crowtango

I think I’m going to move away from MyNetflix and give vmcNetFlix a shot for a while. MyNetflix seems to be crashing a lot for me lately.

vmcNetFlix - Official Site

A while ago, while searching for a Twitter plugin for my Vista Media Center, I stumbled across a little application that has made my Media Center even more powerful. Of course the application of which I speak is MyNetflix.

Back in January I opened up a Netflix account after they announced their Watch Now feature would offer unlimited streaming. I wrote about the service at some length and ended by saying “If Netflix moves this service into the Media Center, like Vongo and Movielink have, I believe they have a chance to corner the streaming movie market.” And it has been done! Admittedly it hasn’t been accomplished by Netflix themselves, but that really isn’t the point. The feat was accomplished by Anthony Park’s via MyNetflix and I don’t think Netflix could do it any better.

I’ve been using this software since version 2.1 and I loved it then. Every once and a while I would get an error (beta bugs) but when it worked, which was most of the time, it made me a very happy camper. A couple of weeks after I had installed version 2.1, Anthony released beta version 2.2 adding a couple of new features included search, which took this plugin over the top. Version 2.2 has since come out of beta and I can’t recommend it enough.

So why am I gushing about this app? Well for starters this program look fantastic. One thing that I can’t stand about some plugins is how damn ugly they are (live365 I’m talking to you). MyNetflix looks nearly identical to the Media Center interface, minus the moving wallpaper. Movies have cover art and full descriptions including: MPAA rating, genre, starring, user rating, and director. MyNetflix is on par with Microsoft’s own Internet TV beta in the looks category, but a little bit ahead in navigation.

Navigation is something that MyNetflix excels at. The entire interface can be easily navigated with a standard Media Center remote including search. I have a Gyration Remote which, for whatever reason, doesn’t allow me to enter text with the number pad, like my HP Media Center’s remote does. The fact that Anthony took problems like mine into account while designing the search feature is the sign of a true genius. Navigation is rather zippy as well–once the program loads–which is where MyNeflix dominates over Microsoft’s Internet TV.

If all this plugin did was allowed me to do was view my queue and add new movies to it, and looked great doing it, I would still install it, but MyNetflix doesn’t stop there. MyNetflix also allows qualifying accounts to access the Watch Now feature of Netflix from within Media Center, which is what makes this my dream app. After I set up Explorer in a usable fashion, I didn’t mind navigating Watch Now on Netflix with my Gyration remote, but now that Netflix is in my Media Center I us it twice as much.

For some time now the Media Center has been the hub of my home entertainment experience. The addition of MyNetflix has guaranteed its’ place in my home for a long to to come. There is always something worth watching on Netflix and now it’s easier then ever to find that something. If you have a Vista Media Center and a Netflix account you owe it to yourself to install this application.

I recently received an invite to the private beta of Hulu, the online video site. I only have basic cable, so I’m very interested in sites, and services, like Hulu. I’ve had some time to play with this beta and I’d like to share my thoughts on the subject.

What I like about Hulu:

The big thing that Hulu has going for it is that it works on both Mac and PC with little to no hassle. I’m also using Netflix’s streaming service which is only available on PCs and requires a plug-in install that I’ve had trouble with on one computer.

Hulu also has a fairly large content catalog. There are some great shows there. The episodes of Firefly, NewsRadio, and Doogie Howser, M.D. are enough to keep me content, in front of the television, for days on end.

Unfortunately, that’s about all Hulu has going for it.

What I dislike about Hulu:

I can’t stand the site itself. I Hulu on a Media Center computer connected to my television and it’s almost unusable. Starting from the Browse screen easies some of the navigational strain…momentarily. As soon as I click through on a show I want to watch, all I see is a damn picture. I end up scrolling down four pages just to find the episode I want to watch, if there is even a full episode. Which brings me to my next complain.

There are a lot of shows listed on Hulu that have only a couple episodes or none at all. When I first browsed the site I was amazed at what I was seeing: Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy. Unfortunately, between these three shows there are a total of eight full episodes. Futurama doesn’t even have one full episode so why even bother? These shows look good on the home page but that’s about all they’re good for.

I don’t think the video looks that great on Hulu. I’ve heard the same people that badmouth Netflix’s video quality praising the quality of Hulu. I’m not sure how this is possible, they look the same to me, but I’ve had Hulu skip and stutter more often then Netflix.

Hulu doesn’t support Media Center remotes at all. Even if I could click the OK button to pause the show I’d be happy, but there is nothing. I don’t expect to be able to navigate the entire site with a remote, but giving my remote a smidgen of functionality would be nice.

When it comes down to it, I really don’t like Hulu. I’ll probably keep using it to watch NewsRadio and Doogie but if those show end up on Joost or Netflix I’d much rather watch them there.

As I’m sure most of the world is aware, Netflix now offers unlimited streaming of some of it’s movie and television library. This new addition to their subscription service was apparently enough for me to sign up and start giving away another $9 a month. I had a chance to spend a couple of hours with the service and here are my initial thoughts on it.

First of all there is a little install process that must be done prior to enjoying your video content. This would appear to be a trivial task but, as with most things in my life, it didn’t work for me the first time around.

I tried installing the plug-in on a freshly installed and fully updated version of Vista Home Premium and was informed in my Explorer 7 browser that Windows DRM services were not working properly, and that there was a piece of software I could use to reset them. I ran the software which informed me that it had failed to reset my DRM services. “No big deal” I think, “I’ll just restart my computer, that will surely fix this little software misunderstanding.” This however was not the case.

After restarting my computer was plagued with warnings of digital tuners not being found and cable box software not running properly. This is all new to me, I don’t even have a digital cable or a box for that matter. I finally clear all the warning and reopen Explorer to enjoy some streaming goodness. “No sir, you will not!” says IE 7, every time I tried to play a movie the browser would crash.

At this point I figure it can’t hurt to give tech support a call, since I can’t find a link for the plugin on the Netflix site–so I can attempt to reinstall it. Unfortunately my tech lady couldn’t help me and gave me the hours and phone number of someone who could. I never called, I just started browsing the site and adding movies to my queue.

After a half hour of taking in what Netflix had to offer, my better half woke up to get ready for work, allowing me access to the other Vista PC in the house. I ran through the process again on this computer and had no problems whatsoever. The explanation I can find for my initial complications would to be that I had two tabs open, with Netflix in each. I believe this may have hung up the installation process part of the way threw hindered its’ completion (just a thought).

At last I’m ready to start streaming, and now from the comfort of my bed. I navigate to the instant play portion of the site and click play on the first thing I see “Pan’s Labyrinth” and seconds later it starts to play…then it stops. “What the shit,” I say ” this sucks sack!” I pause the stream hoping it may catch up, but it never does. I decided to give a little 30 Rock a shot and in seconds it starts up and away it goes, never skipping or showing any signs of lag.

After the pilot of 30 Rock I moved on to something a bit more demanding, a full length, 16:9 movie: Nightwatch. I press play and again it starts with little delay and never spits or stutters. I’ve heard people say the quality isn’t that great–and compared to HD I’d have to agree–but I think it looks better then a DVD played threw a PlayStation 2 (that’s good enough for me).

Even after all my installation hick-ups I think this service is great! The only thing that really disappointed me was the lack of a Media Center interface. I had heard Leo Laporte say something about watching Netflix streams from Media Center on TWIT this week, and kind of thought that was how it worked. This does not appear to be the case. It seems that the instant view service only works in Explorer which makes navigation a bit of a pain, and near impossible with a Media Center remote. Fortunate for me, I’ve a Gyration Media Center remote that acts as a mouse (much like a Wiimote) as well as a universal remote.

If Netflix moves this service into the Media Center, like Vongo and Movielink have, I believe they have a chance to corner the streaming movie market. Until then I see it as a bonus to an already great movie rental service.

After weeks of waiting, and debating about buying the full frame version, I was finally able to rent Hot Fuzz. I went into this movie not expecting a masterpiece, I liked Shaun of the Dead but it isn’t my favorite movie, and damned if I wasn’t rewarded. Hot Fuzz looks beautiful, it’s a very well made piece of cinema, and it’s funny as hell. It isn’t a real roll on the floor funny, it’s just amusing. There is a lot of puns and little jokes that I found funny but never brought me to tears. The plot of the movie is pretty good to and it moves along fast. Overall Hot Fuzz has been one of the best, not just comedies but movies in general that I’ve seen this year.

I rented some movies over the weekend. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to choose from so I ended up with a couple of new releases, the first of which was Premonition.

I have to be quite honest with you…I have no idea what the point of this movie was. About half way through Premonition I thought I knew how it was going to end. When it actually did end the way I had hypothesized I was elated, yet thoroughly disappointed. I always enjoy being right, but when it happens so early in the movie it leaves nothing to the imagination. Even though I knew how it was going to end I still didn’t really know what was going on. Why the hell were her days all messed up? And why didn’t the events of the days actually correspond to one another? I thought the overall events of the movie were suppose to all line up, they were just in the wrong order, but apparently that’s not the case (judging by the continuity inconsistencies), making the story even more useless.

The next movie on the stack was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This movie was also very disappointing for me. The story was missing all the things that I liked about the Turtles and added characteristics to the Turtles that took me out of the whole thing. Since when is “Raf” a thug? To be honest, I don’t remember what happened at the end of the last Turtle movie but I’m assuming that Shredder dies, ‘cuz he isn’t in this movie. I appreciate the movie makers trying to stick to the continuity of the previous movies (if that’s what’s going on), but I feel like it was the wrong thing to do. I could care less if Shredder died in the last movie, I still want to see him in this movie too. Bebop, Rock Steady, Shredder and Crang are as much a part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as the turtles themselves. A movie without the original villains just isn’t worth seeing. There is a hint at the end of the movie that Shredder will be back in the next movie so why couldn’t they just bring him back in this one and be done with it?

All-in-all a very unsatisfying week for movies. The movie I most wanted to see this week was Hot Fuzz, but it was all rented out and the store only had the fullscreen version.