Join the Netflix Streaming on the Mac Beta Now!!

[bettertomorrowamy]

http://www.netflix.com/silverlightoptin

[SmilinJackRoss]

Ah, nice, I'll sign up once I get home.

[Variety of Cells]

awesome.  Just tried it out and it worked great.  Much faster than the old version, and now I don't have to use bootcamp.  Thanks a lot.

[Variety of Cells]

This is a bit of a necro, but I feel people might like to know.

Netflix has been beta testing the new instant player for a little while now, but I haven't really had a chance to test it out myself.  So here's my little review.  Just about every problem talked about with the player has been fixed.  It's super fast on my connection, I can play it on my mac using firefox, and I can skip around to any point in the movie with barely any buffering time.  They even added something I didn't expect.  When you click and hold the shuttle to scroll through he movie, the program displays a freeze frame of where the movie will start to play when you let go.  In addition to that, there are two frames to the right of it, one showing something like 5 seconds in the future, the other showing something like 10 or 15.  And the same thing to the left for the past.  Now there is no guessing when trying to find a specific scene.  This feature actually works better than the fast forward button on a dvd player.  It's infinantly faster, because you can just drag the shuttle to the end if you want, and it's even more accurate; no more worrying about fast forwarding too far and then having to go back.

There are still no chapter markers, but with this new feature they aren't really necessary.

[Bob]

Glad to see that you mac users are getting taken care off now!

I'm interested in getting on of the HD DVD players that can stream the netflix movies via the wireless internet connection to my TV.

[bettertomorrowamy]

The xbox 360 is supposed to stream near HD-DVD right now.  I don't have a high-def television, but it looks and works good for me.

[Variety of Cells]

One last thing before this thread disappears again.  The new player will reduce the video quality if it loses bandwidth for whatever reason.  Once it buffers enough then the video quality will go back up.  It's definitely noticeable, everything looks a little blurry, but the video does not stop.  There is no hiccup.  Personally, I prefer this to having the video stop and waiting for it to buffer. 

[SmilinJackRoss]

One last thing before this thread disappears again.  The new player will reduce the video quality if it loses bandwidth for whatever reason.  Once it buffers enough then the video quality will go back up.  It's definitely noticeable, everything looks a little blurry, but the video does not stop.  There is no hiccup.  Personally, I prefer this to having the video stop and waiting for it to buffer. 

That's interesting, because for me it was doing the opposite.  When my connection slowed, the video stopped and it would re-buffer.  it only took a few seconds, but I didn't really like it.  BUT...my internet connection has been really spotty lately for whatever reason, even though my computer is only 10 feet from the router.  Maybe I should plug in a hard line instead of using the wireless.

Either way, the issues with the streaming are probably on my end, and not from Netflix.