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.'"

Comments

You need a disc?

[Sparkycat]

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?

Re:Not to sounds like a video snob ...

[Goblez]

Now my kids can watch their Cartoons downstairs while I stream HD on my XBox upstairs. Sounds like a win for me.

Re:Not to sounds like a video snob ...

[Shatrat]

Once you lose enough signal that you can no longer decode the digital data, your video becomes instantly unwatchable.

While we're nitpicking, this isn't necessarily true. There is such a thing as Bit Error Rate and you can have some in a digital signal and still have a usable signal. It might not even be noticeable. If a 24 bit color is off by the least significant bit for one frame on one pixel would you see it? It's an oversimplified example really, but I hope you get my point. On the other hand, a little bit of nasty on an OC192 can drop every cell call in 100 miles.