I saw this thread and decided to see what was happening in the Netflix community for BD rental. Seems things haven't changed in 2 years. You all are still playing that silly game with cutting turn around time. Back when I tried Netflix the main issue was the new releases sometimes took months to get because they really didn't have enough copies. The net cost of NetFlix was just too high for my budget.
Might I suggest you all just take a look at your local BlockBuster stores within easy travel distance and see what they offer in BluRay rentals. Then inquire about Movie Pass. They all offer Movie Pass in this area but none of them advertise it as a membership plan. I go to a BB store here that actually charges a bit more for Movie Pass than others in the area because they have the largest selection of Blu Ray titles in town. About 25% of the store is now Blu Ray titles. The new releases come in at 8 to 15 copies each and usually, I only wait 2-5 days on a popular title, unless I can manage to arrive on Tuesday at noon when the new titles are all on the shelf. Each week we get a blend of 4-5 new release titles in BD and about 2-4 titles that are older.
In case some of you aren't familiar with how Movie Pass works, its similar to Netflix except you have to travel to the store, browse the shelves and take your pick. You get billed a flat fee per month. Mine runs $29 per month charged to my CC and I can take 2 out at a time. If I exchange once per day, that's 60 per month. One month I believe I hit 50 but usually I get by 5 days a week for 40 per month average. For gamers my store has a game pass that can be added to the movie pass for another $20 but I'm not into games and just don't have that much time.
The BB store manager says that under test now are plans to reduce the old movies section at BB and offer digital copies to hard drives in Kiosks that are designed exclusively for BB. He said he has been to the training classes on the system. This will free up more room for additional copies of BluRay and new std DVD new releases plus more hardware sales.
Most people recognize that there are serious problems with the downloadable media, especially for BD releases. While we are getting faster and faster speeds through cable modems across the nation, these same cable ISP's are now restricting bandwidth to the point it becomes a problem that limits your use of downloadable media. In addition to limits being placed on bandwidth these days, BD content is better on the hard media because of the extra features and as has been mentioned additional audio.
Anyway, thanks for bringing me up to speed on what's happening in the Netflix society. I guess it hasn't changed much since when I tried it for a couple months two years ago. It was just too expensive, too slow, and too much management for me to like.