Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater PS3 has Netflix streaming now

Good call Chris, that's as good a guess as any.

Here's an article that discusses more guesses on the reasons for the disk vs. software. They agree with you on the MSFT link.

By the way, PlayOn has gotten a bit better lately from a reliability perspective. Quality still maxes out at a not so great level, but for shows on Hulu, ESPN, etc., it seems to be performing much more predictably for me than it did ~6 months ago.

Jason

If Netflix didn't have the Blu-Ray surcharge, I'd think about switching from Blockbuster now that streaming is added.

Of course, I still need a wired connection for the PS3 I assume to stream....wireless probably doesn't cut it, especially for HD quality.

Here's what NF had to say today, "Today we shipped instant streaming discs for PS3 to about 100,000 Netflix members who requested them. After we tune a few more details, we expect to ship to everyone else within a couple of weeks." That backs up my guess.

I'll be curious to see if it is anything even close to HD streaming even with a hard line. I do have mine wired directly to my router, so I'll let you guys know. My disk arrives tomorrow.

Jason

HD streaming (720p/1080i) should be fine with the PS3. The 360 does it and it works great. I can't see why it would be any different on the PS3.

If it weren't for your avatar, I'd say drop your cable, and go with Netflix. I've not had cable for 7 years now, yet I watch more TV/movies than anyone else I know. It's a combination of Netflix's 8-at-once+BD, plus their streaming, and downloads of TV rips from the Internet. But I'm not a sports fan in the least, so that's something I don't miss. Although MLB just joined the PSN store.

I'm stuck with cable for sports, otherwise I would.

Well, got mine, been using it for about an hour. It's pretty cool.

I was wrong, it doesn't present itself at 1080p, the interface is 720p. It is indeed a Blu-ray Disc though. The interface defaults to showing your streaming queue, but you can browse all the available films by genre. It supports both SD and HD streams. When starting a SD playback the disc switches to 480p, HD stays at 720p. So if the disc does work in the Oppo, it would scale the video content, as it does BD bonus content (which the PS3 doesn't scale).

The video streams are AVC (H.264), with 2 channel Dolby Digital @128kbps. I've seen the video rate jump as high as 7 Mbps, but averages 4 for HD, and 1.5 for SD.

All in all, I'm impressed. Going to go watch more.

Additional: The pause button brings up a nav-bar which works pretty much like the cool one you get with the Silverlight version of the player on a computer.

Netflix charges, what, a buck extra for BD? Not a big deal for me to pay that. I tried the disc in my Oppo but it didn't work (I really didn't expect it to). Haven't had a chance to play with it in my PS3 yet. Since Modern Warfare is coming out in a few days, I don't know if I'll get a chance to play with it for a while

I absolutely cannot wait for COD/MW2!!!

It depends on the plan you have...the upcharge is anywhere from $1-8 per month I believe.