Watch Now on Netflix
 

So I was poking around on the options page of my Netflix account when I saw the thing I've been hoping for - an option to turn on the Watch Now feature. I know Netflix has been activating the movie streaming feature for some, as a test, and was glad to dive in. Basically it couldn't be simpler, there's now an additional tab at the top of the screen saying Watch Now, where some movies (a limited selection at the moment anyway) are available for watching. You click play, and it starts streaming in your browser right away, no muss, no fuss. It's an add-on to your existing account, with my 3 movie out policy I can watch 18 hours of streamed content a month. Only downside is that it wants you to use IE to watch them instead of Firefox. :(

edit - Actually it's a lot more than movies available now, there's some TV but it's sort of random, luckily there are a ton of old Doctor Who episodes available!

I wonder if the resolution is good enough to possibly stream it to a tv via DVI or HDMI? That's the ultimate goal of these things for me, anyways. To not have to deal with an actual physical medium, and instead have video in good resolution available on demand.

I don't think so, yet. The resolution isn't that great, and the screen size is pretty limited. It works fine for the computer, but I think it would be pretty ugly for TV.

Um, wow...

Not an option for me yet :(.

I just found it for me. Go to your Account page, on the right there might be something that says "Find out how to watch movies instantly on your PC" or something like that.

Thanks for the tip, kind of silly you don't see that until you go into the accounts page and click that.

Thank a ton for this. I wonder why Netflix chose not to inform their customers with an email or something?


My quality is excelent for my TV hooked up to my computer. And that is even on the Full Screen mode.

I am guessing this will be Netflix's answer to the Block Buster in store deal.

Hacking Netflix has instructions on how to possibly activate Watch Now on your account.

anyone know any router settings to optimize streaming? I look at portforwarding, but they didn't have anything yet. I know with bittorrent and different streaming video sites, a few tweaks made things fly.

Is there anyway to find out how many hours you have left?

I am on the 4 at a time program, so I have 24 hours. I watched 10 minutes of a 2 hour movie to make sure everything was working. Did I just get charged for the 10 minutes or 2 hours?

Yes. Go to "Your Account" page and then go to "Instant Watching Activity" under the Billing and Movie Watching Activity tab. You will see elapsed watching time and remaining time as well as a list of films you've watched and the time you spent watching them.

I like the fact that it shows you the movies you have in your Queue that have the watch now availability.

Wow... I just went to that, followed the instructions, and now I have the option! It wasn't showing up before and I thought I might have to wait until June to try it. Thanks!

Wow, great find. Thanks!

Thank you.

If this was integrated with Tivo, I'd quite possibly wet myself.

I finally got access to the Watch Now feature. Works really well on my PC, but I wish they would add some better movies.

FYI
 

*bump*

FYI- I recently discovered (on hacking netflix) that you can black out the return address and barcode on the Netflix return envelopes and thereby speed up the shipping process. I black out everything but "Nearest Netflix Shipping Facility" and the Post Office is forced to send everything to Hartford. This speeds up the whole shipping process quite a bit.

Not even sure if i can get an account being outside USA, but if i do, can you add subtitles to the movies? I have underestanding problems watching movies in American English without subtitles.

Maybe I'm slow... how does this speed things up?

I always assumed lining up the barcodes properly would make it faster. Having said that, it would be physically impossible for it to move faster than it does. If I mail it day 1, they receive it day 2, they ship a new one day 2, and I receive it day 3. No way it could go faster than that.

I was wondering the same thing. Hartford is 215 miles from me, while Southeastern, PA (the address on the return envelope) is 33 miles from me.

Yeah, mine goes to Richmond which is about 30 miles away also.

I'm deifnitely missing a point here I think.

Could you give me some more details on this?

I keep getting some movies from across the country. I live in California and I keep getting movies from out of state and on the other side of the country. 6 days to arrive and 6 days to send back.

Should I just black out everything on the return envelope, or write my local Netflix center adress on it?

Thanks.

Simple. It speeds the process up by cutting down the time it takes a movie to get back to Netflix. In the instance I described, the envelope said "Brockton, MA" with a corresponding address or PO box and barcode. I simply blacked out the street address and barcode, thereby forcing the envelope to go to the Hartford address, the closest to my home. Doing this cuts down on the time it takes the return envelope to reach Netflix, thereby speeding up the process.

Dola- Yes, if you black out the address and barcode and leave "Nearest Netflix Shipping Facility," this should force the Post Office to send your envelope to the nearest facility in California, which should cut your transit time down significantly.

Double dola- This is a link to the original post on Hacking Netflix.

I think here's the issue of why I'm confused.

The address that it has for on mine is in Richmond, VA. Which is the closest major city to me and like 30 miles away. I have a hard time believing there is a closer facility than that one for me.

I think this is "hack" that will only work for certain people, but make no difference for others. Like lordscarlet said above, it would be impossible for my Netflix to move faster than they do now.

Correct: this helps me occasionally but will likely help members like 14ers every single time. If Netflix wants you to return your next disc to a center in another state and you've seen envelopes for a much closer address, give it a shot.

Not sure if you're interested, but TiVO recently signed an agreement with Amazon.com ...

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/...wnloads_1.html

I get this mainly in TV series Disks. Damn near all of my 1970s Battlestar Galactica series discs came from out of state and different states at that. Next up for me is going to be 4 seasons of Northern Exposure, so I will probably need to use this little trick to avoid the long return times. I generally keep 2 discs in movies and 2 in TV series.

Not a problem if all you are watching is the Big Budget Hollywood movies. Although RV came to me via Massachusetts?


Those people over at Hacking Netflix are claiming the post office will deliver it to the nearest netflix facility no matter what. Why would the post office not deliver the package to the address on the label? I have not seen this local deliver no matter what here.

I mainly use it for TV Series also, and it's always gone to Richmond, VA... Dunno what the difference is. Maybe a smaller subscriber base where I am?

I'm personally just surprised the Post Office has a database of Netflix Facilities? If I was USPS I would just say "Screw you!" and not ship the thing.

Seems as though they put some movies in Full Screen instead of widescreen. Boo.

http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2007/0...watch_n_1.html

Imagine how many Netflix envelopes get shipped everyday. Multiply that by the cost of shipping and that's how much money the USPS is getting from Netflix every day. If they made a database of all of the Netflix facilities, that would speed up delivery of the envelopes. And since as soon as one envelope is delivered (back to Netflix), another one is shipped, making that database increases revenue from Netflix, probably by quite a bit.