Netflix/streaming video/etc.

[Lincoln]

Greetings all,

I'm looking for opinions and experience with Netflix/Hulu/etc.

Our house has cable, but the internet is DSL. Technically we could get the internet on cable, but there are non-technical reasons why that would be disruptive. I suppose I could get cable internet and DSL simultaneously.

We get "Cable on Demand," but it is my sense that there are other options for watching movies and old TV shows that are superior in terms of available content. I've been poking around on the web, seeing what people think, but I'd like to hear from the people here what their opinion is on the various options.

What are people's experience with Netflix/Hulu/etc.? Did I miss something? Are there minimum bandwidth needed to make these things worthwhile? Etc.?

[Watson]

I have internet and rabbit ears. I was thinking of getting a dish, netflix or other, but the stations offer their regular programing on their web site the next day. I know this doesn't answer your question and I hope to learn something from the answers you do get.

[BioWizard]

I've used Netflix watch-instantly for a very long time now. Right now, I have a slower connection than I used to, and it still works just fine. I had to downgrade from my 12 Mbs because it was costing me too much and I was only utilizing it half an hour a day or so. I think I'm at ~ 25% of that now. The movies still stream fine and the picture quality is good IMO. I have a HDMI cable which I use to watch the movies on my 52 Inch flat screen rather than my laptop, and even there the picture isn't so bad. It's not HD, but it don't notice any difference from regular TV most - if not all - of the time.

[Watson]

I was getting the 1 month free ads from netflix but when I look at the selection offer it was limited so I never took the offer? Has the selection improved, or turn over fast?

[wolfhnd]

We recently dropped cable TV from our cable package because we were only using Netflix to watch programs. I purchased a Roku (http://www.roku.com/) box and a high quality HD antenna for about the cost of two months of basic cable TV service. We still receive two DVDs from Netflix a month in addition to the streaming service which makes it the best entertainment value I have ever purchased.

If you have more than one person watching streaming video at the same time you will need cable as each stream should have one meg of bandwidth available. I'm paying $39 a month for my 22 meg Internet connection which I arranged after telling the cable company I was dropping their service :-)

[aslamwalii]

I’ve seen progression in every post.

[Sisyphus]

I only watch Netflix, streaming. They've got every episode of every Star Trek series, and some other stuff too.

[Watson]

How convenient, a netflex ad at the bottum of this page. So thats what the ad bot are doing. I guess I'll check it out.