Hands-on with Netflix Watch Instantly for Mac

Since Netflix introduced its Watch Instantly service back in January 2007, Mac owners have been left out in the cold. Besides using Apple's Boot Camp software, or third-party solutions like Parallels and VMware to use Windows, there was no other way to watch Netflix's streaming videos with out-of-the-box Mac software.

That's changing as of Tuesday, as Netflix has begun rolling out its new Microsoft Silverlight-based streaming service to a small number of monthly subscribers. I've been playing with it all morning, and it works marvelously. Both the Mac and PC players are identical, and in side-by-side testing the quality is too.

One of the most dramatic improvements is the new timeline navigation. This new system shows you thumbnails from a few seconds before and a few seconds after whatever part of the video you're on, giving you a quick way to eyeball where you are. In my case, I was picking up on an episode of Showtime's Dexter and was able to find the spot where I had left off without having to watch any of the video. This technology is actually saving Netflix some bandwidth, as users are able to pinpoint a precise segment without having to wait for the content to stream in.

The new timeline preview feature lets you see a few seconds before and a few after.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Another small, but neat improvement is that you can now hop back and forth between episodes in a series with small arrow keys located on the bottom of the player. If you're sitting down to power through several episodes this skips having to go back to the content directory.

The weak point of Netflix's streaming service is still the selection of content. As others have mentioned, it's a far cry from the service's DVD selection. One thing that could change that is the inclusion of PlayReady DRM, which comes by way of using Silverlight. With that in place we could be seeing the company's selection of streaming titles increase dramatically by year's end as long as Netflix is able to woo more content providers to share their movies and TV shows with a more secure delivery platform.

Update: Here's a video of the updated service in action.

[drywallbmb]

I'm a Mac user and I'm dying to try out their new OS X support, but unfortunately I don't appear to be one of the lucky few to have been granted the privilege of trying it out.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

You should have it "by the end of the year" which means the next two months or so--probably sooner. Sit tight!

[ArtInvent]

And please include Linux with some kind of Silverlight plugin.

Also - I just got a computer with Windows Vista 64 (grrr) at work and it can neither use the existing Windows plugins for Netflix Watch Instantly, nor can Win Media Player use the Napster plugin. Good grief, it's no better than Mac and Linux.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

I don't think it will work with Linux yet since this uses Silverlight 2.0. Will look into it though.

Novel sponsors the mono project, which is .NET for Linux. They're written "Moonlight" which is a Linux version of Silverlight.

Regarding your 64bit problem: There's no 64bit Silverlight (why? I don't know.. I presume because there's no 64bit version of Flash), but you can just run your 32bit browser (IE32bit or FireFox) and it'll work just fine on 64bit Windows.

[jack42]

good for the mac people.

How's about some luv for Firefox?

Silverlight works just fine with FireFox. The current (non Silverlight) version of the NetFlix player only works in IE, so since they're making the switch to Silverlight, they're really openning up abilities for a lot of us.

[Josh.Lowensohn]

Yeah, works like a charm in Firefox--which is what I shot the video on.

[Markus2008]

I wish the "IE Tab" firefox extension worked for Mac, this would solve the whole issue...

[professortom]

Josh,

I like how you interetact with your audeince. I am working on an article about Neftlix streaming for <a href="http://xanga.com/ProfessorTom">my blog</a>. I think I will link you.

[monicam-1]

I seem to remember last year Nextflix announcing that instant viewing would be available to Mac users around February 2008. I'm not holding my breath for this "end of the year" announcement. Furthermore, if they do end up postponing this feature yet again, I'm done with Netflix - at least until instant viewing is officially up and running for Mac users. In the meantime, I feel it's entirely unfair to pay full-price for a service in which I only get partial use.

[streamOG]

Nice coverage on a very important topic.

Yeah this is obviously the beginning of a big uptake of non-iTunes major studio content to the Mac. It's too bad we had to wait so long but that is solely laid at the feet of Steve Job's and his ego.

As I wrote on my blog, www.thedrmblog.com, this is the beginning of a big change in the tide of content distribution to the Mac platform.

For sure every major movie studio in the US requires DRM because their content has value and they intend to preserve and protect as much of that value as possible.

Silverlight with PlayReady will assuredly mark the end of a 8 year embargo on non-iTunes content to the Mac. Finally we all get a chance to erode Job's ego a bit and actually deliver high-value content to the Mac platform in a secure manner.

[streamOG]

Josh,

Goodpoint. Althought it's not well known Silverlight also works pretty well in SAFARI.