It's Official: Get Netflix on your Xbox 360

Posted By: Larry Larsen | Jul 14th, 2008 @ 2:19 PM

This morning we announced support for Netflix service as being built-in in an upcoming software update to 360 service. As C|Net points out, there have been some workarounds for this in the meantime, but this solution will allow you to stream natively and without a dedicated Media Center PC.

Also announced is a shared movie experience that will let you watch a movie at distance with up to 7 friends at once. Major Nelson promises more details on this later today.

Tags: movies, Xbox

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Comments (4)

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wetworker
PIXEL PUSHER

How about some love for the zune. port some of that good stuff over.

jscarano

Very Nice!

No if only Netflix adds some content that is worth watching. Now that would be something.

chaoticjelly

Ok, I actually dropped Blockbuster and switched to Netflix SOLEY to use the 360 and HDTV for streaming.... However, I dont like to wait... When is the update???

c0rk

Been using vmcNetFlix to stream Netflix movies from my Vista Ultimate (Media Center) to my XBOX 360 Media Extender for some time, and I'm thrilled to hear that they're bringing full support to the XBOX 360 Dashboard w/ the fall update. I also use the XBOX 360's media connect features to watch back all my podcasts and other downloaded video content -- big win to be watching on my 42" Plasma rather than my PC monitor.

Now I have HULU on XBOX 360 thanks to www.themediamall.com's PlayOn BETA. This program runs as a service on my Vista PC and creates a 'virtual' media source which appears on my network connected XBOX 360. Once I connect to the PlayOn video source, I'm able to browse several video sites for streaming content including HULU. Playback is not instant (about 10-15sec of buffering before video begins) but videos run without interruption. It appears to be the full catelog of HULU videos. Image quality is definately not HD, but I'm not going to complain if I can watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report streaming for free on my XBOX.

The combination of the Netflix streaming service with the HULU access granted by PlayOn has made life without XBOX a frightening thought. I should also note that the PlayOn application indicates that it will also work w/ PlayStation 3 and HP MediaConnect televisions - I have not tested these b/c I do not own either.

I highly reccomend checking out this application if media streaming for XBOX interests you. They offer a 60-Day Trial of PlayOn, and I think the unlocked application will be offered once they're out of BETA.