Netflix on our TiVo, awesome despite minor gripes

December 9, 2008

Netflix launched it's "Watch Instantly" feature on TiVo today and it's awesome. The selection isn't huge but I was happy to find:

  • 30 Rock: Seasons 1 and 2
  • The Office: Seasons 1 through 4
  • High Fidelity
  • Enchanted
  • Pirates of the Caribbean
  • The Boondock Saints
  • Pan's Labyrinth
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  • etc.

I tested a couple of streams out and I'm happy to report that it works really well. The Office played in HD and started streaming in seconds. You can pause, rewind, and fast forward too (when you rewind or fast forward a lower quality version of the stream is shown so you know where you are). Ratatouille wasn't in HD but the quality was still excellent.

Unfortunately for Netflix this means that I can downgrade my account from 2 to 1 DVD at a time. With all this extra content (and I'm expecting more to come quickly) I don't see a reason to get that many DVDs. If the library size increased a few times over I'd love a "Instant Only" plan ($4.99 maybe?).

I do have some issues with the implementation though. For one only the main account holder can modify your Instant queue. This isn't a huge deal but it means Megen has to remember my credentials instead of just using her own to add anything to our Instant queue. We also ran into a bug where TiVo would punt us back to the main menu in the middle of watching an episode of 30 Rock. Restarting the TiVo seems to have fixed it though.

netflix and tivo