Silverlight 5 & Netflix - Page 3

Windows 8 will be HTML5 and probably will not have Silverlight at least like we know it, I would think Netflix knows this is preparing for the changeover. And since Win8 will be scalable you will be seeing it in all kinds of devices.

I'm simply relaying what the rep told me. The only thing I can add is the Rep mentioned her information was a from a 2010 document. We also only discussed Instant on the PC with Silverlight. It is possible the other platforms might have some H.264 streaming.

I'm sure if we look at all the Netflix devices that aren't computers including the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Roku, WD Live TV, TVs, BD Players - that list is growing. All of them may not equally support VC-1 as Netflix would like, so it makes sense that on certain devices they might be sending H.264

Further evidence points to some discrepancies between PC vs other devices on their website.

Signing into Netflix, and going to Instant -> High Definition

Top left I see, Gallery View, Sortable List, All HD, and HD for PC / Mac

All HD has 77 pages, yet HD for PC / Mac only has 60 pages. Seems odd they don't have the same amount of content available. I haven't tried playing something on the PC in the All section that ISN'T in the PC section. I'm curious though to see what happens. Certainly those 17 pages might be H.264 content available to the other devices but not on PC + Silverlight. I don't know.

From what I understand it has to do w/ licensing and not what format the streams are in but it may be that the streams that are licensed for other devices(I don't think all the other devices get all the same content) and not PC could all be H.264.

Have to give props to Silverlight 5, I've had it installed all of 3 days now. I know it's not meeting everyone's expectations, but for me SL5 is an upgrade.

I have Win 7 Ultimate 64x.
Running on a GeForce 9300 with 4670 Radeon.

Things where hit or miss using SL4, video acceleration didn't always kick in and at times video pans where not smooth.

Now with SL5, video acceleration has been working every time and I haven't seen a disturbing pan for some time during casual viewing. Come to think of it I should check a particular seen to test it .

My guess is SL5 addressed some SL4 bugs as well as adding just a little more capability. I suppose those needing full GPU acceleration are suffering, but I take this as a positive step forward.

Mike

That would be nice. I don't know if this is going to happen anytime soon. There seems to be some sort of issue with making a nice plugin for MCE that's not related to technological issues. More about making money, from selling specialized devices.

Mike

The Silverlight 5 RC beta has completely fixed my playback issues with netflix and WMC. Almost 100% smooth. Before I installed RC ver 5, I could barely stand watching content. So jumpy, jittery etc..

Another data point:

Using the SL5 beta linked in this thread.
Netflix skips and both cores at 100% on e350 Zacate when HD enabled. No skipping if HD unchecked, but cores still at 80%.

Everything fine on other rig, q9550, as expected.

Not promising

Does anyone know much about Silverlight development? Basically I'm wondering if this is automatic. EG SL5 automatically brings all the available features or does Netflix have to modify their website to be Silverlight 5 optimized. I might guess a little bit of both.

We might have to wait until weeks after the Final SL5 release. At that point I would hope any changes Netflix needs to make on their end would be done.

Whatever the link in the first post spat out as of 3 or so days ago when I grabbed it.

Is there any pro football watchers on here? The Sunday Night Football Extra Streaming from NBC uses Silverlight. It's horrible on my Zacate system. Both CPU cores shoot to 100%. Anyone with SL5 RC try it?

I'm on a 350 zacate build as well and having NO luck w SL5+netflix.

Pretty frustrating... everything else works perfectly.

I have an x360 but no xbl gold membership, is it worth the 60/yr for netflix? how's the audio/video quality and movie selection?

Cheers,

My Zacate will play it fine, but not with HD checked.

Does MS charge extra yearly just to access netflix??! That's about the one time price of a Roku. Selection and quality is pretty good on my HD Tivo. HD Netflix on a PC needs enough CPU to run in software (which Zacate/Atom don't have). It looks pretty good, but the catalog is smaller.

Thanks for the response.

In order to use the netflix app on x360 you need a gold membership which is 60/yr on top of the netflix membership. The gold membership gives you other functionality such as multiplayer gaming.

My zacate plays SD fine but anything over 1750 streaming is a slideshow. I was hoping to be able to play 720p+. The lack of 5.1 is very frustrating as well.

Technically not directly -- but you MUST have Xbox Gold which is about $60.

At this point, we can't be that far from the final release of SL5. I can't imagine it being much longer.

Netflix probably won't update their SL player with any changes until the final release of SL5.

Between SL4 RC and SL4 GDR was about 3 months.

SL5 RC was Sept 1, might as well give this another month or so. If HD still doesn't work after that, I'm going to a Roku, WD TV Live, or Google TV like Log Revue.

I'm very tired of waiting, but I really can't see it taking much longer. Now I can't begin to imagine how disappointed I'll be if it still doesn't work.

Interestingly, here's a Professional SL 5 book on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143...SIN=1430234792

Scheduled for release on Nov 14.

Great info Chomper! Thanks for sharing.

The underlying issue is that even after SL5 is released there is no guarantee they will enabled hardware acceleration for video.

no 1080p/5.1 for pc is a whole other debate too

Ugh. Yeah, in the back of my mind that possibility exists. I've just been thinking no way they could do that to us.

Netflix and MS has to get this working - Right?

It really doesn't make sense to me - if the Logitech Revue with it's Intel Atom works - THERE's NO excuses why Netflix cant make it work for our low powered HTPC!

It's because they don't care about PC playback. Not trying to be mean, but there it is.

It is telling that everything non-PC, even my phone and tablet, play Netflix better than most of the computers I've watched it on. Stop holding your breath. Btw, for anyone holding out for error free playback with win 8, people thought the same thing about win 7... ...then it was win 7 "if you disable aero"... etc. etc.

Also, for the people thinking about spending $60 a year for access on your Xbox, assuming you don't see the value in the other things an Xbox membership offers, you can just get a new Roku player and have better than PC Netflix playback with a one time cost of $60.

-Suntan

Thanks Suntan, will look into that Roku player.

Cheers,

Netflix on Linux?

http://benjaminkerensa.com/2011/07/3...nux-community/

While it seems unlikely, but it does point to a possible replacement for Silverlight. At this point Silverlight is in the minority of their players so perhaps they might port their Droid App to a full PC App or plugin. I'm not sure it will matter for me though, I have no desire to wait 10 months.

Doing some testing. Cores aren't completely pinned at 100 percent in HD, but nearly so (one in 60's, one high 90s). Audio not synced. Dropping up to 50% of frames. (amd zacate 350m)
edit: this same pc plays BR 1080p at ~30% core usage.

edit: intel q9550/amd 6850 plays at about 25% cpu, no drops

testing HD content: cores running at about 25-30% (load distributed very evenly); GPU (GTX560Ti) 5-10%; no frames dropped

loaded and runs fine for me...

Same here. SL5 is clearly doing more than SL4, but it's not there yet.

BTW, the SL diagnostics show the player url website as:
[...]SLPlayer5.xap[...]

Which drivers are you using? 11.10 and 11.11 both have broken accel problems. Haven't tried 11.8 with SL5, but I'm gonna try 11.12.

Lastly ... remember that SL5 only mentions H.264 support and nothing about VC-1.