Netflix Now Streaming HD Movies to PCs & Macs

A Netflix representative confirmed that Netflix is now streaming more than half of all HD titles to PCs and Macs in HD. To tell if a HD streaming title is available for HD streaming on a PC, mouse over the title and look for the words "HD available" in the Format section.

 

Thanks to Jeff for sending this in.

Comments

[Xaionik]

Bout time!

[Crow550]

Do PC users have an HD Genre now?

Check under Genres. Between Gay & Lesbian and Horror. You'll see HD.

[ABdozen]

Do the movies automatically play in HD or do I have to enable some setting?

[Jeff]

Awesome news!

[Richard]

OK, can anyone confirm this...because I don't want to pay $9 to find out someone is pulling my leg.

It's always said "streaming (HD available)", but that doesn't mean HD is available on the PC...it just means HD is available on other Netflix enabled devices, such as the Roku.

If it is true, what format is the HD title in, and does it include Dolby Digital audio?

[Richard]

OK, so why did Netflix just tell me there's no streaming HD on the PC?

Who is this "Jeff", and why is he getting my hopes up?

[bob]

Yeah...not showing up on MY computer. There isn't an (HD available) note on anything in my queue, including the same title you show above.

[Netflix fan]

Saw the HD Genre last week and didnt think it was for streaming HD on my MBP. Now that I find out it is for HD streaming, it is no longer on the Genre list. What gives?

[Bamboo]

I wonder if they are doing some kind of delayed rollout to test things. I even looked up The Office Season 5 like in the pic above and don't have HD showing up.

[PatB]

Just a few years ago I had a 20" TV in my bedroom and a 21" CRT monitor for my PC in my den. At that time it might have made some sense for me to worry about HD streaming on my PC. However I now have a more modern and more typical configuration. I have a 22" 16:9 flat screen PC monitor and a 110" projection screen on which I can watch Roku mediated NetFlix WI movies.

Why would I ever want to watch a streaming movie on my PC? I can clearly see the difference between SD and HD from NetFlix on my big screen. I wonder if I could see a difference on my PC?

So while I expect that HD will someday soon be available on PC connections, I hardly see how its current absence is much of a limitation.

I also want those who complain about the lack of 5.1 sound for WI HD movies to just shut up. You want 5.1 sound, I want 5.1 sound, and of course NetFlix wants to sell you 5.1 sound. It just isn't avaliable yet. By this time next year many if not most NetFlix HD movies will have 5.1 sound. As I understand it 5.1 encoding has had a problem with Digital Rights Management.

Some commenters here seem to think NetFlix is purposely torturing its customers because they are evil.

[bob]

@PatB

It's quite simple: many people hook their computers up to their TVs. Why would I spend hundreds of dollars on a TV with Netflix built in, a Blu-ray player, or some other piece of hardware, when a $5 HDMI cable will send HD content from my computer to my TV?

[Marshall]

Can't seem to find HD here either. Is Jeff leading us on a wild goose chase?

[John Kimble]

Seems to be working just fine for me, tried out Enron: Smartest guys in the room, HD loaded up perfectly don't know whats going on with everyone else here.

[Bob]

@bob @PatB

I have my old laptop hooked up to my 52" tv via an old monitor VGA cable so it didn't even cost me the $5. My PS3 is hooked up via HDMI and my Wii via component but I'm used to using my PC browser so adding HD to PC wold be a definite plus.

[A Movie A Day (A.M.A.D.)]

Yea, there was a HD genre for instant streaming, and the specifications for said streaming. But there is the 'HD available' within the 'format available' listing for some titles. All this is confusing to a point. Even instantwatcher.com has some titles that are listed as HD that is not listed by Netflix as HD and vice versa.

If you want to take my definition of HD material on Watch Instantly as "Anything that is not provided by Starz Play", go right ahead.

[John Dover]

I now get the tooltip indicating if a title is HD, but no HD playing of content on my laptop... It will be interesting to see if anyone is actually able to replicate this story.

[Shawn]

It works for me but it doesn't look like HD to me, looks the same as the SD version on my PC.

[thats_right]

To get HD working, you need to have enough bandwidth to have the player pull down the HD stream. You also need the screen opened up large enough that it makes sense for the player to attempt to play the HD stream (in other words, the player will not try to play a 1080i stream in a 800x600 window).

There's a key/mouse combo you can do that will allow you to see what bitrate you're playing. I forget what it is, but you can google it, or wait for someone else here to post it.

[Nat]

Ctrl-Shift-Alt-S will show your buffering rate; I still am just seeing 500, 1000, and 1500 as options.

[Scott]

Sure didn't look HD, how do you get it to show video resolution info? Ctrl-Shift-Alt-M shows plenty of toys but not rez

[Dan]

uhh.... I've been streaming HD to my roku box for months, several TV shows and movies have been available.

Is it just new for pc and mac? or just that half the titles are now HD?

[bob]

Dan - Roku has been HD for a long time. Computers have never been HD, hence the very clear headline.

[Reuel Alvarez]

this doesn't work. the hd genre is now available in the instant play menu, but not all those listed have "hd available" under format in the popup. this doesn't make any sense. all titles under the hd genre should have hd available under format. even if you pick one IN the hd genre that HAS hd available, it still plays in non-hd.

[xing]

doesn't show up for me either. under genre goes right from fag flicks to horror - no hd. also no mention on the movies info same titles as above

[bob]

Called Netflix; explained what I'd been reading here. The customer service rep seemed to have no idea what I was talking about, and merely speculated that IF people were reporting various stages of HD features, then it would merely be part of sporadic and arbitrary testing.

When I asked if he had a timeframe for HD streaming on computers - whether it might be "weeks or months", he said "I really don't know, but months seems much more likely". I don't know who the "rep" is that was quoted for this article, but I don't think he had any real information to give.

[ABdozen]

This wasn't showing up for me last night even though I had (HD available) but now it is. For those wondering, there will be a small HD icon to the right of the timebar on the players that when you mouse-over will say playing in HD, buffering in HD, or not playing in HD.

[Xing]

Do you folks here at hacking netflix have any follow up or quality control on these articles?

Or do you post hoaxes or misinformation often, I think the only thing your seeing is people with HD enabled devices roku players, xboxes etc are able to add HD streaming movies to thier ques through the pc there still is no support for HD playing on the mac or pc.

[John Dover]

The feature is coming and going out of my account. I have indeed watched part of one show in HD on my mac in the silverlight player. Oddly for netflix, it does not appear to be rolled out to users in batches but flicking on and off. For example It was not working for me, then 2 minutes later it was and then 4 minutes after that not again.

This appears to just be a botched rollout of the feature, which is odd, netflix has in the past rolled things out to users in batches, but once you had the feature you had it.

[scJohn]

You would think that this would merit a entry in the NF blog. I see no mention of this on their blog.

[driv3r]

Yeah I'm really not seeing this on my account either. And I have been checking back and forth since last night to see if this is a testing kind of thing. So far nothing. :(

[TechDubDoob]

I'm not seeing this either. Perhaps it's slowly being rolled out?

[Jeff]

OK. So I called Netflix. They said they are still tinkering with the HD capability on the PC and as of right now, PC's are not considered HD capable devices. They said that should change as soon as it is fully implemented which according to them should be soon. They knew what I was talking about and the rep took some time, putting me on hold, to research the problem. I'm seeing the HD availability but only getting a 1500kbps bitrate, which is not HD.

[Richard]

Great, so by "now streaming" you really mean "now testing". Thanks a lot Jeff...kinda makes me wish I had a carrot to dangle in front of you :)

I think I'll keep my $9 in my pocket this month and wait for the day they finally open up HD on the PC for real.

[Jon]

It works like netflix says, I get 3800 as the maximam buffering rate.

[Jeff]

The HD genre has been added to my account and I am now streaming The Office at 3800kbps. This just happened in the last hour. Awesome. It looks great.

[Chris M.]

I call this physically comfirmed on the Netflix website. In the HD genre for Watch Instantly there was tabs to Show All HD and Show HD for PC/Mac. Doesn't seem to show up all the time though. When I first saw it I came back here to post and when I checked again while posting the option was not present.

[Jeff]

HD is also working for the native MCE plugin.

[bill]

Runaround here.

This morning, the (HD available) tag appeared next to Dr. Who. I fired it up, and when I checked the bitrate, 1500 was still the highest setting that it even allowed. Now, the HD tag is gone again. No HD listing in the genre menu, either. Netflix is really dropping the ball on actually disclosing features to their customers right now.

[Gary]

Funny thing is, the HD option showed up for me, I watched about 5 minutes of a movie. then, I came back to my PC about 20 minutes later and figured I would browse other titles, and, the HD option is no longer there :( Netflix must be testing this only at the moment.

[GeekTonic]

I think it's a feature that's going to be released in the next few days. I say this because the official Netflix Blog posted about it this afternoon (Friday) but pulled the post right after. Here's what that said:
http://www.geektonic.com/2010/05/rumors-are-true-netflix-is-streaming-in.html