' you mean 'large capacity for campaign donations', then you'd be correct.

what problems starting up?

[ralphdaugherty]

I see that ZDnet's Larry Zignan concluded from a 2004 Baseline article that Netflix had startup problems for their homegrown business systems, but he apparently misread the article. It says the system was reworked in 2000, 2002, etc. as customers grew to 1.5 million, but tha's not startup problems, that's keeping with massive growth you wouldn't be able to get and handle if you had startup problems.

  rd

Good timing

[teslatug]

Actually this is the best time to have this problem. I haven't even watched the movies I have at home due to the Olympics.

Re:Good timing

[D-Cypell]

"I haven't even watched the movies I have at home due to the Olympics."

Watching or competing? :)

Re:Good timing

[Sponge Bath]

I haven't even watched the movies I have at home due to the Olympics.

Yeah, those 13 year old gymnasts are really hot.

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, those 13 year old gymnasts are really hot.

I know you're being facetious, but gymnasts have to be at least 16 to compete (China's potential passport shenanigans notwithstanding). 16 is legal in about half the US, as well as most of the rest of the world; and in general, gymnastics competitors represent some of the most physically fit and talented athletes each country has to offer. I'd hazard a guess that most straight guys find well-toned 16 year old girls in leotards at least mildly attractive, even if they don't exactly have choice tits.

Re:Good timing

[fm6]

Thirteen-year-olds are no longer allowed to compete in the Olympics, mainly because of pedophiles like you!

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

>I'd hazard a guess that most straight guys find well-toned 16 year old girls in leotards at least mildly attractive, even if they don't exactly have choice tits.

I'm a straight guy who finds 16 year old girls in leotards very attractive, and my tits are plenty big, you insensitive clod!

Re:Good timing

[iB1]

How scary that this was modded insightful

Re:Good timing

[yabos]

Yeah I'm sure that's it and not that it is hard on their developing body due to the intense training involved.

Re:Good timing

[apoc.famine]

Actually, you're no longer allowed to compete in the Olympics if you *say* you're 13...because of pedophiles like him.

Re:Good timing

[Sethus]

Competing. In the mens 18 hour couch and laptop gaming marathon semifinals.

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well what BETTER time to make sure Netflix has a problem than during an expensive sporting event that you paid a lot to license, and that you want to make sure people WATCH.

Yes, I am suggesting NBC paid or otherwise caused this outage to happen. It's brilliant.

Re:Good timing

[genner]

Thirteen-year-olds are no longer allowed to compete in the Olympics, mainly because of pedophiles like you!

China didn't get the memo.

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I would use that user name to make that reply...

Re:Good timing

[fm6]

YMBNAH.

Re:Good timing

[Bryansix]

I'm just trying to figure out where you get your moral code because none of the books I've read say anything about an age of consent.

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should read a book that has laws in it.

Re:Good timing

[Bryansix]

My point was he was taking a moral position (or it seamed so) against people who are attracted to women who happen to be below the age of consent. The question I posed has to do with why those laws exist in the form they do and where such an idea came from.

Re:Good timing

[MyOtherUIDis3digits]

"I haven't even watched the movies I have at home due to the Olympics."

Watching or competing? :)

I just got through watching the gymnastics, and man, my arm is tired.

(apologies to Henny Youngman)

Fr0st pisT

[Anonymous Coward]

bulk of t4e FreeBSD it a breOak, if

Is their shipping system run on Cobol?

[vistahator]

Just wondering...

Probably

[KalvinB]

We got Netflix to save money on renting and/or buying DVDs. If Netflix can't deliver enough movies to make it worth the subscription fee then we may just cancel the service.

As someone else posted, it seems like most of the loss is from automated credits for late deliveries.

Re:Probably

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, good job fucking ADD loser. This is the first major interruption Netflix has had that I can remember as a member since 1998. Give them a break.

as if non-homegrown software never fails

[justdrew]

I'm sure their stuff is very nice, it's never had such a major problem before.

lose money?

[fermion]

I thought that netflix took your money every month and then occasionally mailed you a CD as it is able. The more money you pay the more CDs you can have at one time, so this delay might push people from their basic $5 plan to a higher plan, espcially since you stream movies when you have no CDs.

So, is it that they are having a problem, or simply pushing people to more expensive plans. Sure, some of the low end customers might leave, but so what? A top end customer bills for 3X the revenue, but likely more than 3X the profit.

Re:lose money?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that netflix took your money every month and then occasionally mailed you a CD as it is able.

Well there's the problem. They're supposed to be sending DVDs!

Re:lose money?

[residieu]

They're giving credits to people with delayed movies. They don't say exactly what that credit is (a full month? 1 day's worth per day of delay?) This won't push people to a more expensive plan. The discs aren't shipping, it doesn't matter if you have 2 or 6 in your plan.

The Watch Now service is still available and always usable even when you have discs at home (as long as you have a high enough subscription, 2 discs is enough for that)

Hey!

[CDarklock]

I write inventory and supply chain management software! Gives me a job!

Off-topic: anyone have trouble with Netflix on FF?

[pterandon]

After a few days of normal use, I suddenly found myself unable to use the Netflix site with Firefox. Basically anything with a bitmap that you click on, like the tabs for Your Queue, etc., is now messed up. Anyone got a workaround? Apologies if this were rudely off-topic.

I'm sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to understand, how they can send a letter to someone saying hey sorry we didn't send you any DVD's here's a letter letter you know we know we didn't send you anything.

Perhaps me as the authors of this letter should include your DVD's in with the letter, however I'm an asshole and so I'm not going to.

Have a nice day.. netflix retarded#87

Re:I'm sorry

[BootNinja]

I believe this is an inventory database problem. People aren't receiving movies because they aren't sure which movies are in stock and which ones aren't.

Re:I'm sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they have more paper than they have dvds.

Re:Off-topic: anyone have trouble with Netflix on

[drew_92123]

that site has never rendered quite right with FF... I simply installed the IE Tab add-on for FF and set it to always render Netflix with IE(still shows up in FF). I also found that the interactive map on weather.com requires me to do the same thing....

hope this helps!

Re:Off-topic: anyone have trouble with Netflix on

[PRMan]

I recently cancelled because of the TV season starting (well, early with the Olympics), but I used Netflix on Firefox all the time and didn't have any problems except Instant Viewing. Had to switch to IE for that.

Re:Off-topic: anyone have trouble with Netflix on

[pennyloafer]

About two months ago, I had this problem for a couple/few weeks with Ubuntu & FF 3.0, but it seems to have been resolved.

Oblig. This never would have happened if...

[JoshDM]

... they were using a Beowulf Cluster.

How are they losing money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are that many people canceling?

Are they incurring extra postage cost?

Replacing discs?

Or just paying their people a ton of overtime to fix the "problem"?

that's definitely the problem

[CoughDropAddict]

It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system.

Because definitely if they had used another company's product or something open source, it could never have broken. Clearly being "home-grown" and "proprietary" is the part that caused the problem.

Re:that's definitely the problem

[Gazzonyx]

No, the problem is that outside of their company, no one has any idea of how the thing works. They can't bring in a consultant, and there isn't anyone to turn to for advice. Even if they hired a small team of talented professionals to help them, that team would still need plenty of time to get up to speed on the whole system.

Re:that's definitely the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that conslutants can't profiteer off of organization X is either a sign that something is terribly wrong with organization X --- or something is terribly right.

Having seen mosquitos in action, I would tend toward the latter explanation.

Re:that's definitely the problem

[truesaer]

I don't see how this is any different than using a third party product. Netflix surely has a good engineering team that is thoroughly familiar with the system. If the system was similarly broken and it was provided by a third party then you'd just have that company's engineering team working on it.

Where's the disadvantage? (if anything, the fact that the engineers work for netflix probably motivates them to fix it faster since it's their own company's ass on the line)

By the way, I got my DVDs right on schedule despite receiving that email and not getting any notifications of my returns being received or shipments being sent. So it isn't clear that the problem is really that signficant. It kind of sounds like they don't really know the extent of the issue yet.

Re:that's definitely the problem

[djp928]

Netflix surely has a good engineering team that is thoroughly familiar with the system.

This is a bad assumption. It is not at all unusual for a company to build an in-house product, then have all the developers who actually wrote the thing move on to bigger and better things, leaving behind junior and not-quite-up-to-speed people to maintain it day-to-day. No matter how good the documentation (hahahahahaha documentation!) is that the original developers left behind, there's always things buried deep in the bowels of any large piece of software that can bite you in the ass if you're not careful. It may be something the original developers thought would "never come up" or it may just be a bug that has been in there from day one that never got triggered until someone did just the right combination of things that wasn't anticipated by the original developers.

The company I work at now uses a heavily modified bit of proprietary software written in COBOL. Over the years, all the people who have written the modifications have left the company, so nobody really *knows* how this thing works anymore. We keep pulling COBOL programmers out of retirement and have them come in and spend weeks reading code trying to figure it out, but I'm still not convinced anybody here really understands the system--it *still* does things we can't explain from time to time. Now I'm sure Netflix's software wasn't written in COBOL, but it's still very easy for this situation to come up if a company is not super careful--and they never are.

long shot but...

[edrock200]

What are the odds the esx license bug came into play here?

Re:long shot but...

[Gazzonyx]

I think they have upstream patches for that as of last night... but, who knows. It does coincide well.

Re:Off-topic: anyone have trouble with Netflix on

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

After a few days of normal use, I suddenly found myself unable to use the Netflix site with Firefox. Basically anything with a bitmap that you click on, like the tabs for Your Queue, etc., is now messed up. Anyone got a workaround?

I've never had a problem using Safari (if you're on Windows or OS X). The one exception is that their streaming movies are Windows+IE only. You'd think after all the other companies started streaming movies and television for free, Netflix would have been able to fix their crap by now. Last I heard they were working on a Silverlight version, ick.

Is there a Netflix in Canada yet?

[IllogicalStudent]

Kinda off topic, but ***** I hate Blockbuster. Anyone know if there are any GOOD (as in price and service) Netflix-like services in Canada yet?

Re:Is there a Netflix in Canada yet?

[Warll]

I quick Google search comes up with Zip.ca: http://www.zip.ca/dvd/index.aspx

ROKU

[aggles]

My Netflix instant queue has over a dozen movies all queued up so I don't care if the plastic arrives a bit late. I'll just pull in the bits over the net and watch "Strange Brew" tonight. Its not quite DVD quality, but I'm not going to be demanding a rebate.

Growing company

[britneys 9th husband]

I guess this means they signed up their 16,777,216th subscriber.

I think the only story here is

[gearloos]

The only story here is Netflix honors it's obligations. I think very highly of Netflix for this. Now if I could only figure out why the went with M$oft for XBOX360 movies. They are free if you have the Roku player but to do the EXACT same thing with the Xbox 360 you have to PAY M$OFT for the gold online account.

Re:I think the only story here is

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of Windows Media Center?

If so, install vmcNetflix.

Works like a champ.

Re:I think the only story here is

[Anonymous Coward]

twitter, is that you?

Re:I think the only story here is

[gearloos]

Oh hey thanks for the tip! I run wmc on win box and medialink on my mac as well to the ps3.

What do you mean?

[NerveGas]

Netflix charges by the month, not by the disc. Unless they're going to offer a refund, they won't lose any revenue, excepting disgruntled customers who leave.

In fact... since they aren't paying postage, they could actually be saving money, particularly if they told their employees "Too bad, don't clock in for the next few days."

Re:What do you mean?

[ShatteredArm]

Except they've said they'll credit the accounts of customers who were affected by this (which becomes closer and closer to everybody each day this goes on...). They'll almost undoubtably be losing money because of this, with some customer dissatisfaction on the part of the impatient on top of that.

They're using an Excel spreadsheet, aren't they?

[Antique Geekmeister]

I've had 3 different managers lately explaining that their asset databases are actually Excel spreadsheets, and I've been shuddering as they hit the 65,000 entry limit.

I don't see a problem

[Kreplock]

Their inventory seems fine to me - I got Roadhouse, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot, and Battlefield Earth right on time.

Re:I don't see a problem

[Lije Baley]

Ha, I liked Battlefield Earth, Waterworld, and the Postman. All 50 of the movies in my queue are available NOW.

They tried to warn us

[SuperKendall]

Oh, they tried to warn us disaster would strike if they could not be rid of user queues - and now doom is upon us all! Or at least slight shipping delays! Curse the day I did tear my queue apart into multiple convenient streams!

Re:They're using an Excel spreadsheet, aren't they

[will_die]

Just have to upgrade to Excel 2007 it can support 1M(2^20) rows.

Better than the competition

[GottliebPins]

After being screwed by Blockbuster for years over late fees and going into stores to find the shelf where the movie I want to see is always empty while the shelf next to it filled with dozens of copies of movies that suck I don't care what kind of problems Netflix may occasionally have and I wouldn't care if their monthly service was twice as expensive as Blockbuster's, I still wouldn't go back to Blockbuster.

Re:Better than the competition

[Life2Death]

THIS. and the fact that they drove the coolest rental place out of my hometown - it had more scifi classics that no one has heard of that kicked arse. They also had the best pizza in the world and to top it off, they had a DS9 and Enterprise model hanging from the ceiling.

Hey Netflix

[dodecalogue]

I have faith in your service! It's become just another utility bill for me, and I am mostly okay with that EXCEPT:

no streaming play in linux. that's ridiculous and annoying and come on.

I don't like being taken off my screen to recommendations after I've selected something. redirection of most kinds bug me in general. just offer the option to check out recommendations. you could do it well, the "move to the top" thing is pretty good.

First Post = Redundant?

[dunc78]

You think that is puzzling? I'm even more puzzled that the first post can be redundant.

Re:First Post = Redundant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's gonna be fun when these stupid fuckwad mods get their mods slapped down. No more points for them for a while.

Bravo for their honest, upfront disclosure

[dpbsmith]

I first learned about this an hour ago. I read a good review of Trumbo and logged on to added it to my Saved list... I hit this great big conspicuous notice saying "IMPORTANT: Your DVD Shipments Have Likely Been Delayed."

My first thought was that it was a sales pitch to upsell me to a higher-tiered plan, but no, it was a straightforward notice and apology.

I for one really appreciate this approach. Most companies' SOP would be to say nothing... wait for you to call.. make an individual apology to you without happening to mention that it was affecting thousands of others... and hope you don't read newspapers or Slashdot.

Re:Bravo for their honest, upfront disclosure

[Wolfrider]

I'm with you. I signed up with Netflix in the 1st place months ago, when Slashdot had an article about their support staff *purposely* being kept in the US, via a conscious decision by the company **not to outsource.**

Impressed the hell out of me. I signed up pretty much the same day, called their support line and thanked them personally.

The few discs I've had that were unplayable, I followed the procedures and got a replacement. No fuss, no worries.

I'm pretty happy with their pricing and service.

Better than most

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite the other rants in this post, Netflix has some of the best customer service. They actually ADDED more people to the call center and it is based in the US. I have been a subscriber since 2003 and started with 3 DVD plan at 21.99. One day I got an email that said "Hey dude, we've decided to only charge you 17.99 instead." How many other companies do the same, while at the same time improving their customer service and their product? If I have one gripe about NF its that they don't have any rugby dvds and their catalog for Instant watching is grandma old.

Re:Better than most

[ScrewMaster]

Couldn't agree more. I've been on the same plan for some time as well, and I was also pleasantly surprised when they dropped the price. Perhaps they managed to work a better royalty deal with the studios, or maybe managed some other cost savings. Either way, I thought it was way cool that they passed some of those savings along to their customers rather than looking at it as a windfall profit. I've never had to call their customer service people, because I haven't yet had a problem with the service.

One time I sent three discs back, and one of them didn't make it. I just marked it as lost and that was that.

They kind of have to operate that way, because delivery of their product is dependent upon factors totally outside their control (the Post Office, neighbors, weather, etc.) If customers had to risk getting hit with charges for lost discs, the service would be perceived as too risky for most people.

Three words ...

[ScrewMaster]

It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system.

Scalability, scalability, scalability.

Mine was on time.

[doyle.jack]

I got an email from them indicating my shipment would be delayed and I would be credited. However, it did arrive on time. I have noticed no lapse in service.

My Queue

[slashgrim]

As long as they don't mess up my queue! It's taken me months to get hundreds of movies in that queue in the order I want.

But I can't wait that long!

[QuantumFlux]

I've been using Netflix lately to watch TV series. Are they implying now that I'll have to wait AN ENTIRE WEEK for the next episode? That's just cruel and inhumane!

Looks like they are back online

[gambler_mtu]

From Netflix:
---------------------
We're happy to report that all of our shipping centers are resuming normal operations (after 3 days of issues). If you should have been shipped a disc Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it will ship today (Friday).

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. To all of you whose shipments have been delayed, we'll be automatically applying a 15% credit to your next billing statement. Or, if you are new to Netflix and your first shipments have been delayed, we recognize that this is not a good way to begin your Netflix membership and we'll automatically extend your free trial by a week.

Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding.
The Netflix Team
---------------------

I'm still curious as to the actual problem. They have been very vague about the whole thing.

Told delay in delivery but dvd already had arrived

[Roman Coder]

I received an email from NetFlix saying my two dvds would not arrive until next week, and in my queue the delivery dates showed as next Wednesday.

The weird thing though was that both dvds had already arrived on the same day the email was sent to me.

I feel for them right now. They're dealing with the condition known as FUBARitis for sure.

I think it was me

[Anonymous Coward]

Literally, I think it was me. On Sunday night I mailed back three movies that had been out for like 3 months. The system probably choked when it saw what I held onto for so long.

Other Side of the Coin

[bill_mcgonigle]

No, the problem is that outside of their company, no one has any idea of how the thing works. They can't bring in a consultant, and there isn't anyone to turn to for advice. Even if they hired a small team of talented professionals to help them, that team would still need plenty of time to get up to speed on the whole system.

As opposed to a proprietary app, where if the vendor doesn't want to or can't help you fix the problem ... you're out of business. Unless perhaps you violate your license and reverse engineer it.

Related to VMware?

[Stu Fuller]

Could this be related to the VMware license timebombs from earlier this week?