Back when I was attending Franklin Pierce, we were having a conversation about quality in software, to which one of the students replied “Hey! If it weren’t for quality control, quality would run rampant in this country!” Truer words were never spoken.
Last night, we tried to sit down to watch a movie. This used to be a weekly thing – I would make tacos and we’d watch a rental DVD. We haven’t been able to do that for a long time, so last night we watched DaVinci Code. Or at least we tried to. 3/4 of the way through chapter 13, the DVD froze. It tried to get through the scene, skipped around a bit, no sound, then just stopped. I took out the DVD and cleaned it off, noticing a lot of scratches and pits in it. Second try, we were able to get a bit further in the scene, then it stopped again. Several more cleanings got it through 13 and into 14, but after half an hour wasted I decided that it was a wasted endeavor. It was already 11pm and we were only an hour and a half into the movie, with half an hour wasted on the same three minutes. I reported it as a bad disc to Netflix, who responded that they would send another copy.
What annoyed me most about this is that we haven’t sat and watched a movie together in at least a year and a half. We finally try to do it and it’s like “sorry, nope, you’re not allowed to watch this movie!”
So what happened here? Obviously someone rented this disc and mistreated it. Gave it to the dog as a chew toy, the kids played frisbee with it. No one can be bothered to take responsibility for anything anymore, so they trash the disc and then send it back without saying anything. There is no honesty where money is concerned – who would step up and admit that they ruined something when it would cost them money? The attitude is “meh, it’s a rental, who cares? Let the next renter deal with it.” So thanks to a lie of omission, they’re off the hook and now Netflix has to deal with it.
This gives support to the download on demand services. The feature is built into XBOX Live now, and Netflix lets you download movies off their site for the cost of your membership (although to do that I would have to connect a cable to my laptop to plug into the television.) I guess some night I’ll have to test both options to see which one works better. The XBOX Live option is definitely easier, since it’s already hooked up to the television, but if I connect a cable between my laptop and television how good will the picture be? Our television isn’t HDMI capable, but my laptop is, so I have to use a converter cable. It would be nice if that worked, since we’re already paying for Netflix (movies from XBOX Live would cost extra.)