<p>SportsMama – I just got a Kindle Fire, which came with a free month of Amazon Prime. I am not even much of a TV watcher, and I have to say I am so impressed with the free Prime choices that I plan to pay for Amazon Prime in order to have viewing options available to me on an ongoing basis (and the free 2 day shipping, of course!)</p>
<p>I love streaming Netflix. I used to subscribe to both DVDs and streaming, but eventually dropped DVDs by mail after they split the service. Everyone in the house–3 adults–uses one account, and we haven’t run out of things to watch yet. I also use regular Hulu to watch some stuff, as well as the actual show websites (Smash, for example).</p>
<p>We don’t have cable, and I literally can’t recall the last time I actually used my tv to watch tv.</p>
<p>A related question - how much of their (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) content is streaming in High Definition? Is it most of it except of course for the old stuff that wasn’t shot in HD?</p>
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But I’d much rather watch a movie on my 55" flatscreen in room booming surround sound. I don’t mind watching some things on the PC but it’s definitely a different experience.</p>
<p>Frankly, I’m pretty disappointed in both Amazon Prime and Netflix streaming.</p>
<p>There is absolutely nothing to watch on Netflix streaming as far as movies. I’m frustrated that the movie distributors have such a tight hold on who gets to see movies. It’s about time that we as the public get to choose how we want to watch a movie: in the theatre, on our TV, on our PC, etc. I’m tired of the movie companies waiting six months after the movie is released to put it on DVD, then limiting what they will stream. Why shouldn’t I be able to watch a new release on my TV, if I don’t want to go to the theatre?</p>
<p>Right now we have pretty much run out of TV shows to watch on Netflix streaming. We are all caught up with the TV shows we watch and the current season isn’t available yet.</p>
<p>Streaming is a good idea in theory, but there are such tight controls on it, that one can’t really quit their cable/satellite.</p>
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<p>Ask one of your kids how to hook your laptop/PC up to your TV. Then you can watch any online content on any TV you want (including if you happen to find a TV show to watch for free on youtube…). Generally all it’ll take is a HDMI cable which you can pick up for a few bucks from monoprice.com (way cheaper than Best Buy or Radioshack).</p>
<p>^^ I’m very technically savvy (EE/CS person) so fortunately I don’t need to consult with my kids on this (although they’re technically savvy as well). My statement was in response to the poster who said they can’t remember the last time they used the TV to watch TV.</p>
<p>As far as connecting the laptop to the TV, a lot of the online content is low resolution that’d look terrible on a large screen. I have a Blu-Ray player that supports Netflix, Amazon, and many other streaming services so that’s what I’d use but the responses here on streaming content aren’t so encouraging.</p>
<p>SportsMama, I think the Amazon fee-per-tv-episode isn’t really a plan, just a purchase option. There’s a slight discount if you sign up for an entire season in advance, but you can change your mind and cancel the rest of the season any time. </p>
<p>For example: the spouse and I like “Mad Men” but we don’t have cable. Instead, we buy the current season from Amazon streaming. I’m charged just under $2 an episode, automatically billed to my card every week that a new episode comes out. I could pay an additional buck a week to get the HD version. Amazon makes the new episodes available the day after it airs (cables? 
) on HBO. Bottom line: we pay $8/month for a few months to watch the one HBO series we want to see, rather than paying $70 or more a month for cable tv. Works for us. </p>
<p>We like Netflix streaming, but we watch a lot of documentaries, foreign and indie films, and BBC shows. We’ve also been customers long enough for the Netflix algorithm to pretty consistently suggest things we’d never heard of but end up enjoying. Your mileage may vary.</p>
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<p>Generally the level of quality you’ll get for streaming is whatever you’d see on TV. If the show is available in HD, then you’ll likely have that quality. If it’s only in SD, then that’s what you’ll get (which will most likely look mediocre on any modern HDTV). I rarely wound up getting low quality video for content I knew had better quality available. The streaming sites tend to be much better about not having to buffer versus places like YouTube and Megavideo.</p>
<p>I should also mention the quality of your device doing the streaming can matter a little bit in the quality of your experience with a provider. I used to use a Wii for streaming and really liked the interface. I then got a 360 and found it to be laid out considerably worse. I now use my laptop since I generally have to hop between a few different sites to find exactly what I want (some TV shows aren’t on hulu/netflix/etc, but current seasons can be gotten off the network’s website).</p>
<p>We get both Netflix and Hulu Plus. I like both for different things and it’s cheaper than cable which we happily ditched.</p>
<p>Our house is like SlitheyToves, we watch a lot of documentaries and BBC, so we are happy with Netflix. I just finished watching fortysomething & Rescue Me, D has been watching Farscape & Doctor Who.</p>
<p>When you stream through your laptop you can use your iPod to control your viewing.</p>
<p>We haven’t had cable for 30 yrs. :)</p>
<p>Didn’t read the whole thread. Try Hulu Plus. We are using it to stream the most recent seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and The Office. You can watch it on your TV if it is hooked up to a PS3 or a Wii. </p>
<p>Yes the commercials are there but not as many (it doesn’t seem to me) as in the network broadcast. And Hulu is more up to date than Netflix for TV.</p>
<p>We have Netflix and like others, I find it hard to find things to watch. We are currently going through all the old “Monks” and went through “Lie to me”. We also have cable and periodically rent movies for $5 from them because they have a current selection. </p>
<p>I liked Breaking Bad until I realized that he couldn’t die or be arrested or the show would be over so now I only watch it periodically.</p>
<p>We use Netflix and like it, but I can see where some might not. We do mostly the streaming. We do get DVDs and increase the number in the summer. It is nice that it’s easy to change your service back and forth from 1 dvd, to 2-3, etc, or just cancel the DVDs. We, like a couple others here, got rid of cable and satellite, so we have just local channels, tivo and netflix. Netflix is frustrating in that it does seem to take forever for them to get any new movies…so we have hit redbox a few times. I have really loved discovering TV series that I missed when they were on, and like that I can just watch a full season, or 2 or 3…, with no commercials, but they are old seasons. There are also a lot of documentaries which I really like. Wish they had food network shows.</p>