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Netflix Opens Watch Instantly Beta to All Mac Users

Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 AM - by

After only a few days of testing, Netflix has already expanded its "Watch Instantly" test program for Mac users to include any subscribers that wants to sign up. Netflix subscribers interested in trying out the live streaming video service will need an Intel-based Mac with Microsoft's Silverlight installed, and can opt in to the test program at the company's Web site.

Since its video streaming service for Mac users is still in a testing phase, Netflix is warning that there are some issues like not all movies are currently Silverlight compatible, some movies stream at below normal quality, and some may show errors.

Mac users have been barred from using the Netflix streaming service before now because the copyright protection built into the movies and TV shows uses Microsoft's Windows-only Digital Right Management (DRM) scheme. By switching to Microsoft's Silverlight multimedia playback technology, however, Netflix can offer cross-platform viewing through a single DRM scheme.

Netflix introduced the beta program for Mac users at the end of October. At the time, it was available only to select subscribers. The company plans to move out of its beta test phase before the end of 2008.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:10 am

i'm disappointed they are excluding us PPC users. not everyone can afford to upgrade to Intel just yet.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:18 am

From the first paragraph:

"...live steaming video..."

I guess they've gotten into the adult film industry.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:04 am

I've been trying it out this weekend. It ran well for about 40 minutes until some error occurred which stopped the video. I couldn't find any source on the Netflix web site to post my findings on their web site. If this is a beta test, wouldn't they like to know what issues we're having? TMO: can you contact Netflix and see if they have some sort of online form so that us Mac beta testers can help smooth out any issues while we're trying it out?

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:39 am

Must be a secret roll-out. My Netflix page still says my Intel MacPro is not compatible with their "service". Maybe next year?

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doogie said:

member since 21 Sep 2004 with 17 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:42 pm

I watched a movie using it last night using this and the quality over a crummy <100KBs connection looked as good as running their windows version through VMWare.

When first clicking "Play" from my queue, it indicated that I needed to install Silverlight and provided a download link. A .dmg file with a standard installer downloaded (7.1 MB) and installed requiring an administrator password. Only took a few seconds and did not even require a restart of Safari.

I've got some sort of bandwidth issue with my router that seems to be choking things, but I've always found the quality to be semi-watchable on a small screen. I've come to expect that it's going to pause and try to renegotiate speeds at least a couple of times. The buffer seem to be fixed, so you can't simply pause and allow it to buffer more material to improve this like you can with high-end applications like... YouTube. As Peter Green said, "Oh well." (Bandwidth problems seem to be in response to bittorent and mobileme syncing even after they are done and until I disconnect and reconnect wireless, Linksys WRK54g - any ideas?)

I've tested this on a 1.66GHz Core Duo Mac Mini and a 2.5GHz Power... er, MacBook.

Overall - on par with previous windows only version right from Safari. THANK YOU NETFLIX! I guess thanks MicroSoft, too, for providing Silverlight.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:50 pm

Guest wrote:
i'm disappointed they are excluding us PPC users. not everyone can afford to upgrade to Intel just yet.

I'm a mac user. I'm a PPC Mac user. It doesn't work for me. So it is not for 'all mac users'.

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demjones said:

member since 25 Jun 2001 with 12 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:22 pm

I meet or surpass all of their Mac system requirements, but they still tell me that I don't. Not impressive.

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A guest said: (hide)

Mon Nov 03, 2008 7:05 pm

All Macusers? Even us outside USA? Wow! That is great:)

Just kidding - and reminding the editors tha you have a lot of readers outside of the US of A

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computerbandgeek said:

member since 09 Jun 2006 with 52 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:02 pm

doogie wrote:
I've got some sort of bandwidth issue with my router that seems to be choking things, but I've always found the quality to be semi-watchable on a small screen. I've come to expect that it's going to pause and try to renegotiate speeds at least a couple of times. The buffer seem to be fixed, so you can't simply pause and allow it to buffer more material to improve this like you can with high-end applications like... YouTube. As Peter Green said, &quot;Oh well.&quot; (Bandwidth problems seem to be in response to bittorent and mobileme syncing even after they are done and until I disconnect and reconnect wireless, Linksys WRK54g - any ideas?)

.

I used to have exactly the same problem with my linksys. I ended up buying a cheap ethernet router from netgear and just using the Linksys as an access point (all routing and managment done by the netgear) and I haven't had a problem since.

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iJack said:

member since 13 Jun 2001 with 313 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:07 am

Guest wrote:
I've been trying it out this weekend. It ran well for about 40 minutes until some error occurred which stopped the video. I couldn't find any source on the Netflix web site to post my findings on their web site. If this is a beta test, wouldn't they like to know what issues we're having? TMO: can you contact Netflix and see if they have some sort of online form so that us Mac beta testers can help smooth out any issues while we're trying it out?

Why don't you post on the Netlix blog site linked in the first line of this article? Many others have.

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