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I installed the device last night and so far I am pleased with it.
A couple of minor points. One - you have to preload your queue on your computer before you use it, a mild inconvenience.
Second - the number of titles available for this on-line service is still limited - 17,000 versus 120,000 in the whole library.
On positive side - the HD quality is great, and the unlimited FREE access is also nice.
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PAINTING: American Zenith, 1958
Victor!,Thanks to the depressingly poor quality of selections on the various movie channels, I signed up for the Netflix free trial at the beginning of this week. TV content gets broader and broader and shallower and shallower- I haven't watched any network show for 15 years.
One of my main interests in Netflix was to set up the Roku system to stream the movies. This looks like the future to me- movies on demand with no fussing with discs. Everyone seems to be enticed by the streaming idea at the same time: My mum - even less TV orientated than I- just bought a 42" Vizio 1080p, 120Hz LCD, a 120W 2-CH Onkyo receiver, Infinity 362 speakers, a stand, and the HD Roku box. She needs to have someone set up the wireless network so hasn't yet done any streaming except to the home computer. This replaces a 1989 26" CRT for which the remote ceased working six month ago. She has had no cable service for the last 6 years- so Netflix and various DVD's and VHS are going to be her sole sources. My mum has odd taste-going through videos of Wagner's "Ring" at the moment, and loves anything Hitchcock.
However, instead of the $100 Roku, it seemed a better value for me to buy a Blu-ray player that has Netflix, Pandora, Amazon streaming capability. For the first time in my life, I have two television machines, my 32" Sony CRT and a 27" Sharp that was left in the house when I moved here- how's that for casual equipment acquisition?
Just received I yesterday a Samsung BPD-1600 bought off of Ecrap for $90, plus a Belkin wireless "N" router (one month old $40), and in a couple of days I'll have the special USB wireless adapter for the Samsung ($50)- they're $80 retail. This will accomplish several things: one, I can stream the Netflix movies, I have a higher quality disc player- the Samsung makes DVD's look better than my old Sony combination DVD/VHS, I can add Blu-ray if I ever have an HD set, the old DVD/VHS player can be used with old Sharp, plus, now I can also connect the HP quad core screamer- I use this computer for HD recording and Hauptwerk 3 virtual organ- in the living room to the Internet. When connecting the Sony to the Sharp, I found a set of inputs behind a door on the front I never noticed- thought they were picture controls- and the new configuration has a much better picture quality. I recently saw a big
plasma playing Blu-ray and that had the best TV picture I'd ever seen.The Netflix streaming idea is a really good one. However, even with the 17,000 streaming choices, I'm not finding a lot of interesting movies -yet. It seems that every movie I search for is not on the streaming list. In signing up for Netflix, I wanted to see a number of titles that I haven't seen since the 70's: Truffaut (L'Enfant Sauvage"), Bunuel, Lang, Eisenstein ("Potempkin"), Godard, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky ("Andrey Rublyov"), Pasolini ("Decameron"), Ealing comedies ("Ladykillers", "Lavender Hill Mob"), and so on. But, so far the streaming titles seem concentrated on movies that no one wants to rent- "Spring Break Disappointment 8: A-Cup Beach" and "Wal-Mart Massacre 3: Night of the Living Greeters". To try the streaming I watched on the work computer "Love is the Devil" (Derek Jacobi as painter Francis Bacon)- missed at the cinema. -I learned something important from this- I really hate watching movies on the computer!
It'll take some time to get organised with Netflix, but I look forward to the day- in about a month when I can cancel $40/month of idiotic cable movie channels.
Которые кино вы перечисля эти дни, камрада Netflixski??
Cheers,Bambi B
Edits: 04/01/10
I am aware of the BlueRay player route, but I am years behind that curve - I have I think the first generation plasma, with no HDMI - believe it or not, they DID make such TV's back when... if you remember the times when a 50 incher cost $15K and you were lucky to get it for $12K - that's from that time!
It also limits the resolution to 720P, which is fine with me, as I don't watch demos.
Netflix is great, but of course having been its loyal and more than regular customers, we are now scraping the bottom of the barrel - the new films worthy of viewing are arriving slower than we burn them. But hey, you can't compare this to trips to your video store, no way, no how.
BTW, how does the Amazon streaming work? You pay per movie?
I'm running out of older titles in a week or so. After that.... I've not Bluray-ed yet. Not much to get excited about in the format, yet.
All that artsi-fartsi stuff gets you that far, then you need to get off the horse.
In the meantime - above is another Polish film for you.
The wife and kids are hooked on Roku reruns - The Office, 30 Rock, plus oldies like The Tick. HD movies are choppy with our 1.5Mbps DSL, so we rarely watch films.
Besides its quirks - no ON/OFF switch? - it is a solid design and has easily been worth the price, given that we were already using Netflix.
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