PlayOn: Netflix on your PS3?

I first came across PlayOn a few weeks ago. The PC-based software streams several Internet video site’s content to DLNA-compatible devices. PlayOn is still in beta, though the promised Netflix Watch Now support has just hit. Like most of the PlayOn experience, it continues to be rough around the edges – which is not unreasonable for pre-release software.

There’s a lot of promise here… Folks would much rather watch long form content from their couch and PlayOn leverages existing hardware platforms, such as the Xbox 360 and PS3 with Wii support on the way. While I am hopeful, thus far my experiences have been mixed. Check out the list of folders below right. That’s how you (try to) navigate Hulu. My Netflix experiment this AM wasn’t so successful either. While I could bring up my playlist (above), no movies would stream. And after a few minutes of futzing, PlayOn decided my Netflix credentials were no longer valid.

If they can tighten up the experience, both interface and reliability, while keeping up with any changes these sites will periodically throw at them, PlayOn will be well worth the $30 software fee. But not yet.

24 thoughts on “PlayOn: Netflix on your PS3?”

  1. I’ve been using the playon solution for a couple months now, but hadn’t in the past week or so. Nice to see they added the NFLX support.

    What I don’t like is having to have a vista or xp3 pc running all the time to support it. But, that IS how it works, so I won’t complain.

    Quality of HULU is pretty darn good, so I imagine NFLX won’t be far behind.

  2. Does anyone know if it supports fast-forwarding, rewinding, or random-access seeking in Hulu and Netflix videos?

  3. It does support FF/RW, but it flakes out on the PS3. I downloaded the latest update (.3196) last night and haven’t been able to play NetFlix since. I’m hoping the site comes back up and provides some answers.

    Anyone with the latest version able to play NetFlix?

  4. I downloaded last night and was able to stream netflix to my Dlink DSM 520. Had to download an add-on for WMV which I assume is some sort of DRM module. Still a little flakey which is ok for a beta but picture quality was surprisingly good

  5. I downloaded PlayOn a few days ago, and have been able to watch netflix movies on my xbox from my instant watch queue ever since. Sometimes i have to start the movie 2 or 3 times before it plays, but it always starts playing. Not bad!

  6. Kindly let us know when they work out all the bugs. I’d pay $30 to get hulu/netflix on my ps3 or 360, but don’t feel like having to troubleshoot or try a half-dozen times to get stuff to play.

  7. Portions of their site are back up this morning. I have a feeling they didn’t realize how much bandwidth it would take to serve application downloads once the Netflix news got out. Alexi, the software has a 60 day free trial – so you wouldn’t have to pony up $30 right away. I’m about half way through my trial. If it ended today, I wouldn’t pay. (Unless it were for blogging purposes.)

  8. I probably could. But I separate operational expenses (hosting fees, shipping etc) from products that offer entertainment value. My taxes are probably f-ed up as it is. And PlayOn should just give me an additional 30 day eval license once the product is complete. ;)

  9. Rustedwreck – where did you download the add-on you mention? I am trying to get Netflix to work on a DSM 520 with PlayOn, but so far, no success…

  10. It was the explorer add-on that is required to watch netflix instant movies. After I loaded that, it worked, although I am still having problems with movies timing out on me.

  11. oh yeah, it popped up on the netflix website. I had not watched instant movies in my browser before. Once I downloaded the required add-on it worked on my DSM 520 as well. The guys at media mall are helpfull as well if you send in a support request.

  12. Dave,

    Mediamall is restarting the evaluation period today due to the download problems and their site crashing. It was posted on their blog. So you have 45 more days to decide….

  13. Anyone had any success making this work on the Mac, via virtualization software such as Parallels/VMWare Fusion?

    If this really worked, I’d pay for it.

  14. I had the exact opposite experience with video quality. I was able to stream movies from my queue (sorry not sure what version I’m running) but the quality wasn’t good enough for living room viewing on a 50″ Kuro. For me, it was stuck-somewhere-where-any-video-will-do quality. I was really excited when Netflix announced they’d be serving up Starz movies on the watch now service but I’d rather watch the movies on Starz OnDemand. I really want to like this service!

  15. i’ve been using the latest version (2.59.3302) of playon on the ps3 – works about 90% of the time. by works i mean the content doesn’t get interrupted or the content actually plays (and you don’t get errors, etc.) playon developers still have a bit to work on. i’m just not willing to pay for the software until they get some of these bugs worked out, especially the forward/reverse – this doesn’t work all the time. one very annoying thing is when the content freezes – when you attempt to start it back up, you have to start at the beginning of what you were watching – very annoying. some of their current solutions to these issues: restart playon, restart pc, and/or restart your router – works most of the time. if i were mediamall, i’d keep it in beta for a bit longer.

    imho, it would be nice if they would just develop the software for the console, rather than the pc.

  16. The Playon product is awesome. Add that to other formats such as MCE and OTA and you have a complete home solution for bypassing the old format of paying for cable or satellite tv. Get it for free now.. why not..

    Check out thefuzznetwork and see some cool things you can do with both your ps3 and xbox with playon and hulu.

  17. I have been using this since I found my router but it seems to not play to well to my television from my PS3. I thought maybe it was because I have not paid for regestering the product but they said it was not. I have high speed cable and a semi fast computer and was hoping this would be something I could get without having anymore remotes in my house. I had to get logged off my Netflix from the PS3 before I could get my password accepted on the Play On.

  18. I got this working from Windows 7 to my PS3 and Reading My Netflix Instant Queue. I only have DSL so the movie would stutter while downloading. Appears to be no buffering. With a faster connection should be good.

Comments are closed.