Netflix
Watch Instantly fans could be due for a big upgrade, as
CNET has heard the company will roll out 1080p and 5.1 surround sound later this year. No word on timing or any other details, but this could mean its moving to version 3 of Microsoft's Silverlight streaming platform with its
additional tweaks for adaptive streaming and hardware graphics acceleration. Also unknown is how much bandwidth would be necessary, but considering Microsoft already uses very similar technology for its
1080p Instant On videos on Zune Marketplace through the Xbox 360 while only requiring 3 Mbps and
VUDU HDX 1080p videos only state a minimum of 4500 Kbps, a massive jump in available bandwidth might not be necessary if you already get clear 720p video. The last big hurdle? How much content will be available that way,
Gizmodo points out only about 6 percent of current offerings stream in HD we'll be watching carefully if the pace picks up going forward.
Update: Netflix pinged
CNET to let them know that 1080p was mistakenly included on a roadmap of 2010 features, however if you can get over missing all those extra pixels, surround sound and closed captioning are definitely booked for an appearance later this year.
posted February 8th 2010 6:12PM
@johtuh
You only need to find a good US VPN service provider to use Netflix and of course a US post address if you want to use the postal service. The quality of the streams is of course related to the download speed you get with this VPN provider. I myself have 4-6 mbps down, the quality I get is quite low; the average dvd movie is having a lot better quality.
Btw. I did not discovered yet the possibility to watch 720p movies, can somebody give me a sample (trailer/movie name) from a 720p movie or is this not possible with the standard $8,99 plan?
I don't care about the 1080p announcement, but it's SURROUND SOUND! w00t!
can't wait till they announce DTS-HD Master now that will be something ;)
Netflix should focus on providing quality movies. I'm tired of all the old crap. I don't care if it is 640i...just get us the movies. I'm sick of all that garbage populating their instant viewable list.
Ok any freaking day now this is not that difficult what is the delay
come on netflix just launch 5.1
I would really like to see media-ready PC's finally allowed to view HD content. It's ridiculous that I have a media PC, more than capable of playing HD content (and a Netflix app in the media player!), yet we're limited to standard def without buying a set-top box. It defeats the purpose of merging everything into a media PC.
Until I can watch 720p Netflix streams on my TV and not have it look like half inch square digital bugs are crawling over my screen, I don't hold a lot of hope for streaming 1080p content. Do 720p right then move onto 1080p guys. Otherwise the specs will sound impressive on paper but the reality will be block city. And I have 18-12 Mbps cable so its not the speed.
Surround sound will be nice though.