Rant - Are Subscription Services Worthwhile?

I was trying to work out how much money I was saving by subscribing to Netflix as opposed to buying DVDs (a huge amount it turns out) when it occurred to me that you can currently subscribe to pretty much all forms of digital entertainment (books, films, music, games) without the need for physical purchases. The best thing is that you get access to essentially an unlimited amount of choices rather than restricted to buying select items.

But is it actually cheaper?



Films

Before Netflix came along, I found that I was spending almost £20-£30 a month on films. It's a lot, but also bearing in mind I tend to only buy the cheap stuff (ie films at under £5), I was getting a lot for my money. This is me however and I'm a film fanatic.

I assume that the average consumer probably buys two or three DVD's a month, maybe one new release and two on special offer, so they spend maybe around £15 a month.
That means they spend, on average, about £180 on DVD's a year.
A Netflix subscription (at £5.99 a month) runs you at £71.88 per year, so you can save around £110.

LoveFilm, while cheaper at £4.99 a month (£59.88 per year), doesn't offer you the same variety, assuming you use your Netflix subscription on both the UK and US sites. To get the full benefit of LoveFilm, you need the Streaming and Post membership which costs £7.99 a month and £95.88 for the year, still a considerable saving but more expensive than Netflix.

You could opt for the BT/Sky/Binkbox/other options, but your best value for money (for the time being) comes from either Netflix or LoveFilm.

So total savings per year:
Netflix - £108.12
LoveFilm - £84.12 or £120.12, depending on subscription

Conclusion - Even if you buy just one film a month, you can still save a huge amount of money with a (basic) subscription to either service. Obviously the more films you do watch, the better value for money your membership becomes.


Books

Technically there isn't really a proper digital lending library available in the UK (or anywhere else as far as I'm aware) however being a member of Amazon Prime grants you the ability to 'rent' a book from the Kindle library as often as once per month (providing you actually own an official Kindle device - the Kindle app on a non-Amazon tablet won't work).

The average person in the UK probably reads between two to three books a month.
Assuming they buy a new release every other month (about £8.99 a book), as well as a cheap novel on offer (£4 each) once a month, the average person may spend about £100 on books a year.
Amazon Prime costs £49 per year, however you are limited to one book per month therefore you will probably still crave an extra read or two. Assuming you use the service obtain new releases, that means you will still pick up a special offer if you see one, so in total you will spend about £97 a year.

So total savings per year:
Amazon Prime - £3 (don't forget that this also means you get free next day delivery on all Amazon purchases, so you do end up saving a fair bit more if you are a regular customer).

Conclusion - Heavy readers will not find any savings in this service and the limit of one book per month means you have to wait a while before diving into the next big adventure. For the time being, individual purchases are probably your best bet.


Music

I'm a Spotify user and have been for a good two years now, therefore I will use them as my example. I'm pretty sure they are still one of the best providers of digital music, both in content and price.

On average, a person (an honest one to be more precise) probably buys around two albums a month as well as maybe a couple of individual tracks. Album prices tend to differ quite dramatically in price, depending on the content available, but on average they come out to about £8 each (with individual tracks at £0.99). On average, I estimate people spend about £120 over the course of the year.

Two types of membership apply to a Spotify account (excluding free because it's, you know, free).
The Unlimited service (£4.99 a month) is essentially just an extension of the free account, only you can play as many tracks as you want without adds. This is fine providing you listen to music only while at home but most people like to have their tunes on the go, therefore you have to opt for the more pricey £9.99 a month Premium option to get the ability to download to your portable device and get offline play enabled. So basically for £119.88 a year you get access to pretty much every song ever made at any given time, internet or not.

So total savings per year:
Spotify Unlimited - £60.12 (though no offline play or device storage)
Spotify Premium - £0.12

Conclusion - Music lovers will find that the Premium service will open up so many new artist and genre discoveries and so it turns out to be a whole lot cheaper in the long run. Casual listeners should just stick with the free and only upgrade to unlimited if you get tired of the ads.


Games

Currently all game rentals are disc based (for what I assume are copyright and licensing reasons). Game rentals are normally for people who want a taste of a game before they buy however many use the opportunity to complete the game and move on without having to pay full price for it.

PC users are the worst off as you can't rent PC games period. Gamefly set up a subscription system similar to Netflix or Spotify but that seems to have disappeared. Occasionally, Steam have free weekends where you have access to the full game for 48hrs, and this can be used to complete the entire game without spending a penny. Otherwise you are better off waiting for sales.

Console gamers have it better as you can actually rent the games due to the restrictions in the technology that can actually play them. A regular console gamer probably plays about seven major games a year. Three of those will probably be bought on day one, so you are looking at around £40 each. The others may be the result of a sale, so around £15 each. On average, you'll probably spend £200, including Indie Games and in-game purchases.

Blockbuster, for £9.99 a month, offer unlimited games with two discs at a time. Bearing in mind you can only play one game at a time this is more than enough (it does also include movies, however it is not cheaper than the streaming services available). So this makes it out to be £119.88 a year for pretty much any game you wish.

LoveFilm, for the odd price of £11.22, offer unlimited game and movies, both disc and streaming. Again limited to just two discs at a time, this is more than enough. Assuming you are a heavy film lover too, that means you are essentially taking the LoveFilm £7.99 package and having unlimited games for an extra £3.23.
For £134.64 it's a pretty good bargain.



So total savings per year:
Blockbuster - £80.12
LoveFilm - £65.36
Bearing in mind this does not include downloaded content.

Conclusion - Strict gamers may want to consider the Blockbuster option, which with the two discs at a time option means you can send a disc back and have one ready to play at any given time. Film enthusiasts on the other hand will be able to combine their love of entertainment to opt for the LoveFilm experience and get everything in one convenient bundle. Casual gamers may not find any savings however, especially if they only ever buy games on offer to begin with.


So, final thoughts.

Subscriptions are a good investment if you are a consistent user of that particular media. Both for film and music, you can save a huge amount in the long run while still having access to all your favourite choices and much more.

What does make life better is that you can cancel your subscription at any time and resume it again when you are ready. What I like to do is cancel my Spotify account every couple of months for a few months at a time. What this means is that I can then buy new CD's (cheaply, for less than the subscription per month) based on what I have heard on Spotify, while revisit my own personal music collection resulting in me actually saving a lot more in the end.
The same could apply to Netflix or LoveFilm. Cancel every once in a while to revisit the movies you actually physically bought and maybe treat yourself to a new movie for £4. You may only save £2 but every little helps.

Games are trickier as they are based around the physical discs required to play them. The beauty of owning the game is you can go back to it whenever you want, rather than wait for it to arrive in the post, however at the same time you can rent new releases, play them all the way through and them buy them when hey become cheaper and still make huge savings.

The thing to remember is that you will never actually own any of these items. There's no knowing what the future holds however it may turn out that Netflix can't keep up with the growing demand of film lovers and they go bust, thus rendering all the money you've paid in the past moot. Of course there will be another company to take up the slack, but if there isn't you'll have to build a physical library from scratch.
This is of course worst case scenario, and a very pessimistic outlook, but subscription services are not 100% foolproof.

It's worth finding out much you actually pay for these things and seeing if becoming a subscriber will actually save you money. After all, the more people who show interest in these services the better they will become in the long run.

Rant - Just how good a game is 'The Last of Us'?

These last few days I have been dedmyself into the PS3 gem that is 'The Last of Us'', a beautifully realised survival thriller from the guys responsible for the equally awesome Uncharted series. This game has had unanimous praise from critics and fans, all claiming it to be a solid gaming experience with action, emotion, thrills and suspense. Pretty much everything you wouldn't normally get in your average triple-A game.

But as the game progressed, numerous things began to happen to me that made me question if this is really a good game at all but rather just a mediocre game with an amazing story.


So the first thing. Bugs. Or glitches rather. I have currently experienced three of them that basically messed up my entire progress for an encounter. For those of you who don't know much about the game, each action segment is broken down into 'encounters' where if you screw up you can restart at the beginning of the segment. It's a nice mechanic that stops you from either restarting the whole level or from people saving after every kill, allowing them safe passage through the levels.

Each encounter has various ways to tackle them. You can either go in guns a-blazing, which is not recommended due to very limited ammo reserves and your character pretty much dies after 3 hits. You can evade the enemies by sneaking round them, or you can also stealth kill them. I opt for the stealth killing option due to my past experience playing the Hitman series.

Anyway, it is with my method of stealth killing the enemies that I have often found myself stuck in the game environment. And I mean proper stuck, in that the character loses control of his basic movements and spazzes out. This has happened to me three times, and each time I have cursed the game, for I had been doing so well.

I know this is a basic game bug and the game has only just been released but you would have hoped that they might have picked up on something like this seeing as how stealth is one of the core combat mechanics. I know some games use a technique where the game automatically detects if your character is unable to move and discreetly repositions him to avoid further gameplay disruption. This is something I believe all games should have and  I am really annoyed that TLOU has screwed over my awesome stealth-kill abilities as a result of not implementing it.


And for what it's worth, the action isn't all that engaging. Sure there are moments of suspense and dread, plus the fact you can't aim well to begin with is a nice added mechanic, but the action is repetitive and predicable, something the Uncharted games also suffered from.
Takedown animations aren't exactly numerous and after seeing about 4 or 5 you've probably seen them all.
The enemies themselves, while intelligent enough to converge on your location, aren't intelligent enough to notice you sprinting back round behind them.
All in all, the action is fun but it doesn't really engage you very well. Disappointing given its potential.

Also, for the latest big release, the graphics are a real mixed bag. From a distance they look gorgeous and there's not denying this is a good great looking game, but some of the texture qualities are bad, as in pre-next-gen bad.
I understand you have to make compromises here and there but it was kinda sad to see blurry bricks or fuzzy trees.


The 'big event', as it were, that me question whether the game was any good was the big sequence near the middle where Joel has to take out a bunch of marauders with Ellie covering him from a balcony with a rifle. Now this encounter is set up to be a big action set-piece, given that you have someone giving you cover, however I thought I would try to take out as many of the enemies as possible with stealth first, to help conserve ammo.
But then, after taking out two of the bad guys, I realised I could easily do this section with just stealth alone, so I continued. Took out the last bad guys and...reinforcements. No worries, just do the same again...and...holy hell, that guy just spawned right in front of me!
Yes. I had an enemy spawn literally a foot in front of my guy. There was no other way for him to have entered the game. He just appeared right in front of me. And there goes my stealth. Oh, and six other guys also seem to have appeared from nowhere...oh a fire bomb...and I'm dead. God-freaking-dammit.

I almost quit the game there and then. The last time something like this had happened to me had been with The Thing, where a neat mechanic meant you had to test the members of your crew to make sure they were still who they said they were. The only problem was that pre-determined events meant people would become infected even after having been cleared moments ago, and this a huge failure on the part of the game.
TLOU promises us that there are various ways to go through different combat sequences, so why give me the option of stealth if the game was programmed to have enemies run at you in waves anyway? Have me engage in a gun-fight from the get-go or have me trigger a cut-scene after downing a certain amount of enemies. DON'T let me spend 45min (yes, that's how long I took carefully planning out the movement of each of my victims) using stealth only to find that you had other plans to begin with.


So like I said, I 'almost' gave up with the game. Why didn't I? The story.
My God is the story good. From the prologue you realise you are not in for a happy ride but as always, Naughty Dog have offered up a compelling story that's fully realised and instantly draws you in. Even when I stop playing, my mind fails to think of things other than 'what could happen next'. Few games, especially linear ones, have this alluring ability. If this wasn't a post-apocalyptic scenario (or a game) you could have convinced me this was a re-telling of true events. Amazing given the generic infection/all-hell-breaks-loose/Children of Men backdrop.

The characters are realistic to almost complete perfection that I forget at times I'm actually playing a game. The dynamic between Joel and Ellie is conflicted but ultimately endearing and this plays out very much like a love story between the two of them. The banter is fresh and dynamic and never once does it feel annoying or out of place. Ellie's dialogue in particular has the most impact as she is looking upon this new world with no knowledge of the last, so her ignorance and curiosity as to life pre-infection is always poignant. (My favourite bit was her reaction to seeing a poster of a size-zero model, to which she responded "I thought you guys had plenty of food back then." It's subtle but it has an edge of social commentary about it.)


So it's a shame that this story ended up in the form of a game. I find myself just wanting to sit back and watch the journey that the two embark on without the need to frustrate myself over annoying bugs or game mechanics. It adds immersion sure, and this is still going to be hands down one of the best games of the year, but I kinda wish this had ended up as a TV mini-series instead.

Rant - Why Spielberg Producing the Halo TV Series Is Not Necessarily a Good Thing

At the Xbox ONE Reveal Event, Microsoft announced the next iteration of Master Chief would not be in a game but rather on the small screen, brought to you by Steven Spielberg. This has been mostly met with great enthusiasm but part of me can't help but be sceptical, disappointed and even slightly worried.


On the one hand, the mythology behind the Halo games is a rich and immense as those of say Star Wars or Star Trek (not as popular or relevant perhaps, but still pretty important) and as a result a film has been in the pipeline for a long while now. Going back a few years now, Peter Jackson signed on as producer for the new Halo game signing on newbie Neill Blomkamp to direct, a move that went pretty much under the radar. Financial difficulties and lack of interest in the movie pretty much stranded it in development hell (even after a really impressive live-action teaser on what we could expect) and Blomkamp went on to direct the awesome District 9, a move that was widely regarded as being the right choice.

Anyway, it's 2013 now and for some reason, despite appearing to put a lot of work into the original idea, Jackson no longer seems to be invloved in live-action Halo and instead they have turned to one of the greatest directors in the world to oversee the Master Chief and his adventures. So why am I so worried?


There's no denying that Spielberg is a film-making God. His movies have huge levels of humanity and emotion to them, he has a keen eye for action (especially military action) and he is responsible for some of the greatest franchises in history. But that doesn't mean he doesn't screw up every now and then.

Spielberg has created some of the finest works of cinematic science fiction, films which to this day are still being channelled. But he has also churned out some really disappointing movies, all of which had infinite potential for greatness (and all are his most recent endeavours).
A.I., the film Kubrick never directed, was picked up by Spielberg but the result was a film far too ambitious for its own good and the result is pretty largely forgotten.
War of the Worlds features some amazing set-pieces, a chilling role by Tim Robbins and a decent update on the HG Wells story, but it lacked any real punch and had one of the most pointless Hollywood endings for any movie to come out that year (had Robbie died the film might have been able to put in that emotional kick it was lacking, but no he had to survive).

His last forays into television haven't exactly been very promising either (with the exception of Falling Skies). Terra Nova began with huge promise but soon fell flat very very quickly and became a real bore to watch. Likewise with The River, which in the end never really went anywhere. Some part of me feels this is how the Halo TV series will end up.

I would love to see a Halo-fied version of Band of Brothers or The Pacific, but I highly doubt that will happen due to budgetary reasons. The forth Halo game, while still only appealing to the hardcore fans, managed to add a very human and very emotional storyline to the franchise in the guise of the relationship between the Master Chief and his AI counterpart Cortana and I'm guessing that it's this level of drama that Microsoft hope to cash in on, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it needs to be done right.

Spielberg has the capacity for high drama but we have to remember he's only producing which means that the main writing and story direction will be through someone else. Nothing has yet been released regarding plot or even setting, so this rant could all have (hopefully) been for nothing, but for the time being I am not exactly convinced with Microsoft's big announcement.

Rant - Why does Netflix have so many "bad" movies? (And why is this not a bad thing?)

I got into an argument a civilised debate with someone recently who was complaining about the content (or lack-of) of the Netflix Streaming store. They were complaining that there were too many B-movie-esque films and not enough proper movies to make their money worthwhile. While very true, I think this was a rather harsh judgement of the aforementioned B-movies.

First off, never say that there isn't enough content on Netflix for your money. The amount of hours from movies and TV shows (just the critically acclaimed ones) is enough to last you a good 8-9 months of solid watching, and that's not taking into account the many titles added each week. People who say there isn't enough content are either too spoilt for choice or they have a very poor taste in entertainment because Netflix is very careful to ensure there is enough to cater for all tastes.

But why does Netflix have so many "bad" movies to show? The obvious explanation is that chances are the licensing costs are dirt cheap, so it helps to boost up their title numbers. The other, more appropriate explanation, is due to the sheer pleasure of the B-movie.

The original definition of a B-movie stemmed from when cinemas used to play two features - the main feature, which would have been the reason to go to the cinema in the first place, and the second film, a cheaply made flick that used recycled ideas (or sometimes unusual ones) to create an extra hour of entertainment. They generally were of poor quality however, which is why in the modern day movies that are made on the cheap and look bad are referred to as B-movies.

As the years progressed, B-movies evolved to envelope a new range of movies including a whole heap of exploitation flicks, as well as direct-to-DVD features and sequels. Just becuase a movie is made cheaply and looks terrible, doesn't mean it should be avoided however.

Roger Corman is one of the greatest producers Hollywood has ever seen. He has a roster of well over 500 movies to his name, helped launch the careers of Joe Dante, James Cameron and Martin Scorsese and yet every one of his movies was made cheaply and is pretty dreadful. And that's why they are so good to watch. The tongue-in-cheek value of his movies is priceless and makes for a great night in with friends, and this is how most movies like this should be enjoyed.

The late Roger Ebert, one of the greatest film critics ever and a very respected taste in movies, was a great B-movie screen-writer and participated in a lot of movies along with Russ Meyer, another B-movie (and sexploitation film) pioneer.


I'm not saying that movies with the titles such as "Alien Armageddon", "Super Cyclone" or "Hellevator" will be any good - because they won't, it's guaranteed - but that doesn't mean you should raise your nose to them. These are the movies that have to be watched after consuming a whole heap of alcohol with friends (I still have fond memories of "Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus" thanks to four and half bottles of Jack Daniels).

Play drinking games with these movies.
See which actor looks like someone you know.
Try to guess the dialogue as the film goes along (or even completely recreate it yourselves).

Netflix knows that these movies are not works of art, that's why it also offers up "There Will Be Blood" and "Drive" and other critically acclaimed movies. What it does know is that there are people out there who know how to appreciate these types of movies, once again proving that Netflix really does cater for all tastes.

Rant - Iran and the Nuclear Program: What Should Be Done

For a blog that's meant to be half about engineering, I understand that there's very little of it on here (not my fault but there's not too much going on in the world of technology right now). To make matters worse, I will now turn my hands at politics despite having no authority in the matter.


There's a lot going on in the world right now, whether it's because of a spoilt short man in Asia or the business of Iran and their Nuclear Program. I just read on the BBC that the US were going to deploy $10billion worth of missile defences to Israel as a show of support against Iran, but is this really the correct option? History tells us that the process of showing who has the superior fire-power only ever ends in tragedy.

Iran keep claiming that they are using the program as a means for alternate energy and not to develop weapons. I'm saying I believe them but you have to look at the fact that nuclear power is becoming a go-to source to replace fossil fuels. I know the Fukushima melt down was a severe disaster but the majority of the problems stemmed from lack of proper care over the plant and so should not really be used as an excuse not to go for nuclear power.

In any case, nuclear fuel is relatively cheap to produce and can create huge amounts of jobs, both skilled and unskilled and therefore it makes sense for developing countries to utilise this type of energy. It does bring into account with what to do with the radioactive by-products however, seeing that they can easily be manufactured into weapons.

If Iran are telling the truth then what have they to lose by not showing the US and others what they are doing? I understand there's a matter of pride and the fact that they would be giving into peer pressure however if they are innocent, it will give them superior political leverage after being mistrusted for all these years. After all, who could resist in having something so juicy to rub into America's face. The harsh reality is that they are probably producing weapons, but most likely as a response to increasing weapons manufacture with countries they see as unfriendly.

But back to the nuclear energy point, I don't understand why there isn't a universal Nuclear Energy program where any country, regardless of it's current political status, can apply for. The fact that the program would be governed by leading countries would ensure that all waste is properly disposed off and that no weapons are created but it also gives countries the necessary technology to push forward their development.


But then this is all just speculation. World politics are far more complicated than I would ever dream of. I just like the idea that there is probably a solution in some alternate reality.

Rant - What the #@&% Netflix? What the hell did you do with the 5-star rating system?

Am I the only one who's annoyed that Netflix have gotten rid of their user-friendly five-star system and have been brainwashed opted for the more normal Facebook 'like' system? Why has this even happened?

I liked the old system. It was pretty accurate in recommending movies to me and I saw loads of movies that I would have never otherwise seen. I'm not saying that it won't be able to recommend movies I would probably like but I think it's going to have a really hard time doing so as there's no way I'm selling my soul and using the Facebook method. Besides, I may like a movie enough to give it three stars but a 'like' could indicate I found the movie to be awesome. I don't want that happening!

Bring back the stars. Keep your blasted Facebook whore if you must but bring back the old system dammit!

Rant: Violence in the Media - Do Guns in Films and Games Support the Arms Industry?

Browsing the Kotaku site I came across an interesting post which opened my eyes to something I had never before acknowledged. The post, titled Is the Decision to Buy Call of Duty or Battlefield a Moral Choice?, linked to a Youtube video made by PBS Idea Channel who stated the simple case that by buying a triple-A modern war game (Battlefield, Call of Duty) you are effectively buying licenses for the firearms depicted in those games and hence sending money to the arms companies.

The video itself looks at the moral aspects of the case, where the presenter who isn't himself a gun person loves to shoot things in games and thus presents the problem that he may be a hypocrite. But the video raises some interesting points about the moral implications of engaging in violent entertainment, especially since many are always quick to jump on the bandwagon that violent games and films make people violent in real life.

First off, let's dispel the rumours. Violence in the media does not contribute to violence in real life. There may be some cases which break this rule (Taxi Driver and the Reagan shooting for example) but for the most part there's been no solid correlation between the two ever having an effect on one another.
A good video to watch is one made by the Youtube gamer 'TotalBiscuit' who analyses the situation following the Connecticut shootings last year (it is biased as it's a gamer defending his beliefs but it's interesting to have a point of view from the other side).

But why do films and games rely so much on violent content? Unfortunately there isn't any other real explanation other than "Because it's satisfying". Tarantino films have always been notorious due to their violent content but if you were to take it away his films wouldn't be as satisfying to watch. That's not to say they aren't well written or directed because that's far from the truth, but the violence and the events depicted go hand in hand with one another and you need both for the complete experience.
On the other end of the scale, even the Saw movies (a franchise that basically comprises of people getting horrendously tortured) have a certain poetry in their depiction of violence and they aren't even decent movies to watch. But without the violence, there is nothing nothing to them.

Games, likewise, use violence to draw people into the universe that they're creating. Unlike films however, games can make the experience more immersive and this is where the problem has arisen. Many Sports games spent millions of dollars to acquire the likeness of famous sports-people so it makes sense that war games should spend huge amounts of money to acquire the likeness of weapons, right? Well, yes and no.

The fact that game companies feel the need to use real world items in games shows that they are lacking in imagination. I understand that most shooters nowadays have the "combat simulator" moniker attached to them, and part of that responsibility is to ensure as much realism as possible, and what better way to achieve this than to make the guns real. They look real, sound real and they react as they would in real life.

But most people don't care about this, they just want the game experience not the gun firing experience, and as a result they have to deal with the fact that their money has just made the gun companies stocks go up. At the end of the day, no one cares which rifle you used in a game but rather how good you are with it so why even bother to license them in the first place. What game companies should do is fictionalise their main weapons and keep the licensed ones available for download only, that way only the true gun-nuts out there will benefit from the transaction. This also means they don't have to shell out huge amounts of money paying the licensing fees; money that go go back into game development.

Films on the other hand do not allow such an in-depth personification of the viewer and the weapons involved and so do not pose the same problem. There's a few films out there (the names of which currently evade me) where a character lists out each of the defining features of a weapon but in the context of the film, this is generally to showcase their own ability rather than that of the weapon itself.
There is always the chance of product placement however this is not likely to be a problem either as movie-goers are a fickle bunch who rise up in anger whenever a product is given more screen-time than it should and it actually works more in negative effect so the same tactic would not work for guns.

So do guns in films and games support the arms industry? Well in films they certainly don't. You're more likely to be persuaded to buy a car or a watch than a gun through watching a film.
In games, you kinda do indirectly (depending on the game), but you'd do more harm in buying the actual weapon than by buying the game.

In any case, it's an interesting point to bring to light and it's probably something that needs more public awareness.

Rant - How Can Netfix Improve It's Service to UK Audiences?

When Netflix first announced that they were bringing their online streaming service to UK shores, the general consensus was that it would usher in a revolution much in the same way it had in America (ie bring about the death of the rental stores...sorry Blockbusters). At the time the amount of online services for movies was severely limited, including LoveFilm which was pretty dreadful. No sooner was Netflix available however did everyone realise they has to work to keep their customers. Tesco's Blinkbox became a major player, LoveFilm finally expanded it's online collection ten fold and even Sky and BT set up rival companies.

So what can Netflix do to stand out from the crowd? Well for starters they can improve their catalogue, and I don't just mean by keeping up to date with new releases.

Netflix has the potential to become a historical archive for all the greatest shows and films from the yesteryears and yet the availability of the classics is very limited. Sure they have Fawlty Towers and Miss Marple but where's 'Allo 'Allo or On the Buses? Where's all those amazing Gerry Anderson shows that kids today should be watching or the original Hanna Barbera cartoons? How about some Carry On films or the Will Hay collection? Even some of the silent clowns like Laurel and Hardy or Mr Chaplin himself would be nice. I understand the need for licensing costs but if people knew that the great British crime shows they grew up with (The Sweeney, The Professionals, The Avengers etc) were all available under one simple subscription I'm sure they wouldn't think twice about signing up.

The American site has the right idea, offering their customers the Original Star Trek (films and TV show), Quantum Leap, Mission Impossible - but there's still so much out there just waiting to be added.

As well as tracking down long lost classics, Netflix should grab up the rights to films and shows unavailable in the UK (mostly due to low demand for physical copies). My main argument would go for the original Addams Family film which for some reason has never been officially released (despite it's sequel always being in stock). I've got a feeling this is due to a conflict in distribution rights but then why does it crop up on TV every now and then? I spend more time on the American site on account of they have films that never made it out here as well as obscure foreign classics (which actually surprised me).

Netflix UK has already done us a huge favour by streaming It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a show so niche in its audience that no UK network would air it. But it would be nice to see other shows make the list. King of the Hill, one of the greatest animated shows of all time, never made it past Series 5 on DVD here so why doesn't Netflix make the most of the situation (they do in America, despite all seasons being available on DVD out there)? Why don't they license out the rights to Malcolm in the Middle (a show which people still talk about) or The Job (the police sit-com-drama that was the predecessor to Rescue Me), again both already available in the US.

 What better way to attract customers than to offer them things they can't otherwise have.

This isn't a complete negative rant however as Netflix have made a positive leap in terms of getting involved with exclusive programming, namely House of Cards. Other than the fact the series is amazing in every possible way (the quality is up there with HBO), what made this series even better was that Netflix released every episode all at once for everyone. This wasn't just a one off however, with Eli Roth bringing out his Werewolf drama Hemlock Grove sometime later this year.

In addition to creating new shows, Netflix have also earned the respect of fans everywhere by bringing back to life Arrested Development. While it could be argued that the show ended at the right moment, there's no denying that the chance to see the Bluth family up to no good again is exciting all in itself. In addition to this, there's also rumours that they are looking to bring back Jericho as well as possibly Terriers (another show that never saw the light of day in the UK).

In the end, Netflix should seize the opportunity they have with the chance at building up the ultimate library of films and shows that both introduce new generations to classics as well as advertise rare and obscure titles, rather than just worry about getting the latest releases. I understand that there are some people refuse to watch anything that doesn't have a certain amount of special effects in it but the rest of us who appreciate entertainment shouldn't have to suffer as a result.

Rant - A Good Day to Die Hard (and Avoid the Cinema)

I don't understand why Hollywood feels it has to dumb down movies for UK audiences just to make sure that it can squeeze more pennies from our wallets. They played a similar trick with Die Hard 4, where all the swearing and violence we've become used to in a Die Hard movie had been taken out. I'm not saying it makes the movie any better however upon viewing the uncut version I felt as though I had enjoyed it more.

So here we go again. A Good Day to Die Hard, a movie sequel that no one really wanted, is finally opening in the UK but with a 'special' cut to take it down to a 12A rating (from what sounds like a 15). This to me seems pointless. No other European country has had this version made for them, so why have we been singled out? Oh yes, it's because the BBFC decides that you have to be a certain age to enjoy movies whereas other countries have the common sense to entrust it in the parents.

Normally I would be happy to blame the UK rating system, something which I've always highly disagreed with, however this isn't a case where the material might be too much or sensitive but rather with Hollywood wanting to attract a younger audience to make more money. For me this feels like we've been provided with an incomplete version of the movie, which I refuse to go to the cinema and pay full price for. I'm not saying that the swearing and violence will make the movie better (all the reviews already point to it being pretty damn dreadful), but if I go and see a bad movie from one of my favourite franchises I at least want to see the complete package, especially if the violence and profanity help induce a factor of nostalgia from the original, which is still one of the best action movies out there.

I don't understand why UK audiences put up with this. Why settle for an incomplete movie, even if it isn't meant to be any good? Don't allow the fat-cats at Hollywood to dictate what we can and cannot see just so they can make money.

I understand there are a few people out there who share the same point of view however, judging by the healthy box office receipts the movie has had, it isn't enough. Take a stand people.