I will preface this post by saying I haven't seen a movie in a theatre in about 5 years. I spent thousands of dollars on my HDTV and surround sound system so we happily watch all movies in the comfort of our family room couch.
Up until about a year ago all of the new movies we watched were rentals from Blockbuster. At the time it was a good deal for me. I used points on my rewards card to get 8 free rental certificates every few months so I basically was not paying anything out of pocket to see new releases. Our local Blockbuster was in a pretty convenient location so it was not too out of the way to stop by and rent/return movies. Then suddenly our local Blockbuster closed and it was no longer convenient so no more blockbuster for us.
At the time it was not that big a deal because of the writer's strike there was not a whole lot of new movies out that we wanted to see. We also added a baby to our family so our movie watching time was fairly limited. When there was something we really wanted to see we would watch in on Comcast On Demand. Usually when we did this though we had a free coupon. Since the ON Demand rentals are $4.99 and I was used to renting movies for free we probably only ever paid for 2 or 3 movies in total.
A couple months ago we noticed there were a bunch of new movies out that we were really interested in seeing. A couple of our friends have been using Netflix for a while and are really happy with it so we decided to give it a shot. We signed up for their one at a time unlimited plan for $8.99/month. We usually only have time to watch movies on weekends and with our schedule we usually only watch one movie a weekend. Given this we still get 4 movies a month for a cost of about $2.25 a movie.
Compare that to Comcast On Demand's cost of 4.99 a movie and the choice was pretty simple for us to stick with Netflix. The one advantage that Comcast On Demand has over Netflix is that you can order using your remote rather than needing to mail the DVD back. But to me that is only a minor advantage. The only way Comcast On Demand is going to compete with Netflix is if they offer some kind of monthly plan structure similar to Netflix where you get 4 OnDemand movies for around $10/month, 5 movies for $12/month etc. I am sure Comcast has thought about this and my guess is the movie studios are preventing them from doing it. Another hurdle may be that they would need to rewrite the cable box software to allow for the operation of a plan structure. So something like this is probably a way off but in my opinion it is the only way On Demand is going to gain market share form Netflix. I look forward to what the future holds for Comcast On Demand but for now I am staying a Netflix customer.
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2 comments:
I haven't in movies in a while too. I have been ordering movies on our On Demand because it is more convenient for me. Did you know we are extending VOD rentals to 2 days?
Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I will make sure that it is passed on to the right department.
Regards,
Mark Casem
Comcast Corp.
National Customer Operations
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com
So here's why I decided to go BACK to Blockbuster:
My LCD TV is native 1080p.
Comcast doesn't have On-Demand 1080p Blu-ray quality movies, and thus there is pixelation during very fast scenes, i.e. action, super-hero movies, scifi, etc. Explosions pixelate horribly. Primarily reds and oranges, but all colors have this problem.
Not an issue in a drama, but in an action film, it is very noticeable. I have no such trouble when I watch a Blu-ray film, so obviously Comcast's 1080i movies are the culprit. Add in their supposed compressing of the signal and you end up with a mess.
Now, normally, even 720p would be an advantage over 1080i, because its "progressive scan," but even switching over the DVR's output to 720p still leaves pixelation in fast scenes. This must be due to the fact that it's going out over a cable, and not coming into the tv directly from my Blu-ray player.
So, Blockbuster is the only way to cheaply watch Blu-ray quality films without any pixelation.
The picture is GLORIOUS. And worth the trip to the video store.
It's like 1985 for me all over again, though. Oh, well.
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