PlayStation 3 Netflix Streaming Support Arrives

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The PlayStation 3 support for streaming Netflix's online library of movies and television shows announced last month is now active, Sony's PlayStation.Blog proclaims.

As well as a subscription to the DVD rental service, viewers will need a free disc--available from Netflix and "on its way" to all who reserved one--to access the service.

A downloadable Netflix application is scheduled for "late next year." Industry analyst Michael Pacther believes the disc solution is necessary due to an exclusivity agreement Netflix holds with Microsoft, whose Xbox 360 has integrated Netflix streaming support.

Pachter also predicted "a similar arrangement will be announced for the Wii in the next 12 months," a move Netflix has often teased through statements and surveys.

The following short launch trailer shows off the Netflix streaming disc in action on a PS3, not to mention a very warm and inviting living room.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 10, 2009 9:52 AM

    All in all, it works pretty well. A bit slower than the 360's interface (probably due to the disc), but it's way better than using it through PlayOn which I had been doing prior to buying another 360.

    Too bad they dont have the option to install the disc to the HDD, I think that might speed things up.

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      November 10, 2009 10:15 AM

      [deleted]

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        November 10, 2009 10:39 AM

        Netflx streaming is amazingly quite good. I have access to Netflix via a Blu-Ray player for the family room because the two women who live here - and who incidentally control the family room - don't care about silly things like HD, 5.1 etc.

        And in my media room - where I'm King - I have both TVersity and PlayOn media servers installed.

        Netflx through PlayOn is very good and suspect that those with a media server won't be too excited about the PS3 Netflx disc. I got the email that mine should be arriving this Thursday, so I'll give it a whirl but I'm going to be sticking to PlayOn.

        They can't install it via HDD for licensing reasons. If they could, it would have been pushed through as a PS3 update, just like on the XB360.

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          November 10, 2009 10:54 AM

          [deleted]

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            November 10, 2009 2:40 PM

            Works fine here. Just be sure to NOT install their own codecs. You only need ffdshow tryouts and Matroska and you should be fine. So if you have any other codecs, you might want to uninstall them.

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          November 10, 2009 11:13 AM

          It's definitely not convenient to put the disc in there, but I find the video quality to be a little better with the Netflix disc. I guess the HD streams are coming through where they weren't with PlayOn.

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            November 10, 2009 2:37 PM

            Since they worked with Sony on it, my guess is that they're probably feeding a different type of stream because I can't think of any reason why the quality would be different between a PlayOn and Netflix stream. Either that or PlayOn uses a lower bitstream setting for their stream than Netflix.

            As to the interface being slow, thats probably because its reading the GUI interface from the BD - which is notoriously slow to begin with. Couple the slow read speed of BD + GUI display draws + internet feed stream and you get this delay. FAIL!

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              November 10, 2009 3:43 PM

              Since the PS3 is now a blessed STB for Netflix streaming, it can use the "HD" streams.

              PlayOn, on the other hand, forwards the stream from your PC, and your PC can't access the "HD" streams.

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                November 10, 2009 5:50 PM

                Makes sense, but I don't see why the PC can't access the HD stream if its just being forwarded.

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                  November 11, 2009 10:09 AM

                  PC doesn't get HD streaming even if you have a netflix device added to your account. PlayOn is just feeding the PS3 the PC's stream and I think there is transcoding involved as well. That may have something to do with it also.

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      November 10, 2009 11:44 AM

      The stream quality is better than PlayOn, but I'm disappointed in the interface.

      PlayOn doesn't have the luxury of being a custom Netflix interface but it still manages to give you a few options for dealing with your queue (like sorting alphabetically or by genre). This new PS3 Netflix interface doesn't... you just have to scroll through.

      If your queue is small this isn't a big deal, but I use my queue basically just to "remember" any movies that I might want to watch over streaming, and it's very big and not in any particular order. The slow scrolling, and slow display of the currently selected queue item (takes a while for the picture & description to load) -- it's a pain.

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        November 10, 2009 2:33 PM

        whoa!! I have like 52 movies in my Netflix queue. So with the disc I have to scroll through all of them? FAIL!

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          November 10, 2009 3:41 PM

          You can use L2/R2 (or reverse/ffwd on a remote) to jump a few at a time, but yeah, basically.

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