jamrav hcheetah valean
Tabita Knezevic
Someone out there might find it mildly collectible in that there might be a finite number of them. But it hasn't been relevant or needed in like 12 years. The Wii used a downloaded app for Netflix streaming which made the disc obsolete. And now the Netflix wii "channel" doesn't work at all.
Just hold on to it, and get one of those custom case inserts printed and put both in a spare Wii case. Sell it as a rare collectible when the Wii prices start spiking in the near future. You will see a VERY nice return on this disc some years from now.
It does count as part of the Wii set, as it is an officially approved title, even though it isn't a game. Completionist collectors will also want the paper sleeve, which is already missing from a lot of discs.
Hell I'd want one for the novelty, but only if it was a buck. Not saying $5 was foolish though, because I have easily done many far more foolish things in my 30 years of collecting (including buying things twice).
For more than a decade, Netflix has been known primarily as a streaming-video service. But the original version of Netflix was a much slower form of video-on-demand: red envelopes stuffed with physical DVDs, delivered via the postal service.
Netflix announced yesterday that it's finally ending the discs-in-the-mail version of Netflix on September 29, 2023, just over 26 years after the company was founded. DVD returns will be accepted until October 27.
"After an incredible 25 year run, we've made the difficult decision to wind down at the end of September," reads a Netflix FAQ page explaining the decision. "Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members, but as the DVD business continues to shrink, that's going to become increasingly difficult. Making 2023 our Final Season allows us to maintain our quality of service through the last day and go out on a high note."
The streaming version of Netflix was originally launched as an add-on to the disc-mailing service in early 2007 before becoming its own dedicated subscription separate from the DVD business. By the end of the 2000s, streaming had already overtaken the mail version of Netflix in popularity, and by late 2010, the company began offering a separate streaming-only subscription tier.
The only major change Netflix has tried to make to its DVD service since splitting it from the streaming service was an ill-fated rebrand attempt in 2011. "Qwikster" would have been spun off from Netflix and run as an independent unit, and it would also have expanded into video game rentals (games used to come on discs, too, once upon a time). The Qwikster rebrand was abandoned after just three weeks, and the plan to expand into game rentals was laid to rest just a few weeks after that.
Netflix says it has shipped over 5 billion discs to subscribers since 1997. Current subscribers will be able to download a PDF copy of their rental history for posterity any time between now and October 27, when that data will be deleted (along with your mailing address and other data related to the DVD version of Netflix).
Well, it finally happened: After 25 years and having shipped a reported 5 billion discs in that quarter of a century, Netflix is finally (officially) dismantling its physical-media-by-mail business. The motley but still extremely vast collection of DVDs and Blu-ray discs that called DVD.com home are being left to a presumably grim fate, one I had become all too certain of when I wrote what amounted to a preemptive obituary for the service in 2021. At the time, I suggested the likelihood that as a resolute Netflix DVD customer who was still paying $8 per month even though my usage of the service had slowed to a crawl, I would probably end up going down with the ship. This week, I finally know for certain that will be the case, as Netflix plans to ship its final discs on Sept. 29, 2023. When that happens, it will truly be the end of a major era in home entertainment.
This marks the end of an era for me. I joined Netflix in 1998 when my first DVD player, a Toshiba branded deck, came with a card that offered a free trial for an unlimited DVD by mail service. At the time, the service cost $15 a month and you could have 4 disks at a time. I remember wondering, when I first signed up, how are they going to send me a DVD by mail, considering that I was used to getting DVDs encased in those jewel boxes. Little did I know that they had designed those now ubiquitous red-and-white sleeves.
I held on to the service for a few years until I moved to New York, mostly because I thought that the DVDs had to come from California, where the company was based. Little did I know that the service had gone national.
I re-upped in 2004, partly in an effort to get the airline-mile bonus that Netflix offered to new customers. At the time, the subscription offered only three disks for almost $20 per month, and over the years, I scaled back to two disks, then to one disk, and, after this week, to none.
Not happy at all about Netflix DVD going away. I've been using it since my freshman year of college (so...2005? Shit, I feel old) and despite using it very regularly (and shifting between 1 to 3 DVDs at a time), I've still got 400 movies in my queue. Dammit.
I'll miss my Netflix DVDs coming in the mail. While we stream regularly, we also get DVDs for those movies/series that we can't stream (HBO Max, Disney+, etc). We also like to watch classic movies once in a while and Netflix DVDs was our choice. RIP Netflix DVDs
I think a lot of film buffs like to use DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K discs to supplement whatever streaming services they may be subscribed to. No one service has everything, subscribing to lots of services is expensive, and constantly juggling subscriptions is a pain in the butt. With discs you can just keep the streaming services you use most frequently, and then use discs to fill in the holes.
I know, I know, this is America, the land of the $. If you live in a low population area, ie rural, the cable companies ain't gonna bother with you - not enough $$. So, you pay more for less with satellite. That's why Netflix DVD's are, soon to be were, such a boon. I think i watched every movie from Argentina starring Ricardo Darin. And, Picard. And...so many more. Weekend evening - good movie - snacks ...
Back in the day, I was able to get all a but a very few of Roger Ebert's Greatest Films of All Time on DVD through Netflix. It was an amazing "course" on the history of film and film techniques, in addition to enjoyable viewing. Good luck on finding even a handful of those on Netflix streaming where you find "movies" not "films."
I think that says something interesting about streaming versus checking out a DVD. I it seems to me that there are two ways to watch media content: browsing until you find something you like, versus going in search of a specific movie/show. Streaming works very well for the former, but it can be a nightmare for the latter(as finding out whether a specific movie/show is even available, let alone on what streaming service and for how long, is difficult). But if all you want to do is browse until you find something you would enjoy watching right now, streaming is very convenient. Even the worst streaming service probably has one or two things available you would not mind watching tonight.
So if you are someone whose primary way of consuming contact is browsing, you probably wonder what all the fuss about the loss of the Netflix DVD service is all about. But if you are someone who generally plans your media viewing in advance (in the old days you actually used TV Guide to figure out what you would be watching each evening) not being able to locate the specific content you want to watch is very problematic.
This is separate from concerns about the general decrease in the amount of film and television content which will remain available, and the starving of the public domain due to excessive copyright length. I am mostly concerned about Netflix shutting down its DVD service because of this, and because the reality is that a lot of people living in rural areas do not have the bandwidth to be able to stream anything. But even without the Netflix DVD service, I know there is already so much quality content out there that I cannot possibly stream all of it no matter how hard I try.
Because I have an old television with only two HDMI slots I am using my Blu-ray player to stream, and I only have been streaming Netflix (although I could also stream Amazon Prime if I wished to). Netflix getting rid of its DVD by mail service is prompting me to rethink cutting the cord and putting a Roku in that second HDMI slot. Then I could subscribe to PBS Passport, Kanopy, the Criterion Channel, and maybe MUBI, Curiosity, and Max (if they keep the Turner Classic Movies content available) in addition to Netflix and Amazon Prime. I could also sign up for the rent by mail service that Scarecrow Video offers. Together, that would give me far more fresh turkey every day than I could possibly eat!
In the early days of Netflix streaming they had a bunch of really low budget indie films. Some looking like they were shot on SD tape. I kinda liked those movies and was glad that Netflix gave them a chance. I suppose it was like the early days of cable TV when the goal was to just get anything on the air to sell ads against.
The last two episodes of Picard were the best Star Trek we've seen I think since either "In the Pale Moonlight" or "First Contact". I know it probably won't happen, but Jean-Luc...I mean Patrick Stewart...deserves an emmy nomination for his work this season. Just absolutely masterful
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