About a week ago I received my disk from Netflix, and today, the
world is going to hear about my experience with it. First off, let it be
known that I do not own an HD television, so everything in this article
is from a standard-definition point of view. Now that we've gotten that
out of the way, onto the review.
The Netflix service has been around for quite some time now,
allowing people to rent movies in the mail without a late fee to be
seen, only paying one monthly payment to rent as many videos you can.
Now, on top of that, Netflix has released a disk to put into your Wii,
that allows you to stream movies directly to your TV. You are limited to
movies that are available to be viewed on your computer instantly, not
that that is an issue, as that is still a very large number of movies.
The selection is my favorite part of this disk. Between five
seasons of "The Office" (two of the British version), classic "Inspector
Gadget", and yes, "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show", the selection is
wonderful. There are loads of TV shows, and more movies that you can
shake a stick at. It would be easy for anyone to rack up hours on this
disk, there is always something to watch.
Yes,
the "Super Mario Bros. Super Show" is available to stream on your Wii
Netflix disk
Setting up the disk is a breeze, to say the very least. Once
you insert the disk and start it up, it walks you through the process,
which took me maybe 3 minutes. It was incredibly easy and quick. Movies
on your television look DVD-quality, and take about ten seconds to load,
even with my "nothing to brag about" Internet connection. Movies run
seamlessly on the console also, I have only experienced one or two skips
throughout my entire week of having the disk, and It's already obtained
60+ hours of use.
Netflix separates movies into several different categories,
and allows for 100 movies in each category at any given time. The only
exceptions to the 100 rule is your instant-queue, and recommendation
categories that pop up after watching movies. Unfortunately, your
instant-queue movies have to be loaded from the Website, then the Wii
disk instant-queue is updated. In the future it would be nice to be able
to add movies to your instant queue from the disk, outside of movies
that are displayed (you can add movies that the disk has onto the
instant queue, but if you want to watch something that you can't find on
the disk, then you have to go onto the Internet and load it into your
instant queue). A search function is also unavailable at the time, which
means that you have to scroll through hundreds of movies on your own.
Speaking of scrolling through movies on your own, Let's talk
controls. These are some of the simplest controls I have ever
experienced, and I love it. When searching through movies, you can use
the pointer to select a movie, and click on arrows to scroll through the
list. If you don't want to click on the arrows to move the selection
forward, you can also use the "+" and "-" buttons to scroll through the
list, much like changing pages of Wii channels. If you don't want to use
the pointer at all, you can use the D-Pad to scroll through each movie
individually, and the list will move automatically.
While streaming, Pushing the "A" button will pause the movie
and bring up the progress bar, where you can skip ahead, or choose an
earlier scene. when moving forward or backwards in the movie, there is a
bit of loading involved which is as long as when you loaded the movie
the first time.
Netflix
on the Wii is here. Its free, its easy, oh, and its amazing.
For those of you who want the disk, a Netflix unlimited
subscription (starting at $8.99 a month) is required to get the Wii
disk. The disk also does not count as one of the disks you have out, and
you never have to return it (actually they tell you not to
specifically). Aside from your subscription fee that you are already
paying, the disk will cost you absolutely nothing.
Is the Netflix disk worth it? To put it simply: The Netflix
disk on the Wii has made its way into my home, and has kidnapped my
heart and is writing a ransom note to my life. The good things about
this disk very heavily outweigh the bad. Anyone with a Wii and a Netflix
subscription should jump on this deal, you will surely not regret it.
mohamed19749 (358 points)
