My Xbox 360 Netflix Watch Instantly experience

After Microsoft and Netflix announced the Xbox 360 would receive streaming Netflix Watch Instantly support, I was excited, but was initially hesitant to sign up for the service.  After buying myself a new Xbox Live membership for another 12 months, I figured it was time to take the plunge and see how Xbox works.

New Xbox Experience (NXE) was released on November 19, and that is when Netflix began streaming HD content through the service.  If you’re an Xbox 360 owner wondering if you should sign up for the free streaming Netflix trial, then I’ll take you through the paces of activation and video quality I’ve had. 

Streaming service is just a fraction of Netflix overall movie catalog, although Netflix said its adding more movies to its library.  There are only around 300 high-definition films available through streaming Netflix — with most of the movies obscure, lesser known films — which is rather disappointing.

Registration for the free trial is simple enough, and must be done on a PC.  The Netflix panel in Xbox Live will give you a registration code that must be entered using a computer.  Entire registration took a matter of minutes and was a rather painless process.

After you’ve signed up, it’s time to find streaming content to add to the queue before you can watch anything.  The first time trying to find content is rather confusing and chaotic, but isn’t too bad once you get used to it.

I had a couple of Internet hiccups when I watched a movie for the first time, but considering it’s streaming content and didn’t happen too often, I’m willing to live with it to be able to watch Netflix movies on-demand. 

Movie navigation can be accessed using the Xbox 360’s controller, which allows users to pause, skip back, rewind, stop, fast forward, skip forward, go into display mode, change the language, and enter an information pane about content being watched.

Each time you fast forward, rewind, or do something else, you’ll have to endure a few second buffering time as the video catches up to where you’re navigating.

Interested subscribers must sign up for at least the $8.99 Netflix plan, which includes one DVD rental at a time on top of the streaming service.

Although streaming content through the Xbox 360 is still in its infancy, there are several changes I’m already anxiously awaiting from Netflix.  I’ll be ecstatic when it’s possible to browse for movies, add or remove movies from the queue, and read reviews of movies using the Xbox 360 without the need of a PC.

Like many of you, I’m also patiently waiting for Netflix to expand its streaming movie catalog, which is still rather unimpressive at the moment.

After watching Netflix through the Xbox 360 for a few days, I don’t honestly have any complaints about the service.  If you’re already streaming Netflix through your TiVo or Samsung Blu-ray player, you honestly shouldn’t feel the need to try and stream it through your Xbox 360 instead.