New Netflix DVD Sleeves?

Alert Netflix subscriber Steven noticed that Netflix has changed the sleeve design.

Seen these yet? Both of these arrived the same day.

I hate the new one. Ugly type, harder to read. The checkboxes for bad disks
are gone.

But most odd is the loss of branding. Note the logo is gone. Actually, all
branding is gone. No name anywhere on the front. I wonder if this is on
purpose, like they are going to be reselling the service thru another
channel. Maybe like Virgin does with mobile service. But that's pure
speculation.

The back is identical. And, now that I think of it, does still have the logo
and address.

He sent in these pictures of the old and new sleeves:

Comments

Or they're about to be purchased.:)

[Aron]

Elementary my dear Watson...

If I were to guess I'd say that, owing to the relatively cleaner appearance of disc 1, that it is a replacement for a "lost" copy.

For some reason perhaps lost to the wastelands of history, Netflix may have a different process for producing these.

A deliberate change would most certainly have produced the same label on both discs of the same series, yes?

More info: I have a barcode reader.

The old code had all of the numbers with a leading and trailing letter. The numbers were in a different, but consistent order.

The new code is alphanumeric and doesn't bear any resemblence to any data on the label. Whether it's encrypted or just random (presumably it need only be unique) would realistically be impossible to determine.

[Becky]

Yes, I noticed the change, because I very nearly sent my Netflix discs back to Nicheflix by mistake. They use nearly identical sleeves.

[Aron]

What purpose would there be for encryption? Could this be how Al Qaeda is communicating?

[henry erich iii]

Hopefully this means they did a deal with the USPS.

[henry erich iii]

Hopefully this means they did a deal with the USPS.

[twinches]

One thought is that perhaps they are just trying to save some extra money by removing the check boxes from the sleve. Anytime someone checks a box for a bad dvd, they have to replace that sleve with a new unchecked one. You can report bad or unplayable dvds on their web site, so there is no need for the check boxes.

[Jimmy]

I have received one of these as well, and it was a replacement disc.

Any idea where to report an issue with a DVD on NetFlix's site? I know with Blockbuster you do it right on the queue page.

[Steven Hoober]

What does everyone mean here by "replacement disk." This is the first time this disk was shipped to me, and they were both full-color original factory disks, not the gray ones. Should have mentioned that before. Its why I scanned both of them. Same day, same series, consecutive disks. Different sleeves.

[twinches]

Jimmy, to report an issue on Netflix's site you got to the "Your Account" link. Then next to where it shows your Rental Activity there is a link for "report a problem" .