Netflix Streaming

I got a second-generation AppleTV a while ago when there was a $10-off sale, but frankly hadn’t used it too terribly much, except for routing media from the laptop to the AV system. However, I’d promised my younger daughter that we’d watch the Star Trek canon this summer (she’d seen a few of the better movies [II, IV, VI, and the reboot] and was eager to see more). I was especially eager for her to catch up with DS9, so we signed up for a one-month free streaming trial of Netflix.

I should note that we had a Netflix subscription back in San Diego when I was in grad school (around 2000), so it was interesting to return a decade later. One of the reasons why we cancelled the DVD subscription in the first place (besides the expense) was that there seemed to be a slowdown in processing time after a while, and the waits between DVDs were often excruciating. The streaming option, while restricted to older titles (and likely restricted to far fewer once the content deal Netflix had with Starz expires) works spectacularly well… far less lag or delay than I feared, with a pretty good interface and perfectly adequate video quality. The iPad and iPhone clients are also better than I expected, and the output through the iPod HDMI connector is a nice bonus for travel. And their “suggestions for you” area has been frighteningly accurate.

However, as it turns out, for some reason they had every Star Trek series EXCEPT DS9 (which won’t arrive until October) so Summer was Founder-free. Mystery Science Theater 3000 made it all better, though.