Sunday, April 25, 2010

NetFlix Instant Viewing - poor selection, frustrating service. Skip It.

Warning to all people considering using using Netflix to watch videos over the internet, affording the convenience of instant access and dispensing with the need to fiddle around with mailing DVD's.

1- Library- Selection of videos is VERY limited. Compared to the NetFlix DVD database, there is a 1 in 20 chance of being able to download a video, instead of being able to view it instantly. There is no consistency in what is available for Instant Viewing. For example, of the Matrix movie trilogy, the first movie is only available via DVD mailing, the other two and the cartoon DVD are available via
instant viewing. Battlestar 1980 has all episodes except for the first one. Yes, I am a Sci-Fi buff, but is that too much to expect to have the entire series of a given title available versus pieces of a title? As for Sci-Fi, there is a very narrow selection of A movies, current shows are practically non-existent, and the majority of Instant movies are B class or lower. They have a few token classics, and that is it.

2- Wii- The viewing of the videos on the Wii Console is poor at best. For starters, the viewing of movies is poor at best. While you are able to watch a video on your laptop, though you are within 3 feet of the location of the Wii, the Wii will not find the server, though the laptop plays the video perfectly. The Wii will not access NetFlix, even though it is able to use Opera to view web pages, Mii can send Mii's, and the news/weather works very well. All indicators point to a very very poor implementation of the NetFlix for Wii software. It's malfunctions prevent prompt, reliable, or even enjoyable viewing.

The Wii NetFlix user interface also is lacking. You can not search for titles without a Laptop. I have dozens of Barney and other children's titles automatically populated, though I had completed the "interview" on the website which allows your selections to be selected "intelligently".

3- LG - LG has several players designed specifically for NetFlix. All the conditions in #1 holding true, the device presents video with a high degree of aliasing rendering a poor experience for the viewer with blocks of graphics and blurring. The user interface is vastly inferior to that of the Wii, and all the shortcomings of the Wii interface are doubly lacking in the LG.

Customer support is non-existent with an email connection that does not exist. You can only send an indicator to them that a given video has failed to perform. You can call them, but the hold times are regularly over 20 minutes.