Streaming with Netfilx

Since I got Netflix I've always wanted to see how good the movie streaming service they offered was. So last Saturday I decided to give it a shot. Now mind you my laptop is a dual core 1.6 Ghrtz AMD with 1 Gig of ram along with my new Comcast 18Mbps high speed internet so I figured that I had at least the bare essentials to enjoy flawless streaming. I downloaded the media player from Netflix along with a must have plug in for Windows Media Player (Netflix service automatically downloads and installs it if is not on your computer).

All set and ready to go. My first movie was, Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country. Everything went fine until the Klingon moon of Praxis (if I spelled it wrong Eddie will correct me) exploded and the stream stop with a message that said ,WILL RESUME IN 5 MINUTES along with a progress bar showing how long you have until the movie continues ( Judging by how fast it was moving I came to the conclusion that it would be alot longer than 5 minutes). Needless to say I was not impressed. When the movie continued I noticed the latop's PQ wasn't that bad but since I was getting a new HP Multi Media Desktop that I could hook up to my HDTV I reserved any judgment.

Finally the new system came and after two days of getting to know it I decided to give Netflix another shot. I streamed Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country again and was pleasently suprised. The entire movie streamed to the end and the PQ was very good after the computer was connected to my HDTV. Since then I have been streaming like crazy about 10 movies and only once was there stoppage. The only thing is that Netflix's downloadable library is much smaller than the DVD library but it does have a very good selection of classics, other than the small library I'm satisfied. PQ is good, sound is descent, and streaming gets about an 8. My guess is that you must have a nicely powered system to get flawless streaming.

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[Post edited by tony1569 on Jun 13, 2008 - CDT 11:40 PM]

I've streamed a few TV episodes and a couple Masters of Horror movies with no problem, all on wireless connections. Most were at my previous address, one was at a hotel in Nashville back in April. I've not had a problem once I figured out how to use the system correctly.

Jason, psst...it's Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country

Jason, I'm not good with what order a movie was in a series. All I know is that's my favorite one.

Jason, Wasn't Apollo Creed in Balboa.

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[Post edited by tony1569 on Jun 13, 2008 - CDT 10:57 PM]

Tony... check out Jason's review and commentary (from a last June's Digital Joe post), of the Netflix movie streaming etc. He's an excellent writer in my opinion... and Jason I now look forward to your regular "This Week on DVD and Blu-ray" column.

____________
-JOE-
(Jimi McLovin - Love Hendrix!)

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[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on Jun 13, 2008 - CDT 11:06 PM]

Thanks Jimi Love, I'm happy to see that there is somebody other than myself that has tried this service out.

Jason, this is so funny, Not only do I have an eight year old Dell that you could'nt even play a DVD on but I also bought a Gateway MT6451 laptop last year about this time. Other than the two Star Trek mishaps Netflix has ran flawless on my laptop and I also use a wireless router. I would really love if my Media Center HP remote operated the Netflix pause/play buttons, I can control the pc volume but nothing else.

Two things Jason, my plan is also 10 bucks a month but I have unlimited downloads why is yours different? And I noticed in your review you said it took 10 minutes to download, when I order a movie it takes less than 20 seconds but it's a constant stream not a completely downloaded movie is that due to some kind of setting that you have?

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[Post edited by tony1569 on Jun 13, 2008 - CDT 11:53 PM]

Quote:
My guess is that you must have a nicely powered system to get flawless streaming.

Yep Tony, that is the key!

I have a Velocity Micro gaming system (place chocolate chip cookie here) that streams all my Netflix streamers lightning fast! I've never had any burps or lags on anything I've streamed from Netflix and runs as if I truned on a cable channel on TV. As soon as I hit play, it pops up right then and runs like a charm.

I noticed on the thread were you gave the specks on your new system that you mentioned you already had a video card, did you put it in your new system? A decent video card is a big boost when it comes to streaming. Of course, it means nothing without highspeed internet and a duo core processor with at leat 2.0gigglehurtz. lol

Well, good to hear that new system is serving you well already.

Quote:
Two things Jason, my plan is also 10 bucks a month but I have unlimited downloads why is yours different?

Nope, I have the same one. The one at a time plan. I don't have enough time for anything more than that.

Quote:
And I noticed in your review you said it took 10 minutes to download, when I order a movie it takes less than 20 seconds but it's a constant stream not a completely downloaded movie is that due to some kind of setting that you have?

IIRC-it's been a while-it took a little bit to download the viewer from Netflix the first time, not the movie itself. I wish they would enable Firefox and older versions of Windows, though.

PS-Thanks Mr. Hendrix.

Jason, awake

Quote:
I noticed on the thread were you gave the specks on your new system that you mentioned you already had a video card, did you put it in your new system?

Yes I did, but I'm finding some strange compatability issues with Windows Media Center but it's only a minor glitch. You can actually put the computer to sleep using the remote but when you wake it up and use Windows Media Center it give you a snow effect, to correct this I have to restart the computer but other than that Tim everything is fine and I'm happy with it.

guys good info, and good thread tony.

i have multiple more than capable systems at home, ood connecton, and have had a netflix account for some time now, as well as my tv hooked up to the pc. but never managed to give this a try. Ill try to make some time to check this feature out.

but then again thats what i always say.