Netflix Mac Streaming In Beta Testing!
Netflix has announced that the often promised streaming of their instant play titles on the Mac is finally being deployed to select customers for beta testing, which means I have an apology to make:
I'm sorry Netflix.
I'm sorry I doubted your ability to bring this feature to us poor Mac users. You see, we've grown cynical and tired over the years, as company after company promises availability of their product to our platform, only to have it delayed over and over until finally disappearing into the land of wonderful might-have-beens that is vapourware. You'll forgive me if my jaded little heart doubted your claims that your instant streaming would be available on my Mac as you delayed it time after time.
I'm sorry.
In all seriousness; however, the roll-out is being facilitated by Microsoft's Silverlight (oh damnit, I have to install that? I guess beggars can't be chosers...) and will only be compatible with Intel based Macs (and really, if you're still on a PowerPC Mac, you really shouldn't be expecting anything to be compatible with your machine anymore.)
Of interest to PC users: the switch to using Silverlight will also allow you to use Firefox to watch instant play titles, finally freeing you from the shackles of Internet Explorer (by having to install yet another Microsoft plugin... there's a certain poetic justice there, isn't there?)
Unfortunately, "select customers" doesn't apply to my account yet, but as soon as it does, I'll give the new streaming a proper christening by attaching my Mac to my HDTV and watching Weeds Season 1, which has been sitting in my instant play queue for months!
Press release after the jump.
NETFLIX BEGINS ROLL-OUT OF 2ND GENERATION
MEDIA PLAYER FOR INSTANT STREAMING
ON WINDOWS PCs AND INTEL MACS
Based on Microsoft Silverlight, New Player Features Enhanced Dynamic Streaming, First-Time Use for Macs and
Breakthrough Navigation for Fast-Forward and Rewind
LOS GATOS, Calif., October 27, 2008 - Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), the world's largest online movie rental service, today announced it has begun the deployment of Microsoft Silverlight to enhance the instant watching component of the Netflix service and to allow subscribers for the first time to watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers. The deployment, which will initially touch a small percentage of new Netflix subscribers, is the first step in an anticipated roll-out of the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year.
Silverlight is designed for delivery of cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences inside a Web browser. It is expected that Netflix members who watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their computers will enjoy a faster, easier connection and a more robust viewing experience with Silverlight, due to the quality built directly into the player. Among the viewing enhancements with the new player is a breakthrough in timeline navigation that vastly improves the use of fast-forwarding and rewinding. The new Netflix player takes advantage of Play Ready DRM, which is built into Silverlight, for the playback of protected content on both Windows-based PCs and on Macs. That had not been possible with previous generation technologies.
"Silverlight with Play Ready offers a powerful and secure toolkit for delivery of dynamic streaming, which offers faster start-up, and higher quality video, adapted in real time to users' connection speeds," said Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt. "Members who enjoy watching movies and TV episodes from the growing library of choices that can be instantly streamed at Netflix will be thrilled with this next generation improvement of access and quality, on a broader range of platforms, including Intel Macs and Firefox."
Den Den Boy
Posted to On Your Desk on 27 October 2008
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: Mac, Microsoft Silverlight, Netflix, streaming video
3D iPhone glasses. Why?
At looong last!!!
Thanks for the heads up.