PS3 Now Supports Netflix!

Netflix, PS3 | Posted by admin
Nov 17 2009

PS3 owners can now watch Netflix straight from their PS3! Now, its not quite that simple yet. It looks like in order to use the streaming service you are going to need to request a free “netflix instant streaming disc”. From my understanding, you will need to have this disc in your system any time you want to stream movies. There are plans for them to include the netflix player with a system update but that will not be until some point next year.

A couple things to note. There are no differences between the PS3 and xbox netflix streaming services, both systems have the same features and a similar interface. Access to stream to your ps3 costs nothing extra, whereas on the xbox you have to pay for a xbox live account. Netflix isn’t yet commenting on this geature for the Wii but I’m putting bets on sometime next year.

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Watch Netflix On PS3

PS3 | Posted by admin
Apr 05 2009

Ever wanted to watch your Netflix movies on your PS3? Well now you can with PlayOn Media Server! Here is a quick little guide to help you get this up and running.

What you will need:

    • Playstation 3 on a network with your computer
    • PlayOn Media Server(this guide uses the free version)
    • Netflix Account with access to the streaming service (all netflix accounts have it, though some are limited)

    Step 1: Log into your Netflix and add a whatever movies or tv shows you want to watch to your instant queue. Your PS3 will only be able to see the list of movies in your instant queue, unfortunately, you will have to use your PC to add/remove things from that list. If you do not have a netflix account, sign up for a free trial here. You can also check out our review on the streaming service if you want to learn more.

    Step 2: Install the PlayOn Media Server software. You will then be prompted to the settings menu, make sure you hit the “start” button on the general information tab. Next, go to the “System Check” tab and run a connection test, this will determine the quality of video that can be streamed to your media server. Lastly, go to the user accounts tab and setup your Netflix account, hit test to make sure it works and then you can close the settings window and move on to step 3.

    Step 3: Go to your playstation 3 main menu, from there you will want to go to Settings > Network Settings > Media Server Connection and make sure that it is enabled. your ps3 should now automatically recognize the media server on your computer. Navigate back to the PS3 main menu and go to your Video tab, if everything is working right, you will see the “PlayOn” media server. Once inside, there will be a list of folders to choose from, pick “Netflix” (it may take a minute or two to connect and get your queue list). Thats about it, pick a video and give it a few seconds to start streaming and you are good to go. It will organize tv shows in folders and stuff automatically if you just add a full season to your queue as well.

    You may have noticed that when you go into the PlayOn media server there are many other options like Hulu, YouTube, CNN, CBS, ESPN, and the upcoming Amazon Video On Demand. All of these will work as well!

    This guide was written using the free trial of the PlayOn software, so there may be more options available when you pay for the full version of it.

    Thanks for reading our guide for watching Netflix on the PS3, hope it helps!

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    Netflix Streaming Review

    Netflix, Stream TV, stream movies | Posted by admin
    Feb 19 2009

    Netflix streaming has been around for just over a year now and has gone leaps and bounds since its first creation. This is our review of the netflix instant streaming service as of Februrary 2009. For those who have been living under a rock for the last few years, Netflix offers a wide variety of movies that you can watch instantly on their website. This is a free addition to the already low monthly fee of the regular netflix service.

    When signing up for a free trial (which you should, because… well… it’s free) you are given a few payment options. I picked the 2 dvds at a time plan, which includes unlimited rentals each month, unlimited streaming, and we added blu-ray rentals which totals out to $15/month (after our discounted trial month). There are many more options both cheaper and more expensive as well. Immediately after signing up for our account we were allowed to start streaming from the “watch instantly” section. You can browse through the genre’s or search just as you would for renting dvds. Before we got started on the streaming we quickly added a few newer blu-rays to our queue so they would get sent in the meantime. Here is the breakdown of the streaming service.

    Content Available
    Not every movie and tv series is available to watch instantly. This has been the main concern with most people over the last year but the selection has grown quite a bit. Every day they are adding titles to the streaming service and it has grown to something like 13,000+ now. This includes both new and old movies and tv shows. You can watch up to date Heroes and The Office episodes, or you can watch older stuff like the original Knight Rider. The selection is growing much faster recently and we can probably expect to stream just about everything within the next year at this rate.


    Picture and Sound
    The best I have seen in streaming. When you start up a video the picture quality might not seem very high quality, but that is because the netflix player is checking your connection speed so they can adjust the picture and sound quality accordingly. Give it about 30-60 seconds and it will look and sound fantastic if you have a decent broadband connection. Check the screenshot below to see how clear the picture is.

    Loading and Buffering
    This has also been very impressive. You would expect netflix to get a little slow in the evening from how much traffic their site gets. Now that everyone is streaming movies and tv shows you would expect it to have problems. This is not the case at all. Even at prime time in the central U.S. there is no slow down at all, the video never pauses to buffer and it loads immediately, I was VERY impressed by this.

    Final Thoughts
    Netflix is a must have. I couldn’t believe how impressed I was by just this streaming service and I plan to keep it through the trial. I enjoy watching the blu-ray versions of new movies while still having a huge selection of things to watch online while I’m waiting for the mailing turn around. For those that still don’t have a media center PC on their TV, Netflix also has a streaming box you can hook up to your tv and stream directly to it. They are also adding netflix streaming to a wide variety of devices in the future, support has already been added for xbox 360 owners and soon you might be able to stream right to your phone. Again, this isn’t something to pass up, take advantage of the trial offers while they are around. Here is a link to a free trial for those that are interested.

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    DTV4PC Review

    Stream TV | Posted by admin
    Feb 12 2009

    DTV4PC has been around for quite some time now but it has only recently become a product worth looking in to. DTV4PC will let you stream tv channels directly to your computer for a one time fee. With our experience in the past we wouldn’t have recommended using this software, but over the last year there have been a number of updates that make this a piece of software you don’t want to miss out on.

    Channels and Quality

    One of the first things we noticed with the latest version of DT4PC is that the amount of channels advertised is pretty accurate. Once you download and install the program you will now get a giant list of channels (~1000) to choose from. Another thing we noticed is the more frequent channel listing updates. You no longer need to delete the non working channels and search for new working ones because it will update itself and do all of that for you. The channel listing is also very easy to navigate and you can set channels to be your favorites to avoid browsing through a huge list.

    We noticed that we now had all the major network channels, in fact, multiples of them. After further investigation we figured out that they were the networks in different time zones. This means that you will have no problem tuning into your local channels to watch the news or other local programs. The most important thing to us was the movie channels, and wow, you have every movie channel we could think of. The one exception is pay per view channels but that would obviously be a huge legal issue or cause them to bump the price of DTV4PC quite a bit.

    Picture Quality

    The picture quality of DTV4PC depends on a couple factors. The first one is the quality the network is broadcasting the channel with. With most of them we had no problem, there were a couple out of country channels that were a little lower quality, but still very watchable. The other factor is your connection speed. If you have dial up, you should know by now that streaming video is not something your connection can handle, and DTV4PC is no exception. We tried this with 2 different connections.

    1.5mbps dsl (standard dsl speed) was our first connection. Video quality was good and we found it to be the same quality as regular television, in fact most of the channels are HD now so they look even better.

    8mbps cable (standard cable speed) was our second connection. Video quality was not noticeably better for most channels. Some of the HD ones were slightly more clear as they take more data to broadcast.

    Software

    DTV4PC software is only 15MB and it runs very fast and it is lightweight. It was easy to install and it just works after the install. You do not need to do anything with the settings if you don’t want too. There are options to change the look and color scheme as well. But overall its a very quick setup and it will just work on its own.

    Conclusion

    While DTV4PC has had a rough road over the last year, they have finally made a piece of software that delivers on what it claims. This has really turned into a great program and it seems to only be getting better as time goes on. The price on the software is currently $30 for now, but will eventually go back up to $100. They are also offering a 30 day money back guarentee. If you are not satisfied with the purchase within the first month they will give you a refund.

    Get DTV4PC Here

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