Netflix's Watch Instanly

[LMITOUT]

On the surface DN's "on demand" service is a fancy name for pay-per-view (wow what is going right now for a one time view of $64.00 ), but their websites says something about channel 501 and TV shows, but I do not have a channel 501.

No. Video On Demand is different than PPV. Video On Demand downloads the movie to your hard drive for your viewing (1080p quality too). I think you have 24 hours to watch the movie and can watch it as many times as you want during that time period before it disappears. PPV is a real-time movie or show that you have to watch at the time it is scheduled.

[bgmny]

I want to sign up for a netflix account also, but I guess I need a wireless bridge? I want to hook it up to my blu-ray player. Where do you get a bridge? The netflix HSOforum says that you can get blu-ray movies by mail for an extra $2 per month. Does anybody do this? Just wondering how the selection is compared to regular dvd's.

[Surface Tension]

If you look at the DVDs you will see which ones are available in blu-ray. I would say at least 50% of the movies I select on NetFlix are blu-ray.

Watch Instantly:

My blu-ray player has wi-fi and recently purchased a PS3 with remote which work fine with my wireless modem.

[mnwild]

$5 for a new release is insane. Hollywood video is closing in my neck of the woods right after Movie Gallery did. I guess they don't realize how much they are charging for movies to rent. I have been wanting to try netflix and after reading this I think I will.

[PierBridge]

As I maintain the properties for 2 Blockbusters, I HATE Netflix. Especially from the news the other night that Blockbuster is probably going to declare bankruptcy.

Red-Box can't be helping either with Dollar rentals, 24/7 service and machines every-where you look now..

[jwhjr]

The Hollywood Video in my neck of the woods just put up a Store Closing sign in the last few weeks, I haven't paid attention to see if the Blockbuster is still open. We haven't gone to either place since we started Netflix in 2004.

[Shack]

Ya Pier Red Box I think pounded the nail into the coffin of any video store location. I never was a fan of them (because I never really used one), but I could see how you could become a fan. It may not be instant, but with in the hour you can cheaply have a new release in the DVD player.

[Shack]

Ok, so I get an e-mail a couple weeks back from Netflix saying "Now on the Wii"....

Anyone try it yet?

I do still like Netflix. I am watching movies I either have been meaning to watch, never heard of but like, or ones I just never could bring myself to rent in the store. Also the one DVD out at a time is being used heavily in my house. We are keeping up on the new releases this way with out have a 2 day return limit and paying $6-7 per rental at our local store.

Also starting to get into Zune when we want to watch more than the new release DVD we get from Netfix during the weekends. Just downloaded and watched Inglorious Bastards (new one) and watched the 70's one on Netflix last week.

[buddha]

I'm not a movie person but my wife is, I just ordered the Wii disc yesterday for her to try this out. I'll let you know once she gives it a shot.

[Shack]

Cool Buddha. I was in my Netflix account yesterday afternoon and saw the link to get the CD. All I had to do was click it and it said you will be getting it in 1 day.

[spearchucker]

I would guess the video quality on the Wii will be worse than a DVD, but to some that doesn't matter. If you have a laptop and a flat screen TV you are also set.

[Shack]

I am looking forward to this pretty much for another option for my kids to be entertained.

Even with the Xbox, HDMI, and a flat panel LED TV the Netflix streaming video quality is subject to your current bandwidth available. Its updated often if things are changing with your ISP (or what ever) and only takes a second to do, but some time it chooses a video quality that makes the movie hard to watch.

Good point SC. If your TV has HDMI, USB or data inputs on it (or you have a video card/converter or your PC has RCA/component outputs) a PC can get you online streaming from Netflix also.

[spearchucker]

I can see where the Wii and PS3 streaming would be handy.

I don't have Netflix, but I have talked to others that have it and they say that even on a good connection that the online HD content looks about equivalent to a standard DVD. I watch stuff off of the CBS HSOforum with my laptop connected to my TV with the VGA connector and audio from the headphone jack and it works great. My laptop doesn't have HDMI outputs. 1080P looks great, but you need a good laptop and a fast connection to use it. They also provide 480P, and 720P. I can stream 720P over my wireless G, but if I want 1080P I have to connect with wired ethernet as it is about a 30mbps stream.

[croixflats]

I recently got an email my netflix will be going up in price come the 1st of jan then I recently heard Comcast is charging a fee to Netflix. My first response was here we go Comcast is getting to big and is starting to control info flow.

So I did a bit of looking for the story behind it.

In a nut shell this article explains the fee for Nelflix.

Netflix is a bandwidth hog. Who will pay? (Hint: You.)

By David Goldman, staff writerNovember 30, 2010: 4:49 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Netflix is clogging up the Internet. There's a debate raging about who should pay for it -- but ultimately, it's going to be you.

The latest skirmish is a fracas between Comcast, which connects users to the Internet, and Level 3, which signed a deal three weeks ago to host and deliver Netflix's streaming videos to networks like Comcast's. Comcast ultimately delivers those videos to its paying broadband customers.

Here's the quick blow-by-blow:

After Level 3 (LVLT) inked the deal, it went to Comcast and asked permission to send twice the amount of traffic to the cable and Internet provider's network as it had done before. The data spike isn't surprising: Netflix represents more than 20% of download traffic during peak hours, according to a new study by Sandvine.

Comcast (CMCSA, Fortune 500) scoffed. That's a whole lot of bandwidth that Level 3 is asking for, and it's expensive for Comcast to constantly beef up its network to support additional traffic.

Typically, content delivery networks (CDNs) like Level 3 have what's called "peering" agreements with Internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast. The two sides figure that a roughly equal amount of traffic will be driven to each of their networks, so neither charges the other a fee for use.

But Comcast says that with the new Netflix load, Level 3's traffic to Comcast's network would be five times more than the cable company is driving to Level 3's network. So Comcast demanded that Level 3 pay for that traffic increase.

"Level 3 wants to compete with other CDNs, but pass all the costs of that business onto Comcast and Comcast's customers, instead of Level 3 and its customers," Comcast said in a blog post.

In response, Level 3 lashed out at Comcast. It called the new fee unfair and accused Comcast of abusing its "dominant" position as the nation's largest cable provider.

"By taking this action, Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband Internet access network," Level 3 said in a press release.

Still, it says it grudgingly agreed last week to pay up. "After being informed by Comcast that its demand for payment was 'take it or leave it,' Level 3 agreed to the terms, under protest, in order to ensure customers did not experience any disruptions," the company said.

Somebody's gotta pay

The explosion of online video -- especially the movie-length content Netflix (NFLX) spotlights -- isn't an easy problem to fix. The amount of video watched online has nearly doubled in a year, to 15.1 hours per user per month, according to comScore. It is costs increasingly more to host and serve that content, and to build the infrastructure for the bandwidth that allows users to download it.

Someone has to pay for that. But who should it be?

0:00 /5:04Netflix: DVDs dead, streaming lives

That's where it gets sticky: Both Comcast and Level 3 are playing on both sides of the fence.

In addition to being one of the world's largest CDNs, Level 3 is also a so-called "tier 1" Internet backbone. It's one of around a dozen companies that provides major routes for data to flow between networks like Comcast and content networks (including its own) that host websites and videos.

Level 3 squawked loudly about Comcast's fee demand, calling it a "clear abuse" of Comcast's market position and an act that "threatens the open Internet."

Yet Level 3 found itself in Comcast's shoes back in 2005. Feeling its peering agreement with fellow Internet backbone Cogent Communications (CCOI) unfairly taxed its network, Level 3 made the exact same argument that Comcast is making today, and even temporarily pulled the plug on its connection to Cogent, cutting off some parts of the Internet for millions of Cogent customers.

Comcast is also playing on both sides of the argument, since it is a competitor to Netflix. It owns several cable channels and is in the process of buying NBC Universal.

Level 3 played up that conflict-of-interest. "With this action, Comcast is preventing competing content from ever being delivered to Comcast's subscribers at all, unless Comcast's unilaterally determined toll is paid," the company said.

Comcast denied that its role as a content provider has anything to do with its decision to charge Level 3 a fee.

'A series of tubes'

To make some sense of this, we can pay tribute to the late Sen. Ted Stevens, who famously called the Internet "a series of tubes." It's not, but it's actually a pretty good analogy.

Picture the Internet as a city. Level 3 operates the massive plumbing pipes under the roadways, but it also runs the mechanism that collects and pushes the water through. Comcast is the company that connects your home plumbing system to those massive water pipes -- but it also makes some of the water.

Kind of complicated, right? So the debate isn't as clean-cut as it would appear.

Even Net neutrality advocates are backing away from the strong language they had initially used in shunning Comcast.

"The Net neutrality argument isn't saying that everything should be free -- someone needs to pay for all the infrastructure that provides that traffic," said Matt Wood, associate director of Media Access Project, an advocacy group that wants regulators to mandate "open Internet" policies.

"Netflix will have to raise its costs, because Level 3 has to raise costs to carry Netflix, and Comcast has to raise its costs to increase its bandwidth," he said. "But ultimately, that means the customers will pay for it."

It's possible that Comcast is singling out Level 3 because it serves content from one of its chief competitors. It's also possible that Level 3 is being duplicitous by changing its argument when it's on the other side of the fence.

But cutting through all the bickering, one harsh reality is becoming clear: Everyone's going to have to pay. Comcast will have to raise its fees and Level 3 will have to pay more for its traffic demands. Those fees will be borne by Netflix and Comcast -- and ultimately, they'll be passed onto you. To top of page

[caseymcq]

... Watch Instantly:

My blu-ray player has wi-fi and recently purchased a PS3 with remote which work fine with my wireless modem.

Is what you watch through the blu-ray and/or PS3 1080p?

We have a Wii, which we could get NetFlix through but I believe that is only 480p. If I was to consider dropping DirectTV and going with Netflix I would like to have the same quality as we are getting with our HD receiver.

For any of you utilizing this service with Wi-Fi through a Blu-ray player, Wii, PS3, Xbox are you happy with the performance? What type of internet service do you have (Cable, DSL, etc?)

[pureinsanity]

Ive thought about just getting internet and using my xbox and ps3 to use netflix. do they basically have all the shows youd see on tv now?

Id be interested to take a peak at someone using these streaming abilities.

Also the nice thing about it is you can stream on a computer, your xbox and your ps3 at the same time (if your net can handle it) so cross platform works! you could have three different shows on at once not that you would want to but just saying

[Scott K]

Netflix doesnt have all shows, or even near all shows. They will have seasons of some of the popular show, and some choice movies you can stream, but after a couple months, they pretty much get to be old news.

[Born2Fish]

It is good for a while. Like Wandering said, after a while it is all old news. Though they do update things fairly consistently. The only bad thing is half of the movies or shows I do want to watch are "DVD Only". There are still lots of choices to watch though, and it sure beats running down to a Redbox or movie store and renting a movie.

[tsande00]

I love the watch instant Netflix. I watch it more than cable.

Here is a list of recent TV shows I have watched:

Lost seasons 1-6

Dexter seasons 1-2

Trailer Park Boys Seasons 1-5

30 Rock seasons 1-3

Prison Break season 1

About to start Sons of Anarchy.

Lots of great programing that I never would have bothered to watch if it wasn't so darn convenient. Does it get old? Not if you are willing to watch different programs. If you are only into movies it can get old though.

[Crm7290]

Is sons of anarchy on netflix? I saw an episode or two and wasn't really into it but if I can watch it all at once that can change.

[thatoneguy]

Dexter ftw. Great, great, show. Watched the first 4 seasons on Netflix.