more re: Netflix and the sinking cost of home electronics

[passatdoc]

Was at my folks' yesterday in San Diego. On my last visit there (one week prior), I had purchased and installed for them a wireless N router. They occasionally use a laptop around the house but do most computing at their desktop computer. The real reason to go wireless was because their best friend, who recently moved from San Diego to Oregon, comes to visit on a quarterly basis and uses an iPhone. My dad had to drive him to Starbucks every morning at 7 am just to use the WiFi. Now they have WiFi at home so no more early Starbucks runs.

We bought the router at a nearby Best Buy. There were wireless N routers priced as low as $29. I chose a $39 Netgear N router, because their software makes installation a breeze. My home router is from c. 2008 and cost double that amount.

Yesterday, we decided to simplify their home video situation. They had two VCRs that they never use and a 26" CRT from the mid-90s. The tv resides in a beautiful built-in teak wall system of cabinets, and the space (39"x 23") places constraints on the size of tv's (it was built c. 1973 to accomodate a 19" tabletop tv....). I was hoping for a 37" model, but the ones at Costco were over 23" with stand and thus were too tall. We wound up with a choice between a number of 32" models, which in retrospect (couch from which they watch tv is eight feet away) seems fine, they are thrilled to have a widescreen picture after years of 26" tube tv.

What I wasn't prepared for was the price drop in HDTVs. I told them to expect to pay c.$500. To our astonishment, all three Vizio 32" models were priced $400-409, with one of them (the one with WiFi built in) enjoying a temporary $60 instant rebate, probably financed by one of the companies featured in the wireless apps set...). The non-WiFi sets did not enjoy the rebate, so it seems as if someone (Netflix?) is paying them to subsidize the sale of WiFi-enabled tv's.

Since they had added wireless at home already, I said "why not?". Took it home and all was connected and running in fifteen minutes. I added them to my streaming-only Netflix account and they were amazed at the selection and the fact that no one has to run to a video store or mail anything in. Rather than adding a DVD player at this time, we are going to wait and see whether Netflix is enough. They do have a large collection of videotapes and the solution would be either to buy a dual VCR/DVD player unit, or else convert all the tapes to DVD. I have a VCR/DVD <span style="text-decoration: underline;">recorder </span>that easily converts VCR to DVD. You just insert the tape and a blank DVD, hit "convert", and it does the rest (you do have to select the correct recording speed based on the speed at which the tape was recorded).

 

They are not sufficiently IT-astute to go online and add selections to the Netflix instant queue,

 

Anyway, I am amazed at what they now have for a $350 investment, plus the $40 spent earlier on the router (which brings other benefits, in particular not having to run their friend to Starbucks every morning for WiFi).

 

[mattl]

Prices are dropping as they always do for electronics.  I'm not a fan of wireless connections for anything more than laptops, but it sounds like you got lucky and got a decent signal.  I've got 4 or 5 streamers scattered around the house and all are hard wired.

 

What is their connection speed?  You really need a 6M connection for the higher quality NF selections.  They call then HD but they are really more DVD quality.  I wish I could justify a PS3 to get 1080 5.1DD  NF, but I'll get by with what I've got for now.

 

I'm  sure they are happy with the new system.    If you had gone with a basic wall mount odds are you could have got a bigger unit in.  It's funny, over the years in our library we went from a 14" to a 19" to a 26" finally to a 42" all in the same space with only minor modifications.  

 

[retropia]

We may have just been unlucky and purchased a lemon, but our Netgear router died after almost exactly one year. If that happens to your parents (I hope it doesn't), don't bother contacting customer support. They won't talk to you without first charging your credit card, and there are no refunds if they can't resolve your issue.

It turned out to be cheaper and much less hassle to simply toss the Netgear router in the trash and purchase another router. I went with an inexpensive brand called Tenda. If they are only going to last a year, why spend a lot? A computer store rep told me that the mechanicals are pretty much the same in all of them, regardless of price.

I agree that prices have dropped dramatically on electronic gear. As long as you don't have to be on the cutting edge and have the very latest features, there are good deals available.

 

[passatdoc]

I was told that Belkin routers recently have been junk, but mine at home has gone three years without a glitch. It's a "N+" router that is not dual band, but it has two external antennae and evidently is their top of the line non-dual router. Apparently it emits two signals in different dimensions, though both use the same band. We'll see how well it holds up.

As for my parents' Netgear router, we'll keep our fingers crossed. The software made it VERY easy to set up. I have a Linksys router at my office that is close to ten years old (G wireless, not N) and it still works fine.

I haven't done any download speed tests on my parents' computer. The space is 39 x 23 inches and has doors that close to hide the set when not in use. Above this cabinet are built in glass shelves with collectibles. Yes, a 37" unit could have been mounted in that space, by removing shelves, but the installer would likely have been murdered by my mother, since this is where she places antique treasures. For my folks, the ability to close the doors and conceal the tv is big. The custom built-ins are made of teak and were constructed in 1973. They still look spectacular. It's possible that another manufacturer (besides Vizio) makes a 37" set with a lower pedestal base and narrower bezel so as to keep total vertical height at below 23", which would have fit. Even so, there is less than an inch of vertical clearance between the top of the 32" Vizio and the top of the cabinet. This model has a fairly tall base and a first-generation wide bezel. There were two sleeker-looking Vizio units without WiFi, but none of them had a vertical height of under 23 inches.

When it was first built, it held a Hitachi 19" table top tv. Replaced c. 1979 by a Mitsubishi, also 19"....nothing larger in those days would fit, and cases were rectangular then. When the Mitsubishi died after nearly 18 years, they bought a squarish Magnavox I think 26", and I remember being limited in choice because some cases were more than 23" tall. There was not enough space to place a VCR next to the tv, so a hole was drilled between this cabinet and the cabinet to its left, so that wires could be connected between the tv and a vcr housed in the cabinet to the left.

 

[retropia]

We had an old Linksys router before the Netgear, and it was a tank. It lasted ten plus years and still worked, but it was getting glitchy, so we replaced it. I'm convinced new routers aren't built as well as the old ones were.

When the Netgear router died, I tried a mid-level Linksys. The E-Z install software froze one desktop computer during installation. They didn't list a phone number to call (they don't want you talking to anyone) and the online chat service wasn't working. So back to the store went the Linksys router.

Next I tried a mid-level Belkin. It worked, but there were frequent dropouts, several per hour. It just didn't seem to have enough range for our needs. I was, though, super impressed with their customer service. They had a telephone number to call, which led to a lady in India, who was surprisingly helpful. Lifetime free customer support, she said. Then I contacted Belkin technical support by email to try to resolve the dropped connections issue. That fellow was super responsive, and gave me lots of suggestions, but unfortunately nothing helped so it went back to the store, also.

The Tenda router was on sale for $20, and so far, it's working like a charm. I suspect their customer service is lacking just like Linksys and Netgear, but I'm hoping I won't need any.

 

[launderess]

Electronics

Prices have been dropping for awhile now, especially on "mature" items such as HDTVs. I mean aside from a few new bells and such there really isn't anything "new" about to justify higher prices.

Consider also that consumers aren't spending, the housing market is in the WC, and inventory has to move somehow. It's not going to be shipped back overseas so ways have to be found to move it on.

 

[passatdoc]

I had to call Belkin tech support when I set up the home router three years ago. In order to use WEP security (I now use WPA-PSK, but not then), you had to select a key composed of hexadecimal characters. I should have googled the unfamiliar term "hexadecimal" at the time. I assumed it meant "base six" (actually, it's base sixteen) and that one could only use digits 0 through 6. I called to make sure this was the case. Spoke to tech support in India where I was told I could use digits 0-9 and letters A-F (because it's base sixteen). Anyway, they were helpful, and the key I selected worked.

@Laundress: I agree. The "new" features I'm seeing, in addition to Wifi (which I think is useful), are ambient light sensors and 3-D. Due to the need for glasses, I think the status of 3-D is basically what some pundit in the 1950s said: Dead, Dead, Dead. They can make the bezels smaller, so that the sets will fit in smaller places, but there isn't much left they can do to improve the feature set.

 

[launderess]

The Last Big Push

Came when the country moved to digital television about a year or so ago. This forced many hanging onto older sets to buy new, but that surge is largely over.

Aside from maybe trading up to a larger set and or adding one to a room without until housing construction picks up don't look for any huge increase in sales for large goods/electronics.

What is welling are the smaller items like tablets,I-Phones, etc. This will increase in the next few weeks as the back to school crowd/off to college needs to be fitted out.

 

[passatdoc]

My folks are on cable, so their CRT tv still worked in the digital era. They are having Goodwill Industries pick it up, it still works fine, the remote works, and it would still work for someone with cable or with a $50 digital>>analog adapter box. Simply connecting the coax cable to the tv yielded quite a few HD channels, so they will ditch their cable box. I am going to ditch my HD cable box as well: I recently hooked up the cable right to the tv, did a new channel scan, and found that of the 98 or so channels, only 35 are still analog and the rest are digital, including plenty of HD channels. So my bill will drop from $68/month to about $42/month for "enhanced' service. THey charge a $10-15 monthly rental fee for the stupid box.

I agree with your observations: the people I saw buying tv's. Mostly older and retired couples making their first venture into HDTV. In fact, another retired couple tied up the section manager so we had to make our own selection based on dimensions and features (as opposed to manager's recommendations)....we were disappointed not to be able to accommodate a 37" set, but there were three 32" models, one of which had the built-in WiFi we were hoping to find.

I didn't see any young or middle aged people buying tv's. This market often comes in with very different questions: how many external inputs/outputs, what kind of connections are available, etc., because they or their kids want to hook up peripherals. Older customers are mainly concerned with getting it to work!! My parents didn't have that issue because I accompanied them.

My parents currently don't have a DVD player (they can play DVDs on their computers if need be) and I suppose a stand-alone DVD player might be a reasonable addition to their set up, and of course we'd look for one with an HDMI output (the players you see for $30-40 typically lack HDMI outputs unless they are refurbished). You still have to pay $50-100 to get HDMI outputs.

I still have one CRT tv left at home, in the garage. It is a c.2005 flat tube 20" Phillips with stereo speakers, sound is decent. I have it paired to an old vcr and my very first c. 1999 Samsung DVD player, which was in the living room until the HDTV made it obsolete (player didn't have HDMI outputs to tv). The 13 year old Samsung still works fine, except that one of the composite color outputs is broken, so I have to use S-VHS for my video output. When/if it breaks, I guess I could replace with a $29 simple DVD player, but the really low end ones offer only composite or S-VHS outputs (not even three color component outputs).

I still have one location inside the house that plays videotapes: in 2005, I bought a DVD recorder/VCR recorder combination deck that still works. It was made for people who wanted to convert VHS to DVD (transfer is very easy) and for those who wish to record programs to DVD in the manner of a VCR: you program the start/stop times, channel, and speed, but it makes either a permanent DVD recording, or you can use DVD-RW and record over and over again (if you record a weekly show, etc.). I use it mainly to make permanent recordings of movies from Turner Classic Movies channel, which has no commercial interruptions.

 

[mattl]

You may be Ok for now without a cable box but many (most?) of the cablecos are switching to a system that will require a box at some point - extra income for their bottom line.  I've been on SAT for a decade and a half so the only real experience I've had was a few months ago with my cousin in Chicago. She has computers connected to her displays and uses WIN 7.  She had used media center for TV viewing but her tuner card died for what ever reason.  When I stayed with her I updated her systems and popped  new tuner cards into her system and found none of the channels were available.  Some showed up on odd freq. but none matched the guide.  I went online and found that RCN had gone digital a while back and lots of people were upset, the only option was to use the cable box and tune it remotely via Media center.  She was hoping to ditch her boxes and DVRs, but no go.

 

 

 

 

 

[petek]

I had a time prodding my elderly mom (now 87) into getting rid of her old 20" tv which was housed in their old 80's "Entertainment Center" along with dads stereo stuff, vcr etc. The reasons were because of course it had been my dads stuff but he died back in 94 and as I told her, him being a somewhat electronics junkie he would have gotten rid of it long ago and already had himself a new flat screen tv etc. That seemed to work plus it could always go downstairs into the rek room. Bottom line is she's really happy with her new 42" Samsung and she's had no problem whatsoever with the remote, one of my big worries; That being said our cable co. recently sent her a cable box since they are switching to all digital, those customers like her that do not subscribe to digital now need this little box. Good thing is though,,the remote for the box is extremely plain and even simpler to use than the tv's remote.

 

[passatdoc]

My folks's built-in cabinets are made of teak and were custom built in 1973. They still look beautiful and contemporary, the glass shelves show off their treasures, etc., but they weren't built for the advent of large HDTV's. In order to hang a set on the wall, they would have to move a painting worth in the mid five figures, so we have to work with the original tv space. The 32" set fits nicely in the space and looks like the cabinet was built to accomodate it, as opposed to something entirely filling the space which might have been possible had any of the 37" units had lower height profiles (the bezels are under 23" but the stands push the height over 23").

Petek, thanks for the heads up. The reason I tried to go box-less is from another thread here on this topic, someone advised doing a new channel scan and it worked, I discovered more HD content than I realized was there (of 98 channels scanned, about 2/3 were digital and only 1/3 analog). Some of the digital channels are not full HD, but with the $25/month savings, I don't care. I hated the box because it wasted energy. It was warm-to-hot even in standby mode, I can only guess how much electricity it wasted. I would leave the thing unplugged unless I actually watched tv, and once plugged in it needed several minutes to boot up, like an old tube tv. I will be so glad to be rid of it and I'm dropping it off at an acceptance center today (Cox Communications contracts with certain Mail Boxes Etc locations here as drop-off locations for boxes so customers don't have to drive 15 miles to one of the Cox offices).

 

[passatdoc]

HD box

Just called Cox with my issues: DVR box runs hot, pulls power even when switched off. I told them I would just hook up the cable to the tv. They told me they have a new HD box (with HDMI output) for those who don't wish to record. Unit runs cooler because there is no hard drive. I said I would try it, since I do enjoy the nearly 100 HD channels, most of which don't appear with the cable hooked right into the tv. Of course, this keeps my cable bill at the higher rate. If this doesn't work, I'll ditch the HD box and go back to straight-in cable (and save myself $25/month).

 

[whirlcool]

Streaming Video Vendors

On our local news this morning they mentioned that NetFlix has issued a earnings warning. Their stock has sunk 10% since their price increase announcement, with more losses expected. Will they go the way of Blockbuster?

It used to be in our area there were quite a few video rental stores in our area.
Now there is only one left, and that's a BB that's about 8 miles away. All the others have shut down.

I have a cousin that uses Netflix, and her bill will jump from $8.95 per month to $14.95 per month for only 1 movie a month.

Walmart is starting VooDoo, their third try in the online movie rental business. But unlike NetFlix, their's won't be subscription based.

 

[passatdoc]

Allen---the price for streaming plus one-disk-out-at-a-time mail service used to be $10. I paid $9 because I signed up via Vizio, which had a negotiated discount for those who purchased their tv's or disk players equipped with Netflix.

The much-publicized price hike for the $10 crowd goes to $16 on September 1 (I think---my service change is effective August 1 because I responded quickly to the announcement). That's a 60% price hike. You can retain mail service only for $8/month, or only streaming for $8/month. Your cousin, if she doesn't stream, should be able to get mail only (one disk at a time) for $8. If she streams and has one disk at a time (as I do), her price will rise to $16. I opted to ditch the mail service, which I had never used, and just keep the streaming service, and my cost drops to $8/month.

I saw an interview with the CEO of Netflix and he acknowledged that they may lose customers, or that many of their customers may downgrade. However, he remained confident that many customers will chose to pay the higher cost. My take is that many subscribers either ignored the e-mails from the company or didn't understand what was at stake, but they'll understand when they see their bills rise. Netflix is also caught between a rock and hard place because studios are now demanding higher fees for their films to be streamed. No Sony titles are being streamed at the moment (pulled out of the Netflix offerings) because of fee disputes between Sony and Netflix.

 

[mattl]

Part of the issue with Netflix is that brand preference - what people thought of the company - went from extremely high to very sub par.  This was based of a two question survey that a great number of people participated in.  It was not just NF , NF was only one topic among many.

 

 

[DADoES]

 
My plasma panel is 4 months shy of 9 years old, so old it doesn't have HDMI. Prices have dropped ... yeah, no kidding, LOL.

Blockbuster here closed within the past month. There are no other rental sources (far as I'm aware) other than Redbox at Wal-Mart and wherever else they may be.

Sony is one I'd expect to be ornery on licensing fees. And WB. And Disney.

Distributors have moved to what's called "scale" for theater licensing fees. Instead of negotiating/determining the percentage terms up-front, there's an increasing aggregate scale based on the total gross pulled on the nation-wide run ... which of course said total isn't known until the run is over, so theaters don't know what are the terms until several months after a picture is done-and-gone. Weekly estimated payments are required. A "surprise" bill will come later, or (less likely) a credit that's held by the distributor for the next booking (which they don't acknowledge until months later, usually after other pictures have already run).

 

[whirlcool]

I forgot about those RedBox dispensers. We have them at just about every McDonald's and Walmart in the area. I never would have guessed that a vending machine would have such business, there is always a line of people waiting to use them.

 

[westie2]

We had the Red Box at our Wal Mart, Walgreene, and a couple gas stations here. We still have two rental companies too. We will be dropping the one at a time and keep the streaming. Will Red Box the ones we really want to see right now. If we really want a first run will go to our theater.