A long time ago, I cancelled my Netflix subscription due to their practice of queue throttling. See, I’d much rather watch a good movie than channel surf when I sit down on the couch at the end of the day. When it became apparent to me that the number of good movies I was able to sit down and watch in a week was exactly three, and not “unlimited” as the terms of service implied, I dropped the service. As of the launch of the NXE, I’m happy to report I have opened a shiny new account with Netflix, and I am extremely happy with the service for a wide variety of reasons.

I signed up for the one DVD at a time plan which runs $8.99. I added Blu-ray rentals to the account for an extra $1 per month. Included in this ten dollar plan is unlimited video streaming through my Xbox 360. Tying the 360 to my Netflix account was extremely simple. Just download the Netflix app on the 360, fire it up, and type the short activation code into the Netflix device activation page. Literally seconds later, my instant queue appeared on my TV. Speaking of the instant queue, one of the only downsides of this service is that you have to update your queue on the Netflix website. It’s not really a huge deal though—new additions to your queue appear almost instantly in the Netflix app on the 360.

The selection is sort of hit and miss. There are a lot of current TV shows available on the service, including the first four seasons of The Office, and new episodes of Heroes the day after they air on TV. There’s also a fairly solid selection of classic movies, however, if you’re looking for current movies, look elsewhere. There are only a handful of new releases available for streaming. It doesn’t help matters any that all new releases from all Sony owned studios currently available via Netflix streaming are still being witheld from 360 users. I was personally able to fill my queue with around 70 TV shows and movies I wanted to watch.

The video quality depends directly on your internet connection. I have a 6mbps cable modem, and for the first week or so, every piece of content that was available in HD streamed in HD. Everything else looked pretty good too. This came to a screeching halt a few days ago, and everything has been streaming in either youtube quality, or basic cable quality.  I’m reluctant to pin the blame squarely on Netflix here. My ISP has a long history of shady traffic management tactics, and that may very well be what’s happening to me. I’ll update this post with more observations next Tuesday after Fios is installed.

The audio quality is good, but not great. It’s not 5.1, but it is very clear and crisp. I’ve heard rumors that Netflix is working on a way to provide a 5.1 surround sound audio track for streaming, but for now, you’re just going to have to deal with middle of the road audio.

It might have a couple of flaws, but for $10 a month, Netflix streaming is worth every penny. Oh, and you get to rent one DVD at a time too—not too shabby. If you don’t have a good internet connection, you may want to give the free trial a spin before you commit to anything.

UPDATE: I have switched ISP’s and am now with Verizon Fios. Any and all streaming issues have been completely resolved. It seems my old ISP was choking my connection to the Netflix servers due to the high volume of videos I was streaming. Nuts to them. Fios FTW!

-Mike Kurz

Tags: Microsoft, movies, Netflix, NXE, review, Xbox 360

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