A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Netflix had added the new “Watch Now” tab to my account. This new tab allows for the viewing of on-demand movies.
For my first on-line viewing, I decided to pick a movie that my wife would want no part of seeing. I took a look through the offered titles and settled in on, Jackass: The Movie.
To watch the movie, Netflix required that I download a little viewer app. Once the app was installed, I clicked upon the Jackass: The Movie link on their website. The movie started playing in about thirty seconds and the picture quality was quite good. It skipped a couple of times along the way, but no more so than I would expect from the satellite feed on cable television.
As to the problems, I must say it was quite difficult to scroll through the video. I tried to back it up about a minute at one point and just couldn’t do it. I could move the video back, but lacked the ability to finesse the amount of time I was scrolling through. There was no real indicator to tell me how far I was going back (that is until the video started playing again). Also, it was a bit depressing that I was required to use Internet Explorer to watch a movie via Netflix and not my normal browser of choice, Firefox.
All in all, this is a good start down the on-demand path that this industry is headed towards. The Netflix interface will need some work, but they likely have a year or two to fine tune it. I suspect that while Netflix is improving upon this player, a few more devices like Apple TV will come along to release this media from the confines of the home office and usher it into the comforts of the living room.
