You don't have to set aside time to watch movies on HBO / Starz?
It's a little different. HBO/Starz is just there with a good spread of movies across channels, including reruns of things I've not seen in years (and may have forgotten about) in the early hours of the morning. If I rented a movie from Netflix, it may be sitting collecting dust for months or year before I get around to it, assuming I could make selections of things to rent. I may not think to rent Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but I did watch it a few weeks back.
HBO and Starz comes into my home along with other channels (Penny Cinemax, HDNet/HDNetM, etc.) that amount hundreds of movies each week. I don't have to pick anything, it's just 'there'. I may be willing to watch movies that are on without committing to them using a rental program.
For instance, I thought Ali G Indahouse was a riot, but I would've never rented it through a rental service. Yes I am aware it's available on Netflix streaming, though last I saw it wasn't available in HD streaming. I also watched Stepbrothers this past week.
I was a Netflix customer when they first launched, and I subscribed again when the Xbox service came out. MOST of the good movies are not on the streaming service. The idea is great, don't get me wrong, but as long as they're restricted from streaming a significant amount of movies, it's not worth the money. Some movies are allowed to stream to PC that cannot be streamed to Xbox as well. If Microsoft offered an "All you can eat" of their streaming content on the Xbox Live service, I'd consider paying for such a thing... The PQ from what I've seen is quite good for their HD and SD stuff and they have a deeper assortment of content.
I use Hulu with Playon. I bought it during when Playon was doing their discount promotion a few months ago. It's cool for what it is.
Assuming you can find a movie worth watching on Netflix streaming, if you want it in HD, you need to have at least an 8mb pipe. Seeing as those buttheads at TW couldn't deliver me anywhere near their 15/3 commercial service I attempted to pay 90 a month for, and my DSL carrier does 5/1 (since I'm 15K feet away from the CO), that's just not going to happen.
I'd really rather Dish use the transponder space for something like additional HD feeds for regional sports nets, because satellite / cable providers are the only possible place to get that programming in HD.
I'm not interested in watching minor league and reruns. There isn't exactly a deep blend of content on CSNNE or NESN and I get the major games in HD. I'd like my locals in HD but that hasn't happened yet.
