
Movie Streaming Subscriptions: Netflix, Amazon Prime & Hulu Plus Compared - igald
http://piratealt.blogspot.com/2012/09/movie-streaming-subscriptions-netflix.html
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siegecraft
This misses the biggest "wtf" moment for me as a netflix user when I first
started using Hulu plus (ie I was actually paying for the service): there are
still ads!

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majormajor
Hulu Plus makes _much_ more sense when viewed as a cable alternative (where
there are also ads, but you pay a lot more) than a Netflix alternative.
Netflix is going to try to get into the first-run content market, but right
now if you don't have cable or OTA TV but want to be able to legally see any
shows during their season, for just a fixed subscription fee, Hulu Plus is the
option (though sadly it's missing a lot of stuff I'd like to see—I'd gladly
pay at least $20 if it covered all the major broadcast and cable channels'
original shows).

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markelliot
The problem with comparing Hulu to cable is that with my cable subscription
I'm free to record shows and play them back later - without the ads.
Similarly, the on demand content rarely includes ads, and when it does they're
sparse and extremely short.

I often find myself starting to watch live tv shows about 20 minutes late and
playing it as it records so that I can see the show the night it airs _and_
avoid ads.

When Hulu will let me do this, I'll drop cable. (that said, I realize the
premium I pay for these privileges and others with cable is steeper than it
should be)

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rdudekul
If not for the Netflix movie recommendation service, I would have missed out
on some of the best movies and documentaries I have seen in my life. On the
other hand I use Amazon prime primarily for free shipping.

What would be a better comparison would be a survey of how real users of these
services find them. Each service has its strengths and weaknesses. Comparing
the availability of top 100 IMDB movies isn't in my view a fair comparison.

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Steko
This is interesting, it certainly shows how few of the top few hundred are
available on any service. I'd love to see more services (Crackle, Hulu free,
etc.) for comparison. I also think you should turn the lookup around, start
with the list of movies avaialable and check the imdb/tomatoes/metacritic
rating. Then you could show relative counts i.e. how many have a rating of x
or better.

Other resources:

<http://instantwatcher.com/>

Is an up to date neflix only summary of what's available to stream including
by genre/subgenre. Very importantly it tells you what's about to expire.

<http://www.canistream.it/>

Shows availability for various subscription and on demand options. May be out
of date or failing at fuzzy matching. Great concept though.

The piratealts blogger made this wiki page showing other options as well:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_streaming_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_streaming_aggregators)

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igald
There is only one movie from the list (Metropolis) available on Hulu free.

Turning the lookup around is an interesting idea, it might provide a more
statistically meaningful result.

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Dystopian
As long as this is true - <http://i.imgur.com/3Jq9Y.png> \- the movie / TV
industry will need to continue working toward a service that's bigger and
better than Hulu Plus.

As it is right now, they're giving most users very little reasons to close
uTorrent and start moving over to legitimate alternatives.

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evoxed
Which is funny, because my mom gets more k-dramas than I ever dreamed existed
and yet last I checked I couldn't find _Pulp Fiction_ on any of these
services, save for what looks like 35 _different_ trailers for the feature
length movie...

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w1ntermute
That's because with K-dramas there isn't a huge existing market that would be
cannibalized.

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kevinconroy
I realize it's hard to compare them as data can be difficult to come by, but
if you say: "I believe that a good subscription service should not only offer
me movies that I know I want to watch, it should also expose me to new and
different cinematic experiences that I would have missed otherwise" then why
did you limit yourself to the Top 100 Movies?

Some of my favorite movies that I've seen on Netflix are foreign or
independent films that I had never heard of and are no where near to being in
the IMBD Top 100.

Perhaps you can do a follow-up based on the entire size of their movie
catalogs?

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igald
Do you mean going over the entire catalog and counting movies that are above a
certain rating (let's say 8.0)?

That's an interesting idea. I might go ahead and do that.

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bangbang
Note- The Amazon Prime subscription also includes other worthwhile services
(Free books, Free expedited shipping on other parts of their service, etc).

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trafficlight
I have Prime exclusively for the shipping, so streaming is just another bonus.

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ComputerGuru
I would venture to say most people do, since Prime predates the video part by
two or so years.

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pasbesoin
In my personal experience, more and more content -- e.g. items I have
previously queued -- has been disappearing from Netflix streaming. Which I
find ironic, given the big marketing push they made for streaming a year or a
bit more ago.

This is one aspect of an increasing personal discomfort with "subscription"
content services of all sorts. I think I'm about done with them and will go
back to purchasing "perpetual access" products, whether physical media or DRM-
free electronic distributions.

These better suit my patterns of acquisition, sometimes delayed consumption,
and the need and desire to go back and review / re-reference.

Worse than the middleman, is the middleman who insists in staying in the
middle (and profiting from it) forever.

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columbo
So why doesn't Amazon / Hulu have just as many movies as netflix? Is it a
licensing issue? It can't possibly be a bandwidth or availability issue.

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nicholassmith
I think it's a cross-licensing issue, companies obviously are pushing for
single service contracts to emphasis why people should come to their service.

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joshuaheard
I use Netflix primarily for movies, while I use Hulu Plus mainly for TV shows.
For example, Hulu Plus TV shows are usually available the day or so after
airing on TV, while Netflix TV shows are available when the season DVD is
released.

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iSloth
Is Amazon Prime the same as Amazon Love Film?

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justincormack
No. Sounds like you are in the UK/Europe. There is no streaming service
attached to Prime over here, Love Film is a separate streaming service. Prime
gives you free next day delivery.

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pwenzel
Meh. They all offer different things. I subscribe to all three.

