Netflix losing streaming content?

[Yeargdribble]

My wife and I were going through a marathon of Star Trek movies on Netflix this week. We watched them all streaming on the PS3, but today, Star Trek VI isn't available. I was certain it was available yesterday, but I could've been mistaken.

So I looked. Star Trek I-V were also unavailable. We watched Star Trek V LAST NIGHT. Also, none of them are showing up under our recently watched list.

I checked on the website where they were also streaming only. WTF happened? I thought Netflix was supposed to be adding streaming content and moving away from discs. What happened and how did it happen so suddenly.

BRB, off to pirate the movie now.

[NorthernChaosGod]

And this is why I just pirate movies.

[Shlup]

Netflix rotates their streaming content. Always have.

[Miriel]

It has to do with licensing issues. Certain movies are only allowed to be streamed for a certain amount of time. So Toy Story will be available for streaming for a month, and then they'll switch it to UP, and then to Cars.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Huh. The more you know.

[Bunny]

Netflix rotates their streaming content. Always have.

It has to do with licensing issues. Certain movies are only allowed to be streamed for a certain amount of time. So Toy Story will be available for streaming for a month, and then they'll switch it to UP, and then to Cars.

These ladies are smart.

Did I just say Shlup was smart?

[Yeargdribble]

So what's the average amount of time on the rotation?


... you know what would be useful? If they would let you see ahead of time if something will be available for streaming and when; also when something will cease to be available. This would allow me to plan accordingly. Son, I am disappoint.

[Miriel]

I'm pretty sure that as streaming content becomes the norm, the studios will start to ease up on a lot of these licensing restrictions. It's just up to companies like Netflix (and Amazon) to negotiate better terms with them. It really is the future, so I don't think it should take too long before we see a ton more streaming content and for longer periods of time.

[kotora]

lol 21st century and still no real decent alternative to either pirating or buying physical discs

[Bunny]

lol 21st century and still no real decent alternative to either pirating or buying physical discs

Pirating is really the only alternative. Discs suck and are too fragile to be useful.

[Shlup]

So what's the average amount of time on the rotation?


... you know what would be useful? If they would let you see ahead of time if something will be available for streaming and when; also when something will cease to be available. This would allow me to plan accordingly. Son, I am disappoint.

It depends on what they're licensing. There's a large chunk of stuff that I'm pretty sure is always available streaming. Stuff owned by Disney, for example, has to rotate a lot because Disney is greedy (but I loves them).

Netflix is going to be focusing more on their streaming content in the future and will be leaving more hard-copy stuff to companies like Red Box, so I'm sure they'll get better deals with companies in the future so they can expand their content and not have to take things down as much.