Final Cut: Toradora! Part 1 DVD
Keep It or Trade It?: Madden NFL 11 (PS3)
Keep It or Trade It?: Trinity Universe (PS3)
Read or Recycle? Gantz Vol. 1
Read or Recycle? Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit Vol. 1
I received my instant streaming disc in the mail last night, and I thought I’d let everyone know how it works. When you first pop the little red disc in, you’re required to go to the Netflix PS3 site and enter an activation code, but you can’t use the PS3 browser to do it. They said it would take up to 3 minutes to activate, but mine worked instantly. As soon as it activates, it takes you to your instant queue.
The interface is pretty straightforward and works pretty quickly, but it’s pretty bland looking. Along the very top is is red band with “Netflix” on it, and the rest of the screen is white. Below the “Netflix,” you have the options of seeing your recently watched list, and various movie and TV categories. First are new arrivals which are separated into movie and TV sections. After that, each genre (e.g., comedy, foreign, thriller) has its own tab. Scrolling onward, you’ll get to “Movies You’ll Love” where they make recommendations for you based on your ratings, and finally you get customized genres based on your preferences. When I first put the disc in, I got “Goofy Cult Comedies,” Visually-Striking Movies,” and “Anime” among other options. Upon selecting a tab, you get to finally choose your movie or TV show. For a movie, it displays title, movie length and rating, and for TV series, it swaps length for number of episodes. Once you select a title, it gives you a synopsis, genre information, play options and rating options. The only oddity that I found was that rather than pressing circle to go back to your queue at this point, you press up, as circle will take you out of Netflix altogether. Once you press play, the video starts to buffer; obviously, the delay to start is based on the quality of your internet connection. Mine took about 5 seconds to start on average. Once you begin playback, it works like the regular DVD settings for the PS3. Start pauses, circle quits playback, R2 and L2 fast forward/reverse, and square brings you back to the Netflix menu.
All in all, I have to say I’m pretty pleased with what I’m getting. Yes, you have to swap out your game disc for the Netflix one, and it’s not quite as nice as the Xbox360’s interface (no movie parties), but considering it’s free, the quality is more than adequate. Good work, Sony and Netflix.
Jacob on 10 Nov 2009 at 2:29 am #
If only this came out for the psp as well:(