Netflix Adds Watch Instantly Queue

Netflix added a second queue to organize your Watch Instantly titles. Brent on the Netflix Community Blog explains the new Instant queue feature:

Today we added an additional Queue to your Netflix account - the Instant Queue. This Queue lets you keep a list of the movies & TV episodes you want to watch instantly on your PC. We’ve set it up for you by adding all of the titles from your DVD queue that are available to watch instantly.

Of course you can also add titles to the Queue yourself. Find titles that are available to watch instantly by clicking the Browse Instant tab on the Netflix website, or by looking for the blue Play buttons across other parts of the site. Click a Play button to watch instantly on your compatible PC, or mouse over the Play button and click Add to Instant Queue to save the title to your Queue and watch it later.

One nice feature is the availability column, which shows when Watch Instantly titles will expire. Here's a screen capture of mousing over the "Play" button, which enables you to add the movie to your Instant queue.

What do you think of the Instant queue?

Thanks to Chris, Sean, and Leigh for sending this in.

Comments

[JohnnyBob]

It SUCKS! I don't watch anything instantly, so it just takes up space. The text size on the queue page was further reduced, now requiring a microscope to read it.

[Matt]

I knew someone would manage to find something to complain about. This is an axiom of web design: if any page on Netflix (or wherever is changed), then everyone else is obligated to gripe about it. Good thing the page isn't updated by this committee or we'd still be stuck in 1997.

That said, I like the change, since it provides a useful place to store movies I might like to watch under different circumstances than a DVD.

[Stezton]

I'm really happy with it. I watch about as may instant movies as dvds so it's exactly what I had been hoping for.

[Twerpette]

It's welcome! Members have been suggesting this for months. It seems nicely integrated; I esp. like the split Add/Play buttons throughout.

Corollary of web design: For any feature that appears, well-designed, after months of user solicitations, there will be some bozo who makes the first posting with the first two words "It sucks!"

[snowmaiden]

I love it! Previously I've had a whole section of my queue devoted to things that were available online, and now that that's transferred over to the instant queue, I was able to delete 26 things from my main queue, which makes me feel very virtuous.

Also, nothing on my instant queue is scheduled to expire, so I'm not sure exactly what that part looks like, but I'm glad to know that theoretically I will know that ahead of time. (I wonder how much advance notice we'll get?) As I've said here before, I have a knack for having things expire on me right before I get around to trying to watch them.

[Adam]

LOL @ Johnny Bob and Matt. I cant believe anyone would complain about it.

[Complication]

Netflix did the auto-fill thing for me. Funny though, King Corn comes up as "Release Date: TBA". Since my normal queue has that as "Very Long Wait", maybe the digitizing department at Netflix is having trouble getting the title on their Netflix queue.

I like the strides they are making with Watch Now but I find most titles non-watchable. I have standard DSL which comes up as "Basic" when I bother to switch from Firefox to IE. I wouldn't mind having to wait for the download if Netflix could just let ME choose the quality I wanted to watch. For now, I only use it for stand-up comedy titles where hearing is more important than seeing.

[Ann]

This is really neat. I love it when the company I'm doing business with seeks to improve my experience with them. Nice work, Netflix.

[Harrison]

I don't know if it's just me, but I've had the Instant Queue for awhile.

[Dona]

I'm delighted with the Instant Queue. I was hoping they would add a feature that let us make a list of the titles we wanted to watch instantly. They did. I'm happy.

[Britain]

Nice idea but not fully implemented - would be much better if multiple-episode items (like TV shows) had each episode show up individually. Would be much easy to track which episodes you have watched.

[Hoot]

It shouldn't appear on the screens of Mac users. Can't watch them anyway.

[Reese]

I think it's a good idea, but it could be better. I could do without the "Recently watched" portion among other things.

[Gowan]

The only thing I'd like better is if the movies in the Watch Now queue didn't still appear in your regular queue. However, you can manually remove them from your DVD queue and they'll stay in your Watch Now queue.

[MitchSchaft]

Nice, I was wondering if they would add this option. I love it!

[Scott]

Cool. I actually had set up a separate profile just for my Watch Instantlys, because I wanted them off my queue (i.e. I didn't want them to ship them to me), but was then surprised to find that Watch Instantly wasn't available except on my main profile! (Is that a known issue?) So this solves my problem perfectly.

[Gowan]

Now if only they'd allow subqueues to use Watch Instantly. I set up a second queue to keep television DVDs in, but it "isn't eligible" for Watch Instantly for some reason.

[Jon]

Just having access to the availability date is pretty awesome. There have been a few times where I queued things up and they vanished before I could watch them.

[Chris]

One thing that no one has mentioned is could this be designed to get users ready for the set top box Netflix players? No doubt, finding movies on your TV is slower and clunkier than on your computer. Now that Netflix has a separate Watch Instantly Queue it could (ideally) download the top 3? movies in your queue so that they are available for instant and highest quality viewing. When you finish with one movie, the next movie in your queue then begins downloading. This way you don't have to spend as much time searching for movies and they are already instantly available in the highest quality. Of course you should still have the option to view other movies but they might not be in the highest quality then and it may be more annoying to find them.

[SB]

Yes, I'd like to second what was said above--I wish that the quality of Watch Instantly movies could be better using standard DSL, at the "basic" level. Right now it's almost, but not quite, good enough to watch. (By contrast, shows streamed from Hulu, for example, on the same system, look much better.)

Re the new queue, maybe I'm in the minority, but I'd like it better if you could click "Add" once and have the title added to both queues.

[jimofoz]

I'd be more impressed if Watch Instantly titles were available on the Mac. As it is, this is just wasted space on my screen.

[nipsey russell]

thumbs up on the concept, been wanting this for a while. now i'll see how it is in practice

[Matt]

I can see this being a prelude to a Netflix set-top box/xbox 360 streaming. Bring it on!

[~D]

Hey SB, if you want to change your video quality, once the movie you want to see comes up, once with your mouse left-click on the lower black region, then hold Shift+B (Bitrate) and a toggle menu will drop down so you can change the quality to higher, I forwarn you though, because of how Netflix has to do security to comply with the wises of the production studios you are only allowed to have 15mins of the movie buffered @ any given time, even though it might show more on your bottom bar don't be fooled, you only get 15mins. This is why netflix runs the speed test in the first place, but if you're willing to live with the buffering then merry christmas, you can have DVD quality now.

BTW, anyone else notice Netflix has HD streams available, try playing the first episode of heroes season 1 and you can turn it up to 5500kbps (which is an HD stream) it looks Really pretty on my system. Everyone else should check it out using Shift+B

[Complication]

~D = My Hero