Hasta La Gadget!

Do not be alarmed, your Netflix.com experience has been updated today “with a new look and feel to make it easier for you to find something to watch instantly.” While the header introduced late last year remains and sticks on screen as you scroll vertically, box art of queued movies fills the screen horizontally. The redesign takes significant cues from the HTML5 UIs recently rolled out to most streaming devices, but it’s not clear if this related to some of the queue shuffling we’ve been seeing recently. Responses on the Netflix blog have been mostly negative, although just like Facebook and Twitter revamps some complaints about any change are normal.

That said, we’re not fans either because it still requires an additional click to find out if a movie is in HD or has subtitles, a misdirected click starts playing the wrong movie too easily and selecting “your queue” still takes us to our discs first instead of Watch Instantly. If the new front page isn’t working there’s always alternatives in Netflix queue managers like InstantWatcher.com and FeedFliks, or any number of mobile apps. Let us know if you’ll be riding with the redesign or hitting the back button in the comments here.

Netflix.com’s new look is focused on streaming, cribs UI elements from connected TV apps originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 23:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The next time you hit the Netflix app on your Xbox 360 the update we heard about at CES will be waiting, bringing Kinect owners the ability to flick through their videos (like ESPN3 and Zune have since the peripheral launched) without digging a controller out of the couch cushions. After the 43Mb update downloads waving ones hand for the camera or saying Xbox will pull up the new menu seen above, which auto sorts selections for browsing by voice or gesture based on what it thinks you may want to watch next. Selecting “browse all” brings you right back to the standard menu and is probably the method most will want to stick with, however being able to pause the movie quickly during playback by simply saying Xbox, Pause (or FF, rewind, skip scene, etc.) is quite convenient. Not near your Xbox? Check out a brief video of it in action after the break.

[Thanks, George]

Continue reading Netflix for Xbox 360 updated with Kinect support, everybody wave!

Netflix for Xbox 360 updated with Kinect support, everybody wave! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just because Netflix has licensed new content we’re not always sure when it will be available for Watch Instantly streaming, but TrekMovie.com reports it has the dates for Star Trek content covered by a recent deal with CBS. Netflix wouldn’t confirm timing to us but TrekMovie says it will have every episode of all five live action series — US only, sorry Canada, enjoy that Iron Man 2 — with the original Star Trek (in HD), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise (in HD) available July 1st, followed by Star Trek: Deep Space 9 on October 1st. There’s still no word on when Family Ties is arriving, but the two year deal (with an option for two more) should give viewers who haven’t already shelled out for the boxed sets (we know you got the HD DVDs) a chance to get all the Trek they can bear.

Star Trek series coming to Netflix Watch Instantly in July and October? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The bad news is that our bulging tips box reports Netflix’s website and Watch Instantly streaming service have been mostly inaccessible for the last couple of hours. Those lucky enough to have the page open from earlier may still have access, and devices based on older UIs are up and running while the newer HTML5 based frontends seem to be down for the count. The worse news is Crain’s New York Business reported today that a new licensing deal with Showtime will not renew streaming access to older seasons of currently airing shows like Dexter and Californication when they expire this summer. Instead, their arrangement will cover shows that are off the air like The Tudors and Sleeper Cell.

Showtime has decided to hold the fresher stuff back for its TV Everywhere portals accessible by pay-TV subscribers despite Netflix’s best efforts to pitch itself as a friend to the premium networks, which could also explain its plan to start offering original content of its own next year. Wide outages like this have been relatively rare and while we’ll just keep an eye on @NetflixHelps until it’s back up, there’s no telling what other blank spaces we might find in our instant streaming queues in the future.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Things appear to be back to normal as of 10:30 p.m. EST or so, there’s no official word via Twitter yet but between the commenters below and the episode of Firefly we’re watching, it’s all good. Wait — Not so fast, while PC streaming is a go, devices are still mostly locked out.

Per @NetflixHelps UPDATE: Streaming is back on the website. We’re still working on getting streaming back to all devices. Thanks for your patience!

Update 2: From @NetflixHelps – RESOLVED: The website and devices are back up and running. Thanks again for your patience while we worked to get this fixed!

Netflix suffers temporary website outage today (fixed!), permanent Dexter outage this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This prototype LG Revolution may be the only Android phone actually capable of streaming Netflix at the moment, but there’s nothing keeping you from giving it a go — some enterprising hacker extracted a full system dump from the Revolution this week, tossed it to AndroidSPIN, and @al3xevolved subsequently pulled out the juicy Netflix innards. The app’s APK is now freely available on the web, though we’ll warn you that it isn’t good for much — you can browse and add items to your queue, but should you try to play a video the app will inform you that it “could not reach the Netflix service.” The question is, will Netflix simply flip a switch to turn streaming on, or is it waiting for DRM authentication from a Qualcomm MSM8655 processor?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Netflix for Android leaks out, doesn’t seem to stream video right now originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 01:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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