Letters to the Editor
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Or you can skip the box if you have an xbox360 and a Vista PC
I have been using the vmcnetflix add-in for Windows Media Center, which allows you stream "Watch it Now" movies to your Xbox 360 very effectively.
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Bad movies delivered instantly!
We have tried to use Netflix Streaming as an alternative to a last minute trip to our Very Excellent local video shop. The trouble is that Netflix seems to have chosen (no doubt following or during hard-nosed negotiations with the owners of the other titles) to transfer only movies that belong to the category "Movies that Nobody Wants To See...Mostly for Good Reasons."
That is too broad, no doubt; there definitely are some titles worth seeing in the online service, but you have to sort through a lot of dreck to find them.
If you want to watch Groundhog Day III, or some possibly excellent documentary about an esoteric topic, the Netflix Stream is great. But the streaming catalogue lacks the breadth and (outside the Documentary category) excellence of the disk-by-mail service.
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How many people are going to pay $99 to watch nothing?
My home entertainment system is already a computer, so other than the fact that NetFlix only supports Windows, there's no point in adding yet another box, no matter how cheap, into the mix. This is obviously for people who only have a TV in their home entertainment systems, but is that going to be a large percentage of early adopters?
In any event the point is moot since there's almost no content. I went into my NetFlix account and added all of the movies I'd ever want to watch, ever. Of these only movies were available to watch instantly, and those were movies I'd already seen, but might want to watch again someday.
So, yes, the streaming services if free if you have a NetFlix account, but that's only because there's no content and they're trying to get people using the system.
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how's the quality?
There are some good movies available as "watch it now" titles. Road Warrior, for example from my own experience.
However, I still ordered the blu-ray of Road Warrior rather than streaming for the improved image quality and ability to watch it on a 1080p plasma rather than my laptop.
The titles will come, but is the quality there?
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Rule #34 no exceptions:
There IS porn of it.
Corollary 1: anything that can be used for sex and for anything else, will be used for sex.
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no good movies available for streaming?
AND you pay $99? If they were going to credit me 10 months of service, I could MAYBE see it.
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talk about a bunch of whiners
There are good movies available (La Vien en Rose, Letters from Iwo Jima to name a couple). More improtantly there are good TV shows available (Columbo, Heroes, This American Life). Seems like a fair deal for those that may not want to wait for their next film or maybe just wants to watch something again without all the hassle of wasting a spot in their que.
No idea of the quality, but you only need wirelss service for this to be a good deal.
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anime available too
If you're an anime fan, they're starting to make these titles available too, particularly the girl friendly titles, I found. That's worth it to me.
I don't always have time for a movie, but watching just an episode of something is rather nice.
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What good is it?
I can plug my computer to my TV with a cable right now
without spending $99
A
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probably you can soon also skip the vmcnetflix add-in for Windows Media Center
...if all the hype is to be believed that Netflix will be bringing it's Watch It Now service directly to the Xbox 360. Seems like a smart way to get the service to all the people that already own this console.