Nintendo Wii to Get Netflix Streaming Too

What about HD content? Ohh wait...

Wonder how the quality will look, probably will trail behind the Xbox and PS3.

they be stupid not to include the the #1 console. even though the wii can be nothing but a DVD player with progressive scan.

I wouldn't waste my time using my Wii for this. The Wii has a very limited amount of memory and no hard drive for caching. Much better to wait for the Wii 2.0 or what ever they are going to call it.

I've already tried using my Sony Bravia iLink for this and the picture quality was not that great, not to mention the periodic stops for buffering.

I'd much rather just stick to using my Multi-Monitor setup with Windows Media Center on my TV via HDMI cable to watch NetFlix. The picture quality is as good as cable if not better and there is no interruptions when watching my videos.

***The Rating TROLLS are Out Again!***

I'm not sold on streaming yet. SD maybe, HD, no. A 1080P VOD through DirecTV takes some time to download at 10mbps (~4.4GB/hr at best). If I recall, DVD is ~7mbps. So until broadband is faster and cheaper, I'll wait. And my 10mbps service slows to 2mbps in the evening. "Capacity issue" they claim, and only do their testing during business hours when no one is home to use it.

what the hell. why all the negatives. They are valid points. Im giving +1's to everyone on here.

I have a Wii and Netflix, soI will try it. Why not? Its free with my Netflix account. Looking forward to it.

So now only xbox360 is at disadvantage because xbox live is not free.

Glad to see this feature available on the Wii, but I'm not sold on streaming either. I get around 25 mbps down and would still probably take about 30-45 minutes to download an SD movie. I can't imagine the wait time for an HD movie.

Besides I kinda enjoy the walk to the movie store, and with these download speeds it's faster than streaming!

I will say this about HD vs SD: the better the movie (you know, old fashioned stuff like meaningful plot, themes, motifs, interesting characters, quality acting) the less I pay attention to the HD. Don't get me wrong, there are some really great movies that still come out, but I feel that many movies nowadays are crap and we use HD to hide it.

Have a Blu-ray player that streams netflix movies. My blu-ray play has no memory and I watched Heros in 1080p last night on my TV. If the blu-ray player can stream just find on comcast then then Wii shouldn't have a problem.

I have a Wii and PS3 and just started using the streaming for PS3. I watch LOST in 720P and it works amazing. It looks like CRAP when it runs in 480P if it picks up a bad connection (I just restart it and it goes to 720P).

There are so many otpions that it gets downright confusing.

Cool. Although that's lame that you have to insert a disc every time you want to watch netflix. That should be something you only have to do once and in the future you can just select a netflix channel on the wii menu.

Now if only they'd add netflix to the WD TV Live...

That isn't what streaming means, you don't download the whole thing. Plus, you're comparing DVD bitrates, which is just silly, as DVDs use outdated MPEG2. Even on a lower profile, H.264 can match DVD at a MUCH lower bitrate, ike 1/3 of the bandwidth for the same quality (assuming both were encoded from identical RAW sources).
Also if your connection is poor, Netflix can reduce the resolution and/or bitrate for you.

Again, that's not streaming. Streaming is like Hulu or Youtube. Netflix does that but for movies and TV shows, and good quality. It starts playing almost immediately.

Yeah except your blu-ray player can decode and display high resolution H.264 - since both blu-ray AND netflix use this codec! The Wii doesn't have a lot of horsepower so it wouldn't be decoding 1080p H.264. Not to mention even if it could, it doesn't have HD output, so you'll be limited to 480p no matter what you do. Not even close to what your blu-ray player can do!

That was a bad move on M$ part as they tried to make more money. A netflix account is totally independent from a Xbox Live account so they shouldn't force you to pay for Xbox Live so you can use a Netflix account that you already paid for.

Ah I see. Wouldn't it take time to buffer though? How quickly does Netflix upload from their servers?




You can connect the Wii using component cables, although it is through some proprietary hookup....maybe it is possible to get 720p? That would be one hell of a system update if Nintendo can pull it off.

Netflix streaming on the PS3 takes about 8 seconds to buffer an HD episode of LOST and never skips.

The Wii can not put out 720P.

Yeah I know. Just some wishful thinking for a future system update.

It seems like the known specs for the Wii GPU are at least as good as those of the original Xbox GPU, which can output at 720P and 1080i. So what is holding back the Wii?

Personally, I use the original xbox (at 1080i) to stream Netflix, Hulu, etc., and rarely see any problems.

The Wii is not capable of outputting anything higher than 480p. It appears to be a hardware limitation, not something correctable in software. In contrast, the update for the 360 (for 1080p) was made possible by the hardware scaler/output chip of the 360 supporting 1080p.

Anyway, the original Xbox will seriously struggle with higher resolution and/or higher bitrate H.264 videos. Even at more moderate settings, complex scenes can cause XBMC to crap out. The Wii might fair a little better if they really code to the metal, but its still not enough for high bitrate or 1080p, especially with complex scenes. It could probably do OK at 720p for *most* content, if it could output 720p.

Well, I really don't see many problems with XBMC and Netflix; I doubt they are using high bitrate movies. I haven't tried streaming high bitrate movies directly to my Xbox from my PC.

Anyway, I still think the Wii hardware could output 720p in 2D (PC video cards have been able to output 2D at over 720p for a long time), but the high-bitrate video decoding and game graphics are more likely the problems. And because the games cannot output at that resolution, then you would have to switch your TV resolution every time you changed modes (video playback -> games) on your Wii. That problem with switching is one hypothesis as to why they only allow 480p anyway.

It does seem a little funny that my DVD player can output at higher resolution (1080p) and with mpeg-4 files, and the Wii can't even come close to either...

It looks like some Netflix customers have received their disks and are streaming movies already.

Some have complained about the setup being confusing, and others are saying that they are quite pleased with the quality.

I think the best thing to do is just wait to hear from those who are testing the service. Eventually, we'll get more feedback from Wii owners and that will help others decide on whether or not they want to give Netflix streaming a try.

I have started using the Wii for streaming Netflix and it is great and no hassle to hookup just do it folks and quit whining about it.The Duke