Cameron's Thoughts

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had some issue with the Netflix player. I often use the 'Watch Instantly' on-demand service Netflix provides. I usually watch it for documentaries. Most often I watch them as I lay in bed at night as it makes it nice and easy to fall asleep. After I installed a new CPU last week or so, whenever I would go to play a movie, Internet Explorer would instantly crash. I had reinstalled the Netflix Movie Player software, but that didn't fix anything. I thought I might try calling Netflix to see if they had any suggestions as they do have a free tech support number. I wasn't expecting much, but I figured it would be worth the test it out. The first call was somewhat informative. The guy asked if I ever used Firefox, and I told him that I did all the time. I explained that I only use Internet Explorer for Netflix. He then made up some crap about how many people that don't use Internet Explorer regularly don't know when it gets corrupted or something, so when they try to use it for Netflix, it doesn't work. He then explained that there was a player for Firefox now and I could use that. I was happy to hear this, so I got off the phone and then opened up the Netflix site in Firefox. It then said the same thing it always says, that my browser wasn't compatible. I thought that maybe this feature was new, so there may have been some trick to get it to work. I did a Google search and could only find articles about people wanting the feature, or people using the IETabs Firefox extension to use Netflix in Firefox. I used to use that extension, but that wasn't going to solve anything as it still used IE, it just runs an instance of it inside of Firefox. I decided to call back and to see if the tech on the phone was just bullshitting me, or if there was some trick to get the feature to work. I talked with another guy and asked if there was a way to use Firefox, and he said there was and said he needed the email address on my account. This was somewhat annoying as the Netflix site gives you a code to dial into the automated system after you call in. I assumed this linked the call to your account, but apparently not. After I gave him my address, he directed me to go to the site http://www.netflix.com/silver. At that page I was able to download the Silverlight Netflix Movie Player.
After installing this, I was happy to have my Netflix back. However, things weren't so great. The new player is no where near as good as the one that I had before. Not only that, the new one is the only one that is working now. Even Internet Explorer is using the Silverlight player now.
Basically, the Silverlight player has all the problems that I have with watching Hulu. I don't mind the Hulu issues as much though as it's free. Since I'm paying for Netflix, I appreciated that the service was of higher quality. My setup at home is a dual monitor setup. I have my 17" Dell monitor and a 720P LCD TV. I will generally watch things on Hulu when I first get home and then I will watch the Netflix stuff later at night when I am laying in bed. The reason for this is mainly because of the screensaver timeout. Hulu, and the new Netflix player don't turn off the Windows screensaver. So, if I am watching something in bed, the screensaver kicks on and I have to get out of bed to correct it. The other problem with Hulu and the new Netflix player is you can't have the player run in full-screen mode and still use the other screen. With Hulu, this is mostly not an issue as you can use the pop-up player and maximize the browser window. This makes Hulu like 95% in full-screen mode. It just has the Windows window border still present. The old Netflix player was able to do this with no problem, the new one can't at all. So, now I have to watch movies in a little tiny window if I still want to use my computer.
The final issue with the new player is the video quality. This also is about comparable to Hulu. With the old Netflix player, the video quality was probably close to DVD quality. I really liked that. The new player is barely worthwhile viewing. I mean, it's acceptable, but I'm starting to wonder why I am paying money for this.
The only nice thing about the new player is that it has a preview of the video as you moving the playback slider back and forth so you can see where you are in the video. But, that alone doesn't make up anything at all for the other downfalls.
I really hope Netflix fixes these issues soon. I fear my two main problems, the screensaver not disabling, and the lack of full-screen in the multi-monitor setup, are more issues with the fact that this is more a browser plugin than an actual software program installed on the system like the older version. Maybe Microsoft will at least fix these issues in IE and I'd be more than willing to use that browser to watch my Netflix.