PlayOn media server is out of beta, 14 days to decide if Netflix & Hulu on your PS3 is worth it
By Richard Lawler 
posted Feb 3rd 2009 1:42AM
posted Feb 3rd 2009 1:42AM
posted Feb 3rd 2009 1:42AM
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NOPE!!
It's totally worth it. It's not really an expensive piece of software either. Having Hulu on both Xbox 360 and PS3 is priceless to me. I can watch content throughout the house as I have multiple consoles.
Wow. Sounds really great. Too bad it's Windows only. I may have to try it in Parallels and see if it can manage.
so the PC is streaming it from netflix to the PS3? Is that what I'm hearing? What does the PC do? Why the hell would you need a PC?
It's called transcoding. The PC is downloading the content, and then recompressing it into a format that is native to the device and can be played. For instance, the Popcorn Hour and similar devices d not play back flash. Yet, with Playon, you can watch Hulu.
And then there's the added bonus of little to no configurations, i.e. it makes it dumb simple.
Marshall
The Real HT Info Podcast
You need the PC because Netflix has entered an exclusivity deal with Microsoft. The PS3 isn't likely to offer native streaming until that agreement expires, or Netflix produce some kind of BD with a BD-J streaming client which you can stick in a PS3 or any other profile 2.0 player.
"You need the PC because Netflix has entered an exclusivity deal with Microsoft." I think they forgot to tell my Tivo about that exclusivity deal with Microsoft.
They didn't forget to tell your Tivo.....the exclusive deal between Netflix and Microsoft, only affects consoles, it has nothing to do with all of the other devices that Netflix is looking to stream too.
As for PlayOn, it is absolutely totally worth it. I have been using this since the day they started releasing it. It comes in real handy for streaming Hulu. Lately with all of the school closings and such, they scroll those all night long and ruin every recorded show...Turn on the Xbox, go to Hulu and watch away.
PlayOn has saved me lots of time not having to track down missed or screwed up shows.
You can already watch Hulu shows in the PS3 browser
But Stew, do you get full screen with that browser? I was under the impression that playon optimized the content for playing on a television rather than through a browser on a PC. Can anyone with playon running comment on this?
Worth it? No. I put it on my 360 and was very disappointed. The videos take forever to load, and when they do, the video quality is awful. I have a 6Mbps connection and can do streaming Netflix HD just fine.
Well its worth it if Sony doesnt add Netflix to the PS3 anytime within the next year.....
I've been using it for over a month now, and it's worth it...I thought about buying the Roku box for about a second, then found out about this little nugget. I'm a Mac/Linux guy but I do have a Windows machine at home, so it was no biggie to throw the software on that machine...for $30 you can't go wrong, especially if you have a handful of movies in your instant queue on Netflix.
So far (knock on wood) no issues whatsoever with the software outside of some early compatibility issues that they have all worked out since initial beta release.
buy it
Worth it, super easy to use, one time (cheap cost) support is outstanding, I know of no other company that communicates as well as media mall about issues, fixes, etc.
You're right, they even post a reasonably informative product roadmap on their website. I bought this for the promo price of $30, well worth that. I find the Hulu support on my xbox 360 to be pretty good. This would be killer if they could add Pandora support.
I honestly don't know how anyone has gotten it to work. I'm on 18Mbps U-verse, my PS3 was connected to the network via a Cat5E cable. Running Windows XP or Windows 7 yielded the same result - video that stutters if it even plays at all. If it works, it'd be great - but... it doesn't. I have an LG BD300 player that gets HD Netflix almost instantly - so I know it's not my network!
it might not work for you for whatever reason (internet speed isn't the only factor) but it works for me and a lot of other people without any problems at all. i use it all the time on my ps3 and popcorn hour.
btw, jeremy, there are video quality settings you can change from your desktop. try messing around with those and see if it helps at all.
I had the same problem too. I now pause each video for 10 seconds at the beginning of it, to give it a chance to load, and I no longer have the problem.
Works great for me on my 6MB AT&T DSL. I installed PlayOn on my Windows 7 x64 desktop, added 2 movies to my Netflix instant watch and they showed up right away on my PS3. Hulu streaming is awesome with Playon, Kitchen Nightmares and The Office look HD to me, seriously.
Would I pay for software (playon) that streams content I either pay for (netflix) already or get for free (hulu)? No. :)
PlayOn is worth the price simply for the Hulu integration, which is very high quality, but its Netflix support is subpar. The Netflix video quality is pretty low compared to officially supported devices, but I suppose it's better than nothing if you don't have a Netflix enabled device. I suppose the CBS and YouTube support is pretty nice too, but I don't make use of either, so I can't really speak to their quality.
I do have the rare issue of content playback stalling, but that's more of an issue with my PC getting in the way. I'm running an old 2.8ghz P4 with 1 gig of ram and a 64mb video card and it still works pretty damn well, so hopefully that helps set your expectations somewhat.
Works perfect streaming to my PS3 on a cheap wireless network off of an old headless WinXP box.
Those of you having problems it's all your PC, guaranteed, there's no other possibility - it doesn't just not work for some reason, it's a codec issue (like you have 132948 of them installed), or your network layer isn't optimized (NetBEUI?), or something along those lines.
It streams full screen, no hiccups, on an almost 10MB/sec RR connection. Never had any problems, ever.
Worth every single penny.
Well up here in Canada, I'd have to say No. This is based mostly on the fact that a number of the supported content providers don't allow streaming outside of the US. The beta had a lot of potential, but overall I was disappointed.
That's because you don't know what your doing!!!! Because PlayOn is running on your PC, you CAN fool the system and fake your Real IP address to that of the US and stream CBS and HULU for example to anywhere in the world, and yes that includes Canada!!! Netflix would be a bit of a problem as it's a PAID service, but all the others work. Get on youtube for example and there's a few videos of people showing you how to go about doing exactly this.
After reading this post yesterday, I installed PlayOn on my 2.7ghz, Pentium 4, Windows XP desktop. I have FIOS 15/5 internet, so pretty fast speeds. It played perfectly on my PS3. I watched an episode of Weeds from Netflix and it took about 8 seconds to buffer before playing. Picture quality was surprisingly good. Then watched Family Guy on Hulu, and that also loaded very quickly.
Will definitely pay for this for Netflix viewing only. Having Hulu and CBS to catch shows that I miss is a plus also!