Wii + Netflix = Love it
 

Got a Wii? Do you use Netflix? Did you get your Netflix for Wii disc yet?

I got mine a few days ago and have been playing around with it. It's great having the Netflix streaming option in my living room now without having to add a Roku box.

Setup was easy. Pop the disc in, play the channel, and it gives you a code. Login to your Netflix account and activate the device using the code. Within a minute you're streaming.

The Wii integration is very slick. You can use the remote's D-pad or point and click at the on-screen icons. Want to pause? Just point at the screen and a pause button pops up, also giving you the option to scroll forward or back. My only complaint is that you have to use the disc and can't add it as a channel.

Video playback is smooth. No jitter or stutter. I've watched several programs and only once did it pause in the middle to buffer. (That could have been due to the wireless network though. I've noticed that, for some reason, late at night the Wii gets poor wireless signal.)

Video quality is not all that great though. Dark scenes are muddy. Overall just slightly better than VHS. Well under DVD quality. I don't know if this is unique to the Wii or all Netflix streaming devices.

For the price (free...I already had a Netflix account) and the convenience, highly recommended.

Side note: I've added the Wii Homebrew channel on my Wii and use MPlayer CE to watch movies and TV shows streamed from a network computer (AVI files) these play fine on the Wii and look great. No muddiness and smooth playback. Just the occasional late night buffering problems though. So again, I'm not certain that the poor picture quality of Netflix's streaming is unique to the Wii or all devices. Maybe someone with a Roku, PS3, or XBox can share what they think of the streaming picture quality.

I've heard that some ISPs cap bandwidth and all this over the network streaming could make you reach your cap.

How's that work?

My ISP has a usage cap of 300GB/month. I'm currently well below that (I can monitor my usage with my router). Even when I download way more videos than I can watch I've never gone over 150GB in a month. Of course, the streaming will add to that usage, but I don't really watch enough TV to be concerned about it.

I've been streaming on the PC and have 250Gb through Comcast and have never come close. 9Gb was the top usage I had a few months back.

I've got a Roku so I haven't bothered with the Wii disc. But if I didn't have Roku I might still not get it because I don't know if I want to displace my Wii as the single most unused purchase I've made in the last few years.

I saw that announced and was wondering how well they pulled it off. With both the TiVo and the PC that's connected to the TV able to do the same, it would be redundant, but good on Nintendo for figuring out a way to bring the functionality to the users (the fact that it has to be a disc rather than a downloaded channel highlights the hardware limitations of the box and why "serious" gamers/tech-heads have always been down on the Wii).

Netflix streaming on PS3 also requires a disc. X-box got it through a firmware upgrade.

Wow, really? That's surprising.

What's your Internet connection like?

PS3 streaming requires a disc now, but it is going to be added in a system update sometime this year.