Gmedia

I realize I may be putting the cart before the horse here.  After all, I could spend two to three blogs specifically talking about how cool I believe the new Netflix Watchnow feature is.  First they break the mold with their revolutionary model for DVD rentals - a model which has all of the other major rental retailers scrambling to keep up - and now they take it one step further by allowing us to download movies directly from a very large (I think the largest) video collection online - for free (one correction: it is free with your DVD by mail subscription, which can be as low as $4.95, which I still think is a great deal. Thanks to Albert for catching that). I'm not the first to say it, but it is new services like this that I believe will eventually bring the downfall of DVDs, and makes the whole "Blu-Ray" revolution seem irrelevant.  "So big deal," you say.  You've already heard about this and you, like many others, are taking advantage of this great new service already.  What's so special?  Well, I'll tell you:

Until recently the only way to take advantage of the Netflix service was through your computer with all of the clunky interface issues that come with it.  Even if you had a computer connected to your TV, you still had to exit out of Media Center's beautiful ten foot interface and squint your eyes at the OS/browser as you surfed clumsily towards the Netflix site.  But now, thanks to Anthony Park this problem is solved.  Mr. Park took up the flag of past coders who have tried to build a Netflix plugin and completed the task.  This plugin is awesome.  It let's you do everything you would normally do through your vanilla Netflix account, only now you can do it from the comfort of your couch with your Media Center remote.  This includes such tasks as: Viewing your Queue, getting recommendations, adding movies to your queue … and (what I consider the Apple TV killer) using the "watchnow" feature.  It even works through Media Center Extenders … so you can watch these movies from anywhere in your house!

As Netflix's online library continues to grow, I think lots of folks are going to wonder why they're paying >$3 a movie when they can get them, and TV shows like Dexter and Heroes, for free.  Right now, if you HAVE to have the latest release for download, Netflix is not the place to get it.

But enough of my postulating … let's talk about how to get it.

The Netflic plugin is free.  So if you already have Vista Home Premium or Ultimate and have taken advantage of the free Media Center functionality that's included, your lucky streak continues …

The first thing you want to do is surf over to Mr. Parks blog and download the Netflix Plugin 2.1 Beta (that was latest at the time of this post).

Once downloaded, you will get a zip file which has three files in it:  a Readme, a .msi and a .exe file.  You'll want to run the .exe file to begin the setup.  I also recommend reading the Readme file thoroughly as there is good info in there, but it doesn't have a whole lot in the way of installation instructions (though this is about as simple as it gets).

Follow all of the prompts until you get to the end.  The default is to launch the Netflix Plugin configuration tool after install is complete.  It's up to you, but I went ahead and did it.

When you launch the tool, you'll get a pop-up window which has three tabs.  The most important tab i s the first one, which asks you for your Netflix account name (usual your e-mail address) and password.  This is required in order to get your information when you run the program later.  If you don't already have an account, you will need to sign up with Netflix before you go any further.

The next two tabs have to do with display.  They allow you to choose what genres and categories are displayed and in what order.  I left mine as the default and it seems fine.

So now you installed it.  What next?

Start Windows Media Center and navigate to your online media category.  You will se a directory called "program library".  This is where the plugin in stalled for me.  Although the icon I was given is not very intuitive.  It shows up as a DVD in an envelope, but it took me a while to figure that out.  But this could just be ascribed to the time of night and years of alcohol abuse.

Once you click on the icon you'll see all of the familiar categories from your vanilla Netflix queue.  No fair criticizing my movie choices ;-).

One of the categories, as mentioned at the beginning of this blog, is the "Watchnow" category.  If you click on it, you will see the same list of available titles you get at the Netflix web site.  One trick here - you need to have already gone to the Netflix site and downloaded their Watchnow program for this to work.  It;s really easy and installs automatically after you choose a movie you want to view.  This will also give you a good idea of how well suited your connection is for watching the flicks.

For the purposes of this example, I chose one of the coolest shows on TV these days … Dexter.

Once you click into the Title Information screen, you will see a button that says, appropriately,  "Watch Now".  Click on this button and you will launch your Netflix Movie Viewer utility, which is simply an add-in to Windows Media Player 11, I believe.  Another note here - my computer screen started flickering badly and looked like it might crashm but after 2-3 seconds it recovered and worked perfectly.  Experiences may vary.

That's it.  I hope you enjoy this.  And while you continue to hear about other innovations like Apple TV .. .remember, ifyou already have Vista Home Premium or Ultimate, you may already have a free alternative that I think works very well.  Now if we they would just begin to put the most recent releases in their libray a little more quickly ….