Netflix's Watch Now service proves addictive
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We review the online retailer's new movie streaming option
By Samantha Clark -- Video Business, 2/2/2007
FEB. 2 | Some might say Netflix went a step backward in its decision to launch a service that just streams movies. Other online companies are already offering downloads for purchase and even downloads to burn.
But Netflix’s new Watch Now service is surprisingly addictive, and that’s something that helped the online rental pioneer build its company.
Watch Now comes free with a Netflix subscription, and the amount of hours of movies you’re allowed to watch depends on which level of rental service you’re paying for. Currently, Netflix has only about 1,000 movies and they’re all catalog titles, except Sherrybaby, which is a Netflix Red Envelope movie and was available on Watch Now the same day as on DVD. Netflix says it plans to have 5,000 movies available for streaming by the end of the year.
Netflix believes subscribers will enjoy “movie surfing” with Watch Now, in the same way they channel surf on their TV. With online users happily spending hours surfing through YouTube videos, Netflix might not be far off.
I spent 30 minutes browsing old movies I love (The Breakfast Club, The Untouchables, Real Genius) and newer movies I haven’t seen yet (Sherrybaby, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) before I reminded myself I had a deadline.
Netflix’s menu is easy to use and friendly, offering movie suggestions and letting me know that one of the DVDs in my rental queue was available for streaming (Enron).
When you click “play,” the movie begins within seconds—with no trailers and no commercials. As you watch, the movie is being cached on your computer so you can fast forward or rewind. If you fast forward beyond the section of the movie that has been cached, a timer pops up to let you know how long you’ll have to wait for the computer to catch up (less than 10 seconds).
On my work Dell (Watch Now is not yet available for Mac users) with a T1 line that’s shared by my fellow staffers, Watch Now determined my video was “Good,” or middle-range.
Most movies looked soft and a little watery on the smaller player and worse on fullscreen. Real Genius had the best picture, and it took the longest to cache the entire movie (32 minutes). With The Untouchables, I couldn’t read beyond “1930” in the text overlay in the opening scene.
The sound was low on Sherrybaby and Enron; I had volume maxed but was only able to hear comfortably once I put on ear phones. But Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me” blared out when The Breakfast Club began.
With video-on-demand gaining in popularity and consumer electronics companies trying to connect the home entertainment system to the Web, in the future, Netflix’s streaming could be seen as revolutionary even if it now seems behind the times.
