Netflix Silverlight Streaming Beta Now Available for Mac Users

[dexthageek]

Well, M$ strikes again. I can't install Silverlight 2.0 on my C2D SR Macbook Pro . I am running Leopard 10.5.5 and the installer keeps saying I have a powerpc which is NOT true.

 

[The Tall One]

I think this is the future. No more DVDs or tapes, just sit at your TV and call up a movie or a show on demand. And Apple better be hip to this, cause my xbox+netflixHD is going to make my brain explode.

 

[aduteau]

So I guess this service is region blocked for us Canadians ?
Only good for USA ?

 

[Boblister]

Why ask questions like this is Google broken or something? Google Netflix and you'll see its a US only mail based DVD rental service, that also does online streaming. To use this service you have to have a US address, as their main service involves sending DVDs in the mail.

No Google isnt broken, but I was hoping for a more civilised answer instead of a sarcastic one

I asked because I was hoping the online service might have opened it up to a wider audience which "Google" didnt indicate.

Sorry to have troubled you.

 

[Roderick Usher]

so +1 on the native PPC not avail. Why should we spend $$ and just toss out a perfectly good working computer just because they are to incompetent to make the app multi processor?

You seriously think that incompetence is the reason behind their decision to not support PPC-based Macs? You realize that there's a good chance Blizzard will do the same thing with Starcraft 2 - are they incompetent as well? It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that most of the Mac userbase is on Intel now, and there will be only fewer PPC users in the future? How long do you think Adobe Creative Suite is going to support PPC? Or Microsoft Office?

It would sure get the tree huggers panties in a bunch if I was being that wasteful.

What?

Economically, is makes no sense either.

Do you understand that it substantially increases development costs - and therefore decreases return-on-investment - for a company to support both PPC and Intel? Exactly how much money do you think they stand to make from devoting significant resources to support a fraction (PPC) of a fraction (Mac) of the total Netflix userbase?

 

[davidg4781]

Anybody else having trouble with the video quality auto-detect? Mine is coming up as "Basic" and saying I have a data rate of less than 1 Mbps even though most speed tests clock me at 1.8-2.1.

Mine's doing that also, and I remember a few months ago, I had 3 bars, or excellent, or whatever the top speed is.

I think Netflix might be throttling everything down while they're doing all this testing. Hopefully it'll go back soon. It used to look pretty good on my roommate's TV, but the last movie I watched, before the silverlight thing, looked horrible.

 

[DaBrain]

Works GREAT on both my intel iMac and my mac book.

IM now a happy camper! Thank You NetFlix!

 

[DaBrain]

I tried watching a movie last night. I have an admittedly slow internet connection, but the movie quality was terrible.

Well there ya go! What did you expect for a slowwww connection? I have found one needs at least a 1.5Mbs connection to view movies, preferably 3.0 Mbs and you'll be happy!
Is it HD quality? Nope! But close to DVD and for the price ya can't beat it.

IM sure there will be tons more movies as this progresses. I was surprised to see that they also include one Live Starz channel, but what's dumb is you can't select full screen on it!

Just got done watching the Pixar movie! Pretty interesting and a Great insight of Jobs and Pixar!

 

[orbital]

I don't get this. I have a 2.8 gHz 8 core mac with 16 GB of Ram and the 8800 GT video card and the video is all stuttery. WTF

 

[aznguyen316]

I'm glad about this, netflix member and I dont' stream movies as much as my GF does, it's nice to have it. My GF streams on her Dell and I use it every once in awhile. Props to Netflix

 

[ntrigue]

I don't have to pay a cent more for this! I imagine I am gonna just hang onto my current discs and stream everything.

 

[creator2456]

To those with a problem about no PPC support...just wait until Snow Leopard. It's an Apple OS that won't even support PPC.

Since Apple has done this it has given informal permission to any and all developers to stop PPC support as well.

 

[.:R2theT]

Well, M$ strikes again. I can't install Silverlight 2.0 on my C2D SR Macbook Pro . I am running Leopard 10.5.5 and the installer keeps saying I have a powerpc which is NOT true.

That's weird. I am running it on my 10.4.11 CoreDuo iMac and it works very well.

I don't know why people are so weird about running Silverlight on their Macs. Apple won't open things up for Netflix due to Apple's desire to steer people towards iTunes. Seems to me that that goes against what Apple/Steve Jobs would like us to believe about wanting consumers to have choice when it comes to media(Steve Jobs open letter to the music industry).

This is just another option for the consumer. Which is great for competition!

 

[Tara Luvs Apple]

I tried it, but when I got to the screen where I had to install Microsoft Silverlight, I installed it. The screen then said to refresh my browser to start playing the movie (after I installed it). I did that and I even exited and went back through to the movie through Netflix.com, but it keeps saying to "install now".

I even went on the Microsoft Silverlight website, and under install, it told me that I have the latest version. So I went back to Netflix.com and tried again. No luck. I even tried with a different movie. Still no luck.

So I restarted my computer and everything, but now I am getting an error 8007 message stating that "I need to enable Silverlight application storage in order to watch this movie." And whenever I right click, it tries to open, but it quits unexpectedly.

I just want to watch my movies!

Also, when you watch the movies, are they taken directly off my queue? What if someone else wants to watch it at a later date. And what if I need to stop mid-movie?

 

[Wie Gehts]

Just tried a few minutes of one movie on my macbook. Crap quality but thats probably because I have low end DSL so its giving me a 'basic' connection.

But I am getting cable in a couple weeks.

 

[DaBrain]

Well, M$ strikes again. I can't install Silverlight 2.0 on my C2D SR Macbook Pro . I am running Leopard 10.5.5 and the installer keeps saying I have a powerpc which is NOT true.

Well something is not right there! Just installed it on my SR Macbook with no problem.

 

[munckee]

Well there ya go! What did you expect for a slowwww connection?

I expected it to be watchable. I use hulu, and the network sites to watch video content all the time. No, the quality isn't great, but I'm not very picky at all. This was downright unwatchable.

 

[Cameront9]

I don't have an Intel mac so it will be some time before I can try this, but can anyone tell me if any of the films are closed captioned and/or subtitled? That's the deal breaker for me..

 

[creator2456]

Also, when you watch the movies, are they taken directly off my queue? What if someone else wants to watch it at a later date. And what if I need to stop mid-movie?

Watch Instant movies are not removed once they are watched.

 

[/dev/toaster]

Silverlight ?! WTF are they smoking ? The number of sites requiring flash is bad enough, Silverlight is only going to make things worse.

Sorry, lost all interest in Netflix streaming. (I admit my interest was low since there is very little quality content on Netflix streaming)

 

[chapel321]

It's working great for me!

 

[yoppie]

This might get me to join Netflix. I'm not much of a movie watcher but it's nice to know I could watch one whenever I wanted so long as I had an internet connection.

 

[flottenheimer]

Quite a scoop for Microsoft and the rollout of their Silverlight technology.
Y'all know that they're trying to kill Flash, right...

I wonder if Silverlight will come to the iPhone before Flash does?

 

[ihearthorses]

International users

For those of you international users, Netflix isn't officially available to those outside of the USA. You get this message if you try to watch a film with a Netflix account from abroad.

I'm in Norway however and used a (really annoying but free) program called Hotspot Shield, which I think is essentially a proxy, and it managed to shield my IP address so I could watch a movie and it seems to be working (it tricks Netflix into thinking you have an american ISP).

The problem is, HotSpot Shield slows your connection down significantly and I think it also lessens the quality of the movie (because Silverlight seems to auto detect your connection speed and then adjust the quality accordingly). But, I'm watching Spiderman 3 and it looks fine (on a 13" screen it looks like iTunes quality). This is the only way I've figured out so far to get Netflix/Silverlight to work from abroad but I'm thinking there must be a better way, but this way is easy at least. Worth the free trial at least if you watch a lot of flicks on your computer.

Edit: Just noticed a workaround/trick for the slow HotSpot Shield speed... Sign up for Netflix with HotSpot Shield turned on. After you're logged in, click on the movie you want to stream. When it starts loading, disconnect HotSpot Shield and the movie will load at your normal ISP speed. It's not ideal but it definitely works fine and beats the movie rental prices abroad by a whole bunch.

 

[840quadra]

Quick question

I haven't the ability to test this until next week so I was wondering if this system lets you download the entire stream, disable Wireless, and watch the movie without an active internet connection?

Not a total deal breaker for me, but it is one feature that I love about iTunes Movie rentals.

Thanks!