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First look: Netflix Instant Watching on Mac

29.10.2008
In January 2007, Netflix brought the ability to watch a limited number of its catalog of movies and TV shows to users of Windows-based PCs--all for free, as a part of an existing Netflix subscription. This summer, the company began working with hardware companies to embed Netflix Instant Watching in set-top devices such as the . Now, at last, the company is finally .

Though the roll-out of Instant Watching to Mac users is happening gradually, I contacted Netflix and was able to have them add it to my account for the purposes of this article. I already own a Roku Netflix Player, and last summer I spent some time attempting--with limited success--to watch videos using Instant Watching via Windows XP in Parallels Desktop and Boot Camp. So I was excited to finally get a chance to play videos within the happy confines of my Mac's web browser, natively.

The Netflix player uses Microsoft's Silverlight technology to play back videos. Since Silverlight only works on Intel-based Macs, Netflix Instant Watching won't work if you're still using a PowerPC-based Mac. (Netflix says that three-quarters of its Mac customers own Intel Macs.) The video content is copy-protected via Silverlight's built-in Play Ready DRM.

When I tried to use Instant Watching on Windows last year, it was a frustrating experience. I had to approve the downloading of various media keys in order to avoid an error screen that said I had no approval to play back videos. I can't say whether that was a typical experience or one that was complicated by the fact that I was actually on a Mac running Windows in a virtual machine. What I can say is, playing back Netflix videos on my Mac using Silverlight was effortless.

In order to start watching a video, you just click on the Play button, which is found on individual video pages as well as next to each item in your Instant Queue. (Netflix says that there are about 12,000 videos available for Instant Watching today. More on that selection in a bit.)

The Netflix Instant Watching progress bar.After I clicked the Play button, Safari loaded a new page with a black background and the traditional "red envelope" stylings of Netflix. A progress bar showed that the player was calibrating itself using my Internet connection, determining the bit rate that my connection could bear and adjusting the quality of my requested video accordingly. After a few seconds of buffering time, my selected video began playing without a hitch.