Imagine my surprise when I woke up at noon to get the mail and found this little beauty in the box. At first I thought Netflix had accidentally sent me a third movie, or that they had sent me a third movie as a reward for renting quality films and not tying up precious copies of Under the Tuscan Sun.
Perhaps for these very reasons, Netflix included some text on the outside of the envelope to inform me that I was holding my Instant Streaming Disc for the PlayStation 3. It still seems a little silly that Netflix would print up special envelopes for these PS3 streaming discs. Do people routinely throw out extra Netflix envelopes that they receive in the mail? “Oh no, no, no. I didn’t sign up for another disc. Take your kindness somewhere else, Netflix.”
For the good of the Internet, I decided to take some unboxing pictures of my new instant streaming disc for the PlayStation 3. You’re welcome, Internet.
Netflix found three ways to tell people that this disc is for the PlayStation 3
The envelope is resting on the seat of my bicycle. I keep it around for when my mom comes over and starts asking questions about how much exercise I’m getting. I just point to the bike and say, “What do you think?”
This writing is handy for people who don't remember what they signed up for.
How many discs do you think are on the way back to Netflix right now because someone got done streaming an episode of One Tree Hill or something and wants to get the other episodes in the season? I wonder how many fuck-ups you get before Netflix refuses to mail the disc back. I mean, I could understand someone maybe sending the disc back once after watching Schindler’s List or something and being on emotionally-dead autopilot so the disc gets ejected, shoved back in the envelope, and thrown in the mailbox with a hollow sob, a hollow sob into the mouth of a whiskey bottle. But let’s be realistic — how many people can sit through Schindler’s List these days without stopping it to watch wrestling?
The assembly instructions for my life-sized Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle van had less warnings.
The inside envelope is also red to aid in organization for those people who have the 90 at a time plan or whatever and need an excel spreadsheet to monitor what’s in the mail to Netflix, what’s in the mail to the house, and what’s stacked in the physical queue by the computer for burning. I think these people might also watch movies, but I’m not sure.
Netflix took a gamble and went with the color red for the disc. I think it paid off.
For my readers who were hoping that the disc also came with a PlayStation 3 console — no luck. I had my doubts when I first saw the envelope, but I was optimistic that Sony had already released an even slimmer version of the PS3.
How It Handles
This section isn’t about how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle van handles. That handles just fine unless the steering wheel locks up and shatters your forearms. That’s only happened like once. Ok, twice. But the second time I was distracted by the police sirens.
I don’t have a fancy capture device hooked up to my TV because all my funds are tied up in … annuities? Does that make sense?
So you’re going to have to deal with some horrible pictures of the PS3 streaming experience. My TV also hates being photographed ever since it found those pictures I took on the Internet. It takes a long time to win trust back in a relationship.
This is the first comedy that came up. I feel like Netflix doesn't even know me.
There’s a pretty basic navigation menu that opens after you insert the disc and sync your PS3 up to your Netflix account. If you move up, you can scroll sideways to move through genres, the items on your queue, TV shows, movies, and new arrivals. Moving the cursor in the bottom section let’s you scroll through the available titles in the selected category. I only played with it for a few minutes, but I didn’t see a search window. Also, you can’t just hold down the cursor to scroll through content; you have to push the d-pad every time you want to move.
As you can see, Netflix needs to work on how they categorize movies.
Visually, the interface is basic but pretty slick. Your selection window acts like a magnifying glass as you scroll. You can’t see it in the picture because I handle a camera about as well as I handle a newborn, but every film lists the running time, rating, and whether or not it’s in HD.
How did Miller's Crossing only get three and a half stars? What the fuck is wrong with people?
After you click on a title, a little description windows pops up.
Unfortunately, Miller’s Crossing played in full screen which was confusing because I know they made a wide screen edition. Does Netflix not have permission to show the wide screen version?
Calling this "retrieving" is a little much, Netflix. I already love you more than my dog.
After you click “play,” Netflix loads up the selection. My internet is incredibly shitty. I renamed my wireless connection to “Hyrule Rulz” to try and discourage people from attempting to connect, but that didn’t help. I might have more people in my neighborhood that I can relate to than I originally assumed.
Even with my shitty internet, both Miller’s Crossing and The Proposition loaded up quickly and ran without a hitch. I expected a long loading time or some pauses for buffering, so I was pretty impressed.
So far, this PS3 streaming seems to work well. The content loaded quickly and HD titles looked pretty nice.
I hope there’s a search windows that I was too stupid to locate because manually scrolling through all the titles to watch something at the spur of the moment would be a bummer. There’s totally a search window. There must be one.
