Netflix Streaming via PS3

About 2 months ago, I was contacted by Netflix and informed that they were now officially supporting streaming movies through the internet via the PS3. The html eMail I was sent presented me with the option to sign up. I did. Netflix sent me a single layer BD disk loaded with a fancy graphical BD-Live shell. Using this disk, I could browse Netflix streamable library and see whatever I liked via the BD-Live technology.

How well does it work? Given my solid bandwidth of 17-21 Mbits, it works great. There are never any visible hickups.

I heard there were a lot of hickups? Your badwidth is pretty poor then.

How good does it look? This depends upon the video itself. "A Boy and His Dog" looked like dogshit. The quality was far below that of DVD or SDTV. "Inside Deepthroat" was nearly 720p in quality.

Does it ever compete with Blu-Ray in terms of quality? Absolutely not. Not even close. The quality is acceptable, but not nearly that of Blu-Ray. Most of the time, the video quality is lower than that of DVD, not higher. They need to consistently beat DVD before they can even address Blu-Ray.

How rich is the selection of movies? You will not find any of the more recent (past two years) blockbusters available for streaming. You will find that most titles listed here are 5 years or older. Television shows are the only things that seem to become available rapidly. As long as you are willing to watch 4 and 5 year old films, there is quite a bit to see.

What physical installation requirements did you have to go through to make it work? Not much. I already had a high-quality D-Link wired and wireless router sitting in front of my Cable modem. All I needed to do was run a 50 foot Cat-6 wire from the router to the PS3, and then stick the Netflix disk in. It worked pretty much immediately.

Why didn't you go wireless? Because I like wires better. Wires are more reliable, provide much higher bandwidth, and have less latency. One of the reasons I have no problems is because I am willing to work with a hardwire.

But aren't wires messy? That sounds like a personal problem you have there.

Do you think this will replace Blu-Ray? Nope. Absolutely not. The quality is so inferior to Blu-Ray it is not on the same playing field. When they can't even tackle DVD, how can they defeat Blu-Ray?

Oh, but somebody smart told me that streaming media would replace Blu-Ray? That statement is an oxymoron. Your statement refutes itself.

What good is this then? I find it has opened up a whole world of documentary films that I probably would not have seen. Most of these documentary films are available only as DVDs, and I would not have wasted my precious rental slots asking for DVD quality materials. Now I can stream an unlimited quantity of these docs to my PC. It is pretty cool.

Blu-Ray leads HD-DVD 16-13: Why the Harris Poll is a fucked up lying bitch whore

Alright Mr. Harris, I'm calling you out. I'm calling you a low-down, fork-tongued lying asshole, and the son of a whore. I'm slapping you in the face, and spitting in your eye. Pistols at 10 paces in 10 minutes unless you are a yellow-belied coward.

Why? Because you continue to differentiate between Blu-Ray players and the PS3, that's why. It is absolutely pointless distortion of the key fact, unless you have a hidden agenda. It is the implementation and use of a false distinction. It must be intentional, outright intellectual dishonesty that drives the use of this false distinction. The objective must to distort the facts and show the Blu-Ray is doing poorly. You continue to manifest a clear-cut agenda to undermine Blu-ray's success.

I have said for many moons now that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the dedicated disk player will survive in the next generation of media systems. To insist that there will be dedicated disk players, or that they will lead the way is curmudgeon-thinking. You are thinking like a caveman if you think this thought. It is tantamount to insisting on reel-to-reel audio playback in your stereo system. You pattern of though is antiquated, outdated and obsolete.

The PS3 is the best damn media device ever invented in any category. There is no reason to presume that any moderately informed consumer should ever prefer a dedicated disk player over a PS3. You don't even have to play video games to think so. The PS3 does DVD Audio, SACD, DVD-Upscaling, computer media, networking to local libraries, USB2 key files, downloads, etc. Feature for feature, it is a devastating landslide in favor of the PS3. It is also amazingly fast. Dedicated players, with far weaker processors, are very slow footed by comparison.

For the entire first year of Blu-Rays existence, PS3 was not only the best player on the market, it was also the cheapest. Why pay more for a lesser machine? Why would you pay the same amount for a lesser machine? Why would save $100 are buy an inferior machine? Very few people did. Those who did often returned it in exchange for a PS3 later. It was a stupid mistake to buy a dedicated Blu-Ray player when you could have bought a PS3.

I believe it remains a stupid mistake to buy a dedicated Blu-Ray player when you can buy a PS3. The PS3 is the reference system for Blu-Ray, period. Any denial of fudging of this fact constitutes a pure lie. All facts quoted regarding Blu-Ray must, of necessity, include the PS3.

To lead any story with a headline like "Blu-Ray sales are tepid" and then (later on in the piece) explain that you aren't including PS3 players in the basis facts for this story is 100% pure, outright intellectual dishonesty and distortion of the key facts. This key-fact distortion must speak of bias. You have a liar's agenda at heart.

When the facts are totalled, 16% of US homes are now equipped for Blu-Ray. 13% are equipped for HD-DVD. 90+% are equipped for DVD. This is the forthright honest way to state your research findings.

From whence comes this rubbish about Blu-ray failing?

One of the most persistently irritating aspects of CNET.com is their twice a week habit of publishing prophesies of doom upon Blu-ray. From whence comes all this rubbish?

Does it come from sour grapes? Is Blu-Ray just too expensive for these pee-ons to afford?

Does it come from a long-standing alliance with Microsoft? Let's remember that Microsoft backed the looser in the highdef war: HD-DVD.

Does it come from mis-predicting the outcome of the war? Let's remember CNET told us HD-DVD would win because of price advantages. This multi-component false prophecy yielded multiple black eyes. The entire basis was false. HD-DVD was never really cheaper than Blu-Ray... At least not during the war.

Does it come from the vast amount of traffic they get every time they publish one of these rants? It seems that each time one of these hit-pieces gets published, the item rises to the top of news.google.com. Remember this means page views and click-throughs. That adds up to dollars and cents.

Is it because John C. Dvorak no longer yields this sort of controversy and traffic with anti-Mac hit-pieces, and the revenues he once generated have to be replaced? Let's remember John C Dvorak now uses a Mac. {According to rumor he was offered a Dell or a Mac at his new place of work. The company John hates more than Apple is Dell, so he took the Mac.}

Could it be that they own stock in download firms?

Could it be that it is difficult to rip Blu-Rays and trade them on the Internet (although this is done on Bittorrent).

So just what is the substance of their argument and does it have any merit?

1. A year after HD-DVD died Blu-ray still isn't doing more volume than DVD.
2. Blu-ray players are not selling. (At least the ones that aren't PS3s aren't selling)
3. Blu-ray players are more expensive than upscaling DVD players.
4. Blu-Ray discs are more expensive than DVD disks.
5. Downloads will replace DVD. Blu-Ray will not replace DVD.
6. Apple isn't supporting Blu-Ray as they once said they would.
7. I can't rip my Blu-rays, and watch them on 2.5 inch portable LCD screen, as I can with DVD.

This, in short, is the full case they make against Blu-ray. Each time they post these 7 points, and they do so about twice a week, posters knock each other over to make the usual ripostes.

1. Two years into the format's life span Blu-Ray is way ahead of where DVD was in terms of acceptance.
2. PS3 constitutes 70% to 75% of the total installed base of all Blu-Ray players because it is the finest value in the land. It is the best damn media player in the world... for all types of media. Critics are foolish to expect inferior media players (which are often more expensive) to sell in the face of such tough competition. You cannot simply disregard the PS3 because it is not “A true Blu-Ray player” such an argument is utterly false, fallacious and preposterous.
3. Since Blu-Ray players offer 622% better resolution and quantum improvement in audio, we would expect them to be more expensive than upscaling DVD players. Surely you do not believe that much quality comes for free? Do you really expect a 0.0% difference in marginal price and profits?
4. Diddo for the disk. The disks are too expensive on average, but they are remarkably better.
5. Now we reach the absolute balderdash, poppycock and rubbish. How are we to disinfect the ignorant of their ignorance? It is clear to anyone who understands binary bandwidth issues that HDTV and broadband are a mismatch made in hell. The typical broadband connection carries approximately 2.5Mbits to your computer. The typical video image stream on Blu-Ray is approximately 24-35 Mbits. Let's call it 10x higher. That's just the video. Then you have the audio stream. For uncompressed PCM, that is another 4.6Mbits. For compressed, but lossless, DTS-HD MA, we're talking about 1.5 to 2.5Mbits. Remember, we're talking about 7.1 surround sound sample at 24 bits and 96Khz in a best case scenario. A typical Blu-ray movie occupies something like 17GB of space. You try downloading 17GB of anything and just see how long it takes. Now you can compress the hell out of the stream, but then you decimate the quality. You can reduce the resolution, but then you aren't offering HDTV. Some people protest that they are downloading their movies right now. I do solemnly assure you that if you are downloading it now, it certainly is not HD. Even the crap Apple is downloading to you is just 720p. What you see on Netflix is standard def 480p. No crap-hounds, I am sorry to inform you that the Blu-Ray spec was designed from scratch to be almost untouchable. Until the mode, mean and median bandwidth in this country hits a brick solid 40Mbits, you are not going to be able to offer a service that streams Blu-Ray quality video through the net. The consumer market just can't handle it. The business model is not workable. Some fools may try, but they will lose lots and lots of money. Certainly FIOS has the potential to yield Blu-Ray bandwidth. How soon will FIOS become ubiquitous? With the current recession, project 10 years. That is a nice, long happy life span for Blu-Ray to prosper and become the institutionalized standard. If media tech writers understood anything about binary bandwidth, they would not embarrass themselves by stating that downloads will supersede Blu-Ray.
6. So Apple is not supporting Blu-Ray as they said they would...? And...? Let us remember that Apple is a very little company after all. A lot of their Macs are being used to run Windows. That's how much market influence they have. Apple wants to sell you 720p movies through Apple TV, a product which is the biggest market failure they have offered in quite some time. Everybody who owns Apple stock knows that AppleTV is not doing well at all on the open market.
7. Point 7 utterly defies logic. Do you really think you can display 1920x1080 pixels on a 320x240 screen? What made you think that HDTV was made for 2.5inch LCD? Truly, some people do not understand the entire concept of HDTV.