Hacking NetFlix

How Long is "Long Wait?"

Stephen writes, "Seems like an interesting barometer of customer service would be to set up a survey to poll your members on exactly how long is “Short wait” “long wait” “very long wait.”"

From the Netflix Help system:

Q: What do Short Wait, Long Wait and Very Long Wait mean?

A: From time to time, some movies in your Queue may display a wait status. A wait status is an indication that more customers want to see this movie than we have copies. We recommend that you keep your movies in the order in which you prefer to view them, regardless of their availability status. Since we will ship all the copies we have available, customers seeing a wait status will in fact receive the movie.

Short Wait: We don't have quite enough copies of this movie to meet all current demand, so we may not be able to ship it to you immediately. We should have enough copies in the near future. The wait time in this instance is generally less than 14 days.

Long Wait: There's considerably more demand than available copies for this movie. It's unlikely that we'll be able to send you this movie within the next week or two. The wait time in this instance is generally less than 30 days.

Very Long Wait: There is extremely high demand, limited availability and/or a very long wait for this movie. The wait time in this instance is generally less than 4 months, but could be longer if, for example, the movie is out of print or we are otherwise unable to secure additional copies.

How long have you waited for a Netflix movie on "short," "long wait," or "very long wait?"

Will You Buy Movies Again & Again?

CNet's Screening Room asks an interesting question: "Will you buy movies twice?" This is probably the biggest problem I with the state of HD/Blu-ray and movie downloads -- why buy something that might be obsolete in a year, or locks you into a download vendor (Wal-Mart, Amazon, Apple, etc.). I'm still buying a few movies that I really enjoy, but only at incredibly low prices ($5 for the Big Lebrowski, etc).

Will you buy the same movies that you already bought on DVD again on another platform? If so, when do you think you'll do it?

Firefox Script Shows TiVo Shows in Netflix Queue

Running as Root has written a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that shows all available TiVo shows in your Netflix queue.

I don't have a TiVo (I went with a Media Center instead), so can somebody with a TiVo test this?

via Troy on TiVo.

Blockbuster Earnings Call

Here are the highlights from the Blockbuster Q4 2006 Earnings Webcast:

70% of Total Acces subscribers are going into stores three times per month.

In-store exchange is costing about $2 per customer per month, net of benefits.

Blockbuster will be spending an incremental $35 million on advertising this quarter.

Since Total Access gives an addition $8-$12 customer benefit, they are considering premium pricing.

They are considering letting store customers "special order" movies by mail without being an online subscriber.

Blockbuster is looking for a partner to provide downloads that will give them a "Tripe Play" advantage (online, in-store, and downloads).

Approx. 80% of Blockbuster rentals involve a revenue-sharing agreement with the studios.

Seeking Alpha has posted a transcript of the call.

How DVD-by-Mail is Helping the Environment

AskPablo has done the math on the environmental impact of sending one billion DVDs throught the mail:

So the total emissions from sending one billion DVDs to its customers is 320 tons (3,200,000 tkm x 100 g/tkm). Keeping in mind that those DVDs are also returned to the same facility we need to double that result to 640 tons of CO2 emissions. If Netflix wanted to offset this amount, which I hope they will, they could do it for around $4500 with DriveNeutral or $8448 with Native Energy.

To put this result into perspective, let's see what the alternative looks like. Let's say that the average drive to your local video rental store is 5 km (3 miles) and that the average vehicle gets around 20 mpg (0.118 l/km), so that every trip to the video rental store uses 0.588 liters of fuel, releasing 1.77 kg of CO2 into the atmosphere (again, see "AskPablo: The Tailpipe Mystery" for the derivation). If everyone gets only one DVD per trip, those one billion DVDs would amount to 1,770,000 tons of CO2 emissions (1.77 kg x 1B). If you factor in the return trip, that amount increases to 3,540,000 tons of CO2! This staggering amount would require $26,550,000 to offset via DriveNeutral (www.DriveNeutral.org). [Corrected numbers. - Mike]

From the Netflix website: "If Netflix members drove to and from a rental store, they would consume 800,000 gallons of gasoline and release more than 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually."

Just think about how much more we'll save when we can (legally) download 70,000+ movies.

Netflix & Small Towns... Netflix, California?

Monte Williams has crafted an interesting essay about Netflix and small town life, his attempts to rename the town "Netflix, California," and his willingness to get a Netflix tatoo...

We the undersigned hereby pledge our unyielding dedication to the cause of convincing the populace of the celebrated but struggling town of Boonville, California to pass a legal measure under which said bustling metropolis shall henceforth and forevermore be known instead as Netflix, California. This change will bring much needed publicity to our floundering hamlet while in no way compromising established moneymaking ventures such as our thriving marijuana and methamphetamine industries.

Thanks to Shawn for sending this in.

Watch Now Bonus Viewing Time

Prozac discovered that you can watch an entire Watch Now movie, even if you only have a little bit of time left on your account. "I had just 43 min. left on my Netflix Watch Now account and I noticed that Netflix will allow you to watch the entire movie uninterrupted as long as you don't leave the Watch Now page. So you can pause it and fast foward and watch a 3 hour movie if you have limited time on your account as long as you don't leave the page. I just finshed watching And Justice For All with Pacino with only 43 min. left and hod no problems watching it."

Long Distance Movies Revisited

Rich writes, "I've been a Netflix subscriber in Connecticut and now Illinois for a little over 3 years. I've noticed over aobut the past 3-4 months that more and more of my rentals are coming from remote locations, and Netflix is identifying them as such. For example, they mailed the DaVinci Code to me in Chicago from Hawaii. I've also gotten discs from San Jose, NY and Denver. As a result, I'm not getting the close to overnight turnaround I used to, and more frustrating, it seems when I return a disc, it goes back to the original location which is listed on the return envelope, rather than "the Nearest Netflix Facility". For The DaVinci Code, it was at least a week for the disc to get here from Hawaii and then back to Hawaii. This did not hapen inthe past and I wonder if Netflix is doing something different in inventory management. Personally, I'd usually prefer to get a lower ranked disc rather than wait for some of these..

If I get a Netflix movie from a distant shipping center, I black out the return address and barcode and it is usually received the next day.

Have you had any Netflix DVDs that took longer than a couple of days to arrive?

Blockbuster Announces Q4 2006 Profit; 3 Million Subs Goal

Press release: Blockbuster Q4 2006 revenues increased slightly over the same period last year to $1.51 billion, including approximately $30 million from the Total Access program, but profits declined 28% over the previous quarter due to increased costs related to Total Access. Blockbuster has also set an aggressive goal of 3 million Total Access subscribers by the end of Q1 2007.

"2006 was an exciting year for Blockbuster. We delivered four consecutive quarters of positive same-store domestic movie rental revenues. We also significantly reduced operating costs, sizably increased our online subscriber base and substantially improved our profitability and cash flow," said John Antioco, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO. "In the year ahead, we anticipate online subscriber growth to exceed 2006 levels. Specifically, we expect to have a total of 3 million BLOCKBUSTER Total Access(TM) subscribers by the end of the first quarter, which would mean that we will have nearly doubled our subscriber base in the five months since we launched our new integrated offering. This growth will require some investment in the first half of the year, but we believe this investment is the right strategy to deliver value to our shareholders and should result in more online customers, more in-store customers, a larger share of the overall domestic rental market and increasing revenues."

Blockbuster CEO John Antioco is contesting bonuses worth $7.65 million, according the earnings release.

Netflix Envelopes Dangerous?

Yay Hooray posted a photo of an injury received from a Netflix envelope (Warning: closeup of graphic depiction of blood). Has anyone else been injured by a Netflix envelope?

I think I'm seeing the beginnings of another class action lawsuit...

In case you're wondering when you'll get your free month or upgrade from the Netflix class action lawsuit:

Update: The settlement was approved by the San Francisco Superior Court on July 28, 2006, but certain objectors appealed the judgment approving the settlement. The settlement benefit will not be distributed until the appeals process is completed, which could take 12 or more months. Class members who timely and accurately completed the Claim Form Process will be contacted by email when the settlement benefit is available to them.