Disc-Free Netflix Streaming Arrives For the PS3 and Wii

tkdog writes "Netflix has added Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii to the list of devices that can stream their catalog's content without the need for a disc. On the Netflix blog, VP Greg Peters adds, 'In addition to removing the need for discs, we've developed a new user interface on both applications that significantly improves the experience. The new applications will allow you to search for content directly from the device and you'll also be able to view an increasing portion of our content library with subtitles or alternate audio tracks.'"

I love Netflix

[BadAnalogyGuy]

What I love most about Netflix is the ability to watch movies online as well as have them send me DVDs in the mail.

The GUI is a little glitchy

[Serenissima]

But everything seems to play fine on my PS3. One thing that's awesome is that you can push and hold the left and right and scroll continuously through the lists. Also, it shows 2 horizontal lists instead of one list. Nothing wrong with it, but I'd prefer to be able to choose how it's displayed.

Disks Expiring

[toleraen]

Engadget is reporting [engadget.com] that the disks will stop working after 31 days, however it's not clear if that's all disks or just those that downloaded the update.

Anyone know for sure for those of us that are holding out for OtherOS?

Re:double rainbows

[E IS mC(Square)]

Summary is missing out the biggest benefits - 1080p streaming (not all, but I guess almost all HD movies will be 1080p now - from 720p of the disk days IIRC), and Dolby Surround 5.1 (compared to Stereo with the disk).

And from what I have read, there will be more content available now (compared to the disk), but of course not all. My guess is that they are adding content every day, but it's nowhere near their full movie library.

Re:Bandwidth Hog

[toleraen]

In the time it took you to write this post you could have googled your router model + set up QOS and had the issue taken care of. I'll take Netflix's dynamic quality-change-based-on-available-bandwidth any day.

Re:double rainbows

[Osty]

When I first got the PS3 disc, it was a piece of crap compared to Netflix on the 360. Hopefully, they've improved it substantially.

Sorry, it's still a piece of crap. It's better than the BD-Live disc implementation, but not by very much. The 360 interface is still much nicer and more usable IMHO. Of course it currently lacks 1080p/DD5.1 support, but the PS3 version doesn't tell you what movies have that anyway so it's not really that useful.

Re:double rainbows

[afidel]

Low, which means it will actually hurt perceived resolution because it will be wasting bitrate on pixels that will be blurred in the next frame anyways. It's the same reason I always use joint stereo in LAME, why waste bitrate on stereo difference that the brain can't hear 99% of the time when it can go to improving the mid and high end resolution instead (does not apply to all encoders but I find the LAME JS psychoacustics to be quite good).

Re:What about XB360?

[ashridah]

The Xbox is getting it in the november update, if i remember the reviews correctly.

Re:double rainbows

[Anonymous Coward]

First about Joint Stereo:
The conversion from L+R stereo to M+S (aka joint) stereo itself is lossless and reversible. The thing is the latter can be encoded more efficiently if there is high correlation between the L and R channel. If you encode with joint stereo LAME will switch between joint and normal stereo on a per block basis depending on which the encoder thinks will be easier compressible according to the psymodel.

About video:
Higher resolutions are actually more easily compressible than lower ones. Say you have a lossless 1080p source and compress it at a) 1080p with 6 Mbps and b) 720x480 with 1 Mbps. In that case b) will have a lower quality per pixel than a) and downscaling a) would yield superior results. That's assuming that the bitrates chosen aren't ridiculously high for the content, but assuming H.264 and normal content those are low bitrates. The reason for this is that the block transformations are less efficient if the detail is tightly packed so the block is less uniform. That and generally smaller partition sizes have to be used.
At 1080p with say 8 Mbps and a good encoder and codec Netflix could deliver very good quality, especially for newer movies which usually come with less noise and grain and are thus easier compressible. Of course they'll probably use ultrafast encoding settings so quality will suffer, but the same will be true for their lower resolution offerings.

Re:The GUI is a little glitchy

[internewt]

One thing that's awesome is that you can push and hold the left and right and scroll continuously through the lists.

Speaking as somebody who doesn't own a video game console, and someone who doesn't use netflix, that sounds like any awfully low bar for "awesome".

You obviously haven't used proprietary products much recently. They are frequently so dumbed down and simplified that if there is a useful feature, the users that can recognise its usefulness go "wow". Those that can't recognise the usefulness get confused by it, and call the manufacturer to complain. This raises support costs, meaning that the next generation of product from the manufacturer stands to be dumbed down even further!

Now then, I'm not saying that this means Free stuff doesn't have UI deficiencies, they are just different to the proprietary ones!