Netflix/Amazon Prime/Hulu Plus??

I agree that the Amazon Prime is worthless. The good shows or newer shows are not on the prime. You have to pay through the nose for them.

Netflix is awesome. But as the previous poster said, the kids watch it way more than I ever would.

I don't like Hulu. But my husband says he's starting to.

You can look at a couple questions I've asked or Jill asked regarding this recently:
http://www.mamapedia.com/questions/12008368715377868801
http://www.mamapedia.com/questions/13195797842079449089

I also live out in the country and do not have any bunny ear channels. Without the internet, we'd have nothing.

My opinion:

NETFLIX - $7.99/mo great to watch older episodes of tv (like all the previous seasons of Grey's Anatomy for example). Not great for current movies. There are a few, but not huge blockbuster hit movies. My son watches any and all tv shows on Netflix. Granted, he's 3, so once he watches Seasons 1 and 2 of Shaun the Sheep, he's ready to start all over again with season 1. "Repeat"

HULU - you can get a lot of stuff on Hulu for free. If you stay up-to-date on shows, you don't really need the plus. Again, take Grey's Anatomy for example. They have the latest 5 episodes available for free (episodes 6-10 currently). So you only need "PLUS" (I think $8?) if you want to see the other episodes from this season (1-5). Thurs night they'll add episode 11, so youll need PLUS to see episodes 1-6, with 7-11 being free. Get it? Hulu does not have any good movies. I do not have PLUS as I am patient enough to wait a week sometimes that they make non-payers wait. And I stay up to date on the shows, so haven't missed too many. If you're not sure what hulu offers as opposed to hulu-PLUS (cost $), just go to hulu.com, browse around. Search for your show. If there's a green PLUS symbol next to the thumbnail of the show, then you have to pay to see that video. If there's no plus symbol, then it's free. NOTE: Some shows only show clips. Some show full episodes. Look carefully and note the length of time. 23 minute show is a full-length 30-minute sitcom. Most hour long shows are only 42 minutes. Imagine the time you'll save watching your shows on hulu!

Amazon Prime - ($79 a year) I looked at their movies. I narrowed my search for 2011 movies rated 4 stars and up. Did not get a lot of good results, so did not sign up for it. The only reason I considered getting Prime was for free 2-day shipping on lots of items. That, plus a good movie selection and I would have been sold. But the movie selection was worse than Netflix, so decided NO on the Amazon Prime.

PM me with more questions. I did not like the Netflix streaming at first, but have grown to like it a lot. But again, my son watches this more than me. I use Hulu more. You can create an account (free) to make a list of your fav shows and you can be notified when a new episode in your favorites has been added.

Just started using Netflix and I must say I love it! If it wasnt for the package deal that I just got in October for my cable I would just have basic, with internet and watch Netflix all day. Great kids shows and movies. Been finding alot of movies from the 80s and early 90s that I forgot about! We stream it thru my husbands PS3 and only have the 7.99 version which does not ship dvds to my home.

If you don't want to spend anything, you can check out videos from your library through inter-library loan. Usually if the movie is in your own library you have to pay a small fee, but if you request something from another library in your county, it is free.

We love Netflix. For the price, you really can't beat it. We just have instant, noDVD delivery and we have plenty to watch! The kids selections are excellent. If you're moving to the country, just make sure you have a good internet connection or the movies will drop out. I haven't tried hulu but it sounds cool so i'm checking that out now (thanks!). Also, I'm not sure how old your kids are but there's a site called Zoodles that has tons of instant videos (mostly nick jr and disney stuff) and online games, etc. it's a great site for kids. pbskids.org is also great for instant videos.

Both Netflix & Hulu+ have free trial periods (amazon may or may not, don't know)

I would do a free trial of each to find out which you like best, or what combo you like best.

We would have nothing without satellite or streaming. And we can't seem to give up the satellite b/c "we" can't seem to give up live news and live sports. If I could find a way to watch sporting events LIVE (like NFL and college football, Basketball, etc) and LIVE news coverage (not random clips or old "popular" stuff) like OReilly Factor, or some of the "round table" Fox news programming... then we might be able to cut off the satellite. But as it stands, we can't figure out how to do that.

We get Netflix, too. We are long time customers, and we have always LOVED our movie choices. But then we use it for difficult to find movies, not for the latest popular fare. If we are interested in that, we usually go to the theater. But foreign films, or period pieces, or historic drama, or more limited release fare is fabulous on Netflix. We also got hooked on the instant streaming features back when it was a 'freebie' just for being a customer. Mostly the kids use it to watch movies (superhero movies anyone?) or TV shows like "Jackie Chan Adventures" or old episodes of classic cartoons like Fat Albert or or something. But when my husband isn't feeling well, he likes to use it for old "comfort TV" shows, like Rockford Files. :)

Maybe Apple TV will eventually buy some live news or sports programming that you can get thru them and solve the last issue for people like us who would really LOVE to ditch the satellite companies...

We dropped our cable subscriptions 2 years ago to save money and haven't looked back! We used to get both Hulu Plus and Netflix but dropped Hulu Plus over the summer. Netflix has so many great choices and while you're not getting current TV programs there is still plenty to watch. We found a lot of buffering issues with Hulu Plus and it was hard to watch a program the whole way through. We were only watching Bones, Modern Family and Outsourced on it. Hulu+ has almost the same exact back catalog as Netflix so it didn't seem worth paying extra.

Don't rule out cable before checking to see what channels you'll actually get in the middle of nowhere. With the digital switch, even with purchasing a digital antenna for our roof, we could only get one local station. And that one came in poorly. We can't even get the station whose building is 15 minutes away! Big city stations have very strong broadcast signals, but smaller city stations do not. In fact, they are prevented from strengthening their signals by the FCC.
When you are figuring out your internet service, you might check into the cable company's rates. You can get a package that might be called Basic, or maybe even one step below basic. You may have to call to ask about it, since Comcast only advertises their bigger, more expensive plans. With Basic you only get your local channels, which I rely on for local news. It still irks me to start paying for TV after 33 years without cable though! Also, where I live Comcast is the only internet provider. Verison is moving closer to our area, but doesn't provide internet yet.

I have netflix, it $7.99 a month for instant streaming and we watch tons and tons of shows and movies. My kids have never watched regular TV. I actually turned regular TV on the other day and they were totally confused when the commercial came on. They thought the show was over. They love that they can watch shows of their choosing on netflix, and I have tons of shows and movies to watch at night. We use it through our Wii console, but you can use it through blu-ray players, internet ready TV's, computers, iphones, tablets like ipad, etc. Lots of ways to watch. And they other packages where you can get even more movies with the the dvd's they send out. I highly recommend netflix!

I like Netflix. There are enough programs on there to keep us busy for years to come ( we aren't big TV watchers, so an hour a day is a lot for us). The kids programming is terrific.

We do netflix also. We also found a not very publicized deal with the cable company "Comcast" that if we go the extra fast internet it came with a base cable package which is really just the broadcast channels, but it also came with on demand that gives up access to the current shows whenever we need plus sprout.

Amazon Prime is not worth the money, and I didn't understand what extra I would get with Hulu Plus.