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Netflix Extends "Watch Instantly" To Mac Users
CNet is reporting that Netflix has opened up its "Watch Instantly" feature to Mac users (here is Netflix's blog entry). They accomplished this by using Microsoft's Silverlight technology on both platforms, abandoning the Windows Media Player solution that had been employed in the first, Windows-only, version. Silverlight's DRM capabilities meet Netflix's needs, apparently. Netflix warns that this is beta software. Mac users can opt in here, then watch instantly with Safari or Firefox 2+, with the Silverlight plugin in place. Movie selection is somewhat limited.
I am really afraid of DRM giving Silverlight power and more distribution (and vice versa). While Flash has (or will have?) DRM capabilities too, another "competitor" on the DRM market could really make things even worse than they are.
It doesn't seem to differ from the normal instant watch selection. Obviously that selection is limited in that it does not encompass the entire Netflix library- that would be infeasible regardless of the player being used.
As far as I can tell, the beta allows access to the full instant watch selection that IE users would see. The player loads and buffers much quicker than the player in IE7- allowing for much faster skipping forwards and backwards on the old P-IV in my living room. The performance difference is fairly pronounced on my relatively new laptop. Under Firefox it is consistently 15 seconds from clicking "play" while browsing instant-watch to the actual start of the video. In IE7 it will take between 30 seconds 45 seconds. Video quality is indistinguishable in terms of clarity, but I noticed much less stuttering in the silverlight player.
On the old pentium IV machine in my livingroom, the time to play drops from about 1 minute to 25 seconds. While this is half the time, it was never a big deal when compared to the convenience. What is a big deal is the impressive drop in stuttering compared to the player in IE7. On my dinosaur of a living room computer, the video for all netflix movies would stutter every few seconds or so until the movie was fully buffered. In the silverlight player, there is no noticeable stuttering.
I did this totally subjective, non-scientific, arbitrary, and slightly drunk comparison on the following two machines:
Older-than-dirt desktop-
-2.4 GHz Pentium IV
-1GB DDR 333 RAM
-Windows XP Home SP3
-Ati Radeon 9800 Pro (256MB VRAM)
Slightly Newer Laptop-
-2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
-2GB DDR2 RAM
-Windows XP Pro SP3
-Ati Radeon Mobility x1400 (god awful)
Not just theoretical. I'm doing it on Firefox 3 right now.
And they only pretty much did it because they found out it works easily with Silverlight in Intel based macs only.
Amazing that a company is switching _to_ Silverlight for a cross-platform solution. This is wrong on so many levels.
http://dotancohen.com/heb/wallashops.html
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Sadly, I titled the first post really poorly. After playing around with the "beta" player on a couple machines for a little while longer I found a few other things worth noting.
The Silverlight player does not require nearly as much free space as the IE7/WMP player for the "high quality" video to play. I've checked and the library is the same as that availible for the PC as far as the 182 items in my instant queue go.
While that doesn't cover the thousands upon thousands of items they stream, it does cover a wide range of properties. So far as I can tell, the Starz! content, the CBS current series content, the NBC current series content, and all the showtime content is still there. Other than that, well who cares if "Santa Clause Conquers the Martians" isn't availible in Firefox. Oh wait, it looks like it is.
I'm doing it on Firefox 3 right now.
You've got me beat. I've done it on the kitchen table once or twice, and once _almost_ did it on a bus.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
It's opt-in. Go here: http://www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin
Another annoying, proprietary bullshit extension I'm going to need to watch video in my browser that people are going to end up building entire websites in.
I don't think it is NetFlix's choice to adopt Silverlight. They released a press release to their Mac users before, stating that it is the movie companies (probably MPAA) stipulated which DRM they can use. But, true to their word, they finally are opening Watch Instantly to Mac users. Lets hope that the Linux port of Silverlight gets thrown in the mix too.
I know Microsoft products are unpopular, but sadly, the adage "No one ever got fired for buying (trusting) Microsoft" probably applies here.
Watch Instantly has progressively gotten better. You should check out the new Starz Play selection. There are some quality titles. I'm actually watching Natural Born Killers right now on my 32inch 720p, fullscreen is approximately the quality of a 1 gig XVID. Certainly not DVD quality... more like a VHS.
Now if only they'd add more Crime Documentaries... (COPS anyone?)
I've also heard rumors that NetFlix watch instantly is coming to XBOX 360... so the move to silverlight is less than suprising.
Shake has always been available for Linux - in fact, it has been ported to MacOS/Windows from that OS. Shake 4 for Linux is sold for $4999 right now.
Besides, have you heard about Autodesk Smoke? That's a complete Linux-based online video editing suite.
Coding etudes
I know Microsoft products are unpopular, but sadly, the adage "No one ever got fired for buying (trusting) Microsoft" probably applies here.
I counter with no one has ever been prosecuted for using Linux.
Enough with the IBM || Microsoft half-truths.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Well, you would probably be interested to learn that for example imeem is written in C# to be able to run it on both Windows and Linux. Silverlight in my, albeit biased, opinion, is much cleaner and neater than flash. Or WM solution for this case, obviously... MS has too much stigma for what it USED TO do, or what it still does but to significantly lesser extent
I don't see how the imeem reference is relevant. What am I missing?
While I won't go into the pros and cons of Flash, in comparison Silverlight currently runs on less platforms, has lower market market share on the platforms that it does run on, and has no superior DRM model. You can add to that your personal feelings about Microsoft and Adobe.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
I guess we all know it: https://thepiratebay.org/ And it doesn't require any Silverlight.
arrghh
Does Shake for Linux get delivered by a naked Natalie Portman or come in a solid gold box or something? The OSX version is $499, and a look around the Apple site doesn't mention why the Linux version is for some reason worth an extra $4,500.
Both versions, up to Shake 3.0 were $4,999, and originally Shake was a Linux app (hence the very different interface of the OS X version compared to even the esoteric Final Cut Studio apps).
With the release of Shake 4 though, Apple cut the cost of the OS X version to $499, and provided unlimited render licences for that version, while keeping the cost and licence restrictions on the Linux version to "encourage" people to use the OS X version.
They know they can't kill the Linux version off entirely, due to the number of hih end effects houses who are quite happy to have a mixed Linux/Mac environment and don;t want to change out their Shake boxes for Mac Pros, but they want anyone who wants to start up in the field to go all-Mac.
It all may be academic though, since there are whispers of a from-the-ground-up app to replace Shake at some point from inside Apple, to either go alongside Motion, or to replace that too.
Except that Xbox 360s will only stream Netflix if you have a pay-per-month Xbox Live account.
On top of your Netflix subscription.
They sell standalone Netflix streaming boxes for about $100. With no extra monthly fee.
1. Selection is horrid.
Now that Mac users are onboard, Brokeback Mountain is being made available ASAP.
That's because Linux users commit more serious crimes.
Frosty piss posts are worthless, GNAA posts are worthless and hurtful, but they are the least of this site's neuroses.
You mean you're doing it in the "IE Tab" extension inside Firefox?
Noooo. He means he installed the Silverlight plugin and is watching it natively in Firefox. Y'know, basically what this whole article is about.
This guy's the limit!
When you come home from the pub at night after a few beers you don't want to wait for BitTorrent, you want it NOW!
After a few beers, I'm streaming a whole different kind of torrent.
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
So can you please tell me where I can buy Linux versions of Final Cut Studio, Shake 4, Creative Suite CS, Flix Pro, Sound Studio, Toast, and Sony's XDCAM HD transfer apps please?
I cannot believe that you got modded troll for that. It is true, there are not enough commercial apps available for Linux at the moment. What I wouldn't do for Solidworks on my Ubuntu box!
For Creative Suite, write to these folks:
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/contact.html
For Flix, write here:
http://www.on2.com/index.php?373
Write to these folks asking about Sound Studio for Linux:
http://www.freeverse.com/support/
This is the address for the people responsible for Toast:
http://www.roxio.com/enu/company/contact.html
And the infamous Sony:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/corporate/contacts.asp
Please, don't be shy and WRITE TO THEM! If we don't write and let them know that Linux is a viable OS with a strong user base, then they will never port their software to Linux.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
...Of course you have a valid Windows XP or vista Lic but given were talking about a payment service here, the small cost of obtaining any old windows lic if you don't already have one is not really an issue.
You are wrong; that 'license' is exactly the issue. Why should I have to pay for, install, and maintain another OS, to use a video on-demand service that I already payfor? Is it because they were too lazy and stupid to implement it using an open standard? Or because the mpaa is forcing them too?
Hitler?
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Hard to get excited when I still can't watch it on my mac (PowerPC) just as it was with the Olympics.
Don't get exited, then. Instead, write to Netflix and let them know that you, and the millions of other Ubuntu, PowerPC, Fedora, and other non-Windows || Intel Mac _still_ cannot use their service. Let them know that they need a cross-platform solution, not a pick-and-choose platform solution. Here is their address:
http://www.netflix.com/ContactUs
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
If you trust Microsoft not to screw you over, there is no reason to avoid Silverlight. There is no reason to hate Silverlight (the tech) at all, however some might take issue with the strategic purpose of it (which can be *very* important to you as a user).
Personally I think it's an embrace, extend and extinguish move much like IE was in its time - when it becomes prevalent enough, the windows version will get more features and the mac/linux version be left to wither. For the full experience you'll be expected to go all Microsoft, all the time (see Office suite, Active-X, IE, PFS, Zune etc). Balmer loves that kind of move, and he's in charge now.
If you haven't learned that this is their SOP, by all means go ahead and use it, as you will learn a valuable lesson.
Cross platform compatibility should rank high. When apple laptop sales are over 40% on campuses and over 33% in the overall market, you are guaranteed that apple will be in your business. Linux is ALREADY in your business if you have sys admins or developers. Silverlight relies on Microsoft products that are not available to these platforms. Your mac will not be able to play alot of data that Slverlight uses. You are at the mercy of a company that is not releasing all their codecs, apis that Silverlight uses.
Flash on the otherhand is much more open.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I take your point. On the other hand, I don't see the individual Mac (or Linux, etc) user having a whole lot of leverage in this situation. Up until now with Netflix's streaming video, the Windows version hasn't merely had "more features" but rather all the features since Macs haven't been supported at all. And since streaming video is not the primary reason I (or I'd venture to guess most people) subscribe to Netflix, I'm not about to fire Netflix over this lack... which means they're not particularly motivated to fix it.
The counter-argument is that clearly Netflix must perceive some benefit from having their subscribers stream video, else they wouldn't be offering the service at all. But the question as I see it is whether my refusal (and that of some other subset of Mac using Netflix subscribers) to adopt Silverlight and thus the streaming service would make enough of a dent in their overall business strategy to warrant a change in the technology they've adopted. My guess is that it wouldn't.
So I'm not quite sure what the "valuable lesson" is that I'm expected to learn. That I as an individual have very little leverage over ginormous corporations? And that they want to screw me? I learned those ones a long time ago.
Darn, I said I didn't want to discuss business strategies. Oh well.
But Hitler did use IBM products.