Streaming movies on your TV

I've been a subscriber to Netflix since they only had DVDs and while people complain about the streaming selection, they have improved a great deal over the years. They have always been great for indie films and documentaries.

Good way to supplement Netflix is to have Amazon instant. Even if you don't have prime (which selection while growing isn't great in terms of what you can stream for free) you can rent on instant video usually pretty cheaply. So nice to have to splurge for a rental regardless. I use both of them pretty frequently.

I use Netflix and rarely have issues.

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I've got a network at home made up of several wired and wireless devices so I usually run a HDMI cable from one of the desktop pc's to the tv set. However, I'm seriously thinking of buying a Google Chromecast dongle to eliminate having to run that cable between endpoints. See the link for details. I'm a Netflix subscriber. Hope this helps.


Chromecast

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Updated On: 10/24/13 at 01:56 AM

Streaming feature films is how I watch most films these days. I rarely ever have any problems either.

Those are all issues with a slow internet connection rather than anything to do with the quality of the streaming service. You'd see the same problems if you were hooked in with a physical cable and tried to stream with that ISP.

Another person here who has never had problems streaming with wifi. I double up with Netflix and Hulu. Netflix has a wider variety, but Hulu has the Criterion Collection.

The downside to Hulu is that much of its foreign language content outside of the Criterion Collection and anime offers no translation or subtitles. Netflix offers subtitles of varying quality on everything. They did a system-wide experiment a few weeks ago where they scrolled the subtitles onscreen rather than putting up a block of text at a time and it gave me motion sickness. Thank goodness that's gone.

Do you think it's as good as Blu-ray now?

(that's the goal in the near future)

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Updated On: 10/24/13 at 01:19 PM

It sounds like streaming has definitely caught up to cable broadcast, at least.

Horizontal pans are still an issue there, as well. Also strobes (or big explosions) can create pixelation. If it's a calmer movie or a drama, you may not notice any issues. Action adventure or sci-fi, probably yes.

As bandwidth and speed increases, and as new compressions are invented that allow for a higher-quality picture to be displayed, the gap between streaming and Blu-ray will shrink.

Then it will come down to a storage issue and an ownership issue. As a collector, I like hard copies. I don't want to store my movies on someone else's servers and pay them for the privilege to watch my stuff.

But for people who don't collect, never wanted to, and like renting whatever they watch without quality concerns, this is the way to go.

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You wouldn't be streaming the movie onto the tv. You'd just be using the tv as an external monitor for watching your itunes movie/purchase. Only way you can "stream" your iTunes rental is via Apple TV (perhaps DAME knows more).

Unless you have a terrible WiFi set-up, there is really no need to do a hard wired connection. Wireless is easy. Wireless is fun. Wireless for everyone!

pushdabutton, it depends on the capabilities of your TV. If it has the Apple symbol or a reference to iTunes on it, you should be able to stream Apple rentals on it.

I had a wonderful Blu-ray player that was optimized for streaming from four services; these did not include Hulu. There was no way to stream Hulu through the Blu-ray player itself because it wasn't programmed into the hardware and no updates were designed to include it.

best12bars, Netflix is getting closer to Blu-ray quality with streaming. If your connection is fast enough, select titles have something called Super HD. I remember seeing it pop up for Antiviral and was very impressed with the quality. Then I checked it on something else (Young Adult? Something I already had on Blu-ray) followed by the Blu-ray and it was pretty close. Not perfect yet, but close. It's a lot of data to throw down at once with the amount of users on Netflix and it's probably not cost efficient yet. I've had the Super HD option pop up on one viewing then not appear on later viewings of the same film. It's definitely a beta feature at this point.

This hasn't been mentioned yet, so I'll add that Vudu offers the highest, closest to Bluray, quality video at the moment. The sound doesn't compare, but you won't be able to tell anybody's difference if you're listening through the TV's speakers.

I'm thinking of going with Netflix or Amazon Prime. They both are reasonably priced. Does anyone have any thoughts on Amazon Prime?