Chris Riding

The Netflix Service,

Within the States, Netflix provides two services. The 1st is really a DVD-by-mail rental program where you pay a monthly fee and have DVDs mailed to your residence just like Zip.ca does here in Canada. Whenever you are completed watching the movies (you can keep them until your done watching them or decided to send them back), you return the movies back to Netflix. Once this is done Netflix will send you the next items that you have in your queue. Once the Netflix receives your returned movies, your next choices in your queue are mailed out to you. Netflix also provides a streaming service that lets you stream titles right to your TV or Netflix-enabled device for example a Blu-ray player, or even your Wii Here you’ll be able to pick from a more limited selection of movies and TV shows and watch them instantly without waiting for them within the mail.

Canada already has established DVD-by-mail services for example Zip. For this reason, Netflix won’t provide its base mail-order service to Canadians. Instead, it’ll offer a streaming service that permits Canadians to watch movies and TV shows instantly. The service will work on desktop computers, laptops, iPads, iPhones, newer TVs with the Netflix app built-in, also as the PlayStation three, Xbox 360 (coming soon) as well as the Wii.

The User Interface

Netflix on a laptop, iPad, and on the Xbox 360 and the experience was really comparable on every platform. When utilizing a pc you need to login with a username and password on the Netflix website to start. Once you login you’re taken to the home page which shows you your options of movies that you’ll be able to stream directly on your pc.

The movies are broken down into New Arrivals and Genres. New Arrivals will show you the latest titles to be added to the service in all of the main genres. This is really a sneak peek at what’s new across the board. The Genres category gives you a dropdown menu so you’ll be able to narrow down your searches based on the type of movie you want to watch. You can find 20 diverse genres to decide on ranging from Action and Adventure to Documentary.

The user interface is slick making it quite effortless to come across the movie you would like to watch. Every title comes up as a thumbnail showing you the movie poster and user rating below it. In case you click on the title, you might be taken to a details page where it is possible to read the movie synopsis, the actors in the movie and other user reviews. Below the thumbnail is the choice to play the movie of your choice. Clicking on this will instantly begin playing the movie inside your browser.

Movies might be viewed within your internet browser or it is possible to decide on whether you want to view them full screen-a significantly far better selection. Since the service streams the films, you do not need to wait for the whole movie to download. Within 20 seconds of pushing play, your movie will start. A play line is visible along the bottom of the screen allowing you to stop a movie, just as you would on YouTube. It is possible to also skip ahead and fast forward or rewind movies. Whenever you fast forward or rewind a series of thumbnails appear on the screen showing you where you might be inside the time of the movie. This helps establish how far you should rewind or advance through the movie, especially if you’ve seen the movie just before and you’re looking for a specific scene, just like if you were using scene select on a DVD.

Making use of Netflix on an iPad is really a comparable experience to that of a laptop; even so you need Wi-Fi to be able to use the service. My mom loves the fact that she will be able to watch movies on her IPad. And what is even more surprising she is the ripe old age of 73, and she loves all the things that she can do with her IPad, and now it is even more exciting for her, but back to Netflix. Netflix doesn’t run off of 3G which is possibly a great thing since it would price a tiny fortune in data charges. Even so, making use of Netflix on your Xbox 360 is really a diverse experience as it’s significantly far more streamlined.

Once you download Netflix to your Xbox you will have to register and you will be given as pass code. You ought to then go on the internet to your Netflix account and register your device making use of that code. As opposed to seeing the new releases and genres along the top of the screen, the Xbox version just gives you rows of movies split up into genres. Pressing up and down on your Xbox controller will change the genres and pressing left or appropriate will flick by way of the offered movies. Pressing the X button launches the movie you wish to watch. Within 30 seconds, you be watching your movie of your selection. It’s basic and it works well, and this is a feature that both my teenage son’s love, but maybe teens isn’t the word I should be using. I will say young adults, at 18 & 20 they should be on their way to adulthood. They both have their own tastes in movies and are very different, so to get them to decide on a movie that all of us can watch, that is a feat in itself.

The Quality of the Movies

Of the dozen or so movies and TV shows we watched on Netflix, I ought to admit I had been pleasantly surprised. The video top quality was very nice. We as a family never experienced any video stuttering throughout playback. The only issue that I can see in my household of 5 of us and I think we have about 15 electronic devices that can access the internet that it would be our network usage that would affect the quality of the picture and the overall performance of Netflix. Even when we skipped far ahead into a movie making use of the quick forward feature, the buffer was able to catch up within 10 seconds and start playing the movie without any difficulty.

A chosen number of Netflix titles are offered in high definition. Whilst it is possible to undoubtedly tell the movies and shows are up converted (not looking nearly as nice as Blu-ray) they’re still of very good top quality and quite effortless to watch. I would equate it to being the equivalent of a AVI file that has been downloaded and compressed. I’m not a fan of the up converting DVD players, the picture never looks quiet as crisp as it should especially on the larger TV screens. In our house we have a 42” Plasma as well as a 50” Plasma. When the picture starts to get grainy like in the up converting process the noise gets distracting.

The Selection

Here is where the Netflix begins to lose its shine. The selection of movies offered in Canada compared to the United States varies significantly! Actually I was shocked to come across out what our friends south of the border had been able to watch compared to us.

This is just a tiny example of the distinction you’ll come across in content between the two countries. It’s clear you’ll find distribution rights in Canada which is preventing Netflix from streaming the newer content which is offered inside the US. We have these issues on Cable TV where there are Black outs when some movies are being played, especially on the classic channels like Turner Classic Movies. The selection between Canada Netflix and the US Netflix just doesn’t compare. Of course this isn’t the fault of Netflix; rather, it’s the red tape in which the firm has to wade by way of to present programming. Gotta love all the governmental red tape in Canada, sometimes it seems endless.

The Bottom Line

Netflix has a brilliant and slick user interface to present streaming content to Canadians. The service is quick; the top quality is wonderful and at $7.99 for unlimited streaming it’s undoubtedly very good bang for your buck. Our biggest concern at this point is content. If 1 had to decide on between Pay Per View and Netflix, chances are Netflix will lose out each time. The initial run movies and shows just aren’t there. That being said, it will be interesting to revisit the service within a few weeks to see if it is up to par to what our friends south of the border currently appreciate. One can only hope. My other big concern with this is bandwidth that will get used up with this service, unless you have unlimited bandwidth, or unlike me have 3 kids and 2 adults who are constantly streaming music and video, playing games online, and general social media interactions, this could be an additional cost I might not be prepared to pay for.

Ok, I have to admit it; I have been waiting for a Green Lantern movie since I was a young kid reading comic books back in the 70’s. Growing up I kept most of my comic book collection, especially my Green Lantern collection and of course the Flash. Occasionally, I would take them out and take another quick peek at them, making sure they were boarded and put in their plastic sleeves. When I had enough cash I had my own Green Lantern power ring made for me, a one of a kind. It was perfect that my birthstone is peridot. I had it custom made by a jeweller friend. I got a few odd looks seeing that Green Lantern is not a main stream character. I could only imagine what it would be like to see a live action movie of my favourite super-hero growing up, and now even my imagination couldn’t come close to what I have seen in the new trailer for Green Lantern. I am awestruck.

There is a distinct hint of Iron man in the new debut trailer for Green Lantern, which hit the internet earlier this week. A Cocky hero plunged unexpectedly into an Inter Galactic Police Force and needed to shape up to new duties? Check! Rousing heavy rock soundtrack? Yes Sir. Attractive female discarded with wisecracking indifference? Yes, Green Lantern even borrows an early scene from Jon Favreau’s 2008 film.

Who would have thought that a movie about a fairly minor comic book hero would end up creating entirely new vision for the genre? Camp is out; sarcasm and bemusement are in when it comes to superheroes these days. More serious yes…less caricature, but still not taking everything seriously. It should be fun, and that’s exactly what it looks like to me.

Unfortunately for director Martin Campbell and studio Warner Bros, what Green Lantern doesn’t have is Robert Downey Jr, Instead, studio execs have lined up Ryan Reynolds, who despite his newly attained status as People magazine’s sexiest man in the world, it seems many people don’t think that Ryan Reynolds has quite the same devilish charm. I on the other hand, after seeing the trailer thinks he just might be the actor that can pull this off. The studio is banking on it, but it’s the fan that will make the final decision if he is fit to wear the ring.

Aside from the post-modern irony, however, it’s good to note that Green Lantern hasn’t tried too hard to modernise. Campbell promised that there would be an air of Flash Gordon about his movie, and there’s a definite sense of bombast to the costume design and make-up. Abin Sur, the dying extra-terrestrial who gifts Hal Jordan (Reynolds) the green ring which both endows him with miraculous superpowers and ties him to a life as a sort of interplanetary cop, does look a bit like a Predator without the mandibles, but we’ll let that go for now. I for one is disappointed that the white gloves are not part of the uniform, I am willing to overlook this for now, it’s not going to make or break the movie, although it might be distracting. Some of the CGI also looks a little cheap, but that could be due to the fact that the movie’s not out until next summer. The mask, I am still undecided on. I want to go into this without the hype and keeping an open mind.

Many bloggers have, however, complained that the trailer focuses too closely on Jordan, and therefore Reynolds, whereas the original comic books were a multi-stranded, galaxy-spanning saga taking in hundreds of characters. That seems a little naive: the hard facts are that few cinemagoers have any kind of clue about who the green Lantern is at all, and Reynold’s star power was always going to be the fuel driving this thing. The only reason this movie is getting made is due to the remarkable success of other comic book films at the box office over the past few years. It was never going to be treated as a totemic entry into the superhero canon, and I personally have little argument with that. Even though Green Lantern, in my eyes a first rate superhero.

The villain for the new film will be Parallax, aka Dr Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) a scientist who discovers the fragments of a strange meteor that causes his brain to grow to enormous size, granting him psionic powers. The cast also consists of Mark Strong as Sinestro, Jordan’s mentor and later enemy within the comics. Blake Lively plays really like curiosity Carol Ferris, 1 of Jordan’s fellow check pilots.

Iron man proved that you simply do not must adapt 1 with the far better recognized superhero sequence so that you can make a good movie, and I feel the jury’s possibly nonetheless out on Green Lantern. With luck, it will be a kind of superhero movie with lots fan boy allure but not an excessive amount that will exclude the regular population, or the no fan boys who just want to see a good superhero movie. In the end that is all we could hope for, another entertaining movie.

Netflix in Canada – A Canadian Review of Netflix

Green Lantern – Long Over Due

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