Med-Psych.com

So I started my Netflix trial about 2 months ago and was really happy with both the DVD service as well as the instant download / watch instantly features on the website.

Then things changed last week. I noticed one movie I was watching had really crappy picture quality. I did some searching around the web and I saw that it could be that the website detected my internet speed or computer processing was low so the streaming was downgraded to a lower quality. I did find a link on the website that would show me what my viewing quality would be and it usually registered medium or high.

Then tonight, I finally got it to register that my set-up should be high quality and then I get the message that my internet connection is too slow for the instant streaming and it would take 4 hrs to get started. Well - that obviously is ridiculous. I tried reloading and the next time it says 2 hrs. Still crazy. Then the next time, it starts viewing after about 2 minutes, but then it pauses and says it will be another 2 hrs before it can start playing again.

Frustrating to say the least.

So I give Netflix customer support a call - it only took about 1 minute to get a live operator. She pulls up my account and says that I am not using the "new" media viewer. She gives me the link to the new media player:

http://www.netflix.com/silver

I check it out, activate it, go to view a movie and it downloads the Microsoft Silverlight media player. I install it and when the movie starts, everything seems pretty good. The video quality seems good and there was almost no delay in getting the movie started.

Time will tell if this continues to fix the problems but it sure seems like it does. It is amazing that I searched everywhere on the net and couldn't find anyone mention that this player fixes the problems, or even mentions that there is another player. I tried more focused searches after getting the solution and realized that the new player was in Beta for a while - and maybe isn't even fully out of Beta. There is this thread:

http://blog.netflix.com/2008/10/opt-in-for-new-netflix-movie-player.html

and it seems that the reports in that thread are a bit mixed. Some people love it and some people find it worse than the previous media player. All I can say is that if I wind up having the same problems I had earlier - without a solution - it pretty much negates the entire watch instantly option. I really enjoy being able to instantly watch the movies on my computer, so I'm really hoping it's all fixed now.