krysanab nelsun yvette
Argelia Long
I recently purchased an Xbox and I must say, considering that have yet to acquired a sports game, that I am very impressed. I got the Xbox 360 pro (with the 60gb hard drive) and this allowed me to take full advantage of the recent updates for the New Xbox Experience (NXE).
There is a metric ton of videos, demos, pictures, community games, themes and online goodness that really extend the entertainment experience of the Xbox. The interface is really intuitive and looks great in 1080p.
Netflix Instant Watch is a really significant addition and adds a really solid value, if you are in fact a Netflix subscriber. The only problem with Netflix Instant Watch is that there is a really limited movie list and it can take quite a while to find a decent movie for your Instant Queue. The HD movies streamed consistently without interruption and the picture quality was pristine.
The other problem is that you cannot add movies to Instant Queue directly from the Xbox, you have to go online via a PC, but the instant queue will update almost immediately. There was an announcement of a Netflix app for Windows Mobile so this should relieve that bottleneck (or maybe I could create a Media Center app).
The only real unresolved disappointment was the poor performance of Windows Media Center. While it only took a few minutes to connect to my home PC, once I got it up and running the controls were really slow (I mean in the order of 10-20 seconds per click). My network is running fine, it handles high def streaming with ease. So right now am I assuming there is some contention between the various apps that can share data from my Vista PC (Zune, Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center).
If so my douchie friend from across the pond, you are a shill and you drive to my mothers house every 2 days a reset her unit so she can watch movies. I bought it for her because it was supposed to be simple and I relied on the WD name.
However, yesterday afternoon while I was at work my wife called and told me that the Instant Queue was no longer available. I told her to use the Wii instead and it worked fine. I performed the reset procedure I found here and got it working again.
im having this issue as well now. i wanted to know if everyone here has blu-ray added to their netflix accounts? i just added blu-ray and now im having this issue. looking forward to the firmware update. i have no other complaints except the long startup times when the wdtv starts up. its much longer than the normal wdtv live.
another thing for those of you who are havng probelms reaching the deactivate option within wdtv. make sure you start pushing the arrow sequence once the netflix window opens up and starts to load up the queue. u should see the circular progress indicator when you push the buttons. if it reaches the queue error screen you were too slow.
OK, we ditched netflix when they went up on the price. Maybe we should look into again for the streaming only, which is mostly what we used it for. I am just exasperated with the LACK of choices on cable. We have ditched that in the past (we have the very basic we can get), but when we do we end up paying more for just phone and internet alone than getting the bundle which includes basic cable (I did call and have some stations completely blocked which helped a lot).
tristan, thanks for the tip on prefs. I just spent a little while rating some stuff as it is quiet hour here. I also added about 50 shows/movies to our queue. And I downloaded the mobile app. to put on my iPhone. That could come in very handy.
Yes, you can use it anywhere with wifi BUT each account only allows so many 6 devices to be approved at once and only 2 streaming simultaneously. All you have to do is go in your account to handle that stuff.
When my husband and I spent 10 days in the NICU with Mason in January we were able to watch Netflix on the laptop we had brought and the kids could watch Netflix back at home on the tv with grandma if they wanted to.
pinkchopsticks, I hear ya on the library fines. Oops! Ours charges $1 per DAY that DVDs are late. That adds up fast! I always got confused b/c DVDs are only 7-day rental while books and audiobooks are 21 days. So yeah, no DVDs from library for us though we get a lot of audiobooks there.
I can't believe that we are already almost halfway into October. Where did the September go? For that matter, where did the entire summer go? It seemed like only yesterday that I had been busy bookmarking summer concerts and looking forward to beach trips and lazy days in the park, most of which did not materialize. (This summer I did, however, finally discover Arrested Development, and spent a good many 100-degree weekend days with the Netflix instant queue, a powerful fan, and an icy gin & tonic.) Yes, in general, the summer seemed to have flown by.
To be fair, many of my waking hours this summer had been devoted to not only side editing projects but also something pretty big and exciting. So I apologize for having been somewhat absent on the site. But the absence has been for a good reason and I can't wait to share the news with everyone in the coming weeks. And postings will definitely become more frequent again.
But first, here's a recipe fit for the fall. This week I'm teaching a Macanese cooking class at Bowery Culinary Center at the Whole Foods on Houston St. The class is already sold out, but I wanted to share one particular favorite Macanese dish with you. (And I really should post up more Macanese recipes; almost everything is hearty and good comfort food to eat in cool weather, even though Macau itself is in the sub-tropics, just west of Hong Kong.)
Macanese cuisine is a Chinese-Portuguese fusion cuisine that stems from the 16th century, when the Portuguese first arrived. Over time, dishes evolved and picked up influences from around Southeast Asia and other colonies in Africa, Goa, and Brazil. One such dish is tamarind pork. The use of olive oil or butter as the cooking fat stems from Europe, while the tamarind paste comes from Southeast Asia and the shrimp paste is thoroughly Chinese.
What I love about tamarind pork is the very nice balance of tangy, salty, and sweet flavors (from the tamarind paste, soy sauce, and brown sugar, respectively.) A bit of warning: when you first start cooking, the shrimp paste will make the dish smell a little pungent. (Just under the pot lid, not your entire kitchen.) One friend eloquently described the aroma as "like barnyard". But I promise, after 45 to 50 minutes of cooking time the smell will have dissipated. The pork comes out so juicy and full of flavor that you may start wondering what else you can use shrimp paste for.
After it phoned home, it gave me a code that I had to enter at netflix.com to tie the box to my account. I did this on my laptop and almost before I could pick up the remote again, the screen had changed and was telling me that everything was now set up.
We were slightly disappointed that several of the shows Thomas was hoping for are not available for instant viewing. These include Fraggle Rock, Invader Zim and The Muppet Show. Perhaps these will be added later. Netflix currently has 100,000+ DVDs, but only 12,000ish of these are available for instant viewing. I have to believe this number will increase.
Not happy at all about Netflix DVD going away. I've been using it since my freshman year of college (so...2005? Shit, I feel old) and despite using it very regularly (and shifting between 1 to 3 DVDs at a time), I've still got 400 movies in my queue. Dammit.
I'll miss my Netflix DVDs coming in the mail. While we stream regularly, we also get DVDs for those movies/series that we can't stream (HBO Max, Disney+, etc). We also like to watch classic movies once in a while and Netflix DVDs was our choice. RIP Netflix DVDs
I think a lot of film buffs like to use DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K discs to supplement whatever streaming services they may be subscribed to. No one service has everything, subscribing to lots of services is expensive, and constantly juggling subscriptions is a pain in the butt. With discs you can just keep the streaming services you use most frequently, and then use discs to fill in the holes.
I know, I know, this is America, the land of the $. If you live in a low population area, ie rural, the cable companies ain't gonna bother with you - not enough $$. So, you pay more for less with satellite. That's why Netflix DVD's are, soon to be were, such a boon. I think i watched every movie from Argentina starring Ricardo Darin. And, Picard. And...so many more. Weekend evening - good movie - snacks ...
Back in the day, I was able to get all a but a very few of Roger Ebert's Greatest Films of All Time on DVD through Netflix. It was an amazing "course" on the history of film and film techniques, in addition to enjoyable viewing. Good luck on finding even a handful of those on Netflix streaming where you find "movies" not "films."
I think that says something interesting about streaming versus checking out a DVD. I it seems to me that there are two ways to watch media content: browsing until you find something you like, versus going in search of a specific movie/show. Streaming works very well for the former, but it can be a nightmare for the latter(as finding out whether a specific movie/show is even available, let alone on what streaming service and for how long, is difficult). But if all you want to do is browse until you find something you would enjoy watching right now, streaming is very convenient. Even the worst streaming service probably has one or two things available you would not mind watching tonight.
So if you are someone whose primary way of consuming contact is browsing, you probably wonder what all the fuss about the loss of the Netflix DVD service is all about. But if you are someone who generally plans your media viewing in advance (in the old days you actually used TV Guide to figure out what you would be watching each evening) not being able to locate the specific content you want to watch is very problematic.
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