Tweedpipe

I'd read and it was also announced on the radio this morning that Amazon is raising their 'Prime' subscription rates.
I order quite often from Amazon and 2 years ago subscribed to Prime, solely to experience the benefit of reduced delivery time.
To be honest I always thought the standard delivery time was pretty good, receiving most articles within 3-4 days. Since using Prime I've usually found little difference in delivery time, rarely longer than 4 days and sometimes received in 2 days.
The increased 'Prime' rates for Europe vary between 39% and 43% yearly, which I don't consider as peanuts, especially as in June the rate of inflation here was confimed as 'only' 5.8%. As I've never used their streaming service to watch videos etc, I feel I have little to loose, so have just cancelled the Prime subscription.
To quote a favourite of DMU, "Forewarned is forearmed!"

Pollyana

I'm a really heavy user of Amazon in Australia, now its finally got itself going properly. Not sure I would bother with Prime if I was UK or Europe based, as the delivery times are not too bad, as you say. I don't use the streaming or anything. However over here so much comes from with the UK or US, and Prime really pays for itself by eliminating a lot of the shipping fees. Without that perk its probably not worth it.

cyrian

In the UK (and also in France) I have avoided Prime in spite of Amazon making it as difficult as they can to opt for regular delivery.
I have found that most items shipped by Amazon regular delivery arrive before the quoted deliver by date.
It can also be faster to get the delivery to one of the secure collection boxes in shopping centres etc.
My DD in London can get Prime deliveries within a few hours.

Assanah

I canceled Prime a while ago. Delivery times was never an issue for me though because I don’t care if my order arrives in 2 or 4 days.

My reason for canceling was the delivery fees. I am using the delivery fees that I now have to pay without Prime to stop me from ordering too much. It really helped me to reduce my usage of Amazon substantially. As I usually don’t go to shops except to purchase food this in turn really reduced my overall consumption. And that is good for my bank account and good for the climate.

Pulaski

We use Amazon a lot, but held off paying for Amazon Prime until Clarkson and friends left the BBC and moved to Amazon. With delivery generally being available (without Prime) in 2-3 days, or upto a week for small items until they accumlate for delievery on our designated "Amazon day" it is questionable if we would have signed up for Prime without the linked streaming service. Now that we have Prime it has proved to be handy occasionally to have reliable 2-day shipping, and sometimes 1 day or even same day shipping!

The flip side is that it is questionable if we would have signed up for Prime to access the streaming service if we hadn't already been heavy users of Amazon on line retail business; maybe, maybe not.

The result is that we have Prime and are unlikely to drop it, but not because the accelerated delivery or the streaming service make a compelling reason to pay for Prime in isolation, but combined they make a good enough deal for us.

G-J-B

I get 2 or 3 offers a year for a 30 day trial,. so I occasionally do that, and cancel a few days before the 30 days. I don't use Amazon a lot though; for years they've been hassling me for a mobile number, but they haven't got one from me yet.
Our internet connection is so slow that I can't take advantage of most of what they have on offer. I've also found little to no difference in delivery times between prime vs non-prime.

Jon-Bxl

Recently posted on another thread

costa del sol

post number 6. Post 7 may interest too.....

Jon

Tweedpipe

Thanks for this.
Just been reading that close to 600,000 British households have ditched their Prime subscription since the announced price increase, and I would guess equal if not greater numbers across EU countries too.
With so many full length feature films shown on the 20ish free French tv channels, using a cheapish OPTEX tuner (brilliant little device - see photo attached), I frequently record the films onto a 1GB USB connected external hard drive and at our leisure enjoy playback after selecting the required language, defaults of which are French, English & German.



With these channels, we've never seen the need for a Canal Plus subscription, and as we never watched Prime available videos that wont bother us either.
The other convenience using the small USB hard drive (shown on top) is that I can easily transfer the films onto my large screen iMac and watch whatever takes my fancy whilst Mme TP is watching live one of her favourite tv cooking programs. So everyone's happy.

Jon-Bxl

Thanks TP that sounds really interesting.... Can you download chosen subtitles as well as the video on your thumb-drive, please?

Also with all those videos across so many channels does it take a long time zapping ahead to find content to record, please? Here is the box (I think) on next day delivery
​​​https://www.ubaldi.com/tv/accessoire...--30638749.php

Re Prime. I had deliveries last week to a drop off point. Some stuff took just over a week to arrive. Its not the first time. The advertised date pre-order can change on order. I'm not complaining but Ive found that home delivery is quicker. Funny I would have thought accumulation of orders to official drop-off points would be easier for the couriers and (at least) take about the same time....

Jon

Tweedpipe

With ref to subtitles I don't think one can choose which - if any - are downloaded (there may be something in the setup menus but I've never explored this). Generally once the film has been downloaded one gets whatever subtitles have been embedded within the original. With an English film, on playback using the 'subtitle' button on the remote there are generally 3 selections; Fre - hearing impaired/ Fr/ OFF. Never used it but I guess the hearing impaired provides the subtitle in a larger font. Also on the remote is an Audio button, frequent options are FR/EN/DE. I've noticed that films in English or French generally cannot be heard in German, even if the option DE may be present in the Audio menu. Not surprisingly, if it's a German film the DE option will be activated.
Finding content to record is a doddle (no zapping required across channels). I either check out the Tele7Jour (ze Radio Times) magazine over my morning or afternoon coffee, or even simpler check out the on-line version HERE.
When there's no good English or American film worth recording, I may record a classic French film such as Quai des Orfevres/ Cesar & Rosalie/ Jour de Fete/ Le Samourai/ Les Tontons Flingueurs/ La Grand Vadrouille etc....just to name a few which I've enjoyed. Other special favourites - for those with very dark humour (like myself) are Delicatessen/ La Cite des Enfants Perdus.
Just last week I recorded but haven't watched yet, Gandhi and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Both have audio in either English or French. Frequently one can select audio to English and subtitles in French, which may prevent a few arguments in some households- infrequently in ours though as I often end up in the dog-house!
One of the other reasons I purchased the model I indicated is due to it having a double tuner. One can record two programs simultaneously and watch a third in real time. There are very few on the market with this facility.

Jon-Bxl

Thanks TP for the detailed information - this is a great product! Of course I bought a TNT box last year without all these features, not really understanding the technical details.... But at this price its still worth considering.

We have 2 aerial sockets, so keep the old one for live TV and use this for recording (and for a second TV)....

Thanks its certainly worth looking at....

Jon