The Demo Site

Like many out there in videogame / tech land, November 19 was a big reason for us Netflix hold-outs to finally take the plunge. Why? Well the Update to the Xbox 360 dashboard, the NXE (Or New Xbox Experience) brought Netflix Instant play to the 360. The night before the update, I went over to Netflix.com and signed up for a Netflix plan, I then went over to Xbox live and upgraded my account to a gold account (which I usually have off and on).

So what do I think?

First thing I did once I had NXE installed was signed into Netflix and started adding instant watch movies to my que. As you know, you have to add those movies to your que via the Netflix website before they become available to watch on the 360. So I added about 10-15 movies and happily logged on to Xbox live to check it out.

First disappointment

The very first movie I was going to watch was Superbad. I cycled through all of the movies listed on the 360's netflix app and it was no where to be found. I Then went to my second selection and that was not showing up on my que. I then did a little bit of research and found out that Sony movies were excluded from Netflix play on the 360. It seems that now you get a message when you add movies to your que that lets you know it will not be available for play on the 360, so you know right away.

Second disappointment

The first movie I did watch (or attempt to watch) was the HD version of The Orphanage. Everything worked out fine (other than I fell asleep on it). I was satisfied with the quality of playback, and I will get to more info on that in a little bit. What disappointed me was what happened the next time I tried to watch a movie. This time I was checking it out with my wife, and we decided to watch one of the old Sinbad comedy specials. When the video went to load, I noticed it put my video quality at basic, which is the lowest quality setting. This was a little odd due to the fact that I have a 20mb cable connection. Normally, I get really good speeds and not having enough net connection to do certain things online hasn't been an issue for me. At basic, the video quality was horrible, watchable but only barely. Needless to say, we didn't watch it. Every since then, my video quality/ speed setting has been up and down. Ive watched some movies at the top or one under the top, then a lot of the times I get the bottom. Im guessing it has nothing to due with my internet connection, and more with Netflix. Ive done some testing and when its set to basic by Netflix, I can still do other things online and get top speeds.

Ok, disappointments aside. I think that Im pretty happy with this option of viewing movies. Ive never looked into Netflix much before, but the one thing Ive always heard was that the selection wasn't that great. I agree, the selection are many time movies you don't care about, mixed in with a few you are interested in watching. Thats not all though, With the addition of Starz content and other network television content, you can find a lot to watch.  Just about every season of Heroes, and the Office is available, along with other popular TV shows and movies.

Back to video quality. The TV I'm using is the 42" 1080P lcd that I reviewed a little while back. When Netflix gives me a decent quality setting (3 or 4 bars). I'm happy with the quality. I would say that the quality is about dvd quality. The HD content that I have watched seemed a little better than DVD quality but definitely not Bluray (or HDDVD since Im still using my player). Sound is sufficient but nothing to brag about, nothing to complain about either. So far Netflix instant watch on the 360 has been a pleasure, not really any problems, works as advertised (except for the exclusion of Sony movies). Im happy.

Update: Looks like the problem I was having with the connection was a short lived problem. I havent had any problems getting full video quality pretty much since I wrote this blog post.