Archive for August 26th, 2008:
Streaming Netflix to your TV via a PC or an Xbox 360
For those that don’t know, early this year Netflix started offering movies from their library for downloading or streaming. Currently there are over 12,000 movies and TV show box sets that you can watch instantly on your PC. Of course, most people prefer to watch movies on their TV, which is where this blog post comes in.
The movies range from black and white classics to recent Oscar winners, although most movies are older. The TV shows include cult hits like Xena Warrior Princess, 80′s classic like Night Rider and The Incredible Hulk, and current shows like Heroes and The Office. As for pricing, the basic $8.99 a month Netflix service will get you unlimited streaming PLUS one DVD at a time through the mail. This is the package I’m on, and I use the online portion to stream TV shows and older movies and request the new releases I can’t stream through the mail. Hopefully, some day we can eliminate those pesky discs altogether and be able to stream any movie we want for one low flat-rate monthly fee.
Netflix has announced their service will be coming to Xbox Live late this fall, but you can actually stream Netflix movies on your Xbox now if you have a copy of Windows Vista on your PC. All you have to do is download a copy of the Windows Vista Media Center plug-in called VmcNetFlix and follow the directions on their website. I use the program myself to stream Netflix movies to my TV and it’s worked great for me so far. The only issue I had installing the program is that it didn’t work until I set IE7 as the default browser on my PC rather than Firefox but that is clearly stated in the troubleshooting instructions.
Personally, I don’t use the 360 option as I have an actual PC hooked up to my LCD TV through HDMI. This is probably the best method for watching Internet videos on your TV because you can watch any format movie and aren’t limited to only watching formats compatible with Windows Media Center. However, if you don’t have a spare PC running Windows Vista that you can hook up to your TV, an Xbox 360 is the next best thing, but still requires a Vista PC running somewhere on your network.
The Xbox 360 is a Media Center Extender, which means it can be used to access movies, mp3s, and photos stored on Windows Media Center machines on your network. This also holds true with the Netflix Media Center plug-in, which allows you to stream Netflix videos to your TV through your Xbox 360 once it’s installed on your PC. If you have Windows Vista Media Center, you can watch Netflix on your Xbox 360 now. If not, I recommend trying it out this fall when it comes to the Xbox Live service. Note, however, that you’ll have to pay for both an Xbox Live Gold subscription and a Netflix subscription, while with my method all you need is the Netflix subscription.
