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Netflix Users More Likely To Use Both Discs And Streaming, According To Report

What do you use Netflix for?

For many, that may have a simple answer that starts with a web browser or a television, and ends with   a film streaming directly on their video watching medium.   However, Home Media Magazine, the most common answer to that question may be a bit shocking.

According to a recent poll, of 1,200 respondents 80% of users use their DVD rental service to use both the physical discs, along with the streaming, as compared to just 11.3% who simply rented the discs and 8.7% who just stream their content.

Netflix also recently launched their Watch Instantly services in Canada, and also heavily hinted that a streaming-only option will be available in the States soon.

Now, personally, I don’t find this all that shocking.   I know that while I do a majority of my Netflix using on their streaming side, I do still use the discs about as often as possible.   The only thing keeping me from using the discs more is the speed behind getting them, which while not too lengthy, is something inherently longer than streaming.   I can watch double digit films in the time between discs, and really, the two, streaming and discs, are used best when used together.

While there are a considerable number of Criterion films available on Netflix Watch Instantly, the threat of them expiring is enough to make many fans get the discs over their streaming counterparts. That along with the inherit loss in video and audio quality, means that it’s going to be a while before streaming trumps physical Criterion discs. If, one day, Netflix has 1080p streaming, and there is universal high speed broadband, then it might be a no-brainer to just get everything over the internet. Until then, keep those discs coming.

However, that’s just me.   What do you use your DVD renting service for?

Source: Home Media Magazine

Joshua Brunsting

Josh is a critic, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, a wrestling nerd, a hip-hop head, a father, a cinephile and a man looking to make his stamp on the world, one word at a time.

3 comments

  • I’ve only been a member of Netflix for 2 months,already using Streaming and DVD.Initially,had planned to only use streaming,but several titles are only available on DVD.–eg-my favorite British TV dramas.

  • I would prefer if Netflix had the ability to stream all the latest movies that comes to DVD but it doesn’t. For example, Sony’s PlayStation Store Network streams many movies simultaneously as the DVD release. So yeah, I stream movies, but I rent the latest DVD releases.

  • Yeah, this statistic seems like a no-brainer to me–I like streaming Netflix stuff when I can, but such a huge portion of their catalog is still DVD only. So until a much higher percentage of their catalog is on streaming, it’ll still be the ‘both’ option for a while.