Tivo and Netflix

 

 

To find out what that future will look like, I’ve made an enormous sacrifice in the name of science. I’ve spent several months watching movies, using three of the first Netflix-enhanced products: my own TiVo, an Xbox 360 and an LG Blu-ray player (the BD300). Here’s what I found.

TiVo: The Netflix feature quietly installed itself in the TiVo’s menus one night, without my awareness or involvement. On the TiVo menu, you choose Video on Demand; you’re shown a list of services like YouTube and Amazon Unbox. Choose Netflix, and bam: there’s your list of Watch Now movies, in a scrolling vertical list. Hit Play to play one. (This works on TiVo HD, HD XL and Series 3 models.)

 

Xbox 360: Assuming you’ve upgraded your Xbox with Microsoft’s most excellent November software update, Netflix is now part of your game console. Log in, choose the Video Marketplace page, click Netflix and there’s your Netflix movie list, gorgeously represented as colorful DVD cases, which flip past as you browse (something like Apple’s Cover Flow feature in iTunes).

There’s one crushing downside, however: you have to pay Microsoft $50 a year for this feature, which is absurd. (That gains you a Gold membership, which also includes other perks.)

LG BD300: The BD300 is a Blu-ray DVD player ($333 bought online). It’s black and shiny and slim, with a beautiful main menu that offers five icons: Movie, Netflix Streaming, Photo, Music and Setup. You don’t need a manual to figure out where to go to see your Watch Now movie list.

On all of these machines, each movie remembers exactly where you left off watching, even if it was on a different machine. Amazing.

Now, instant fixed-fee access to 12,000 movies and TV shows is giddy and life-changing. There are, however, some disappointments.

 

First, you need a high-speed Internet connection to your TV setup. The faster the service, the better video quality you get; hi-def TV shows, in particular, look fantastic on a decent cable modem.

Second, remember that these movies are streaming. They’re not stored on a hard drive (unlike the Apple TV, Vudu box or Blockbuster’s rival MediaPoint box). So every time you fast-forward or rewind, there’s a 10-second pause for “rebuffering.”

Fortunately, most people don’t scan through movies often; usually, you just sit back and let them play. And when you do scan, little thumbnail images of the movie scenes flash by, one for every 10 seconds of movie, so you have some guidance as you skim.

 

The third problem is that, as with all Internet downloads, you miss out on a lot: surround sound, subtitles, alternative endings, director’s commentaries and other DVD supplements.

 

Fourth, and biggest, problem: not all of those 12,000 movies are, ahem, what you’d call Oscar material. There’s an awful lot of chaff, and no new DVD releases at all. (Thanks to the ridiculous Hollywood system of “release windows,” Internet services can’t offer new movies until after they have had their runs on pay-per-view, hotels, DVD “new release” periods and so on.)

On the other hand, that still leaves several thousand great marquee movies to choose from (including the entire Starz Play catalog of 1,200 fairly recent hits: “Ratatouille,” “Superbad,” “No Country for Old Men” and the like). Furthermore, you’re still a Netflix DVD-by-mail customer; if you’re craving a movie that just came out on DVD, you can still get it by mail.