PS3 Getting Netflix Upgrade 10/18

Story here:

The PS3 previously required a disc to be running in the machine in order to access the (free) Netflix portal (Netflix subscription required). Picture quality is highly dependent upon your internet speed - and I’m very curious to see if that gets improved at all as well (I doubt it). Either way, the following upgrades will be available:

  • Dolby 5.1 audio
  • (some) 1080i content (previous max was 720p)
  • faster bootup
    *more subtitles and alternate audio tracks

This is huge.

Yeah, I have been forward to the disc-less stuff since they announced it this summer. All of the bells and whistles are awesome, but icing on the cake for me.

That’ll be great, looking forward to it. Now I can leave GTA IV in the drive where it belongs. :wink:

I never understood why they didn’t just push the capability to the system to begin with instead of requiring a disc. I’m sure there’s some technical reason for why they couldn’t but I can’t imagine why.

I’ve always assumed it was due to licensing with MS for the Netflix 360 app. Either using a disc was a loophole Netflix found to get around an exclusivity agreement or possibly even a term originally specified by MS to make the PS3 solution seem kludgy.

I installed it today, and it’s fantastic. No more throttled stream - I get a full 16:9 picture now, and no stuttering or really bad artifacts (still some - but nothing annoying). Haven’t checked to see which movies are being offered in 1080i or Dolby 5.1, but I’ll get around to it. I started off with “Iron Man”, which looks and sounds great.

Yup - it was a work-around the Microsoft exclusivity deal for the 360. The disc utilized the bluray player’s connection to BD-Live to stream content, which is a pretty clunky way to do it.

That’s weird. I always got the full 16:9 picture (For the shows that offered it), and never had a throttled stream. But, I am glad it has been fixed for you with the new system.

I installed it this morning and enjoyed it. It is a bit faster. And, the interface is a lot better. Plus, it is nice to be able to move around very quickly depending on how hard you push the controller.

Oddly, when I used it this morning I started it up and it worked. 8 hours later I started it up and it asked me to log into Netflix and the interface had already been changed and improved! Now when you select a show or movie it allows you to start watching it in a small screen and if you decide you want to watch it you can switch to big screen. Neat.

I don’t care much about Dolby 5.1. But, it was nice to see subtitles seem to be a future option. I wonder if commentary will be a future possibility.

All in all a great upgrade.

It’s because I have a pretty slow internet connection. 1.5 mbsomethings, which is the lowest you can get through Uverse. The Netflix app would determine what sort of picture quality you’d get based on how fast it was streaming.

5.1 is really great for me - I love utilizing my receiver and speakers. One of the articles I saw said something about alternate audio tracks, so I’d suspect that means commentary tracks (man - who has to go back and add all those over at Netflix HQ?).

I was happy to get the email about this from Netflix yesterday. I haven’t played with it yet. Having to use the disc has been very annoying. However, I’m assuming from all of your comments that the second-biggest annoyance has not been fixed yet (or I just haven’t realized that I can get around it yet). Do we still have to cue movies up through our computers first before we can watch them through the PS3?

No, you don’t need a PC at all to use the PS3 app.

The PS3 app is similar to using a Roku. You can search and it will return streaming and DVD-only titles, streaming are listed first and are in bold type.

You can also browse by different categories such as Newly Added, Violent Action, Romantic Tearjerkers, etc. Those categories seem to change around. There are also categories for movies similar to those you’ve already watched.

Your Instant queue is available to browse and you can add, remove, and rate movies there.

Works pretty well. I just wish there was a way to jump right to the end of your Instant queue, but it shows them 4 or 5 titles per row so it’s pretty fast to scroll down.

You could search and browse genres before. You could also add movies and shows to your instant queue with the old system. So, Asimovian, I am not sure what you mean when you say you need to use your PC. You need your PC to do what? You have been able to search and browse genres for a while now. And, you still can. The interface is much slicker and easier to use now.

I apparently have spent very little time exploring the PS3 Netflix app. I had been under the impression that you had to create your Instant Watch queue using your account online through your computer – that you couldn’t even see what was available for streaming just from your PS3 unless it was already in your queue. I don’t recall any longer why I had that impression. Was it possibly that way at the very beginning?

At any rate, I’m happy to see that I’m wrong.

Yeah - they updated that a month or two after the initial launch, so your memory isn’t *too *faulty.

My $.02:
I was very excited to get this up and running, as I’ve been having problems with the Netflix discs (as described at the bottom of this thread I started when the disc-based service launched). Basically, the BD laser was apparently burning a faint ring in the Netflix disc after repeated or extended viewing - Netflix had no qualms sending me several discs at a time, but I must’ve gone through twenty discs over the past year, and was very eager to stop using discs. On the plus side, now I have a matching coaster collection!

Anyway, when I first installed the Netflix app last night, it hung at 100%, but once I ejected the old Netflix BD (d’oh), it completed just fine.

Firing it up for the first time was a bit of a shock, since the interface is a completely different paradigm (instead of a strictly horizontal, single pane interface, it’s a dual pane interface with a sidebar - kinda sorta like Boxee). But I like it - especially since they offer continuous scrolling, and a title grid. Previously, scrolling one title at a time was a drag, but now, I can zip through the 200+ titles in my instant queue in a flash.

As for quality, when I fired up a Bones episode, it didn’t take long to buffer, but the quality was awful. But then it reloaded after a minute or so, and the quality was as good or better than the disc-based version with no stuttering or bad artifacting. A few other eps that we’ve watched so far have done this, but not all - some will load right up at high quality and play without rebuffering.

I was a little frustrated by this, since the disc-based service would take a while to buffer, but would always start up at high quality. But my brother has a Roku box, and he said he’s seen similar behavior on certain HD titles, so I’m not feeling shafted if I’m at parity with other Netflix devices.

Overall, I’m quite pleased. Some things I’d like to see:

[ul]
[li]The ability to reorder the instant queue (even alphabetically would help), although the new scrolling interface helps a bit.[/li][li]The ability to browse only my queue by genres (TV shows, action, family movies, etc.).[/li][li]The ability to manage my DVD queue - you can add titles to the DVD queue but not access the queue itself.[/li][li]An advanced option to configure how much of a buffer to run up before starting playback - this might resolve the startup quality issues I mentioned. I’d rather wait a minute or two and have uninterrupted playback.[/li][/ul]
And these two are more general gripes about the PS3 than anything else:
[ul]
[li]I’d really love Sony to come out with an iPhone and/or Android app that allows one to control the PS3 via wi-fi, with full keyboard use. With Netflix now ready for prime-time and Hulu Plus coming down the pipe soon for general release, the PS3 is becoming a device that can compete with Apple TV and other media convergence boxes, but text searches, usernames, passwords, and web searches (for when you really need to look up that guest star actor on IMDB while watching a TV show) are a chore.[/li][li]Following on this, I’d like Sony to allow tighter integration of its browser capabilities with other apps - for instance, I’d love for Netflix to hyperlink its titles and cast listings with an IMDB or Google search, so you could pop into a browser and go right to the corresponding page.[/li][/ul]

The Wii version uses a disc, too. But Wii’s not BluRay, so they must do it some other way.