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Netflix Streaming Arrives For the Wii
Grant,thompson writes "As announced in January and mentioned here on Slashdot, Netflix is sending out discs today to enable streaming on the Nintendo Wii. 'Netflix has sent out emails to customers who pre-ordered the Wii's instant streaming disc, indicating that the disc will arrive in mailboxes tomorrow, and that the service will likely start within the next day.'"
But without any hope of HD, whats the point?
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
i can finally sleep at night.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I gather that you need to load the netflix disc every time you want to stream stream something?
On my 360 (and I assume on PS3s as well), netflix streaming is built into the software of the device: I can play a game off of a disc until my wife gets home, then switch over to netflix and watch some tv with a few button clicks.
If you have to get up and fumble with discs every time you want to switch tasks, this is a big Fail for the Wii in terms of convenience. Why not a WiiWare application?
I'm beginning to think that everything will one day stream Netflix. It would be nice if Netflix would concentrate less on getting their service on my refrigerator and more on expanding their selection of movies and shows available for streaming. It doesn't seem to have improved all that much since the service started.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Wii is not listed as a supported player yet here: http://www.netflix.com/NetflixReadyDevices?lnkceData=0&lnkce=gssiclk&trkid=1445376 Nor in the "Watch Instantly" view menu here: http://www.netflix.com/GetStartedStreamingInstantly#
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
Now if only the Wii supported standard DVD movies it might have a chance of getting used.
So I don't have to wait for the DVD to come in the mail, huh? That's awfully con-Wii-nient!
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Is it any better than PlayOn's solution, and through which I've been enjoying Netflix films on my Wii for months now?
Along with Hulu, Amazon VOD, local media, and lots of other content.
And I don't care about HD for the kids to watch Cartoon Network shows or old family-friendly movies on the big screen.
If want a higher quality experience, I'll hook up the laptop with WMC and use its HDMI output.
But if I want to use the laptop for something else and the kids want to watch a movie, not a problem.
While not a "fail" per se on Netflix part, it did get here late enough to give PlayOn lots of customers.
Signed, a confused Canadian.
Wohooo!
I signed up for this as soon as I heard about it. I just checked the email account assoicated with my Netflix account and there is nothing there yet. Hopefully soon, I've been really looking forward to this.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You mean I can finally watch 'Look Who's Talking 2' and 'Rocky V' on my Wii?
But without any hope of HD, whats the point?
Last I heard Netflix streaming on PS3 and Xbox 360 are both in 480p - same resolution as the Wii.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
As I understand Netflix and Xbox have an deal where xbox is the only party allowed to have streaming video from netflix on the hard-drive. The disk is a legal formality to get around this agreement, and will likely no longer be required once the exclusivity period is expired.
I seem to remember reading this period would end in the fall of this year or next (can't recall).
Now if only we could stream instantly to a Linux PC without having to resort to a VM running Windows...
The exclusive deal with MS for the XBox360. Running from the disc allows Netflix to bypass the wording of the contract, such that's how it runs on PS3 and probably Wii.
I'm kinda confused by the fact that it seems like roughly half the comments are complaints of one form or another. Yes, the Wii isn't HD, everyone knows that. Yes, you have to put in a disc - this is due to an exclusivity agreement between Netflix and Microsoft. The PS3 has to use a disc also. Yes, you can also watch Netflix streaming with a PC, TiVo, XBox 360, PS3, plus assorted TV's and Blu-Ray players have it built in. If you have one or more of those already, then Netflix on Wii isn't a big deal.
My family has been looking forward to this ever since it was announced. We have a standard-def TV that we will likely keep until it breaks. I've watched a number of movies on my PC, but my wife and daughter aren't really interested in doing that. (I generally watch at my desk while working on another computer.) Other than a modded XBox, the Wii is the only game console we own.
Redundancy is good And also good.
If I had a Wii I'd be happy. Now about that 28 day waiting period that Block Buster doesn't have and the Very Long Wait for any slightly popular Blu-ray....
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
If it's anything like the streaming video of BBC iPlayer's Wii app, it's going to be very disappointing quality. The Wii simply isn't powerful enough to process high-bitrate content (even for standard-def) so the iPlayer app uses low bitrate streams that are blocky and barely watchable on a big TV screen.
Hopefully they will release a Linux version at some point. In the meantime, please take a minute and fill out this petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Linflix/petition.html (right now it is at 4429, we can do much better)
Too bad dog shit is more valuable (and has accomplished more) than online petitions.
I don't watch enough movies for Netflix to be worth the cost. Redbox works better for me for the 1 or 2 times a month I want to rent a movie.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
RTFA! All you have to do is build a Wii Emulator for Linux and then you can run it in that instead of a Windows VM. Sheesh.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
I was missing out on streaming wii.
Well, it doesn't hurt to present some numbers to Netflix. I doubt it will make that much difference, but at least it is SOMETHING. Zero feedback usually guarantees zero results, that is pretty certain.
Great, so now I have Netflix on my Vista Media Center, DVD/Bluray player, and now Wii...all hooked up to the TV. Can we get some more content? I totally understand not being able to get recent releases and highly popular new content. But why can't I get 10+ year old movies and TV series from 3+ seasons ago on Netflix Streaming? Probably the last dozen titles I've looked up haven't been available. They should be building up their back catalog and getting obscure titles....streaming should be the answer for that moment when you used to go to the video store, not knowing what you wanted to watch, and just browsing grabbing whatever catches your eye. Sure I can add it to the queue, but by the time it comes I'm not feeling it anymore.
I absolutely *hate* the selection that they have available for streaming.
Netflix seems to count streaming views similarly to physical disc rentals, so they de-prioritize your disc rentals the same way as many have reported for people who run through a lot of discs.
I picked up a Samsung Blu-Ray player which supports Netflix streaming. I found the selection to be fairly poor, but because of the easy access I ended up sampling a lot of material. After digging a lot, I turned up some good options, like some Showtime series, and PBS Frontline episodes.
During this time I had actually decreased the amount of the Netflix mailed discs I was watching. Partly due to having the streaming, but mostly just form being too busy. Despite the low usage of discs, all the top 15 movies in my queue were in the "Very Long Wait" state. Comparing my queue to co-workers queues showed that theirs did not have anywhere near the same delays shown.
I've completely stopped using streaming. It's okay as filler material if it's a "free" service. But, it's definitely not worth it if it means no access to decent movies.
If iTMS gets a little better selection, I will gladly stop my Netflix subscription. I'm sick of the gaming of the queue.
I'm curious, did your coworkers have the same movies at the top of their queues? "Very long wait" seems indicative of "very popular movies".
So when exactly is Netflix going to be available in Europe? I have a couple of devices which are Netflix-capable (PC, LG BD390, now the Wii), yet despite all the technological advances we are still limited by the same geographical restricted licensing models. We had DVD region encoding, but nowadays most DVD players can be made region-free. We are switching to online content, which is great, but this also means that they know where you are and decide what you are or not allowed to view - or not. Free market my ass.
Or movies way off the beaten path. Rare ones tend to have "Very long wait" or never show up at all.
Netflix on the Wii is what I was waiting for before opening a Netflix account. Thanks, Netflix!
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
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