EmeraldGirl Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Which do you think is better and why? I want to know if you use for education, entertainment or both. What do you watch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenNC Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 We use Netflix (don't have DS at this point), but primarily for entertainment. In terms of education, we're using travel videos as part of geography and some documentaries for history (ancients--5th grade). Last year, I pulled a lot of old musicals to go along with modern history (just to make it more fun and give a flavor of the time, sometimes to talk about how differently Hollywood portrayed something than it actually was). I did find a few Spanish-language kids' movies that were a nice supplement to our Spanish studies. I wish more of the documentaries were streaming, especially the ones that are an hour long. It would make using it for school much easier. I also find it cumbersome to find appropriate educational videos in their indexing. I'm giving thought to joining http://www.onlineg3.com's forums to get access to DS for a year (IIRC it's $55), but would love to hear how others use DS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiramisu Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Just bumping. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WiseOwlKnits Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 We have both. Netflix is definitely my preference if you have to pick one or the other, esp. if you can stream through your Wii or similar... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samiam Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Hmm, I think it is about 50/50. While Netflix has alot of great documentaries, from History channel and such, it can be annoying if they are not on instant stream, meaning you have to order them. Because if you didn't plan in advance, then it may be a week or so before you get it, meanwhile you have moved on the next topic (depending on what Netflix sub you have). Plus they are usually full-length documentaries, meaning 1-2 hours. United Streaming is great because it is always instant, if they have what you want. Plus because they are put together for education, they are not usually as long, usually 30 minutes at the most, although we have had a few that were an hour. Here is a perfect example of our week: We just got done studying Spanish American war...forgot to plan ahead for movies, but found a Rough Rider movie on Netflix, so order that. It did not arrive until Monday, but we were already moving on , but had DS12 watch it anyway (plus it was a miniseries, so it was 2 discs). Didn't find that much interesting on United Streaming for that topic or perhaps I didn't look..can't remember right now. Moved on to Gilded Age/2nd Industrarial Revolution, (the BIG one). Found nothing on Netflix that would work for this. Found: 30 minute show about Gold Rush 30 minute show about the treatment of Indians, Sitting Bull, etc 30 minute show on Industriarial (apparently, I can not spell this word and too lazy to care right now!) Revolution and another 30 minute Industrutrial Revolution. All great, nice and just long enough. Plus never really worry about content, about it being inappropriate or not. Watched one each day. We have Netflix for the family, for entertainment, but it does come in handy for educational stuff. United Streaming is almost always good, usually can find something for most topics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 (edited) We have had both:) Netflix we love primarily for entertainment but it does have tons of National Geographic films and other science and history stuff. If you are primarily interested in education then Discovery Streaming wins hand down. They have videos geared for K-12 and beyond on all educational topics. For example, they have videos on english grammar, literature, art projects, art history, history, science, phonics, math, foreign language, music history, and spelling. We hooked our computer to our TV to view Discovery Education via HDMI output cable hooked to TV. We set the computer to extended screen with the TV being the second screen. We would call up the show on the computer and hit play for it to show up on the TV. Some of the Discovery Education shows are originally film shows and the quality is a little grainy and might look more so on a large LCD TV but it did not effect the enjoyability of the shows at all IMHO. Edited February 20, 2011 by priscilla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 Here is a title list: http://www.discoveryeducation.com/pdf/streamingplusTitle.pdf We brought it from Homeschool Buyer's Co-op. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2cents Posted February 20, 2011 Share Posted February 20, 2011 We have both and for educational media and the support material I prefer Unitedstreaming. I like being able to immediately find a video to watch that supports what we are learning about. It offers more immediate gratification. With Netflix I find that a lot of the videos that I want are not streaming so we have to wait. Unitedstreaming offers tons of videos geared to an educational environment whereas Netflix has IMO a more limited selection. If I could only have one, I would personally take Unitedstreaming. We also hooked up the computer to the TV so we get to see Unitedstreaming videos in big screen. Good stuff!!! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurel Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 Discovery Streaming has a much better selection, and as a pp mentioned, everything is available instantly. However, I didn't renew our Discovery Streaming subscription this year, opting instead for a Netflix subscription because we can watch the videos on the iPad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 Discovery Streaming has a much better selection, and as a pp mentioned, everything is available instantly. However, I didn't renew our Discovery Streaming subscription this year, opting instead for a Netflix subscription because we can watch the videos on the iPad. You should be able to watch DE on IPAD unless I am missing something.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2cents Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 You should be able to watch DE on IPAD unless I am missing something.... My friend has IPAD and she wasn't able to get US to play. She researched it and found that there is something that prevents it from playing. We did find that there is a workaround for this though and here is a video tutorial for it. I don't know if she ever got it to work though. http://ipadeducators.ning.com/video/united-streaming-videos-onto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lainey Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 I had never heard of Discovery Streaming, so I checked it out and it asks for a passcode for new users and when I click on it, it says... A passcode allows new users to create and register a personal username and password for access to Discovery Education Products. If you were already provided with a username and password, please input them in the username and password fields. Contact your school's Discovery Education administrator to obtain your passcode. How did you obtain a passcode? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 I had never heard of Discovery Streaming, so I checked it out and it asks for a passcode for new users and when I click on it, it says... A passcode allows new users to create and register a personal username and password for access to Discovery Education Products. If you were already provided with a username and password, please input them in the username and password fields. Contact your school's Discovery Education administrator to obtain your passcode. How did you obtain a passcode? I bought from Homeschool Buyer's Co-op:) https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/index.php?option=com_hsbc_epp_order&Itemid=1036 Register with the co-op which is free and safe:) They have FAQ about DE as well. Some states have free access I have heard:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenC3 Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 My friend has IPAD and she wasn't able to get US to play. She researched it and found that there is something that prevents it from playing. We did find that there is a workaround for this though and here is a video tutorial for it. I don't know if she ever got it to work though.http://ipadeducators.ning.com/video/united-streaming-videos-onto You can access it on the iPad which is why I love it. There is an ap and you can't get all the videos, but there is still a large number to chose from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satori Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 We have both services. For entertainment, we use Netflix. To be honest, I have 5 videos here that we've had for a month or more, so we hardly have time to use it for that. For education, Discovery Education Streaming rocks. We use it for foreign language, math, science, grammar, history, geography, pretty much subject. I made a list of educational series a few weeks ago: http://satorismiles.com/curriculum/discovery-education-streaming/ We also just use their search engine a lot, but it can be overwhelming. I just renewed our subscription through HSBC. I can watch Discovery Education Streaming on my iPad through the Safari browser. There are three choices to use when watching videos, I just don't choose Flash (which is unsupported). They do have an app, but it's very limited, and I'd never use it over the browser, which I can view all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngelBee Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 We have both, but I can't really figure out how to use DE. :001_huh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenNC Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 One of the advantages for Netflix for us is that we can stream it to the tv using the Roku box. Does anyone know if one could get US to work with the Roku? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RanchGirl Posted February 22, 2011 Share Posted February 22, 2011 Discovery Streaming has an info page on the ipad. It says 1000's of videos are available for the ipad, but not which specific ones... I am curious if Elementary Spanish is there! http://www.discoveryeducation.com/ipad/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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