Slashdot Mirror
Uproar Over Netflix's New Instant Viewer
almechist writes "Many Netflix customers are up in arms over the new instant-watch player powered by Microsoft's Silverlight. The official Netflix blog is full of complaints from users who decry not only the new player's quality but also the way it's being distributed, with many claiming they were deceived into downloading it. Once you opt for the new player, the old Windows Media based player won't function, not on any computer associated with the account. The new player is supposedly still beta, but NF members are strongly encouraged (some say tricked) by NF into the so-called 'upgrade,' which is permanent — there is no way to opt out. The marked decrease in video quality seen by those who have switched is perhaps not surprising, since the old player could utilize bit streams up to twice as fast as the new one, but this information is nowhere given out by NF. So far NF has been answering all complaints with variations on 'tough luck pal, you're stuck with it,' but many customers are so disgusted they're ready to cancel their NF membership. This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix."
Really. No one wants DRM. The process of taking your computer from you is slow and incremental.
How permanent, exactly?
I see comments in the thread linked to by the original post. But I don't see any information saying there's really widespread unhappiness. There are 483 comments in the thread, most negative but I have no idea how large or how representative a sample that is. I can't tell how much of this is the standard negative reaction to any major upgrade. Does anyone have any data on complaint levels for prior Netflix upgrades?
no, really. cancel your membership. now. everyone. then they will change. consumer whining does nothing. comsumers taking their money elsewhere does everything.
I was one of the early adopters. Within a week of the release of NetFlix streaming on the XBox, my PC feed became useless. It would keep stopping to buffer, and eventually stop indefinitely. When I called NetFlix to complain, they suggested I try the Silverlight player. The quality was roughly on par with YouTube, but the buffering problems went away, so I went with it.
I'm wondering if the problem is not so much poor software quality as it is a bottleneck in the feed itself. Perhaps the servers can't take the load, or perhaps they simply don't have enough well-placed bandwidth. Their instant viewing subscriber base has been climbing tremendously.
It only took five months for Slashdot to jump on this news! Faster than usual by at least a month or two...
That is the first mistake, Netflix should embrace better standards. They are using MS SQL server, if MS can make a case, see how it works so awesome with Netflix and see how it is protected(DRMed) lots of other content providers will pay them for it.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
I have netflix and have never seen the old version, this blog post is from october 2008, this seems like old news. Also, the player works pretty nicely, I don't have any problems.
when i first saw the silverlight player i considered trying it out. but when i looked into it, netflix made it clear that this would make silverlight your only option. i didn't really want to go full-on with silverlight so I just passed up on it.
it's not like netflix hid the fact that you couldn't use the WMP version. it wasn't discreetly placed in the fine print.. it was pretty clear.
now, i don't really understand why they are forcing it to be an all-or-nothing decision.. but don't blame them for something they told you ahead of time about, and you had to opt into.
frog blast the vent core
Even though they were running both players... This situation certainly associates silverlight with poor quality.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
=FUD. I have never seen an article penned by him (or her) that does not over-exaggerate the facts of the matter. The silverlight player has been out for a few months now. To have 480-odd complaints in that time, considering the size of Netflix's user base, while not great, is not that significant.
The implementation of silverlight is still an important problem because of the DRM and the possible incompatibilities and bugs, but it is nowhere a "disaster".
kdawson does nothing positive for slashdot. He should be removed. His entries sound like the worst kind of hellraising politics.
This doesn't surprise me... anything utilizing the technology (if you want to call it that) of Silverlight is bound to be a disaster. Netflix should definitely act appropriately if they're receiving this many complaints or else it will do more harm than good.
Personally, I am very happy with the new Silverlight-based movie player. The Windows Media Player-based solution offered no OS X support and I was forced to use VirtualBox to watch NF movies.
Also, in my experience the new player loads much faster and fast forwarding and rewinding works much better. I have not noticed a decrease in quality, probably because my Internet connection wasn't fast enough in the first place to get the highest-quality streams.
TerraIM - my pet AIM client project.
This isn't the first time Netflix has canned a popular feature in favor of an inferior solution for unfathomable reasons. Anyone remember being able to have multiple queues on your (shared) account with someone? Thrown out, in the name of "efficiency" to much booing. Now they're signing up with Microsoft to force Silverlight onto the world, reminding me of Medica's website -- which is completely inaccessible in anything but Internet Exploiter thanks to them deploying Sharepoint for everything. Ironic, for a company that's federally mandated to be accessible to the disabled. If your accessibility software isn't "Microsoft Compatible", I guess you're S.O.L. Sorry, a little off topic there... point is... Yeah, it's underhanded, but not intentionally so.
Here's what really happened:
1. Management got a phone call from Microsoft, or an MSCE Certified Bonehead, who said "Switch to Silverlight, they will wuv you 4ever!"
2. Management, knowing absolutely jack fricking crap about their tech infrastructure, says "We can't go wrong with Microsoft, make it so!"
3. The developers get the order From On High, and beg and plead with their supervisors... "please god, don't do it."
4. God (aka the department manager) says to the developers "So it is written, and so shall it be... for I like my job, and fear retribution."
5. The developers rolled out a crap implementation (beta) and it pleased Management, who decreed it shall become the Law of the Website.
6. The change was implemented half-arsed, rushed through testing, and the web developers and database people really didn't want to spend a lot of time revamping the entire
engine just to support the latest management whim, so the "undo" bit was left off. Minor oops!
7. The users came forth on the Anointed Day and screamed and flailed, and conspiracy and deceit was cried throughout the Thousand Forums.
8. Management... hears nothing.
9. The poor bastards making $10 an hour in Support do though, and several take up the habit of smoking (what? Well, whatever was convenient, of course).
Epilogue:
10. In about 4 weeks, enough meetings from stressed Support managers will percolate to the board room that "there's a problem of some kind."
11. Management will spend another two weeks in meetings, phone calls, emails, and putting their thumbs up their arse.
12. A decree will come down... "Fix it." It will be vague, badly-defined, and cause all who hoped for resolution to cringe.
13. In the end, a lone Developer will smote the demon upon the mountain-side, adding an "undo" feature... and probably getting fired later for not getting approval. But it will save thousands of complaints and hundreds of cancelled accounts.
Isn't Real Life fun?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
this news just makes me sad. I'm glad I put my account on hold before I was duped.
While I am remiss over the lower quality streams when compared to the old windows media player stream the added mac compatibility as a result of using silver light goes far in making my mixed os household a lot happier.
So far I have not experienced any of these buffering problems and I hope they get fixed soon for the users experiencing them.
If anything I think users should be pressing netflix to be more aggressive in adding more movies to the instant watch service - I can only watch 30 rock so many times. Expanding the program's feature set by adding things such as subtitles or alternative language audio streams would also be welcome.
There's no excuse for Silverlight, in any circumstance.
It's pretty absurd that several third parties offer superior viewing options (eg. HD streams), and NetFlix can't be bothered to offer a decent client on a PC. I have NF pretty much solely for the streaming options on my Tivo & Xbox, but if I didn't have either device I'd cancel their service in a heartbeat. What's even worse is they don't make a Linux client (probably because the DRM goes so deep). I don't see why they can't do a simple flash player (i.e. Hulu) which obviously supports HD, or work directly with an open source project like Boxee (which will be cross platform) instead of having Boxee/XBMC come up with a hack to get it to work.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
This could be a public relations disaster in the making for Netflix.
Nah, they'll be fine, as long as it doesn't make Slashdot.
The real reason for this change is that there are tools that rip the old Windows Media stream and let you save the instant movies on your computer. So far I haven't seen a similar tool for the Silverlight streams.
This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
There are pretty much three choices for streaming video right now:
1. Crappy encoder, low bitrate. This is what Youtube went with originally--they used FLV1 (Sorenson H.263) video, which at the time was the only real option (other than VP6, which wasn't much better). They went with 350kbps video. The result was pretty awful, but it worked for Youtube videos. It's free, so people will tolerate it. But for a paid service, such quality is absurd.
2. Crappy encoder, high bitrate. This is what Stage6 did; they used DivX, which, while better than FLV1, wasn't too much better. But what they did was allow absurdly high bitrates; I saw bitrates over 12 megabits per second for standard definition video! Of course, we all know what happened to Stage6; upon realizing the sheer amount of money that such bitrates cost, they went out of business, sort of like Wile. E. Coyote falling to the ground only after realizing that he was standing on air.
3. Good encoder, low bitrate. Facebook does ~600kbps standard definition video, and it looks great. Vudu does 1080p video on demand at 2.8mbps. Youtube now does 720p HD at 2 megabits. What do they have in common? They use x264 for encoding.
NetFlix chose to use VC-1 instead, and as a result they have 1.5 megabit standard definition streams that look like crap. And they don't even have an excuse anymore, because Silverlight supports H.264. Which is rather odd, actually, as Microsoft has been pushing for years to try to replace H.264 in the marketplace with their vastly inferior VC-1. Maybe they've given up because their campaign just isn't working.
At least they've got a player to whine about....
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Since most Netflix members still use the service to watch DVD's I highly doubt it.
kdawson is the worst "editor" I've ever seen. He wouldn't be hired to write for a high school newspaper. This is what slashdot has come to though, circling down the drain.
I run minimal microsoft software as possible other than the operating system itself. I generally keep the processes as stripped out as possible.
Of these processes, Windows Update is included. A couple weeks ago, I decided to run Windows Update for the first time in 3 something odd years because I figured that by now, M$ would have gotten their act together and I wouldn't have any problems with the update. In the past, I'd had profiles corrupted, crapware installed, and a host of registry problems that came with updates.
So... I downloaded a Windows update, only picking the most necessary security updates (left out the WGA bs) and allowed it to install Windows SP3.
After a few reboots (3-4), I thought I was good to go. I kicked back, relaxed, and turned on Netflix to watch Akira Kurosawa's Dreams only to find that the player was having DRM validation/retrieval problems.
I went to a few forums, followed their fix-it-yourself instructions to no avail, and despaired for a few days. I was too busy to put more than 4 hours into the problems, but I was still pretty pissed that Windows Update had *again* screwed me over somehow.
A week later, I decided to give it another go, but instead was surprised with the MS Silverlight download request. I installed it, figuring it wouldn't do much harm to try and *voila*! I got my movie.
I know that it was probably against my libertarian values to install something without investigating it, but it *did* work and I *did* get my movie.
I really couldn't care less about WMP since I don't use that POS software anyways.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
I call bullshit on you, because they listened to us (the users) on "Anyone remember being able to have multiple queues on your (shared) account with someone? Thrown out, in the name of "efficiency" to much booing.". Go spread your MS hatred somewhere else.
Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but this post is from last October.
MLB.tv did something similar a year or so ago where they switched from something that is actually meant to play video (WMP) to something that I can't really tell what it's meant to do (Silverlight). They had a similar deal where once you opted in you couldn't change back to WMP. They had (have?) all the same kinds of problems with it not working for people or just being worse quality.
Now this has happened a second time with a completely separate content provider and I don't know what to think other than that Silverlight is synonymous with crummy picture quality and choppy playback.
Sick of people knocking on Gentoo's greatness in completely unrelated
Back in June of 2008 Netflix was going to shutdown the feature for managing separate queues. They sent an email and I canceled my account that day. Not sure how many of us there were, but they reversed course quickly. If you're pissed about the silverlight player. Close your account and email them a note to say why you did it. Maybe this will be a non-issue in the morning... Here is a link to the original plan on Ars Technica: Netflix killing extra queues
Somebody at Netflix realized, "Hey, why pay or go to any effort finding qualified beta testers when we can just corral our users for free and re-brand them as beta testers?"
"Honest, it'll only hurt for a moment, the sting will go away."
Consume less entertainment.
And some good people lost their jobs because "Silverlight redefined your job position" https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2765056849626104020&postID=8496825679366629663 They gave a months notice for the layoff, then instituted mandatory overtime.
microsoft is there. this time, through silverlight.
Read radical news here
.torrent + utorrent + VLC = WTF is NetFlix?
When I changed to the Silverlight client, the quality improved, and I got to run it on my Mac too. What's not to like?
I love open source too... but you do yourselves a disservice when you fail to see the real reasons. They've got to stick to a DRM solution in order to get the film distributors to let them do rentals this way. It's how the distribution houses know who to pay royalties to. Without DRM, the major distribution houses would just say no. It's not Microsoft or Netflix forcing DRM on us -- it's the studios. And for a rental product (as opposed to a purchased one), it sort of makes sense.
Netflix planned this change for a year or more in order to deliver to the Macintosh market. They talked about it in their blogs and such -- they were just waiting for the Mac version of Silverlight to make it happen. I was sort of annoyed that it took so much longer than originally projected.
And for me the result has been significantly better quality with almost no re-buffering ever.
I don't understand why the studios want to cram low-quality, DRM crap down their customers' throats when it is trivial to rip a DVD anyway. If I really wanted to send pirate copies of Legally Blonde 3 to 10,000 of my friends, I'm sure as heck not going to waste 2 hrs downloading and capturing a compressed-as-hell video stream. The nearest video store is 5 mins away, and dvd::rip works just fine, thanks.
If I could watch the instant content in Linux, I would already be a customer.
For now though, my torrents provide me the latest content, DRM-free, and they usually arrive faster than the mailed DVDs.
And aren't we just acting a little bit like spoiled brats? It almost sounds like the people who are complaining are those with free high speed internet access who do not understand the costs involved. Me, with my average 200kbits/sec rate kind of think it is cool that I can stream video. The only thing I wish is that there was more. Still, the savings to consumers is real and is validated by the fact that Blockbuster is struggling to stay alive.
The option for higher quality is there for people who want it.If one wants really high quality, there are many other options available. The red box things let you get a movie for a dollar. The 5 at a time plan on netflix can get you a new movie every day, at an average cost of maybe $1. It steaming perfect. Absolutely not. But when it works it beats waiting for a disc in the mail or paying for 4 at a time options.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I think people are missing some important points:
The Silverlight client has a fully working MacOS X client. It may be Intel-only, but the old client was never going to be support on any platform but Microsoft (since it used Windows Media DRM, and Microsoft made public statements that it would never happen).
There is an outside chance that the Silverlight DRM used for Netflix could make it to platforms other than Windows and MacOS X. I am not say it is likely, but it is possible. This is more of a political thing than anything else.
My experience with the client is nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be. To compare it to YouTube quality level is really overdoing it. The quality is usually very good, but not perfect. So I don't confuse it with a DVD, but it is just below broadcast TV most of the time.
Of course I don't have any problems with having previous clients, so I don't have that.
At least it works on my Mac now.
Before it just had this ugly screen that said I needed Windows and Internet Explorer. It didn't look like my video at all!
There is a non-zero chance that the Silverlight player has better platform support (hint, a post above talks about using it on a Mac), and probably has different backend and network requirements.
Really, the world would be a much better place if nobody ever did anything new, especially on some sort of crazy 'opt-in' basis.
It sounds like they would benefit from making it possible to switch back, but maybe they already decided to switch everybody, once the (common) complaints are addressed.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You think like a ReThuglican Jew
How racist of you to oppose Barak Obama's policies.
Actually, this beta was announced in October 2008, and Mac users rejoiced because finally there was a Mac-compatible way to watch Netflix streaming.
That link cited in the article is actually a blog post that made Mac users like myself jubilant last year. I have not had a problem since, and there are no other links in the article for me to get a better impression. My guess is that Netflix is pushing people to the Silverlight player, which is all Mac users had in the first place. Is that what's happening?
There is no problem on the Mac side, as far as I can see. It requires an Intel Mac, but the previous netflix worked on no Macs at all.
Samsung and a few others have Blu-Ray players with built-in NF streaming ability. I bet few if any of them run an MS OS internally. So, wonder what stream they use? I've only watched a couple of things on mine but they were good quality and very consistent.
Oh and what OS does the Roku use?
The old player used Windows Media DRM, which of course was Windows only. As a Mac user, I prefer the new player since I now benefit from it.
But, more importantly, the changes Netflix has made now allow streaming to quite a few devices - my Tivo HD, for instance. In my opinion this is far, far more welcome than streaming to either a Windows or a Mac computer.
As an aside - kdawson needs to get caught up on his reading. Dredging up a story from last October, back when the reported service change had just started, doesn't really qualify as "stuff that matters". There definitely were a lot of issues with the changeover, back then; but most have been resolved.
#DeleteChrome
It's not platform independent and it's performance, for me, has been a bit shit compared to the alternatives (including Java) and it supports a company that abuses its monopoly.
I can't think of one good reason to support a company that forces something like that on people.
I would open another Netflix account and sell my old-school-player account on Ebay. New accounts now are Silverlight-only and the ability to use the old player has market value.
And thus (in theory) soon moonlight, which means linux support.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
As one of those who was "tricked" into upgrading, I have to say the new player is x100 better then the old one. It's faster to load, doesn't freeze my computer completely while windows media does some random bullshit, the UI actually works, it runs on my mac, and it will scale the quality both down and up while playing, if network issues come and go.
As for quality, the new player consistently gives me high quality streams. The old "quality detector" seemed to be completely random.
Nah, it's much simpler than that:
Obama campaign tech rep: "Hey, guys, Microsoft will throw a lot of money at us if we use their brand. Why not?"
Netflix executive: "Hey, guys, Microsoft will throw a lot of money at us if we use their brand. Why not?"
etc. etc.
In every codec bakeoff I've seen, VC-1 comes out ahead of x264. Check out avsforum.com.
for Microsoft?
Why is that? Because Microsoft is a part owner of /.?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
You can rent a physical good, like a disk or a cartridge, but you can't rent information.
You might as well be trying to staple on the concept of rewinding. It just isn't relevant anymore.
You got it. Stick together and make 'em listen. They don't listen through their ears! They listen through their ass!! Kick it hard enough in the wallet and the message will get through to the brain less than five centimeters away unless it's hangin pendelum fashion a bit lower, as Whoopi Goldberg used to say in some of her funnier movies.
Netflix started this about 4 months ago. How is it just now ending up on /. front page?
People are outraged that they can't use the default clunky Windows Media player? Hahaha.
Here are two much better replacements:
VLC Media Player
Media Player Classic
I signed on with Netflix when their business first opened its doors. As a military member assigned overseas, I was completely satisfied with their service, and would probably still be a member today, $900 later, if it weren't for...
SPAM.
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam!
This was right around the time spam was becoming a real problem (2002-ish), and I found myself receiving multiple "offers" from Netflix on a daily basis, despite being a current customer. Blame it on "affiliates", but the company itself had to have, at a minimum, turned a blind eye... I bet they knowingly hired spammers. So I dropped my subscription (sending them an email explaining why), and bought a subscription to Easynews instead. (Later research would confirm my suspicions)
It's funny... I was actually considering re-subscribing after all this time, to check out the online-streaming option. Looks like that won't be happening any time soon!
Over a weekend trist a few weeks ago the NetFlix CEO and Balmer "got together" for "special time."
Now that that NetFlix CEO was video'ed giving oral sex to Balmer, well, those wanting NetFlix must "suck" to obtain feeds.
A few minutes ago. Using an 802.11b connection via my cable modem. And you know what? It was fine. Good sound, good picture on a 32" widescreen TV hooked up to the laptop.
Watched a few shows on my desktop PC earlier today as well while doing other stuff. Again, worked fine.
I'd rather use Silverlight than the Windows Media Player add-ons (needing a reboot) that they pushed down to your computer from time to time under the old system.
And sorry, I remember seeing the "there's no turning back" warning when I switched. Sorry that people can't read.
It has nothing to do with DRM, it has to do with the deals MS and NF have made with each other to run MS's new SL crap. SL just like .NET, are solutions for problems that do not exist or can be solutioned perfectly by existing technology.
I like the fact that Netflix is actually on-par with the current technology, unlike RIAA and MPAA et al (oh yeah.. and Microsoft)., but to pair itself with a closed-source POS like Silverlight is just 100% bad karma.
There is no reason for them to have done it, other than Microsoft infusing Netflix with cash to prop up Silverlight, to make it seem like it needs to exist.
I am open source, and Linux baby!
I was wondering why people were gathering on the corner with pitchforks.
I didn't notice any bittorrent users down there, however. They must not be bothered by this anti-consumer behavior from Netflix.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Seriously I think it works excellently. And to complain about DRM on a RENTAL is insane especially when the original had DRM too. Sorry Im sure Netflix will take being able to offer films to Mac users and soon linux users with moonlight, over a few people bitching any day.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
no, really. cancel your membership. now. everyone. then they will change. consumer whining does nothing. comsumers taking their money elsewhere does everything.
Some serious griping here and everyone is rather new to netflix streaming. Simply not alternative. I'll keep it going and wait for some improvements - but certainly not quit netflix - are you idiots? Like everyone is a knee jerk jerk from Florida yelling at kids to get off their lawn. Grow up.
I for one am disgusted that anyone still pays to watch movies online!
OH puleeze...it's their service. They don't even have to HAVE streaming. If you don't like it then drop it.
They want their blog back... FTFSDA http://blog.netflix.com/2008/10/opt-in-for-new-netflix-movie-player.html?commentPage=3
The new player works in both Firefox and IE and is a MAJOR quality improvement over the previous player. It starts faster, the picture is dramatically better. The previous version never had blockiness but at ANY quality setting it looked like it had a blur effect applied. Their hacked together scripts NEVER detected the correct bitrate for me, requiring me to manually set the bitrate. Except of course that sometimes the appropriate bitrates didn't even appear as an option when I used the key sequence to change it manually.
The new player has no issues, it auto scales to available bandwidth and recalculates on the fly every 6 seconds with no video interruption. Unlike the old version, you can jump around in the video timeline fairly quickly. With the old version it required 2mins plus of buffering.
For the people talking about ripping streams, the rippers don't work with the current version of media player and the DRM refuses to work without it.
They have a horrible selection of stuff to watch instantly. Now you're just watching it in a bitrate that matches the quality of the content.
Let's fix the ground zero that is digital licensing, then we can move on to DRM.
I saw that "A Clockwork Orange" was available for streaming, and figured that it would be fast and convenient.
Upon installing Silverlight, I got a nice full screen movie. The quality seemed to be about the same as Youtube; maybe with a bit higher quality video feed, but still Youtube-ish. Granted, this was an older movie...but it wasn't impressive enough to warrant a new program.
Unfortunately, not more than 10 minutes in, I discovered that the sound quality was equivalent to a poor youtube to ipod conversion. The sound started lagging behind; at first it was barely noticeable. But by the last 30 minutes of the movie, entire sentences were being uttered long after the character was off screen. Anger? Portrayed in silence, then sounded out in calm. The mood was completely ruined.
In short, this is a terrible service. I ended up playing a game while occasionally flipping over to the movie, then had it shipped to me anyway. Maybe it would be a good way to preview the movie to see if it's worth having shipped, but it's certainly not worth watching the whole movie with it.
Gee golly where have I heard that before? I was trying to get a sports radio station up and listen to it but it had this 'Silverlight' thing it wanted me to download in order to listen to the radio station. Humm, Microsoft, no way - fooled before and not again. And here I hear how wonderful Silverlight is, the usual Microsoft offering - lower quality and more locked down BS from that company, what a surprise.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
The new player has marked improved video quality for me. Other improvements included are automatic resume from last playback, de-coupling from windows media player and, greater viability for cross-platform usability. It works on Mac OS X with Silverlight for Mac. I hear tell that there are plans to support Moonlight.
However, I don't think Linux folks have yet LOST anything they already have. So the best you can hope for is that they eventually do support Moonlight.
I agree with you completely. I hope you get modded higher. Virtually all the stories he posts contain nothing but a single link to a forum where the issue is described anecdotally.
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
Does the 360 also support the Silverlight client?
Sounds like a lot of NetFlix customers need to cancel their accounts and open new ones. There are probably ways around the inability to opt-out and cancelling the account is probably the most obvious one. I recently left employment of a company where my blackberry phone was tied to their exchange server. I contact my phone service provider asking if there was a way I could sever my connection from their server without losing my data. They said there was not a way and it was "their data" and not mine. I have a lot of personal contacts on my personal phone. I took offense to the notion but acknowledge that from their perspective, that is likely more true than not. So I then instructed them to remove the Enterprise service from my account and they did. I then asked if that would prevent them from being able to send "wide handheld" to my phone and they acknowledged that it probably would prevent that from happening. They probably already knew that...
The point is that even though you are supposed to be THEIR customer, you are probably not their most important or most influential customer. In the case of NetFlix, Microsoft is probably more important to them than the individual customers are. Nothing could say that more clearly than this story could.
Is there an option to not upgrade? I'm going to go check it out right now... ...Just checked and I didn't see anything asking me to upgrade or install anything just now. I wonder if it's being rolled out in waves, or the option is now longer there due to the backlash?
Seriously, I've considered NF to be a very, very cool thing. Since I signed up my wife and I have bought ZERO dvds; we used to go to Frys about once a month and walk out with five or six dvds, so this has saved us LOTS of money over the past year.
But--since the people who use NF to watch stuff online (me included) are pretty internet savvy to begin with, how can they even think this won't have an impact on their bottom line? I can't wait until we can all look back with a snicker at all of the draconian DRM measures that have been tried (and hopefully failed eventually).
So I'm conflicted. I love me some NF, and I seem to always be able to find stuff to watch online. My wife loves the Roku as well, and we're averaging about 2-3 new releases a week in the mail. So I don't know if this would be enough to get us to quit, but it sure does leave a bad taste if this is true, since we use at least three different computers to watch online stuff around the house. Unless, of course, that's not an issue, but I doubt it given the summary...
Guess I'll find out soon though, eh? BT is always an option but it's hard to beat instant gratification.
There is simply too much glass..
Dejavu
I use Netflix, both the delivery by mail system, and the Instant View.
I "upgraded" to Silverlight when the service required me to do so.
The video quality is better. It is not interrupted nearly as often by network congestion as the old player was, and the "backwards/Forward" slider actually works without rebuffering the entire movie again. It also remembers where I left off when I close the IE. I can come back a week later and pick up right where I left off. The "free" service works better, by far.
But what about Windows Media player being borked? Until I read the summary, IT DIDN'T MATTER. Why?
Quite simple. I don't use Windows Media Player for ANYTHING BUT NETFLIX! Matter of fact, I don't use Internet Explorer for anything but Netflix as well!
As a matter of fact, Netflix is the only reason either of them are even installed on my machine. So, in essence, there was a net effect of ZERO, other then the above-mentioned benefits.
Amazing? It's called Alzheimer's disease you insensitive clod!
They aren't using SQL Server to stream the files.
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Jesus fucking christ the moderators have become shockingly bad lately.. for the uninitiated, Alice is the intended recipient (ie. the netflix viewer) and Eve is the eavesdropper. If they are the same person as in this case, the protection can be cracked.
i have an idea. netflix shoud set it up so if you opt in to the silverlite player than you ca'nt get movies by mail anymore and silverlite becomes the ONLY way you can watch movies in netflix. even if you cancel you're account and then re-join they're system will remember you and you won't be abel to get no more movies in the mail or by any other system.
silverlancer is a known anti-ms troll. Don't bother..
I just tried it yesterday. It seems to work fine. No fast-forward/reverse, but forward/backward selection from an image preview stack works well enough for me (for now). It does seem like the default auto-bitrate tends to set things on the low side. Try control-shift-alt-b to manually select from the three available bitrates, and control-shift-alt-m for a menu of other interesting stuff.
Goes to prove that nothing good can come out of having s3x with microsoft!
(A take on FRIEND's Phoebe Buffay's saying when she finds out Rachel is pregnant)
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I am running XP as a VMware guest on my Linux machine. I can full-screen the XP guest and watch Netflix movies using the Silverlight player. Works great.
I don't really have a problem with it. The only issue I have is that the old version supported dual monitors better. I like to watch movies on one screen and do stuff on the other simultaneously. One click on the non-Netflix screen and I'm back to browser view. WTF? I mean even CBS figured that one out.
The game.
Nine times out of ten in this world, convenience is accompanied with a lot of bending over and taking it.
My local video store stocks somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 titles. Any five movies from the enormous back catalogue for $10, with a seven day return period. No pop-ups, no Silverlight, no Flash, and only movies I pick myself. If I just had a DVD player lobotomized of the "operation prohibited by madmen with small winkies" message when I try to bypass the FBI warning or the logo rotation, my movie watching experience would be 100% ankle-grip free.
The other day I received an unsolicited offer for life insurance with a pre-authorized chequing option. It contains the sentence "This authorization to the company is also my authorization to the Bank; however, the Bank need not verify that payments are withdrawn in accordance with this authorization."
Convenience, check. Jolly rogering, check.
Need not verify is precisely what Madoff's glamazons were all about.
that will allow the likes of blockbuster to take back what they lost to netflix. silly netflix execs, you piss off those you have courted and they shall feast upon your entrails.
there seems to be this "idea" that there are only a 'few' linux/bsd/other boxes out there, woe unto the doltish execs who fall for that shit. don't get me wrong, i know windows is still the bigger base, but it is a dummer base. most of these users would never be able to watch the netflix movies on the 'old' system let alone the 'new' system.
good luck with your deal with the devil - how many movies does blockbuster let me rent at 1 time...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
I used to do that, but I only have so much hd space and just leaving Transmission to download a queue of over 300 dvds is kind of unreasonable...
Especially when it's too busy grabbing fansubs..
I really did try to do that for my old man but I found it more convenient to let him have a slot from my account (two actually) since he's a more avid watcher of stuff on DVD.
He gets his stuff. And I do absolutely nothing.
One reason I am not switching is that I run a netbook with NF instant... Currently the codec they use works fine on a 1.6 atom for decoding. However, considering the performance of flash video on 1.6 atom based devices, I doubt silverlight will be any better. Please netflix, think about how these netbooks are creating new mobile demand for your offering and allow us to continue to use the WMP-based streams.
While I don't agree with DRM on physical media you have purchased and own, it's implicit that Netflix is a RENTAL service. You don't get to keep the content, you just get to view it one or more times before the rental period is over.
So why is DRM a bad thing in this case ? It works exactly as it's supposed to !
MPEG dropped a lot of colour information. However, that means darker shares look blocky because they are all closely the same colour and only when the difference becomes big enough will it encode a different shade.
And so you see the colour blocks.
h.264 reserves more data for colour information and picks it better, reducing the appearance of large macro blocks of the same colour.
IIRC, MPEG1 is still better than either at VERY low bitrates.
But the ones that don't do not get a choice.
You get your choice.
They don't.
So why don't you see this as something they can legitimately complain about?
I just finished reading 'Bad Science', a popular science book by the columnist and medical doctor Ben Goldacre, who writes the blog of the same name.
The book makes some nice points about EBM and the various forms of alternative medicine. The main theme is that science, and particularly evidence about healthcare choices, are not outwith the reach of the general public. I don't know how available this book is outside the UK, but it is well worth a look.
It might even help my Mum to understand that her homeopathic 'remedies' are complete nonsense.
Funny thing is I've been half tempted to subscribe to Netflix again... just because I can have it download directly to my Tivo S3...
I think the only issue I have is surrounding a one-way trip into "beta" land. You should have the choice - as long as both types are available... if the silverlight version doesn't work the way you'd like, or with the quality you're expecting, then they should allow users to go back to the previous version with WMP.
Why are they so concerned about protecting the video streaming, when they mail out DVDs that everybody knows how to rip? If I wanted to pirate stuff using Netflix, this new DRM would do nothing to stop me.
Considering how old this information is, it's actually pre-Obama. It'd be the Bush admin.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Coincidentally, I just dropped the Cox Cable DVR (SciAtl 8300HD) in favor of TiVo HD and...NetFlix!
I don't "see" the issues reported, at all. What I do see is that most users...Windows or not...don't have an optimal network setup, and THAT will impact any player, SilverLight included.
We've gone crazy on the "Instant" stuff, both with the Video On Demand feature of TiVo and the "Instant To Your PC" on the NetFlix site.
So far, only ONE movie has had issues and those traced back to my DSL router and ISP. Here's a good example of network "gotcha", by the way. My TiVO Desktop machine is a new build and the MTU was defaulted to 1500. That's cool UNLESS you're on a DSL link using PPPoE that supports 1492 as a max MTU. A video stream running in that setup is in packet fragmentation hell. Setting a correct MTU made NetFlix fly. End of problem.
Plus, I would NOT trade the MUCH better experience with TiVO/NetFlix compared to Cox. If nothing else, the equipment is better. The video scaler in the TiVO box is markedly better than the cheap chips in the SciAtl 8300HD. With component or HDMI, the TiVo provides a cleaner picture. HD is great, but the real test are OTA and basic cable analog signals; TiVO kicks ass. MUCH less noise and not as soft as the SciAtl box.
Oh, and another thing...MCards do exist and do work. I had Cox tell me they would be bringing 2 SCards for my TiVo HD. I insisted they bring ONE MCard, which they said "Tech Support has never heard of". The tech showed up with both, the MCard worked fine...after a 2nd poke from the Cox network...and it's great. I went back to the local Cox store and told the 2 CSRs there I had indeed received and installed the "non-existent" MCard.
In short, SilverLight works fine; most consumers...and their networks...do not.
I am my own gestalt.
I just tried watching a movie and the quality is much lower than it should be. Something is definitely not right about it.
I saw the menu. The bitrates avaialble to me were 500,1000, and 1500. 1500 was selected, but the quality was still much lower than I expected. loads of blockies. too many for 1500bps.
Netflix just changed something I'm sure of it. I will be contacting them for certain about it.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I just figured it out.
use the ctrl-shift-alt M shortcut to bring up the menu. Then choose A/V Stats
You'll see the bitrate is actually 500. The buffering bitrate is 1500. WTF?
http://gamerslastwill.com/wp-content/uploads/netflix.png
They're using their grammar skills there.
before they started throttling? I don't know at what point they instituted, it and how they dealt with legacy customers, but there is nothing "secret" about their throttling now. And honestly as a long time customer but infrequent exchanger, I appreciate the throttling.
Netflix is a RENTAL service. You don't get to keep the content
Dvdshrink and my Lightscribe burner beg to differ...
my god talk about reactionary garbage. How do you people even survive in the world.
Quick one of your DVDs was received scratched! Cancel your account!
The page didn't load at 5:30 am due to maintenance. Cancel your account!
This is why I support anarchy. so people like you can be shot in the street.
Seriously folks -- how about some perspective here huh?
This is a service you pay for and guess what? You get to watch movies online, anytime you want! Yet you bitch and moan that some cog in the engine changed to make the service better!
Oh "I'm going to cancel my subscription, that'll show them" and "This is going to be a PR disaster" -- YEAH since all 19 of you neck bearded know it alls will rock Netflix Corporate and they'll be sending hand written notes with chocolates in them to your home address with a year's free subscription included.
Get off it. WIMP always sucked butt. Silverlight is better and at least runs on a Mac too. DRM, ShmeeRM -- if you want to avoid that well, make your own movie I guess or develop a work around like going to the library and checking out a book!
Good - Quality of stream.
Fast - Amount of bandwidth needed.
Cheap - Dev time/upkeep.
Pick two?
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Lucky for us, the necessity of physical media is quickly going the way of the Dinosaur. Why would we ever need a physical disk to insert into our digital players? It makes no sense.
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
Go to Help and Preferences, then click on the Authors link under the Index subheading. Uncheck kdawson and you'll find that the front page is much improved. Or uncheck them all and things could get really interesting (or not...)
If you don't complain, how will it change for the better?
What if (OK, this is slashdot, suspend disbelief for a moment) your wife just left you. The reason being that you spend Wednesday evening with your mates playing cards from 9 till 12.
She never complained, she never mentioned that she would like to see you then, she never mentioned a thing.
She just left.
Would this be acceptable?
Or would you be telling her "you could have said! I only went because Bob started it and I don't get to see him much. If you said you didn't like it, I would have bowed out."
Or would you be all "well, fair enough, you should just leave me for going to Bob's place on cards night".
There is nothing wrong with the viewer. I find it comical that you would think that I would WANT to go "back" to windows media. It's basically the same thing in a different DRM wrapper.
Anyways. I'm not "up in arms". Just streamin my TV seasons the same way I have been for months.
... with several families picnicking on the lawn.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I dont know what this is all about, but WMP works for me with Silverlight installed. Some people are just bad at life.
If I could watch the instant content in Linux, I would already be a customer.
Buy a roku box then. It's about $100 or so, and will stream Netflix directly to your TV. Runs linux too, BTW.
If your connection is fast enough, and the movie in question is available in HD, you'll get an HD stream.
Has anybody tried the Netflix service in Moonlight?
I read the internet for the articles.
I have used both the Silverlight and WMP based players and haven't noticed that much of a difference. I do most of my viewing on a 14" screen however which doesn't lend itself to resolution critiques. I do have my desktop hooked to my TV (analog) and have watched netflix on that, but I literally had to fool my video card into thinking I had a VGA monitor attached (VGA Dummy), that's how intrusive the viewer is.
It seems like if they were limiting bandwidth with the new player it would be another way to discourage this practice of viewing on your TV, as well as save their servers some work.
I'm currently waiting to try Boxee on my desktop (dual boot ubuntu/XP), but don't know if a 1.3Ghz P4 will handle it. That is one thing I have to hand to the netflix player as it will run on computers that can't even handle hulu.
"...deceived into downloading it. Once you opt for the new player, the old Windows Media based player won't function, not on any computer associated with the account. The new player is supposedly still beta, but NF members are strongly encouraged (some say tricked) by NF into the so-called 'upgrade,' which is permanent -- there is no way to opt out."
This is complete and utter BS.
I've been a Netflix user for a very long time. 3 yrs? I dunno.
I saw in the config page when Silverlight came out, and it was very CLEARLY stated that this was a one-way choice. I wondered what would possibly be the advantage to it, maybe multiplatform support vs the canned netflix player?
In any case, it was absolutely evident from the description text that this was a ONE way decision, that it was implemented by ACCOUNT, not computer, and that essentially once you were committed you were stuck. SO I DIDN'T DO IT.
Simple as that.
To suggest that people are "strongly encouraged" is a lie.
To say that any of this wasn't clear is a lie.
I call bullshit on this whole story. If you were stupid enough to commit to it and now you regret it? Sorry, but fuck you - live with it, cancel your Netflix account, or whatever, but quit crying about it.
We apparently have an economy FULL of stupid people who my tax dollars are now going to bail out from their dumbass or greedy financial choices. This is just one more (trivial) example of such behavior, and the article/summary are a perfect example of such morons who need to learn to live with the consequences of their choices, PARTICULARLY when it was laid out quite clearly at the front end.
-Styopa
Why the fuck companies do stupid shit like this is beyond me.
Who says, "OK, we're going to drop the quality of the video AND irreversibly fuck up the user's computer too! They'll love it!"
Why can't they understand this idiotic shit will make them go out of business? I now hate NetFlix with all my heart and soul just because they are so fucking stupid.
Just like Circuit City's idiotic policy of not telling you when they can ship you an item till you have paid for it. That policy alone is why Circuit City went out of business, just like I said it would.
I installed Silverlight and never noticed any problems; I haven't used WMP on my laptop since I bought it. I think I've even turned off all the services that run it.
I've closed my WoW account like 8 time every time complaining about class balance, specifically priests. Nothing has been done.
"Steal" is not a word whose definition has changed all that much through time. I think you're missing Picasso's point. He's not just advocating the reuse of old works. By referencing a criminal act he was making the point that great artists do not submit themselves to society's conventions in the first place. They do not pay attention to the cultural restrictions of today because they are defining the culture of tomorrow.
I do not worry about DRM limiting artistic expression. Great artists don't give a shit about laws and do what they want anyway. They might pay a price in the short term but in the long run they are vindicated. There are plenty of technological tools available to defeat DRM if you really want to. And one thing that all great artists have in common is that they really want to do what they are doing.
DRM is far more of a problem for the mass consumer, who is slowly losing their property rights. They are the frog in the hot water, losing control over their computer, TV, radio, etc. But this is more of a legal issue than an art issue. Again--for people who really want to, it is not hard to make, distribute, and consume "illegal" art. In fact it is probably easier today than ever before. A great example is Danger Mouse's Grey Album.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Huh, I actually just cancelled my Netflix account due to the new player. I was hoping because it was Silverlight it would one day work on Linux.
Sadly after a few weeks it didn't even work on Windows XP for me. Even when it did work the framerate was *awful* compared to the old player.
Then I find out Netflix only offers *phone* support. Forget it. Hulu, torrents, and my local library can easily replace Netflix.
if the herd/gang is *sufficiently-big*, then many will bend over
forwards and backwards, simultaneously
in order to associate/affiliate with the BIG GANG.
*ignoring* human/animal psychology, 1% isn't controlling,
but if that 1% is by a sufficiently "important" or "authority" mass,
then it'll influence things in ways that the numbers simply can't justify.
Disproportion/disproportionate-influence is part and parcel of the herd/gang "game".
Look 'round, and you'll see it in action everywhere.
( hint: look at your local sports-team's influence, among those who aren't shareholders )
The problem may not be as widespead as the summery would lead you to believe. 99% of the complaints on the blog are from mac users. That said, I think I'll just keep going with the normal WMP version. If it aint broke, don't fix it.
Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
I use vmcNetflix and the old Netflix player is a necessity for some very cool functionality. With vmcNetflix and the old player, I can fast forward, rewind and skip just fine using my Xbox and remote. I can also download instant watch movies, so that I can view them later without the need for buffering from the site. Note that the downloaded movies still contain the DRM, so I still need a valid license from the Netflix site to watch them.
vmcNetflix users who have been forced to install the silverlight player have had nothing but issues with it and vmcNetflix, including losing the ability to fast forward and rewind. I will avoid upgrading to the silverlight player as long as I can, because the old player works great and is much better integrated with the Xbox.
In those cases you're renting the theatre seat.
This is a wonderfully-written comment, and it's a shame, really, to try and poke any holes in it. But this is slashdot, after all, and we're here just to have a good time. Beers all around!
The argument relies on a bit of a strawman: that we can either leave licensing to private individuals, or enrich the general welfare, but not both. But this does not have to be case at all.
In fact, I can give you a very good example of a private licensing arrangement that not only is compatible with enriching the general welfare, it is primarily designed to accomplish exactly that purpose: the Creative Commons license.
So, the distinction we need to draw isn't between those agreements entered into privately vs. those entered into with the general public, it's between those written for broad distribution (the network model) vs. limited distribution (the restricted-use model.)
I would argue that the restricted-use model is simply an outdated, unsustainable business practice. It no longer captures the right revenue from the right people, and is therefore a poor business choice.
We have moved into an age where the network model is needed to properly monetize a work. Vastly more money is possible to be made from distributing a work widely than from restricting use. The fact that the music industry has completely failed to learn how to leverage the network effect has very little to do with licensing, and everything to do with having the WRONG kind of license.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
I actually had the opposite reaction. I was about ready to quit Netflix for using Windows media player. Reasons: 1. I was unable to view movies on my second HD monitor. Windows Media player seemed to think that I was trying to copy the movie or something else equally silly. 2. I was unable to use Netflix in Firefox. Go figure. However with the new Silverlight player I can play on my second monitor with no problem, and it runs in Firefox without having to be run through IE tab. Shame on me maybe for buying into another Microsoft DRM program, but it works for me, and that's what I care about.
Hulu pulls this off, I'm not sure why it's such a problem for NF. Movie instantly become available to all flash-capable platforms.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
...but WTF is NetFlix ?
The old player could only be paused for about :30. The new one can be paused indefinitely. I like the new one. I have not noticed any decrease in quality.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I switched to Silverlight, shortly after December. My impression was that it's easier to install than WMP11.
I have experience converting movies to a profile playable with PDAs, and the different codecs and technologies (generally) available. Personally I'd never use MS codecs for anything - I've never witnessed a professional MS A/V tool. They all have varying degrees of cripple and crapple. Netflix probably wanted something that encodes fast, works well enough, and a big company name behind it to make their bosses feel warm and fuzzy.
Having said that, I don't see blockiness or artifacts often. The only things I've seen are rare failures to detect scene changes. Nothing unexpected or terrible, if you've ever watched anything besides DVDs.
I've got comcastically-capped broadband; frequently 1.5MB/s down, 40KB/s up - as long as I don't run any kind of server. (Or they'll put me in a penalty box, where I'll be tormented by their sad repressed childhood memories, an RJ45 crimping tool, and possibly a ninja. And then if I don't learn, they'll smeg the cable modem!).
I watch with a 19" monitor, not a 50" widescreen. However, the person that bought me a gift subscription to Netflix has a large widescreen LCD for their computer. I've never heard them say anything bad about the picture quality of Instant Watch movies.
The only real problem I've run into, is when the audio and video are out of sync. For that, there's a "Report Problem" link available in the Instant Watch history, which is above the Instant Watch queue. It's a tab alternate to the DVD queue. (the movie rating is not intended for reporting problems, don't be that guy)
I think customers should spend every extra minute they can allocate to this, calling and hounding the Netflix. I just had an issue with a credit card company, and they continually shined me on... 3 hours of phone calls later and with accurate info, good logic and persistence, I got what I should have been given to begin with. It involved the rate jumping from ~2.5% to ~29.7% APR due to a uncontrollable 8 day delayed payment. They kept quoting the "agreement" with absolute apathy...
It appears that the corporate world is getting quite a bit more aggressive in squeezing the people out of anything they can. I find it interesting that our own voted into the office officials get lobbied and pass laws that allows the banks to put such squeeze on people. Some are quick to say you have a choice, until in return I ask them show me that other choice!!!
comsumers taking their money elsewhere does everything.
Just, wondering where else would you take your money...?
:)
Note: Never used Netflix since I'm from Europe, but if you know an alternative open to Europeans I like to know about it
I am not one to ever favour censorship, but blatant advertising such as the above should be simply deleted. Whatever you do DONT buy from these fucks.
Dear Netflix,
If it ain't broke, don't change it.
Benjamin Franklin.
Her lips were softer than a duck's bill, but her quacks
I thought the old "play it now" quality was pretty crappy, and quit Netflix over it a few months ago. I can't imagine what you-all are putting up with now.
Geeze, talk about shooting one's self in the foot.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Cancel your account! If enough people do that, they'll either change their policy or go out of business. Either way, problem solved. You can always re-join later. They even keep your old queue around for awhile. You get it back when you re-activate.
Seriously, everyone who thinks this sucks, cancel today, and tell them why.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
My brothers computer used to play the videos on the old player great. Ever since the upgrade to the silverlight player it's been crap, straight up, unarguable crap. It's unbearable to the point you can't even watch it. Please, please, please netflix just let us switch back and all will be well again.
The whole concept of "renting" digital content is absurd.
When you go to Video Ezy and borrow a DVD or VHS (DVDs don't really count as "digital" as they physically leave the store), you're physically taking it from the store into your home, where other customers cannot access it (unless Video Ezy has a couple in stock). Thus it makes sense to return it.
Renting online content does not make sense, because of the simple fact that you are getting a copy of the information. If you keep your copy of the video for 50 years, it doesn't stop other customers from purchasing and watching it at the same time.
Renting is obsolete. These days, online distribution costs are so cheap, you can offer a movie that you can keep for life for <$5 a pop, and still be making a profit.
Instant viewing problems are one thing but a here is little off topic problem. 75% of my Blue Ray discs, which you pay extra for, come cracked. After many tries Netflix says the discs are too thin and are delicate. No plans to redesign the packaging? No answer. Anyone else have this experience or is my mailman out to get me?
Well, until recently you could watch Hulu from within Boxee.
Global optimization! Sounds great!
Now, when you find the alien species, supremely smart and ultra powerful, who can find that global optimization and impose it on all those individuals (like every living human being) who would prefer his own local optimization (or more precisely is convinced that his "local" optimization is actually -- ha ha! such a coincidence! -- the global optimum) you let me know, and I'll sign up to have the compliance chip installed in my brain, too.
I have my Home Theatre PC hooked up to a regular lcd monitor and a 42" Plasma. My account was automatically upgraded to this silverlight crap. I used to be able to play movies full screen on the Plasma and work on the regular lcd monitor. Guess what? SilverLight will take the video from full screen back to regular once you click off the screen. The old player worked great, so I called Netflix. They told me I am sorry it's by design and no you can't go back. I cancelled my account then created a new one nope still Silverlight. I am no longer a Netflix customer thanks to their crappy player. After all I never really watched the DVDs just the instant. Not to mention the quality is horrible and video seems to run pretty slow almost like the computer can't keep up. The pc is a AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+, 4 GB memory, NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT. It plays Bluray 1080P just beautifully so you can't say the pc is causing the video slowness. Netflix blamed it on the PC. Not to mention I have another near identical one in the bedroom that does the same thing further eliminating software issues.
This update is suppose to be better how? What's the point Microsoft? Just another great example of your increased removal from and irrelevance to today's modern IT scene.
If they want decent quality they should just get a Vudu box and download the HDX versions (1080p/24fps/5.1). Netflix needs to improve their HD quality before they can compete with Blu-ray and HDX.