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Netflix streaming (1 Viewer)

Douglas Monce

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Not sure if this is the right place for this thread or not so moderators feel free to move it.

I heard some interesting info on the radio as I was driving this afternoon. Almost 15% of all internet traffic between the hours of 5pm and 11 pm can be attributed to Netflix streaming. They expect that to exceed 20% next year.

I also discovered when I upgraded to the installed version on my PS3, that many films now have a 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus soundtrack.

For casual viewing the quality is really excellent.

Doug
 

Scott-S

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Why are people ok with the crappy compressed streaming? I don't understand this. I now have to pay $1 more each month to get discs to help pay for the streamers. Why watch "worse than vhs" quality when you can pop in a disc and get HD?

If they offered current (just aired) TV shows, I might watch (if I missed them) But why watch low res movies?
 

ThomasC

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Originally Posted by Scott-S
Why are people ok with the crappy compressed streaming? I don't understand this. I now have to pay $1 more each month to get discs to help pay for the streamers. Why watch "worse than vhs" quality when you can pop in a disc and get HD?

If they offered current (just aired) TV shows, I might watch (if I missed them) But why watch low res movies?
I'm able to get HD quality when it's made available. 30 Rock is one example. I just watched Contact the other day and it was DVD quality, so it depends on how fast your connection is.
 

Joe_H

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Originally Posted by Scott-S
Why are people ok with the crappy compressed streaming? I don't understand this. I now have to pay $1 more each month to get discs to help pay for the streamers. Why watch "worse than vhs" quality when you can pop in a disc and get HD?

If they offered current (just aired) TV shows, I might watch (if I missed them) But why watch low res movies?
Unlike the people on a forum like this, most people don't care about quality, but only convenience.

Also, if the price was a dollar or two lower, I'd be tempted too. "Worse than VHS quality" is understating it as well, to be fair.
 

Mark_B

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I don't stream any videos. I won't watch TV on a computor, and I don't have one hooked up to my TV. Why should I pay extra for this? They came out with a streaming only subscription. Why didn't they come out with a mail only subscription at the same or lesser rate then what they just raised mine too.I also didn't like it when they started charging more for Blue ray. From what I have read tho, this is the future. They will eventually stream everything and stop mailing all together.
 

Ronald Epstein

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Okay thoughts from someone that just signed up for Netflix
for the very first time yesterday....

After owning thousands of DVD and Blu-rays I came to the
decision recently that I don't want to continue buying product
that I am only going to watch once or twice and then just sit
on the shelf for the sake of having a collection.

It goes without saying that I will always buy my favorite films
on Blu-ray. There is nothing currently available that matches
the resolution and experience of watching a movie on that format.

So, after months of toying with the idea of streaming, I finally
signed up for a Netflix account yesterday afternoon via the app
on my brand new LG display.

I get a free month's trial then a subscription of $7.99 a month
for unlimited streaming which I think is very fair.

I only clicked on one movie to sample. I think it was called
"Finding Harry Nilsson" (or something like that). Sampled the
first 10 minutes. Overall, on a 60" plasma display, it looked
fairly good though a little dullish.

If I can get DVD quality from streaming I would be a happy camper.

I'm not looking to use Netflix as a venue to watch 5-star releases.
I look to it to find stuff I would not normally buy -- or perhaps what
I used to buy blindly. For that reason the quality does come second
to the selection as long as I am not watching really bad video.

I am happy that Netflix has made this arrangement for those that
just want to stream content. I'm sorry that those that subscribed
to DVDs in the mail are having to pay more but it absolutely looks
as if Netflix may be wanting to get away from mailing out DVDs
as they are claiming that their streaming may mean the end for
that format.
 

Stephen Orr

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I began using Netflix several years ago for the DVD delivery service. Two years ago, I began paying a little extra for the blu-ray service. When they began offering the streaming service, I thought, "that's nice, I might use it every once in a while."
Now I get maybe one Bluray a week, but the majority of my Netflix usage is the streaming service. (Currently working my way through seasons 1-5 of Doctor Who, did all three seasons of Torchwood, both seasons of Sarah Conner, the full season of Firefly, more movies than I can count.) HD is great, DVD quality is acceptable. I dropped my service to one disc at a time, because I can see a lot of stuff online and, like Ron, I see too many discs collecting dust on my shelves. Last year, I spent the summer converting my 500+ DVD collection to .iso, stored them on a couple of TB drives, and access them now through My Movies/Windows Media Center (Windows 7). The few Blu-Rays I have, I've done the same thing. I gave my son just about all of my DVDs.
I love the convenience and flexibility of watching Netflix Instant Stream. I can access it on my 46 inch tv, any of the 6 computers/laptops in my house, my iTouch and, coming soon, my Android phone.
 

Scott-S

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I guess I dont see how all you people can get DVD/HD quality. You must have an extreamly fast internet connection. Some of us poor folk only have 1.5M so the video quality of this streaming service is horrible. Not to mention Comcast and others are throttling this sort of stuff to make sure we don't steel more than our share of bandwidth and they are my only other choice for internet.

To get BD quality, you would need 50 meg download speeds and hope the Netflix servers and all the entire "Cloud" to your house can support that speed.

I am sad. :(
 

Douglas Monce

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I watch through my PS3 in the living room and a Vizio blu-ray player in the bedroom which are picking up the wireless signal from my router. I have no problems at all getting HD content. In fact HD films generally start playing in less than 10 seconds. My internet connection is up to 15mbps which is only one step up from the lowest speed they offer. (which is 3mbps)

This notion that the picture for SD content is VHS quality is just wrong. Anyone who is saying that simply hasn't seen the service in a while. The SD content is generally DVD quality, and the HD content looks quite good. Is it blu-ray quality, no. However as I said for casual viewing, it is quite acceptable. To be honest you'd be surprised how low the bit rate can dip with AVC before artifacting is visible with most content.

As I said before a fair amount of new content is showing up with 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus sound tracks, which of course is a step up from the audio on DVDs.
This service has given me the opportunity to watch films that I normally would not have even put in my queue. I can start a film, and if I find that I’m not enjoying it, I can always turn it off and choose something else right away.

Interestingly the latest thing that appears to be happening, is people dropping their cable TV and using Netflix or Hulu plus for their entertainment. Hulu plus offers a service where you can watch new TV shows the day after they air on the networks, in 1080P with 5.1 sound. They also have a huge selection of 60’s 70’s and 80’s TV shows.

Honestly I think that this method of watching content is most likely the future of home entertainment for the vast majority of people.

Doug
 

Ronald Epstein

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Douglas,

You hit the nail on the end.

TV SHOWS.

This is where Netflix has the most potential for me.

Why spend up to $50 on season boxed sets when I can
watch a few seasons of television under my unlimited viewing
plan.
 

Douglas Monce

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Originally Posted by Scott-S
I guess I dont see how all you people can get DVD/HD quality. You must have an extreamly fast internet connection. Some of us poor folk only have 1.5M so the video quality of this streaming service is horrible. Not to mention Comcast and others are throttling this sort of stuff to make sure we don't steel more than our share of bandwidth and they are my only other choice for internet.

To get BD quality, you would need 50 meg download speeds and hope the Netflix servers and all the entire "Cloud" to your house can support that speed.

I am sad. :(
A Comcast representitive has stated on broadbandreports.com that they do not throttle Netflix.
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r21713763-Speed-Comcast-intentionally-throttling-squashing-Netflix

The content is buffered so you don't need to be able to get 50mbps to watch in blu-ray quality, especially considering that most blu-ray content sits around 25 to 35 mbps for the video stream. Going much higher than that for most content is frankly over kill.

Doug
 

Douglas Monce

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Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein
Douglas,

You hit the nail on the end.

TV SHOWS.

This is where Netflix has the most potential for me.

Why spend up to $50 on season boxed sets when I can
watch a few seasons of television under my unlimited viewing
plan.
Exactly Ron. And I'm not limited to 3 discs of a show. If I want I can spend all day doing a marathon of a whole season. Not that I have the time for that kind of thing. Also there are some interesting B films noir that are showing up on Netflix that have NEVER appeared on any home format.

Doug
 

Hanson

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I don't know if anyone has actually seen a VHS tape recently, but on a large TV, it's quite horrible (even worse if it's home recorded tape). We're talking 240 lines of resolution, and unless you have an S-Vid connection, it's simply unwatchable.
 

Scott-S

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I have watched Netflix Streaming on my PS3. It is worse looking than VHS. I stand by my statements. :)

That is why, for me, steaming will never be my choice until I get the BW to handle it. I have no clue how the internet cloud can handle everyone streaming HD movies. I doubt it can.
 

Douglas Monce

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Originally Posted by Scott-S
I have watched Netflix Streaming on my PS3. It is worse looking than VHS. I stand by my statements. :)

That is why, for me, steaming will never be my choice until I get the BW to handle it. I have no clue how the internet cloud can handle everyone streaming HD movies. I doubt it can.
Well if your internet connection is only 1.5mbs its not surprising. The majority of American homes now have high speed internet, so for most people thats not really an issue.

As I stated in my first post, right now its almost 15% of evening internet traffic. They expect it to be 20% next year. Its only going to get bigger with many TVs and DVD players coming with Netflix, Hulu, and Vudo built in.

Also Netflix has reported that streaming is now more than half of their business, and they will be spending more on streaming licences, than on buying DVDs and blu-rays for rental.

Doug
 

Brent M

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Originally Posted by Scott-S
I have watched Netflix Streaming on my PS3. It is worse looking than VHS. I stand by my statements. :)

That is why, for me, steaming will never be my choice until I get the BW to handle it. I have no clue how the internet cloud can handle everyone streaming HD movies. I doubt it can.

I've got 10mb cable internet and streaming of HD titles to my Pioneer Elite 60" KURO looks comparable to most HDTV broadcasts. Not Blu-Ray quality, but certainly better than DVD and not even in the same discussion as VHS. Too bad all the titles available for streaming aren't HD because the ones that are look great on my setup.
 

Parker Clack

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I picked up Netflix for my iPod Touch and then decided to use it in Media Center. In both my iPod and Media Center the videos for the most part look great. Sometimes the video stream on my iPod gets pixelated. But that is going over WiFi.
As Doug stated the content is buffered. In Media Center when Netflix starts up it checks your internet connection speed and adjusts the buffer for your connection.
As Ron stated this is great for TV series. I watched all of Better Off Ted on my iPod Touch the other night. I will definitely be cutting back on the number of TV series I buy from here on out.
The only real issue I have with this is the more this catches on the higher our internet connection bills are going to get with all the increased bandwidth usage.
Parker
 

Stephen Orr

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Originally Posted by Scott-S
I guess I dont see how all you people can get DVD/HD quality. You must have an extreamly fast internet connection. Some of us poor folk only have 1.5M so the video quality of this streaming service is horrible. Not to mention Comcast and others are throttling this sort of stuff to make sure we don't steel more than our share of bandwidth and they are my only other choice for internet.

To get BD quality, you would need 50 meg download speeds and hope the Netflix servers and all the entire "Cloud" to your house can support that speed.

I am sad. :(
I live in Hampton Roads Va., and have Cox. I pay for 20Mbps, but get upwards of 35 on a regular basis, so my "HD' viewing experience is probably not typical. On my iPod, I still get around 10Mbps through the wireless connection. The rest of my computers (2 downstairs, 2 upstairs) are all networked with Cat5. I'm sorry you have a bad experience. My son lives in Abilene Tx and has Roadrunner or something like that, and can only get 1.5mbps...
 

Jesse Skeen

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I've found the quality to be varying depending on the title- some look adequate, others don't. Never seen anything better than a standard DVD- I have a Vizio TV with Netflix built-in, and about 4mbps internet speed last time I checked. I've been watching mostly weird old stuff that hasn't been issued at all on disc- great find was "American Raspberry" which is an obscure "Groove Tube" style movie. I watched Michael Jackson's "This Is It" and it was obvious that it was SUPPOSED to look good, but there was just a lot of artifacting in the background. I've noticed that if you internet service slows, it will switch to a low-res feed then kick back into higher-res when it can.

The main problem with streaming video is that it can't handle 30 frames per second- anything shot on video comes out at a more film-like frame speed.
 

Jeffery_H

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Originally Posted by Scott-S
I guess I dont see how all you people can get DVD/HD quality. You must have an extreamly fast internet connection. Some of us poor folk only have 1.5M so the video quality of this streaming service is horrible. Not to mention Comcast and others are throttling this sort of stuff to make sure we don't steel more than our share of bandwidth and they are my only other choice for internet.

To get BD quality, you would need 50 meg download speeds and hope the Netflix servers and all the entire "Cloud" to your house can support that speed.

I am sad. :(
That is precisely the point which is overlooked far too often in most tech articles I read. First, some of us are lucky to have any high speed internet period. I have no other options in my area and it is take it or leave it for service. My speeds also are at 1.5M and that is it. Second, the limited bandwidth for some providers can be an issue. Even if you have a 10 or 20M connection, they may limit you to what you can use because they are competing with those services and want your money spent on their cable TV services. I don't know how people can get excited over the "future" of streaming when all these limitations exist and there is no solution that can be provided since it would counter productive for them to do so.
 

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