Netflix: Watch Movies Instantly On Your PC/Mac

Scenario: You like video-on-demand, but not when it costs 5 bucks per movie
Solution: Netflix "Watch Now" feature lets you watch their library of 12,000 movies instantly for a monthly fee



Humans can be very spontaneous, impulsive creatures which is precisely why QVC and Internet porn are multi-billion dollar businesses.

Take movies for example. On many a night I've felt the urge to watch a film or TV show and right now I can do that via my cable company's Movies on Demand service. But they're (in my case Verizon) charging me between 3-5 bucks per movie for the privilege and over the course of a month that can soon add up.


Then along came Netflix who - at least partially - solved the problem. For those of you not familiar with Netflix (they've been around for over five years now) you pay a monthly subscription fee and in return Netflix sends you DVDs in the mail. Each DVD is in a pre-paid envelope and when you've finished watching you simply put it in the postbox, and once Netflix receives it they send you the next DVD on you queue - which you create at their website Netflix.com.

The subscription options range from $8.99 per month which allows you to rent an unlimited number of DVDs per month, but only have one DVD in your possession at any one time to $16.99 per month which allows you to have 3 DVDs out at any one time. There are more plans but these are two of the most popular.

While this service is great, you still have to actually wait for the movies to arrive in the mail and thus the impulsive element of wanting to watch a movie is not catered for.

That all changed last year when Netflix released a "Watch Now" service which lets you - for no extra charge to your subscription plan - watch movies and TV shows directly on your laptop. You simply log-in to your account, browse their "Watch Now" library, and then sit back and watch your movie.

This is a very cool service and perhaps the best part is that you can watch an unlimited number of movies/TV shows for no-extra charge. So if you wanted to sit through all 3 seasons of The Office in one day, go for your life. The quality of the movies/TV shows is generally good - although it should be noted NOT HD - but I've found in many cases it's almost as good as watching a DVD on your laptop.

Now to the drawbacks, and there are a couple. Firstly, Netflix carries a library of 100,000 DVDs but only about 12,000 are available on Watch Now. This number is growing every day, but some of the latest movie releases are not available - so don't expect to instantly be accessing all the new DVD releases on your laptop. But nevertheless 12,000 is still quite impressive and I've found that for watching Television shows or movie classics, it's really hard to beat.

I strongly believe that DVDs are going down the same path as CDs - within 10 years they'll be non-existent and everything will be delivered via the Web. Netflix has taken a first, important step on this journey and I think over the next 12-24 months we'll be seeing more and more interesting developments in the Web-based video on demand services (such as set-top boxes that connect directly to your TV, which is a subject for a future posting!).