Netflix finally brings 'Watch Instantly' to Macs via Silverlight

In a move that seemed like it would never, ever, ever happen, Netflix has finally managed to bring its streaming video technology (and decent library) to Macs everywhere, thanks to Microsoft's Flash-esque also-ran, Silverlight. It seems that the software will allow the rental house to safely DRM its content where ever it goes via Redmond's Play Ready, thus leaping the hurdle that has kept some 12,000 movies and TV shows off of non-PC systems. Netflix claims that the new implementation in Silverlight provides "breakthrough navigation for fast-forward and rewind," though fails to indicate exactly when this is all being rolled out (we assume immediately). Unfortunately for super-duper late adopters, the software will only work with Intel-based Macs, so if you've been holding onto a G3 for dear life, here's one more reason to finally can it, along with your Xbox 360 HD DVD player, Von Dutch trucker cap, and gas-guzzling Escalade. Full PR after the break.

NETFLIX BEGINS ROLL-OUT OF 2ND GENERATION

MEDIA PLAYER FOR INSTANT STREAMING

ON WINDOWS PCs AND INTEL MACS

Based on Microsoft Silverlight, New Player Features Enhanced Dynamic Streaming, First-Time Use for Macs and

Breakthrough Navigation for Fast-Forward and Rewind

LOS GATOS, Calif., October 27, 2008 – Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), the world's largest online movie rental service, today announced it has begun the deployment of Microsoft Silverlight to enhance the instant watching component of the Netflix service and to allow subscribers for the first time to watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers. The deployment, which will initially touch a small percentage of new Netflix subscribers, is the first step in an anticipated roll-out of the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year.

Silverlight is designed for delivery of cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences inside a Web browser. It is expected that Netflix members who watch movies and TV episodes instantly on their computers will enjoy a faster, easier connection and a more robust viewing experience with Silverlight, due to the quality built directly into the player. Among the viewing enhancements with the new player is a breakthrough in timeline navigation that vastly improves the use of fast-forwarding and rewinding. The new Netflix player takes advantage of Play Ready DRM, which is built into Silverlight, for the playback of protected content on both Windows-based PCs and on Macs. That had not been possible with previous generation technologies.

"Silverlight with Play Ready offers a powerful and secure toolkit for delivery of dynamic streaming, which offers faster start-up, and higher quality video, adapted in real time to users' connection speeds," said Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt. "Members who enjoy watching movies and TV episodes from the growing library of choices that can be instantly streamed at Netflix will be thrilled with this next generation improvement of access and quality, on a broader range of platforms, including Intel Macs and Firefox."

[peestandingup @ Oct 26th 2008 9:50PM]

Has hell has frozen over??

BTW, I'm still getting the "instant watching is currently not supported for Macintosh" message.

[CC @ Oct 26th 2008 10:03PM]

Ditto. I just went over there in excitement, and no indication as to how to do this.

[Tim Dorr @ Oct 26th 2008 10:11PM]

Read the press release: "The deployment, which will initially touch a small percentage of new Netflix subscribers, is the first step in an anticipated roll-out of the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year."

[konshuss @ Oct 26th 2008 10:56PM]

On a Mac. Like a normal person... except on a Mac.

[phinn @ Oct 27th 2008 12:22AM]

Guess that means no Linux support... : (

Oh well I still can use the Media Server to stream Netflix to my PS3 when I'm not using Netflix for blu-ray

[Tim Dorr @ Oct 27th 2008 4:22AM]

Silverlight's on Linux. It's called Moonlight. Miguel de Icaza posted about it a few weeks ago and getting the media codecs running under it (the key part to getting Netflix work): http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Oct-03.html Should be coming together soon.

[fatfishy @ Oct 27th 2008 9:16AM]

actually moonlight didnt work for the silverlight implementation of the olympics on nbc.com so it might not work unless they can fix moonlight.

[sefs @ Oct 26th 2008 9:51PM]

Finally.

[Connor @ Oct 26th 2008 9:51PM]

I still use my PowerBook G4...
and own an Xbox 360...
no HD DVD though, Mitsubishi from 1996 still going strong :D

[c-dub @ Oct 26th 2008 10:47PM]

LOL..hell yeah, Im stil holding on to mine too..AND a G5 tower..so hopefully they'll MAYBE make some adjustments for us purist? Maybe?

Im geez let me get my moneys worth out of it 1st...Not like theres anything to look forward to, since Apple is skimping on FW ports..chumps

[Reader @ Oct 26th 2008 11:51PM]

Honestly I'm thinking of buying a used 360 HD-DVD since people are selling them so cheap, along with the discs.

[Skrying @ Oct 26th 2008 9:55PM]

Funny how it took a Microsoft technology to bring a service to Mac.

Also, calling Silverlight an "also ran" isn't exactly portraying it right. It's basically a day old in comparison to Flash and it's already appearing in more and more places.

[Paul Chapel @ Oct 26th 2008 10:58PM]

Why is everyone acting like a bunch of retards? Macs have had this functionality for some time. It's called iTunes. Look it up.

[Colin Potter @ Oct 26th 2008 11:10PM]

iTunes is $0.99 - $4.99 for rentals... netflix watch instantly is.... free?

[Jeremy K. @ Oct 27th 2008 12:31AM]

I'm only paying $8.99 a month. It's worth it considering I can get a DVD in the mail two days after I return the previous one and I can watch as many movies instantly as I want. The selection has gotten a lot better now that the Starz movies are there.

[John @ Oct 27th 2008 1:57AM]

You're kidding yourself if you think Microsoft didn't pay to have Netflix use Silverlight instead of Flash.

[Valicore @ Oct 27th 2008 4:18AM]

Normally I wouldn't give any credence to the idea that Microsoft is being all shady (at least with this sort of thing), but for Netflix to use Silverlight to bring support for this to Macs, you know that AT MINIMUM Microsoft paid for programmers and equipment and made it AT LEAST cost neutral for Netflix if not profitable.

[Sean O @ Oct 27th 2008 4:40PM]

@John

The only one kidding himself is you. The movie studios required Netflix to use Silverlight because of the DRM. The Flash DRM has not been signed off by the studios. Silverlight DRM has.

[Max @ Oct 28th 2008 12:15PM]

Jeremy K: Actually you only get as many hours of Watch Instantly as you pay in $/month. So, you get 9 hours/month of Watch Instantly.

[Frankie @ Oct 28th 2008 1:36PM]

Jeremy, its actually unlimited.

[Max @ Oct 26th 2008 9:55PM]

Is there a way that I can get it on my account now? I've been waiting for this for freaking ages.

[NoAndThen @ Oct 26th 2008 9:56PM]

Friggin FINALLY.

Now I'm just impatiently sitting here for instructions on actually using the damn thing...

Though I really have had no issues running them through VMWare Fusion, it'll be nice to not have to go though the extra step.

[kr @ Oct 26th 2008 9:57PM]

Sliverlight? Someone get a tweezers!

[kr @ Oct 27th 2008 12:36PM]

Why was I ranked down, I wasn't making fun of the technology, I was pointing out a misspelling in the article....

[paul @ Oct 27th 2008 6:15PM]

Bad jokes get modded down too.

[saintlunacy @ Oct 26th 2008 10:03PM]

Silverlight. Wasn't that the same thing NBC used to stream the Olympics? Didn't really like it, didnt seem as flexible as flash.

And who really wants more MS in their computers?

[Carl Vitullo @ Oct 26th 2008 11:44PM]

Anyone who wants to watch Netflix movies online from their mac does.

[konshuss @ Oct 27th 2008 9:50AM]

sweet mother of pancakes that's some greyed out text. wise up buddy or you'll completely disappear!

[curtisrutland @ Oct 27th 2008 11:30AM]

Didn't really seem as flexible as flash?

So you can that from one app you've used, with no experience programming for it?

[Juaquin @ Oct 26th 2008 10:02PM]

So...uhh...when they gonna' get around to supporting Firefox? Forcing users to use IE is sad, really. I have Netflix as IE's homepage because that's all I use it for.

[Jeremy K. @ Oct 26th 2008 10:15PM]

haha me too

[dandaman @ Oct 26th 2008 10:20PM]

Considering IE for Mac is no longer available, and hadn't been since before the Intel mac existed, I'm going to assume you can use Safari for Windows with Netflix online too. I don't know this for sure. Safari for Windows isn't nearly as good as it is on Mac, but if it works in Safari chances are it works on WebKit, which is cross-platform and *very* fast. Keep in mind they put out nightly builds and could be buggy - www.webkit.org. I'd like to stress once again I don't know if this will work, just guessing.

[miko34 @ Oct 26th 2008 10:26PM]

I use the IE button Add-On within Firefox. Works fine for me.

[dandaman @ Oct 26th 2008 10:30PM]

Oh - and the last line of the press release mentioned Firefox as well

[JC @ Oct 27th 2008 6:31AM]

Silverlight runs in IE, Firefox, Safari and soon in whatever browser y'all use in Linux. So I'd expect that once Windows users get the new SL platform it'll work fine in Firefox.

[Bob @ Oct 26th 2008 10:03PM]

Oh the irony...

[jordn @ Oct 26th 2008 10:18PM]

haha the fanboys won't like this...!

[Fanboy @ Oct 26th 2008 11:37PM]

What do you mean? Now I can finally get rid of that nasty Vista partition I was keeping around just to watch Netflix with. Fanboys can rejoice for that!

[Jinx @ Oct 27th 2008 1:29AM]

@Fanboy

And no body cares..

[Atropos @ Oct 27th 2008 3:19AM]

@Fanboy

Yeah. You had a copy of Vista partitioned just for Netflix.

The only thing worse than a troll is a lying troll...

[lol @ Oct 27th 2008 11:08AM]

so, of all the versions of windows you'd partition JUST to use netflix, you'd choose "nasty" Vista?

I'll file this with perpetual motion machines, under Bullshit.

[phanbouy @ Oct 27th 2008 12:30PM]

someone said phanbouys?

[JoeyJoeJoeJr05 @ Oct 26th 2008 10:04PM]

Wait its only being deployed to a few people? I've been waiting forever and I still can't access it! WTF?!

[Chris Are @ Oct 27th 2008 12:12AM]

I know right? "Hey sorry ChrisAre, we know you've been a subscriber for over two years, and have resisted the urge to switch to Blockbuster many times, but we're going w/ our new users right now... just hold on a LITTLE big longer!" Assholes.

[Kamokazi @ Oct 26th 2008 10:04PM]

Woohoo, I've been waiting forever for this!

Haha, just kidding. I own a normal computer and have always been able to watch my Netflix. In fact, I almost never have to worry if my operating system will work with something.

[asdf john @ Oct 26th 2008 11:34PM]

Me neither!

(Using 10.5/Linux)

[David Hildreth @ Oct 27th 2008 1:58AM]

You're missing out, have fun keeping it bland though.

[Kamokazi @ Oct 27th 2008 12:36PM]

That took a lot longer to get low ranked than I thought it would. I just felt like trolling for a change. I don't even subscribe to Netflix.

I'm actually pretty indifferent to OS X, I've used it on many occasions in different situations, and it's nice, but it's not for me (a sysadmin-I use a combination of Windows and Linux, and like both equally for different purposes). What I'm not indifferent to is Apple as a company and the 80% of Apple users who are mindless zombies drunk on Steve's Kool-Aid...I don't care for them at all.

[nohone @ Oct 26th 2008 10:12PM]

More of the usual hate Microsoft crapola from Engadget that has been turning up lately. Why would I get rid of my XBOX HD DVD drive? Did it suddenly stop playing HD DVD disks now that the format has been killed off? I have a PS3, 360 HD DVD drive, and a LG combo HD DVD/Blu-ray player in my Vista (uh-oh, there is that evil, evil, word) Media Center, and in the 2 HD DVD capable players all my HD disks still play perfectly fine. Should I throw all my HD DVD disks away and rebuy the BD version just to keep you happy?

As for "also-ran", freely available tools to create Silverlight apps ($699 to Adobe to create Flash apps), and I don't need to keep Silverlight turned off like I do Flash being that Flash crashes more than a 5 year-old behind the wheel of that Escalade you hate so much.

[JerkfacedFed @ Oct 26th 2008 10:22PM]

agreed. from a dev standpoint the tools are much better, its cheaper, and you can use C# instead of UGH...actionscript..

also +1 about flash being buggy/crashing. #1 cause of all browser crashes