Now you can watch streaming movies and tv shows on your computer. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/technology/16netflix.html?_r=2&ref=media&oref=slogin&oref=slogin Here's just a portion of the article: Like most other electronic distribution services, Netflix’s system will work initially only with a limited catalog — about 1,000 movies and television shows, only a tiny fraction of the more than 70,000 titles that Netflix offers for rent. It offers titles from NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers and others. The service, which will be introduced over six months, works only on recent versions of Windows and Internet Explorer. Over time, Mr. Hastings hopes to expand the catalog of titles and make the service available on other hardware and software combinations, including set-top boxes, television screens and portable devices. The bulk of Netflix’s subscribers, who pay $18 a month and are allowed to keep three movies at home at all times, will receive 18 hours of free watching every month. Those with cheaper plans will have fewer free hours and those with premium services will receive more. By comparison, typical movie rentals cost $3 to $4 on Amazon, and $3 to $5 on MovieLink, though special promotions are available. Mr. Hastings said he chose the instant delivery afforded by streaming technology over downloads, which can take a while, because it would encourage subscribers to use the system to browse the catalog and discover new movies. If they do not like a movie, they can stop it and will be charged only for the minutes they actually watched. Yet even as he touts the benefits of his own service, Mr. Hastings does not believe that electronic distribution, be it through downloads or streaming services, is ready for prime time.
Anyone have Netflix and use the streaming? I'm seriously considering the $8.99 plan because it has unlimited streaming and I'd like some feedback. Thanks!
I agree - if you go and look under each category (drama, comedy, horror, etc) at what's available for streaming, you have about 5 good films and then about 100 crap films (if that many). I do like that I can watch TV shows via streaming (i.e. Dexter) though - I would never want to waste a DVD delivery on that so the streaming is helpful for that.
Question about the streaming. When I try to do it, it tells me there's an error. It gives me a series of steps to try to correct the error, but they say it's not recommended if I don't have my information backed up. Of course, I don't (I know, I know) so I'm reluctant to try it. Anyone have a problem doing that?
I agree...there are movies that I haven't heard of...there are some very few good streaming movies. Apparently, they only use IE for streaming movies. Most of times, the quality is good but when I watched "The Orphanage", the quality was poor! I barely could read the subtitles.
Netflix recently pissed me off. I am signed up for the service that gets me 2 DVDs at a time, unlimited. I had set up a queue for my wife and I, and a separate one for my stepson, who likes to watch a lot of crap like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Well, I get an email from them telling me they are soon to be doing away with the multiple queues per customer. Do I get a discount for losing this functionality? Hell no. Their reason? "To better serve our customers." How the hell does eliminating a feature better serve us? Now we have to take all his movies and throw them into our queue. He takes much longer to watch his DVDs than we do, so we can't just do it where we have one of ours then one of his. Then it would end up with him having two of his movies at once. We will have to manage our queue every single time one of us sends in a movie so we can make sure we each have one. It will be a pain in the ass. /Rant
I was able to watch "The Omega Man" on the Netflix movie viewer. lol. I just wanted to see the original to compare it to the Will Smith acted remake ("I am Legend"). As I suspected, the original was much better IMO even though it was much older. I guess they still have some issues putting newer movies online. There are some newer movies available, though. I take it there are licensing issues that need to be worked out before a movie is made available for instant viewing like that.
I just spent an hour on the phone with my mom trying to get netflix player working. After having her download all the Windows Media Players and updates, she kept getting a flashing black and green screen. I found a post stating to disable full video acceleration in WMP11 and finally everything works! She is very happy now, since she only had OTA HDTV until today. I can see why people give up trying to get NetFlix player installed though. She was getting really frustrated for a while.
I have been using the streaming feature a few times a week since I signed back up two months ago. If you have a good enough internet connection the picture quality is pretty much that of a standard DVD. As for the selection it probably depends a lot on your movie taste. The selection of newer releases is pretty limited but if you enjoy a broader range of movies then you will easily find plenty to watch.
I read that Comcast already started metering bandwith in Beumont. It was the first place in the US for Comcast to roll out that plan.
How are you guys watching the streaming movie? On your desktop/laptop or do you have that device that lets you watch it on your tv?
I watch both on my laptop and my 24" external monitor. I haven't tried playing it through my TV via my laptop yet but am kind of curious how it will look.
I signed up for a month last night to give it a shot. I was really impressed with the selection of streaming Zombie movies and they have a decent selection of TV shows. The quality is pretty good, too. I have yet to try it on my 42-inch plasma via the PC I have hooked up to it...I'll report back when I do try it. I figure I can use it until I drink up the selection and then cancel. For the record, I'm not interested in the actual DVD service, although my wife is going to give it a spin.
I had a chance to play with streaming to my Plasma last night. DVD quality on everything I played. I really hope they aggressively go after genres like Westerns and Anime. They can really make a name for their service if they pull in these niche markets.
