Questions about Netflix on Live

Thunderscope

Thunderscope

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Im thinking about trying out Netflix streaming on Xbox Live, I have a 20GB HDD with 1GB free. I plan on upgrading to a Jasper with a 120GB HDD soon but currently will this be enough space? How big is the download for the app? Also how many movies/tv shows are there? Is it easy to search or browse and is there a search bar? The reason why I ask is in order for me to try it out I need to upgrade my live account and sign up for netflix so its gonna cost me about $20 bucks before I can even "try it out". I cant try the free trial because I had netflix a few years ago.
 
1 GB is more than enough space.

You need to add and search movies from your computer you can not do it from Live. So basically instead of adding movies to your regular queue you add movies to your Instant queue and these movies/shows appear on your XBox where you can browse.

Not all movies/shows are available, and some become available only for a period of time. While it's not the best of selections, it does have a lot of good shows and movies: Heroes, The Office, Weeds, etc but don't expect many, if any at all, recent blockbuster hits to appear on the instant list.

Sign up under a different e-mail to "try it out", shouldn't be a big deal.. and you can get 48 hour Xbox Live Gold cards for free with purchase of most games or I'm sure someone here can give you one.
 
Netflix live streaming is pissing me off the more i use it. I watched half of Steamboy a few weeks ago and wanted to finish watching it now. Guess what? Its not offered for live streaming anymore. This has happened to so many movies its ridiculous. Online streaming is more or less a joke. Its only decent if you want to catch up on tv shows, and you can use free HULU for the major shows.
 
The streaming does not use hard drive space, as far as I can tell aside from the app itself

The constant adding and removing of movies from the instant que is annoying, but being able to toss a movie on and watch it on my TV is still worth it.
 
The selection of stuff to stream isn't the greatest, but they do have all the movies they play on the Starz line of channels which is kind of cool.

Netflix is worth the cost though for their sheer number of dvds they have. They have almost everythiong ever put on dvd, sans porn. Great for cult movies, older movies, and crazy documentaries.
 
OP, alot of people like to say tha Instant isn't a very good selection of movies, but on top of all the big tv shows, they have a ton of mainstream classics and recent A-class movies. i think instant is worth the $9 a month alone. There's a huge selection of indie/foreign films as well that i didn't list because most won't know them, but i have 276 items in my instant queue and here are some of the heavy hitters: boondock saints, full metal jacket, man on wire, letters to iwo jima, green mile, superbad, dog day afternoon, road warrior, boiler room, no country for old men, scarface, weird science, big trouble in little china, groundhog day, before the devil knows you're dead, diving bell and the butterfly, spies like us, stand and deliver, la bamba, karate kid, back to the futre, short circuit, the air i breathe, empire records, mad max, stand by me, fallen, lampoon's vacation, blade runner, shawshank redemption, walk hard, brothers solomon, casablanca, moby dick, the old man and the sea, ben hur.
 
Well I tried it last night, Free Netflix trial and I signed up for another 3 months of live. The streaming is so far a disappointment, the damn streaming stops at random to change the resolution! Other than that their selection is great but if I cant figure out how to get a steady stream then its worthless as far as I can see.
 
i have no issues for the most part, occasionally it may update once, i got a wireless connection too, if i had a slower dsl connection i'm sure i'd have more issues
 
The selection of streaming titles isn't bad at all if you're even mildly interested in documentaries, really horrible horror films, and some older b-list tv series. The selection is getting better very slowly, but you can definitely tell they only have things like The Office and 30 Rock up there to attract more people to try it out. There aren't too many other movies or series of that caliber on there.

Overall it's worth it if you're into trying new things and not seeing a bad movie every once in a while. The HD optimization works really well, but sometimes takes a couple tries to get it right.
 
I don't have Live Gold (almost never play online) but I do have a regular Netflix account. I would have definitely appreciated being able to use the service without needing a Gold membership. Not in the least bit surprised that I can't, however, I just find it kind of annoying.
 
I personally Love my Netflix!! i like von551 have a butt load of movies on my instant and never have an issue with watching anything.. i love the fact that i can view my old classics instantly and still get a surprise in my snail mailbox every couple of days.. and i think the only reason you are having resolution difficulties Thunderscope could be your overall internet connection.. But i've only had rare problems with mine..
 
[quote name='Elkron'] i love the fact that i can view my old classics instantly and still get a surprise in my snail mailbox every couple of days..[/quote]

That was my only real big problem with it was that there was no 'streaming only' option. But rumor has it that is coming soon.
 
Last Result:
Download Speed: 8337 kbps (1042.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1045 kbps (130.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

I only get 2 bars on the Netflix streaming with this connection. Does that seem right to you guys? My network is wired.
 
[quote name='TC']Last Result:
Download Speed: 8337 kbps (1042.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1045 kbps (130.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

I only get 2 bars on the Netflix streaming with this connection. Does that seem right to you guys? My network is wired.[/quote]

Theoretically, you should be able to get HD no problem. Personally, I've had similar issues myself. I have comparable speeds and can sometimes get four bars, but I'll never get HD for more than a minute or so before it downspeeds. Whose your ISP? I have Comcast and I swear they're limiting bandwidth to Netflix, but others disagree.
 
[quote name='TC']Last Result:
Download Speed: 8337 kbps (1042.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1045 kbps (130.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

I only get 2 bars on the Netflix streaming with this connection. Does that seem right to you guys? My network is wired.[/quote]

Do you have multiple other devices using the internet aswell? I only have 4.5mb down and 488kbs up and I get 4 bars/HD when our computers are not being used.
 
My ISP is Wide Open West. Other than this Netflix issue I have no problems.

When using the Netflix streaming the Internet isn't being used at all by any other devices. It's just me and my girl living here so I know when the Internet is being used. Nobody is stealing bandwidth either.

Just boggles my mind the picture quality is so poor.
 
Do you do any large downloading at all? I'm not familiar with that ISP, but some ISPs throttle "large" downloads automatically assuming it's file sharing. If you use Torrents and have no problems with that being throttled probably not the case, but who knows.
 
fwiw, I've had some movies where I could never get 4 full bars. But movies watched before or after will get the 4 bars.
 
Ive never gotten 4 bars for anything HD, maybe because thats all they offer at the moment? Dunno, but its full bitrate (for streaming lol, which is like 4-5MB if even that) 720p. Anything SD i get 4 bars every single time,

There are times where it randomly switches to 1 bar or something, i just stop what im watching and try again a minute later and its fine. Has happened about 10 or so times.
 
[quote name='trahision']That was my only real big problem with it was that there was no 'streaming only' option. But rumor has it that is coming soon.[/quote]

They are coming out with a streaming only option later this year.. but its supposed to cost just barely less then the lowest package they have now.. so whats the point of getting it???????????????? oh well we will see..
 
This past Friday night I gave it another try and was able to get 4 bars from them with an exellent signal. Even tested the HD streaming and it looked pretty good. My connection hasn't changed so I'd imagine they beefed it up on their end to keep up with demand.
 
[quote name='Elkron']They are coming out with a streaming only option later this year.. but its supposed to cost just barely less then the lowest package they have now.. so whats the point of getting it???????????????? oh well we will see..[/quote]
The lower price is still worth it if you have no interest at all in physical discs. Even if it's only $1 cheaper I'd still go with the streaming only, as I don't want to deal with DVDs.
 
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