Michael Clark Personal Stuff » Movies

Netflix Update through August 2007

Michael Clark — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:54:19 +0000

I haven’t updated my Netflix charts at all this year. Sorry about that. But my Netflix service has been great. I think I’ve only had one bad disc this year, and the replacement disc came before I finished the other two, so no huge loss. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

More details at the Netflix Analysis page.

38.107.191.83 20/Nov/2009:19:57:00

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Netflix Update through December 2006

Michael Clark — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:18:59 +0000

I’ve updated the charts with December numbers. Netflix is doing well with its turnaround time, but TV shows really slow down the delivery time. The return envelopes always have the Gaithersburg, MD address, so I don’t think they are shipping the DVD from a long ways away. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

More details at the Netflix Analysis page.

Netflix Update through November 2006

Michael Clark — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:56:10 +0000

But I’ve updated the charts with October and November numbers. Netflix is doing well with its turnaround time, although a few of the TV shows we had in our queue were shipped from across the country, which added 1 to 3 days to the delivery time. My charts only show processing time. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

Netflix Update through September 2006

Michael Clark — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:48:49 +0000

Sorry about not getting an update out for August. But I’ve updated the charts with August and September numbers. Netflix is doing well with its turnaround time, although a few of the TV shows we had in our queue were shipped from across the country, which added 1 to 3 days to the delivery time. My charts only show processing time. Someone also suggested I do some charts for how long we keep DVDs. Usually we keep them at most 3 days, although there have been a few we’ve kept for as long as two weeks. We have a lot of TV shows in our queue (Emergency, Survivor, Loony Tunes, Little House on the Prairie) which are very nice because you can watch a small hunk of a DVD, without the time commitment of an entire movie. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

TimeLapse: Setting up Church

Michael Clark — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:59:15 +0000

Our church used to meet in a local school. So we’d have to set everything up and take it down each Sunday. Every week. For ten years. A few weeks before we moved into our own building I made this movie showing how we set up the church each week. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

TimeLapse: Traveling through Virginia

Michael Clark — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:59:30 +0000

I shot this driving from my home to my grandparent’s home. I taped the iSight camera to the dashboard, and put my Powerbook in the back seat. It did pretty well, except the laptop battery died, so the video ends abruptly. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

TimeLapse: Puppy Dog on the Stairs

Michael Clark — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 09:59:11 +0000

This was my first time lapse movie I shot. Although technically this is probably a stop motion (like Claymation) video. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

Netflix Update: July 2006

Michael Clark — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 12:26:24 +0000

Not a bad month, eleven DVDs, none were broken but two had to be cleaned with a few parts of a chapter still unable to be read. Average return time was 15.26 hours; longest time was 34.88 hours, quickest was 4.87. Three movies were shipped the next day, resulting in the ten dvd average time trending significantly upward. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

Netflix Traffic update for June 2006

Michael Clark — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 13:16:02 +0000

Not a bad month. Nine DVDs, one was damaged. Average return time was 7.27 hours; longest time was 10.68 hours, quickest was 5.28. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57

I also have a new chart, the ten dvd moving average. This chart shows the ten dvd moving average of the amount of time it takes to send the next disc to me. By averaging out the time over the most recent ten discs, that would minimize the amount of damage a single delayed shipment would have on the chart. This shows that early 2005, late 2005, and early 2006 I was either being throttled, or Netflix was having problems in their shipping centers. Since February 2006, things are looking ok.

Someone asked me how I calculate these numbers. I have a spreadsheet that I enter in the times from the emails I receive. Netflix sends out an email when they receive a DVD, and when they mail one. Yes, Netflix could game the system, but hopefully they won’t do that.

There are three columns of data I enter:

Column 1: Time Netflix Receives a DVD: Entered in military time. This is almost always before noon. There have only been 15 discs received after 10am, of the 326 I’ve sent back.
Column 2: Time Netflix Mails a DVD: Entered in military time.
Column 3: Extra Day: zero or one. If the next DVD is mailed the same day one was received, enter a zero (or simply leave blank). If the next disc is mailed the next day, enter a one. I have only once had a disc get returned on Friday, and have the next disc mailed on Monday, after the weekend. I counted that as a one, but I could count it as a two, since there was a delay of two mailing days. Twice I have had the disc mailed the next day, but earlier than the time it was received. So for those I enter a zero, but the time ends up as around 20 hours.

There are six columns that the spreadsheet calculates:

Column 4: Subtract Column 1 from Column 2: This will tell you how many hours and minutes have elapsed. I format this as a time, not as a number.
Column 5: Hours: I extract the hours from Column 4. The Excel formula is =HOUR(Column4)
Column 6: Minutes: I extract the minutes from Column 4. The Excel formula is =MINUTE(Column4)
Column 7: Total Hours: Add in the extra hours for any shipments that were done the next day. The Excel formula is =Column5 + (24 * Column3)
Column 8: Decimal portion of an hour: What fraction of an hour was the minutes? 30 minutes = 50%. The Excel formula is =(Column6 / 60). I format this to two decimal places.
Column 9: Total time: How long was between Netflix receiving a disc, and mailing the next? Simply add Column 7 and 8.

At the end of the month, I simply use these three formulas to get the data that I chart.

Column 10: Average time: =AVERAGE(Column9 range for the month)
Column 11: Maximum time: =MAX(Column9 range for the month)
Column 12: Minimum time: =MIN(Column9 range for the month)

Does all that makes sense? Just ask if I’ve muddled the waters more than cleared things up.

Netflix Traffic

Michael Clark — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 13:10:00 +0000

May 2006 wasn’t too bad, we watched ten DVDs. 7b1d91231a87fb75e0054e886a0dea57