[Macworld]

Post your comments for Using Netflix Instant Watching to feed your Mac media center here

[Coffeeboss]

Ok so I'm probably not the last person that doesn't have the TIVO hooked up with netflix running on a huge plasma... . So how has Apple dropped the ball here and not bought out Netflix or at least offered there services on the Apple TV devise? Doesn't one pay a service fee to have a TIVO and then another to be a part of Netflix? I love the idea of skipping the teen angst at the blockbuster counter but at what cost per month? -
I was hoping Apple would have made a stronger move here considering what iTunes can do.
JD

[pcthiker]

Thanks for the article. I am surprised at how good the quality of the films are streaming from Netflix.

[hillstones]

Coffeeboss said:

Ok so I'm probably not the last person that doesn't have the TIVO hooked up with netflix running on a huge plasma... . So how has Apple dropped the ball here and not bought out Netflix or at least offered there services on the Apple TV devise? Doesn't one pay a service fee to have a TIVO and then another to be a part of Netflix? I love the idea of skipping the teen angst at the blockbuster counter but at what cost per month? -

I was hoping Apple would have made a stronger move here considering what iTunes can do.

JD

Apple has no intention of ever offering NetFlix on the AppleTV because Apple only wants you to buy from iTunes. They don't want you renting from other sources through their set-top box. Apple won't buy out NetFlix because they have no intention of offering DVD's for rent. Most of NetFlix's business is still DVD's through the mail.

TiVo and NetFlix have service fees. NetFlix is by the month. TiVo can be monthly, yearly, extended periods (I have a three year plan), or Lifetime purchase (with no fees). iTunes and AppleTV are limited in what they can do and offer. Amazon On Demand is now available on both TiVo HD boxes and the NetFlix Roku box. NetFlix is also available on the TiVo HD boxes. You can hack your AppleTV if you want it to do more. AppleTV is very limited compared to TiVo HD.

[himbo]

hillstones said:

>AppleTV is very limited

This is really all that you need to say.

[hillstones]

[quote name='himbo']
>

hillstones said:

>AppleTV is very limited

This is really all that you need to say.

Since he didn't seem to understand the concept, he needed an explanation.

[cseeman]

HiDef, Good Quality from Netflix Instant Watching?
What am I doing wrong?
Netflix to MacPro ATI Radeon HD 2600, 30,000kbps (Yes that fast) down, DVI to HDMI to 46" 1080p HDTV. I have to set display to mirror mode because if I move browser to TV and go full screen it bounces back to Cinema Display. Netflix looks like a bad MPEG1 encode on my HDTV.
OTOH, Hulu look great and I don't need to set display to mirror. Move browser to HDTV and go to Full Screen mode works fine. It looks worse than an upscaled DVD but not bad though.

[buzglyd]

I just decided against a Mini connected to my HDTV and bought a Samsung BDP1600 Blu-Ray player. I can rent Blue-Ray discs from Netflix and it's got Netflix streaming service built right into it! I watch a movie yesterday and it works great. It also has Pandora built in to it.
If the Mini supported Blu-Ray I might have gone that route. As it is, the Samsung was $279 and didn't need any RAM upgrades.
For MLB.com or Hulu (which I rarely watch) I can still connect my Macbook.

[ThisNameIsTaken]

I've been pretty pleased with Netflix through my Samsung Blu-ray player. The quality is as good as my cable hook-up (480p channels not the HD ones) and I find that I always have something that there's more there for me to watch than what Comcast available in their On Demand line-up.

[Jason Snell]

@cseeman: I think it's possible that netflix HD streaming doesn't work yet on the Mac. It works on the embedded hardware devices, but I think it doesn't work on the desktop. I'll check and update the story if that's true. (Also, only a small selection of Netflix stuff is in HD right now.)

[cseeman]

Jason Snell said:

@cseeman: I think it's possible that netflix HD streaming doesn't work yet on the Mac. It works on the embedded hardware devices, but I think it doesn't work on the desktop. I'll check and update the story if that's true. (Also, only a small selection of Netflix stuff is in HD right now.)

Please do check on that. I tested the beta for Netflix on Mac before public release. At Creative COW Ron Lindboom and I have discussed this on the Silverlight forum (Ron seems to get better results than me)

I was getting significant dropped frames both periodic and fast motion scenes on my HDTV for a while. The dropped frames issue seems to have gotten much better but the uprez looks terrible. I'm wondering if it's a Silverlight Mac issue. I thought maybe their encodes were at a "too low" data rate. Even sans HD, Standard Def on Netflix looks much worse than Hulu. Hulu is using On2VP6 for all but 480p and HD which are H.264. Silverlight won't be using H.264 until version 3 is out the door (in beta at the moment). I can only guess that Netflix is using some WMV/VC-1 supposedly at some "reasonable" data rate.

Let me know what you find out.

[don731]

We use Netflix streaming via a separate Roku box, which will produce 720p output, and can do episodic selections.
Netflix via Silverlight on either Plex, or Understudy FR plugin has an inferior picture quality, and cannot do individual episode selection. The Roku box has recently added connectivity to the Amazon movie rental service as well as Netflix streams.

[HerbalEd]

Re. the article's "You’ll never find the latest and greatest movies and TV shows on Instant Watching."
Never say never. It's only a matter of time before virtually every movie and TV show ever made will be available from the internet. How long a time remains to be seen, but I'm betting no more than 5 years. Maybe not the very latest movie releases will immediately be available, but even those will be within a few months after release

[SpiceLMF]

Ok this is nitpicky and silly... but it's called "Watch Instantly" I've read a bunch of articles recently about Watch Instantly and constantly see people refer to it as IW or Instant Watch (and in this article Instant Watching). Don't ask me why but it drives me nuts.
I tweeted about this and a friend replied that he could care less lol... so I'm sure I'm alone in my annoyance.