I enabled Netflix Watch Now last night and for the first time in my life had the pleasure of watching Cool Hand Luke. And I do mean pleasure. Everything about the experience was great, with the small exception of being required to use internet explorer (even 7 sucks).
Here’s how it works: If you’re a Netflix subscriber head to the page, login and click “your account”. On the right there is an icon that says “How can I watch movies on my PC?” click “Start Now” and you get a new tab at the top called “Watch Now”. Hit that tab and you’re rollin’.
It’s not perfect. It doesn’t have all of Netfix’s catalog available, far from it. After about 10 minutes I’d paged through nearly everything available which could take days in their DVD section. But there was enough that I hadn’t seen (and wanted to see) to keep me busy for a long, long time. Well… 15 hours a month in my case as that’s the alloted time for my subscription level (one hour for every dollar per month).
After choosing Cool Hand Luke I hit “play” and internet explorer prompted me way too many times to allow some crap and it finally started. I moved the window over to my standard definition TV (480i) connected to my PC with an S-Video cable, hit full-screen and let ‘er rip.
There are three levels of video quality available that are determined for you basic, good and high. The qualification for which level you get is based on your connection speed. Basic = 500 kbps (the one I get), Good = 1.0 mbps and High 1.6 mbps or better. I imagine there are few people with the 1.0 mbps connections out there and far less with the 1.6 but that’s what they offer. I’d like to see the ability to choose you’re quality and just let the thing buffer more but I have to say that the quality of Basic was better than I expected. I’m sure it wasn’t DVD resolution, but I really couldn’t tell–it was that good. I wish they divulged what the different qualities actually meant but I’m not complaining that much–there’s just a failure to communicate… with the user.
Now where did I put those eggs?
By American standards, Kim Sam-Soon is thin. She is not as thin as one of her co-stars, but she is by no means ugly. It is almost like the ABC series Ugly Betty in that everyone seems to think the lead character is a fat hog when in fact all the regular folks watching can clearly see that this is not the case. If you disagree with me, just take a trip to your local Wal-Mart and check out the 
I cannot begin a review of a 