Filed under: Internet Tools
Netflix begins testing Watch Instantly on the Mac
Netflix has been talking about bringing its "Watch Instantly" movie streaming service to the Mac for a long time, and now Engadget is reporting that they're finally beginning to roll it out. The "Watch Instantly" service allows unlimited Netflix subscribers to stream about 12,000 TV shows and movies to their computers (or set-top devices), but has been limited to Windows PCs since the service first appeared. Ironically, this is being made possible thanks to Microsoft's Flash-wannabe Silverlight browser plugin. As we noted way back in 2007, the holdup was the need for Microsoft DRM on the streaming videos and the new Silverlight-based player incorporates Microsoft's Play Ready DRM.
Unfortunately, the initial roll-out is limited, but Netflix expects to bring "the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year." Sadly for PPC owners, it will be limited to Intel Macs. Nonetheless, it's great to see Netflix finally coming through on the promise of Watch Instantly for Mac users.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
javi said 11:47PM on 10-26-2008
We are still waiting for it to work at all on US Territories. We do get Netflix DVDs through the US Mail... but we are blocked from accessing this feature.
HULU.com fixed that glitch within a few weeks.
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iGO said 11:01AM on 10-27-2008
I'd like to know which browser(s) will we be supported under OS X?
Anyone?
Brady J. Frey said 4:10PM on 10-27-2008
I'm sure any browser that is Silverlight compatible for OS X would work for this service:
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx
That's if you want to install another bloated, closed source system by a company that does not understand the internet... just my opinion;)
Justin said 12:19AM on 10-27-2008
I predict the usage of Silverlight is going to skyrocket on the Mac. When can we get a plugin for the Apple TV?
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Tom G. said 12:36AM on 10-27-2008
I'm disappointed they are basing streaming service on Silverlight.
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Balls said 12:58AM on 10-27-2008
Why are you disappointed?
Neil said 2:27AM on 10-27-2008
What's wrong with Silverlight?
Kelmon said 6:49AM on 10-27-2008
The problem with Silverlight is that it's another Microsoft trojan horse. There are no development tools for Silverlight for the Mac - you need to use Windows. Further, Microsoft has a long history of letting the Mac version of their products lag behind the Windows counterparts and then crowing that you need to use Windows for the "full experience". For this reason I'm having nothing to do with Silverlight and will continue using services based on Adobe Flash. Flash might be far from perfect but at least Adobe supports the Mac platform.
jonas said 8:36AM on 10-27-2008
i'm very happy they chose silverlight over flash.
flash video is stutter hell. silverlight is way way faster, especially at higher bitrates.
Anthony said 1:02AM on 10-27-2008
I'm pretty excited that Netflix chose Silverlight to bring Watch Instantly to the Mac. It's also not really fair to call the technology a flash-wannabe. The Silverlight runtime brings a subset of the WPF (and thus the .NET framework) to the Mac. Cross-platform is good for all of us.
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Balls said 1:49AM on 10-27-2008
You can run (and write) .NET apps for the Mac already, thanks to Mono.
They even have their own version of silverlight as well.
Still, the line from the author about "flash wannabe" just shows how ignorant he is.
ArcadeKart said 1:22AM on 10-27-2008
MS grew a whole lots of tentacles that just won't die, silverlight is a more obnoxious one.
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Balls said 1:42AM on 10-27-2008
apple fanboys ftl
tclNJ said 6:44AM on 10-27-2008
Agee that Silverlight is a particularly dangerous tentacle from MS... and like most things from MS, developers are eating it up.
For those of you who think this is a great thing, use your head. MS has a long history of the whole have-this-for-free-so-it-spreads-everywhere-and-of-course-it's-great-because-we-made-it release followed by the supposed realities of economics that roll it into other product lines or tie it more closely to Windows. Office is the only thing MS has done for the Mac that has survived - perhaps out of the sheer nostalgia that MS was making business apps for the Mac before Windows even existed, but more likely just to avoid any more antitrust lawsuits. And, even then, Office for Mac certainly doesn't have feature parity with its Windows counterpart.
I don't see anything good coming from Silverlight... not for anyone but Microsoft, that is.
tclNJ said 6:46AM on 10-27-2008
Typos suck, don't you "agee"? ;)
mrsteveman1 said 1:45AM on 10-27-2008
Play Ready now is it? Huh....
Every one of you better realize that somewhere down the road this plugin crap is going to work better on Windows than anywhere else for no real technological reason. Look at the only WMA/WMV codec available for the Mac, from Flip4Mac. It has to preload the entire video into a temp file before it can play, and if you turn that off you lose seeking. That alone is completely incompetent. Next you have the plugins inability to play higher res videos, in Quicktime itself. It chokes badly, while even the highest res h264 stuff on the same machine works fine.
Seriously if this is what they are going with just because of the DRM, no, you can bite me.
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Jesus said 2:19PM on 10-27-2008
Much like how iTunes, Quicktime, and Safari are much worse on Windows?
LGgeek said 1:48AM on 10-27-2008
so who wants .net on a mac, prefer to keep windows stuff on windows.
the more windows stuff on macs moves them closer to having the same security issues WINxx/Vis has.
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Tim said 3:12AM on 10-27-2008
Ahh, I love my Netflix. Too bad I won't be using this for two very important reasons. Reason #1) Silverlight from Microsoft- I keep my Macs free of anything M$- their software is too buggy and prone to "issues". Not to mention the security issues. More importantly, reason #2) The lack of any closed captioning- I rely on CC for audio comprehension and it disappoints me that Netflix can't implement this very easy fix.
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eric f. said 9:10AM on 10-27-2008
I installed silverlight for the olympics, an I don't even notice that it's there, so no big whoop.