Why I Love My Xbox 360: Watching Movies on Netflix

Y'know a few years ago it came up to me when people asked, "Hey Bo, would you rather have an Xbox 360 or a Wii for Xmas?" I hesitated, but found out later the great advantage of having a Xbox 360 was being able to use it as a media streaming device by using my Netflix account.

Now, they don't blatantly come out and talk about the 360 in any of those new fangled and catchy Netflix commercials, but they do mention how some members can watch movies streaming to their television or computer. Now really there are only a few ways to watch the films on your television: One is if you buy a Roku player through the Netflix website. This is another device that can go on the internet and access some of the films and television shows through Netflix's site and get them streamed directly to your television. I got this for my parents for Xmas, they tell me they love it and can even get videos on demand through Amazon.com on the player.

The other way to get them is if you have certain specific LG (and some LG televisions) or Samsung Blu-Ray players, Tivo or of course - the Xbox. Now, with the Xbox in order to access this feature, you need to be an Xbox Live Gold Member. Which is fairly reasonable, I believe a Gold Account is about fifty bucks a year or so - on top of the other cool Xbox Live features if you are a gamer. You also need to pay an additional at least nine dollars for the most basic account on Netflix to at least active streaming. I have bumped my Netflix account up to the second cheapest offer, Whig is about fourteen dollars a month you can get one dvd in the mail at a time and "Unlimited" streamed films on to your Xbox live account.

Now, I say "Unlimited" here because even though Netflix boasts that they have up to 12,000 instantly streamed movies and television shows on their website, your instantly streamed Queue can only support up to about 500 movies. The way the site works is if you are searching for a movie and it will have perhaps two clickable links underneath. The red "ADD" will have the movie sent to you in the mail, but the blue "ADD" will be added to your instantly streamed queue - INSTANTLY. This is what I'm talking about people, the future of home entertainment. I like to think what we are doing with music on the Ipod and other MP3 players, we will see more and more with videos and high definition content.

I have also found that some of the organizing of the Queue can unfortunately be a little bothersome. What I like to try and do in the Netflix queue is arrange all of my films by the featured genre. This does take a while for some reason and can get very frustrating - I hope you have a lot of patience. Also, not all of the movies will always be available. Sometimes certain movies and tv shows are up for a while, only to be taken off to make more for newer releases and other in demands. But I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before Netflix can support more live streaming. Also, the movies that no long become unavailable, will more than likely become available again in a couple of months. So unless you physically remove a movie from your queue, it will come back automatically once it is available. But these films can build up, and once you hit 500 - you need to start making space again.

I really love this feature of the X box and I have recently used it more for watching films and less for playing games. I thought the Wii would be better than this since it is internet capable and I figured I could go on to instantly streamed media websites (such as Hulu). But the Wii's Adobe Flash player is fairly old and you will probably only be able to watch some of the older content on You Tube (to name a few). But perhaps the Wii and the Xbox will meet half way on their content availability in the months to come. In the future, I would like the X box to have internet capabilities and more choices from Netflix. And I'd like the Wii to give me more web sites that I can view stuff from instantly.

I would recommend that if you are going to go for this venue of home entertainment, you should invest in a fairly decent router or have a strong connection at home. There is nothing more frustrating when you are watching some HD content on the Netflix, and it then stops to just say "Your internet connection has slowed. We are adjusting the playback on your content to prevent further interruptions." Sometimes, on bad nights, my content looks like I took a small viewer window for a movie and stretched it out so that it looks distorted. That is why I'm looking for a wireless N router today. ALSO it is a pain in the butt to rewind or fast forward a scene in the movie, since each time you do it, the film needs to rebuffer itself which can sometimes take up to about thirty seconds. But again, I'm sure, in time this will improve.

Well Tech fans, that is my final stand on the soap box. I hope we can all come together and cause a huge change in the demand for buying DVD's and the such when you can just get the media file itself, click on it with the remote and never have to have your lazy butt off of the couch again. My theory that with my Xbox 360 and one of the best HD DVR's through DISH with an external hard drive can offer me up WELL over a thousand hours of content. Now what am I going to do with all of these VHS tapes? :(