DME ResourcesThe new Xbox 360 dashboard released earlier this week is a total overhaul with a bunch of new features, most notably the on-demand streaming HD video via Netflix. Yeah, the new design layout is "cool", the new Wii like avatars are neat, the Xbox LIVE Party feature somewhat interesting, copying complete games to your hard drive could be handy, yada, yada, yada. The Netflix integration and partnership is definitely the new killer ap for the Xbox, and quite possibly a saving grace for Netflix.
About two months ago I cancelled our Netflix account as we hadn't used it in, well, over a year! We've had our DVR's and on-demand HD via Time Warner for a few years now, and subsequently we began using Netflix less and less. When I cancelled the account I thought, "Wow, first the rental stores and now Netflix; that was a pretty short life cycle." Then Thursday night after returning from an out-of-town trip and tucking the family in to bed, I renewed our Netflix account about two seconds after firing up the new Xbox 360 dashboard.
What I've always loved about the 360 is its networking capability, allowing me to stream content from any of the XP or Vista machines on my network right to the big screen in the family room. Truth be told that's the primary reason I personally wanted the 360, although I'm certainly not opposed to playing a game or two occasionally. Outside of that though, the video marketplace on Xbox LIVE turned out to be a big letdown, with the primary problem being that you had to download the entire file to the Xbox. Even with a 4+ Mbps download connection movies seem to take forever, and by forever, I mean hours! Netflix, however, streams the video to your Xbox and the picture quality of the video is not just good, it's stunning.
I was so blown away with the quality of the Netflix HD video streamed via the 360, I went back and verified my entire connection path for each HD source. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't inadvertently throttled down the HD source from Time Warner, even though I knew I hadn't. Both the DVR and the 360 are component connected using high quality Monster component cables. I went back and forth between both sources scratching my head and the bottom line is, the Netflix stream looks substantially better than most of the HD channels served up via my Time Warner connection. What's really fascinating is that even the SD content streamed from Netflix via the 360 looked amazing.
I know many HD channels/networks are only using 720p (a few actually use 480p and call themselves HD). I also know that my Time Warner HD DVR doesn't have 3 powerful processors to upscale SD content; but if you check out Netflix via the 360, I'm pretty sure you'll agree with me that it should.
