Amazon Prime v Netflix v Hulu+

**sblatner** · 08-02-2012, 07:54 PM

I know about Netflix and Amazon Prime. We have Netflix but are less and less impressed with their choices of movies. They have really cut back in the past year.

Amazon Prime is available if you pay the $79 per year for free shipping at Amazon. Not only do you get free shipping on Amazon purchases but you get free movies at Amazon on Roku. Not all movies are free. We have found the first run movies to be $5.99 for digital and $4.99 for non-digital. Probably the free movies on Amazon Prime are similar to Netflix. We do find the Amazon Prime to be a worthwhile investment between the shipping and free movies.

Also, a friend just told us about vudu.com - it looks like all movies are $2 each for 48 hours rental. That is all I know about that system.

**MonkeyMama** · 08-03-2012, 08:00 AM

Netflix is the cheapest and the best. When I say "best" - I just mean ease of use and quality. Selection is huge, when it comes to TV. I am not much of a movie watcher. Heck, not much of a TV watcher so I haven't seen most of the shows that are on netflix.

Hulu/Hulu Plus has been really glitchy for us (streaming to TV). But, has more current programming. Our roku box has been a little wonky with Hulu, and we attribute a lot of that to the Roku/Hulu mix. Roku/Netflix is flawless. Playstation/Hulu works okay. Just this week there is a new Hulu glitch where a commercial soundtrack keeps playing over any show we watch. SO annoying. Took us a while to narrow down the problem to Hulu and to figure out exactly what the music was (a Chevron commercial?). Usually it just feeezes up a lot.

To watch a lot of Hulu content on your TV you have to have a workaround like Playon. If you subscribe to Hulu Plus they don't let you just stream it all to your TV - a lot of the regular Hulu programming is "web only." Just FYI. There are workarounds.

We have not bought any roku channels but there is tons of free/good content.

Amazon Prime we have skipped because it just didn't have anything that we liked or that wasn't covered with netflix and Hulu. We sometimes buy shows from Amazon though - ones we can not find anywhere else. The shows just stream to our TV. We had a free trial of Amazon Prime at some point. It just hasn't been a good fit for us. But we are already pretty settled with netflix, Hulu and Blockbuster Online. {My dh is a movie buff so we keep Blockbuster for the Blu Rays and new releases. We are grandfathered under some awesome plan - not that I'd recommend signing up with them today. But this is why we are less concerned with movie selection}.

**dawnwes** · 08-03-2012, 09:40 AM

I only have Amazon prime for the expedited and free shipping. I occasionally watch something, but honestly, the selection is not that great. I wouldn't choose it for the streaming.

I love Netflix. I have watched several older TV series shows on it.

Hulu+ I have but rarely use it. I am strongly considering ditching it. I haven't used it in 2 months but I keep thinking that is because it is summer time and everything is in re-runs.

Most of the shows I watch are CBS shows (I am a crime show junkie!) and Hulu+ doesn't carry CBS shows.

Dawn

**tan fish** · 08-07-2012, 06:42 PM

Thanks for the replies all. I did get my Roku a few days ago, and fired up the free sample periods for both Netflix and Amazon Prime.

So far, I am liking it very much. But let me say, I was very surprised at how poor the selection was of free channels on Roku. I can see why one almost MUST have a subscription to the paid channels if they want to get quality content. There are a lot of choices for free channels but a lot of it is redundant, with poor video quality, etc.. The only free channels that seem to offer quality content so far are Revision 3, Twit, and the WSJ channel. Of course, that's just my subjective opinion.

Anyway, so far I am liking both Netflix and Amazon Prime. However, I am REALLY dismayed at the fact that AP has no subtitles for their videos, which is something I would really like to have since my wife is not a native English speaker and having subtitles is really helpful for her. There is simply no option at all to add closed captions/subtitles. I'd think this would really alienate the hearing impaired community out there. So, its likely I will not be upgrading to Amazon Prime after my free month trial is over.

**nukedog** · 08-10-2012, 06:17 PM

I like this idea as I was just thinking about doing the same thing today. I had no idea what a roku is though. I was just thinking of getting a netflix subscription and trying to figure out how to get it on the tv. I have to have comcast as a cable provider in my apartment so I was thinking of cutting the cable tv and keeping the net. Is there a way to do this without having to upgrade to wifi? I'm still thinking about how I can get off of paying for renting the router as it is. Also, how do you talk a glued to the tv wife into doing this?

**tan fish** · 08-10-2012, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by nukedog View Post

I like this idea as I was just thinking about doing the same thing today. I had no idea what a roku is though. I was just thinking of getting a netflix subscription and trying to figure out how to get it on the tv. I have to have comcast as a cable provider in my apartment so I was thinking of cutting the cable tv and keeping the net. Is there a way to do this without having to upgrade to wifi? I'm still thinking about how I can get off of paying for renting the router as it is. Also, how do you talk a glued to the tv wife into doing this?

nukedog - It is quite easy to hook up your computer to a TV using cables. For a long time I just routed an HDMI cord out of my computer video card and into my TV. If you don't have HDMI ports, you could use the standard AV cables.

Not sure what you mean by "upgrading" to wifi. You can install wifi for free in your apartment by using a wifi router (though the router will cost you some $ to purchase).

I have time warner cable, who provide both internet and cable tv. What I did is kept internet and basic cable TV (just for live sports) and dropped my expanded tv bundle. However, once I did that my "discount" on my internet service was eliminated and the bastards rose the price on me. Anyway, with Roku and having both a netflix and amazon prime subscription, I'm still paying about $25 less a month than I was before.

**SnapDuck** · 08-13-2012, 12:54 PM

I'm a big fan of Netflix. My wife and I have been using it since we canceled our dish in April. They have a large selection of good TV shows that are available for streaming. I recently wrote a blog post listing the shows that we've enjoyed and was surprised by the number of shows/episodes/hours that made them it up. I think we could probably watch just the current content alone for years.

**tan fish** · 08-14-2012, 07:39 PM

Originally posted by SnapDuck View Post

I'm a big fan of Netflix. My wife and I have been using it since we canceled our dish in April. They have a large selection of good TV shows that are available for streaming. I recently wrote a blog post listing the shows that we've enjoyed and was surprised by the number of shows/episodes/hours that made them it up. I think we could probably watch just the current content alone for years.

SnapDuck - Link to your blogpost?

**justericka** · 08-16-2012, 04:17 PM

i have hulu plus, hbogo, netflix, and amazon prime. thoes are the ones i watch the most..i tried playon, but my computer isnt good enough to run that for me. my total cost for amazon prime was 37$ on a special, so that was a good savings, i may not renew that one when the year is up unless i can find another good deal on that for myself. i will keep the others tho. my hulu and my netflix cost me 16$ a month, and i get my hbogo from my moms dish account, she doesnt use it, but she lets me.

i love my roku, and have had it for about 6 months. hope you enjoy yours as much.

**debtupset** · 08-20-2012, 08:12 AM

Hulu plus- not enough content for the price. Less content than free hulu.com. So we just watch hulu.com on our laptop for free.

Netflix- decent for the price. Getting better with newer movies. We found that we just mostly used it to watch TV shows we couldn't because they were on cable, or older episodes of shows we enjoy.

Amazon Prime- we order a lot on amazon so getting free 2 day shipping as a member makes it worth the price. However, their content is good and growing. It's a close second to netflix's streaming.

None of these replace a good video rental store, sad that they're gone. You can't just watch what you want anymore unless you buy it.

**SnapDuck** · 08-20-2012, 12:34 PM

Originally posted by tan fish View Post

SnapDuck - Link to your blogpost?

I guess I need some more posts to level up and be able to put links but my blog is Get Worth on blogspot. I have the Netflix post in the navigation at the top. Make sure to add anything worth watching in the comments. My goal is to keep the list growing to keep people from feeling the need to get dish/cable.

**Tree0164** · 08-20-2012, 01:03 PM

We went down the most basic of cable ($10). We bought a roku player for our upstairs bedroom and have the wii for downstairs.

I have been very happy with Netflix and not so much with Hulu. I not only have them on my tv but use them on my mobile devices as well. I like Netflix much better. Hulu Plus doesn't allow everything to be played on tv or mobile devices especially cable programs.

I may drop Hulu plus since I don't tend to watch much of that

**BrokeMike** · 08-28-2012, 11:33 AM

What are you looking for in terms of sports?

I haven't used it in a while, but Xbox 360 had a great selection of college sports available LIVE.

They also have Hulu and Netflix. Could be worth checking that out as well.

**cashrich** · 11-02-2012, 01:21 PM

I am thinking to get a ROKU, but have a question - does it have any parental control features. I have setup Parental Controls with my cable TV, so thats something would like to have in the replacement device, roku or anything similar out there

thanks guys!

Amazon Prime v Netflix v Hulu+