Watching TV on DVD in SD vs. Netflix in HD (1 Viewer)

For the shows that are only out on DVD but not Blu, but that are available on Netflix in HD, when you go to watch them, do you watch your DVDs or go for the HD stream?

I recently started rewatching 24. I saw Netflix offered the early seasons in HD, which are only on DVD at the moment. I thought the HD stream might look better than my DVDs, so I gave it a try… but after a few episodes, I wasn't impressed, and went to the DVD. The DVD, upscaled to my 50" plasma, looked better than what Netflix was sending me. So far I've noticed the same for what I've watched so far in Season 2.

(My stream quality is usually pretty good, I have no complains or similar questions about their HD new releases… so I think we can rule out internet speed as a factor in my case.)

Has anyone else had similar experiences? Or the opposite?

Now that Comcast has stopped throttling Netflix, the HD shows I watch there look fantastic! I would definitely choose them over DVD.

Netflix HD streaming looks excellent for me.

Netflix HD looks great on my Roku. Not so great when I play it through the web interface on my Mac.

I'm noticing "24" in HD looked a lot worse than a lot of the other shows… Netflix recently removed all 24, but I'm wondering if those early seasons weren't in fact true HD, and that's why my DVDs were at least equalling them. I didn't get a chance to put up one of the seasons on Blu-ray against its streaming counterpart before it disappeared.

i think 24 s1 had a remaster but not sure about s2onwards though

We consistently watch Netflix and even older shows like Emergency! and Quincy, M.E. look absolutely stunning streaming from my computer (running an HDMI out to my 55" LED).

Edited for grammar

its funny that netflix is still a major supporter of HD via PC. all the other streamers are mostly bad. hulu is pretty good for ad supported free content but vudu and amazon and many do not support 5.1 over the pc and limits hd in some cases

This is a major pet peeve of mine: When a show is shot and airs in HD but is only released on DVD. There are a couple dozen shows I would love to buy on Blu-Ray but refuse to buy on DVD, because I won't pay money to get a product in lower quality than I got it for free.Netflix is a great alternative, with the caveat that you only have access for as long as Netflix has the rights. Very frustrating to be midway through a series only to have it disappear from your queue.I just went on Vudu and purchased in "HDX" quality a season of a show that disappeared on me from Netflix. Supposedly even if Vudu loses the rights to sell "owned" content to new customers, customers that have already purchased the content will still have access to it.That's better than buying SD copies on DVD for me. But at the end of the day, it still doesn't beat the security and quality of TV on Blu-Ray with minimally compressed 1080P content with a disc you can pop in your player whenever you want.

I love Netflix but these past couple of weeks we had issues. Our ISP suddenly slowed down (no clue why) to 1MB instead of the 3MB I'm paying for. Netflix would load but it kept switching between HD and SD. The SD I was getting was atrocious......it was almost like looking through plastic or something. Thankfully it's back up to par now.

I always do netflix hd. I go on vudu as well. very convenient to watch streaming content on HD.