Netflix HD streaming and Roku player

[ignatius]

Netflix has been offering streaming to laptop for a while now but I was never too impressed with the quality or titles.  They've really improved lately both the video quality encoding as well as the number of titles, over 15,000 titles now and growing significantly every week.  They also have 720p HD streaming now (300 titles and growing) but only via a Roku appliance that you hook to TV and you need a 3Mbps or higher Internet connection.  Xbox and a couple Blueray players can stream Netflix too, but not sure if in HD.

For $9/month you can stream all you want and still check out one physical DVD at a time - a great deal.  I re-signed up with Netflix and gave it a shot.  I was impressed enough that I bought a Roku box ($100 at roku.com) and the quality is even better on an HDTV, especially with HD streaming, though it's not quite up to par to cable/satellite HD broadcasts.  I was impressed enough though and have since canceled most premium movie channels on TimeWarner, except HBO. I might get rid of HBO too as Netflix continues to improve.

They also have a lot of good Discovery, PBS and History Channel content.  Have even used it for yoga.


Anyroad, worth checking out with 2-week trial at www.netflix.com and www.roku.com

You can view Netflix titles in a better way at www.instantwatcher.com

[kclofter]

Are you on Time Warner broadband?  I've been having problems downloading movies to AppleTV and my fear is that TWC is seeing the streaming d/l's and throttling back the bandwidth.  I have the "basic" up to 7Mbps service, which varies anywhere from 500K to 3M minute to minute. Am at 700-1000Kbps right now (Sunday evening at 8:54) based upon www.2wire.com

[KCFutbol]

I also have the $8.99 program and love it. Everyone in the family uses the streaming feature. It's a great service that continues to get better.

[ignatius]

Are you on Time Warner broadband?  I've been having problems downloading movies to AppleTV and my fear is that TWC is seeing the streaming d/l's and throttling back the bandwidth.  I have the "basic" up to 7Mbps service, which varies anywhere from 500K to 3M minute to minute. Am at 700-1000Kbps right now (Sunday evening at 8:54) based upon www.2wire.com

Yeah, on TWC cable modem at 7Mbps and I consistently get 5-6.5Mbps (Plaza/Westport area) using www.speedtest.net.  Netflix HD streams are encoded at 2.6Mbps so you want about 3M to prevent rebuffering.  The next highest quality is encoded at 1.5Mbps so you want 1.7M+ consistently to prevent rebuffering.  It will step down to 1Mbps or lower bitrate streams depending on the consistency of your connection.

You might want to have TWC check your signal level.  I show no signs of them limiting bandwidth.

What's cool about the Roku box is that is it small and WiFi based so you can move it around the house or even take over to friends/relatives who have high speed wifi and connect to a panel or projector they may have.  Am impressed with the device and the quality of the player is much better than Windows (no jitter/jerkiness on camera panning).  They keep improving encoding techniques every week so every new set of releases that come out look even better.  I do think they need to come out with a better player for Windows, maybe a dedicated streaming player application rather than through a web browser.  It works well enough on computers, but it's a great deal better on dedicated hardware appliances like Roku.

[LenexatoKCMO]

XBox 360 will function as a netflix streaming video player as well. 

[DaveKCMO]

Are you on Time Warner broadband?  I've been having problems downloading movies to AppleTV and my fear is that TWC is seeing the streaming d/l's and throttling back the bandwidth.  I have the "basic" up to 7Mbps service, which varies anywhere from 500K to 3M minute to minute. Am at 700-1000Kbps right now (Sunday evening at 8:54) based upon www.2wire.com

i have been having this EXACT same problem, too!

[ignatius]

XBox 360 will function as a netflix streaming video player as well. 

Yeah, I mentioned that but does it stream HD titles yet?  I think they need to do a software update that hasn't been released yet.  Not sure.

[LenexatoKCMO]

Yeah, I mentioned that but does it stream HD titles yet?  I think they need to do a software update that hasn't been released yet.  Not sure.

Not sure - I just had my second one brick over the weekend so it will be awhile before I can find out. 

[ignatius]

i have been having this EXACT same problem, too!

Have TWC check your signal level, otherwise it's not worth paying for the higher speed.  I consistently get at least 5Mbps on the 7Mbps service.

[kclofter]

Have TWC check your signal level

Thanks...sounds like I'm due for them to come back and check it out.

[TheSmokinPun]

Not sure - I just had my second one brick over the weekend so it will be awhile before I can find out. 

It does, including all the TV shows that are in HD as well.

I fell behind 2 weeks for Heroes, but thankfully they had the HD stream for it on my Xbox.

[janda]

Heard a lot of people are pretty pissed about the picture quality on the new Instant Watcher that uses Silverlight.

I buy rather than rent, so I don't subscribe to Netflix.

[ignatius]

Yes, on computers.  But it looks great on Roku and hardware based players.  They need to release a new Silverlight player ASAP as the video can be jerky unless you have  a very powerful graphics card.

[ignatius]

The Roku box now supports Amazon Video On Demand - over 40,000 titles, but it's pay per view.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/ontv/ref=sv_atv_2

[KCMax]

I'm looking at finally taking the plunge with Roku. I'm trying to find the best way to coordinate how we can still watch the shows we like to watch. Who has more/better titles - Hulu Plus or Amazon? I already have a Netflix account, and they still seem to have the most, but they don't have shows til they come out much later.

Also, does Roku support programming that the network website supports? Like PBS and ABC allow you to watch full episodes of certain shows online.

Do you have any recommendations for an antenna to get the local HD channels - KCTV, KMBC, WDAF, etc.

How is the picture quality? What kind of broadband capability do I need? The Netflix picture quality on my PS3 is pretty shitty to be honest, but I think my wifi signal is pretty weak.

I'm pretty technologically ignorant, so use short words and hand gestures.

[grovester]

I'd try to stick to hardwiring for streaming video versus wifi.

[DiggityDawg]

Do you have any recommendations for an antenna to get the local HD channels - KCTV, KMBC, WDAF, etc.

Is you TV new-ish? If it is, all you should need is a set of rabbit ears. In Midtown, we can pick up around 25 channels ( 4, 5, 9, 29, 3 different channel 19's, etc. ) that way.

Should run you less than 20 bucks, easily.

[cknab1]

I dropped all my movie and on demand channels about 6 months ago. One bad thing about living in an older building is that the cables haven’t been upgraded in over 20 years so my HD picture wasn’t as good as I would have liked it. And the on demand never really worked at all; I purchased the wireless Roku box for $99, I forget the model number and signed up for Netflix, hulu plus and later Amazon. I dropped Hulu Plus a month ago because for me, Amazon had more to offer and Hulu just duplicated some of what Amazon had.
I don’t miss the movie channels at all and really like watching what I want when I want. Plus, I can watch some TV series that I never watched before, like 24 and Dexter etc. Sometimes a movie will reload while I am watching it. But that only happens once during the movie and not all that often. That is because of the poor signal I’m getting.

[bobbyhawks]

I'm not 100% positive, but I think that 1080p only requires around 4-8 megabits/second (TWC will offer tiers from 3 all the way up to 50). Personally, I'd not get fewer than 10 if you don't want to run into issues and will be relying on this speed for your primary TV watching experience. I agree that if you can get an ethernet cable to the device, you won't have to worry about tinkering with your wifi. Also, as mentioned, the digital antennas should not cost more than $30. I live downtown, so results may vary, but I get quite a few channels in my bedroom without running cable to my TV. You will need to make sure that your TV is capable of digital tuning. 90% of TVs that are less than a few years old should be fine.

I just bought a Roku for my bedroom because of the Plex app that allows me to stream and run Plex apps and media from my computer. I'm not really a fan of the overall Roku interface, but it is simple enough to understand. As for the apps, Netflix is still far and away the best content offering anywhere. Amazon is nice for on-demand purchases, and if you buy a Prime membership, you get a few shows for free (though not a very good selection). I have found the Prime membership and free two day shipping to be worth every penny, with the streaming content just a perk. There are the standard apps you will find on many things like Boxee and Google TV, but I have yet to try some of the more robust apps like MLB.tv. I bought mine at Costco, and it came with an HDMI cable and 2 month trial of Hulu Plus. I've yet to try Hulu Plus because I still don't understand why I should pay a subscription to watch commercials. TWC blocks the HBO Go app on both XBOX Live and Roku, but if you are cutting the cable, then it is a moot point. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of a way to purchase an HBO subscription without going through a cable or satellite company.

[cknab1]

As a side note, I did have to sign up with HBO for the next three months or whatever, so my wife and her friends could watch Game of Thrones. I could find no other way to watch it.
I agree about Amazon, the streaming is a plus to the free shipping.
I had not heard of plex, just looked it up and it sounds interesting. When I get a chance I’m going to try it out.