Streaming video devices: Advice?

The new Apple $99 buck unit... see below
http://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B001FA1NK0?tag=priuschatcom-20 not a bad route to go. This is a much impoved version of their first attempt. Streaming video requires bandwidth, if your download speed is better than 2meg or so, you should be fine.
As fa as BETTER, that would all be deteremined if the source material was a DVD playback into a their servers and then streamed to you, or if they have the file the DVD was made from already in their servers. However I doubt that that is the case.
At ABC we have a Fiber Data line into our plant, New York streams the network shows into our servers and they are then streamed out over satellite to end use ABC affiliate stations.

I woud like to also try the Apple unit, nice thing is it is seperate from your computer, I am not hot however on the monthly fees. It would be nice if you could buy, say a 2 year contract, a pay for it all at once, discount to about $7.50 tops a month,
The only problem going this route you CANNOT make a DVD copy of the movie for yourself, and you have a limited time to view that movie that you just downoaded.

 

Get one of the Roku player. It is exactly what you are looking for, under $60.

 

It's not too bad lately -- I use my PS3 player to stream a movie occasionally from Netflix, but they were lying to you about it being better resolution than a real DVD. It's the same base resoultion as a DVD, but it's highly compressed, so you get weirdyness like compression artifacts an high motion blur/stuttering that you don't get with a DVD.

I'll never switch over to streaming Netflix for anything but spur of the moment watching. And I'm just screwed by the price increase with no benefit.

fwiw, That's Silverlight and it's actually fairly secure, way more than Flash which is probably what you're thinking about.

 

I have been streaming it over Wii (480p) on a 720p TV and have not noticed motion blur yet (so far). It looks just as good as DVD.

There isn't as much selection with the streaming though.

 

The last movie I watched was almost unwatchable because of the motion stuttering/blur/artifacts. It could be a difference in what we're watching though -- the movie I watched was "The book of the Kells." Very bright colors and animated... (Played on a 1080p TV at 1080p)

That too.

 

The new Blu Ray players seem to come with Internet streaming. At least, all the ones at Costco seem to.

I have a friend with Apple TV. He loves it, I laugh at him about it (not behind his back, either)... it takes days for him to get a movie downloaded, and there is a time limit to how long he has it. With Netflix, it's there, streaming, and you can watch it over and over, no additional charge.

 

I've got both an Apple TV and a Wii at home (Apple TV since I digitized my movie library for easy transport on my laptop or easy viewing anywhere in my house, Wii for the sheer fun of it), and have tried streaming netflix from both of them. In both cases, it works great and the video quality is at least as good as DVD, if not better in some cases. I prefer to use the Apple TV, however... I like the interface better, and I can use my Logitech remote control that controls everything else (TV, receiver, DVR, blu-ray player) with it, where as I'm pretty much stuck using a Wii-mote to control the Wii.

At $99, there's a lot that's awesome about the Apple TV... although renting HD movies through it is, as Rae said, troublesome... something I really don't understand. If I rent an HD movie from iTunes on my computer, it'll download pretty quickly (I can start watching after just a few minutes, or have the whole thing downloaded in an hour), and can even stream from that to the Apple TV. But if i try to rent it straight from the Apple TV, I'll be lucky to be able to start watching it the following day. For expanding my movie collection though, there's nothing better than purchasing from iTunes. No DVD's to mess with, no wasteful packaging. Just a quick download and it's available on my computer, my "main" TV through my Apple TV, or through any other TV I want to hook my laptop up to, any time I want. A ton easier to take with me to watch on a plane ride, too!

 

I use a Sony PS3. It's a great Blu-ray player, and directly supports Netflix. It works well with most media servers, so you can access content from your computer. As a side benefit you can play games, if you are into that sort of thing.

The down side is that it is more expensive than a single use device, uses more power, and can be a bit noisier due to the cooling fan.

Tom

 

Depending on the model, it averages 3.5 to 4 stars.

 

My device that I can stream Netflix (and YouTube, and Amazon on-demand) is a TiVo Premiere XL HD. It's a great device if you also want the DVR functionality of TiVo, but it's not as cheap as the streaming-only devices.

It also gets Pandora and Live365 internet radio, and can show pictures/play videos and music from household networked PCs.

 

But you have a microsoft OS?

I understand your reticence, but Microsoft really isn't any more evil than any large corporation these days, and they actually do put out some good software occasionally.

 

Daniel,

How many movies a month on average do you watch ?
In my house it became apparent that it was cheaper to buy rentals over the internet a la carte rather than pony up for a subscription. I also went out of my way to avoid NefFlix due to the mountains of spam they originated. Once in a great while I purchase a movie I expect to watch multiple times, and put it in on my iPhone, MacBook Air, and on the mac-mini I have attached to the large TV in the house. At least this is true for 'popular' movies; the older stuff is usually borrowed from the public library in DVD format.

If the apple device interests you, just the fact that your TV does not have HDMI does not prove the display is not useable. E.g., HDMI to DVI adapters are very common, and cost around $2. Monoprice.com is an excellent place to buy electronic doodads. Another straightforward way to deal with HDMI out is by using a somewhat recent receiver that takes HDMI input and outputs component cable.

Just my opinion, I think the best streaming (or time shifted) device for movie consumption is an iPad. We are buying one for a number of uses, but I in particular am looking forward to using it at the gym. Be aware though that for now it locks you into iTunes purchased content. I expect that to change as content vendors move away from their current security schemes to HTML5 based ones.

 

My Samsung 50" LCD-TV has two USB jacks on the side.
The built-in reader reads just about all video formats and MP3 files.
I'm even using an external USB-SATA enclosure with a 3.5" 500g hard disk, and I can navigate.

(I don't even bother with the PS3 anymore)

I also saw today on Engadget this device, link here:
Planex MZK-SNG02US brings DLNA to your SD cards and USB drives -- Engadget
(not available yet in the US)

However, use the Search feature of blogs Engadget and Gizmodo, I'm sure you'll find something.

At one point I bought and used, in Standard Definition only, a USB-enclosure for IDE drives. Plugged the Yellow wire for video and the Red & White for audio, played standard AVI files ok.

There exists a newer box that handles HD video with either HDMI or the 4-cable analog HD, that's been around for over a year. Gizmodo/Engadget reviewed it.

Nice in that you plug into your computer, transfer the files into the hard disk, then plug into a HD-TV.

Before that, I would burn the AVI files on a DVD-Ram disk, and put into my DVD-player.

 

Apple - iPad - Make your iPad even better with accessories.
iPad(iPhone) connector with component video output.

Understand I am not trying to convince you to buy anything, it just appears you are not aware of options.

 

I was just about to suggest the same thing, SageBrush!

I know you have an iPod, Daniel... is it a Touch? If so, you could get a cable that lets you output that to your TV:
Apple Composite AV Cable - Apple Store (U.S.)
Apple Component AV Cable - Apple Store (U.S.)

Along with the netflix app:
Netflix for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store

With that combination, you'd be all set. Keep the cable plugged into your TV, go down to the treadmill and plug in the iPod Touch, and start up Netflix!

I've never tried this myself, but from what Apple's website says about the cables, it should work. might be worthwhile to call that Apple rep back and ask her about it!