Netflix Now Has 12,000 Watch Instantly Titles

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced during the earnings webcast that they now offer more than 12,000 movies and TV shows for Watch Instantly, up from 2,000 when the service launched 18 months ago.

Comments

[Steve]

Qantity, but not quality.

[Dr. Quasius]

True it is long on quantity and low on quality. But I *like* terrible movies, and the selection is chock full of them.

[Eric]

The big studios are scared of dealing with digital formats that aren't on something hard. They are afraid Netflix will take advantage of them by renting more, reporting less, and paying fewer royalties.

[Gir]

I wonder if any/how many of those 12,000 are individual episodes. I have 17 items in my instant queue, but that's about 150 separate episodes. Maybe my tastes aren't varied enough, but when browsing, it doesn't feel like 12,000.

[Steve]

They MUST be counting each individual episode as an available "title".

I was very excited when I received my Roku box and added various TV shows and movies to my Watch Instantly queue. However, there's not nearly as much stuff available that I want to actually watch as I originally thought there was. I've watched everything in my queue now and every day I eagerly check for new Watch Instantly titles, but its all just all old crap. Anyone want to buy a slightly used Roku box?

[Dr. Quasius]

@Steve - "They MUST be counting each individual episode as an available "title""

They are. In fact they have said that more than once.

[matt]

i like the watch instant for in between time on dvd turn arounds and when someone else in the family gets a movie, but i would like to know is there a way to see a list of new titles for instant watch on a list view cause the other way is horrible?

[CJ]

It does seem like every day a few more titles in my queue suddenly show up as Watch Instantly available. Makes me happy since I have not one, but two Roku Players, should I want to watch a title as video on demand.

[junebug1701]

Just last night I caught a British comedy called "Cashback" on Watch Instantly. Check it out, it's clever and funny. But don't watch if you're offended by female nudity. :-)

I know there's a lot of crap *coughTROMAcough* on there, but you can find a few gems.

James

[BoB]

"But don't watch if you're offended by female nudity. :-)"

Offended?! It's what I live for!!! :)

[Chris]

I feel like I was sort of fooled into Watch Instantly. If you go onto the site before you sign up and go to browse titles, there is a box that says, "check out our watch instantly list". And so you hit that and start searching and everything they have on disk comes up, instead of just things that are available on WI. So it looks like they have a lot more than they do to prospective customers. Pretty shady.

[Ned]

Roku and WI are what made up my mind to switch
from Blockbuster. I've seen just about every
Hollywood movie worth seeing. I love the raw
and uninhibited nature of the foreign movies
that are available on WI. It is a gold mine
and a fresh breath of air. No Hollywood
razzmatazz, just plain facts of life and a lot
of female nudity to offend you.

Can you say? "Amore"

[Gir]

nudity = amore?

[ZeroCorpse]

I like a lot of the Watch Now content. My Instant Watch queue is full (500 items) and I can always swap out for new stuff when I've watched something. There's no shortage of good movies on there.

OK, yes, there's a lot of Troma garbage (although I highly recommend "Cannibal the Musical"- An early Trey Parker film), but there's also good stuff like "Network", and Clint Eastwood westerns (including Academy Award winners) and some great shows. I hadn't gotten to watch "Dexter" until I got the Roku player. Now we're working our way through the series and we love it. If we had put it in our DVD queue, it would have arrived on several discs, and it wouldn't be easy for us to watch it at our leisure.

Yes, they need some recent blockbusters up there. They need a few of the brainless mass-marketed flicks from the past couple years. They need to get some more great classics on there, as well. How can they get "THX 1138" and "Network" and "Soylent Green" on there, but not "Rosemary's Baby"?

I still say the Roku Netflix Player is my best tech purchase this year. I love it.

[Vince]

When I first signed up for Netflix I think they were advertising that they had 15000 movies in their entire library, which still beats the hell out of a rental store.

[Vince]

I wish they would hurry up on Mac support. I'm now in Amazon's new beta program that support Macs and will probably spend a lot of money there between now and whenever Netflix finally gets their shit together.

Instead of not offering most feature movies altogether in Netflix's instant viewing library, I wish they they would just charge a premium for them. Amazon and iTunes charge $3.99 for 24 hour rentals, if Netflix could undercut that at all that would be great, since I'm going to be a member anyway. I guess they're trying to keep it simple.

[Kimberly]

Dr. Quasius: I too, like terrible movies. But even my queue that is completely full currently has 45 Watch Now titles available. They're all things like "Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter" and old film noir. But 45 titles isn't much selection for me.

[Steve]

Why are some episodes of a TV series not available via Watch Instantly? In the case of Sliders, the first half the Pilot episode is available to Watch Instantly, but the second half is not!?! Its hit or miss with seasons of Magnum PI where half of the episodes of season 1 are not available, including the Pilot. Its a little frustrating when what few good TV series that are currently available for Watch Instanatly are missing multiple episodes.

[Jeff]

"Dead Like Me" Season 1 also has a few episodes omitted from WI

[Chad]

The selection is wonderful, IMO. There's a lot of foreign films, TV series, documentaries, cheesetastic B movies, etc. to choose from. And personally I don't mind catalog titles at all ...not having to endure the latest Hollywood dreck is just fine by me.

[Nick]

Maybe now that they have 12,000 titles on Watch Instantly, they could maybe start working on trying to get movies that aren't complete crap. They have some nice stuff, like some great TV shows, but you really have to dig through all the crap to find the gems.

[RestOFTheMovie]

check this http://restofthemovie.com

[JIMMY A FAIRCLOTH]

WILL SOME ONE TELL ME HOW TO ACTIVATE THE ROKU WITH OUT BUYING A ROUDER I CANNOT ACTIVATE THIS THING AND PUT THE CABLE IN THE ROKU AND STAY ON LINE TO ACTIVATE THE ROKU NETFLIX NOW TELLS ME I HAVE TO HAVE A ROUDER NOTING IN AD TELLS THAT.