Today Laurelin and I decided to try Netflix instead of Blockbuster Online. I must say that although it was nice to be able to peruse the Blockbuster store, there is no contest about this. First of all, Netflix is cheaper for what we really need. We currently have the 1 movie at a time plan with unlimited streaming. As we are both Mac users, Netflix Instant was not an option until relatively recently.

As with all things there are always strings attached. The string with this, at least to me, seemed more like barge rope than thread. I would have to install a Microsoft plugin for it to work. I grumbled about DRM and the fact that I was sure Microsoft would begin spying and snooping immediately, as well as being wholly un-mac-like. Gladly, however, I was wrong. The install was smooth, painless, and did not appear to break anything. Although the selection of movies available to watch instantly is not immense it is still useful. There are older movies and the like available for instant watching.

Quality of Streams
Let us establish that I am not a videophile in any way shape or form. I felt that the quality of video was quite nice. The quality does seem to vary based upon individual videos. The only issue with quality is that in some dark areas there is some blocking, however, if the movie is worth watching, the small quality drop is well worth the trade for convenience.

Bandwidth might be an issue for some users and I have yet to establish a benchmark of size per film. It would also be nice to have greater control over quality, i.e. being able to control the quality for both bandwidth limited customers and those who dont mind a longer buffer time but would prefer higher definition. One last preference, which would be a DRM nightmare, would be to store, for limited time, offline films to watch so that one could watch them on planes and trains and in automobiles and the like without needing to get the DVD and rip it.