A Canadian’s Perspective on Netflix Streaming

This week, Netflix launched its long awaited and much coveted Netflix Canada service. Unfortunately, the content selection cupboard is mostly bare.

The limited offerings (and lack of DVD service) explains the $7.99 Cdn per month price. The minimum monthly fee that Americans pay for their Netflix service is $9.95 US. For that they get a DVD-by-mail service and a substantially broader array of on-demand offerings.

Browsing through their movie and TV offerings, it appears that there are only about 100 older movies available – too many of which are third-rate movies. There are only 18 TV series available at launch, with Heroes seasons 1, 2, 3 and 4 constituting four of the 18.  Mad Men seasons 1, 2 and 3 but not any of the current Season 4, make up another three of the 18. Several of the available TV series I’ve never heard of (Hoarders, Paranormal State, The Boondocks, Drop Dead Diva?). Aside from Heroes and Mad Men, there are no other past or present broadcast or cable network prime-time hit TV series available at all.

Happily, the service is not chock-a-bloc full of the made-in-Canada TV content that riddle the Canadian versions of the Apple TV & Xbox 360 on-demand services. In fact, there isn’t a single made-in-Canada movie or TV show available through the service.

To access the service in Canada you will need any of a PS3, Wii, PC, Mac, iPhone or iPad. The service will be available through the Xbox 360 “soon.” Surprisingly, Netflix is not offering the service through the popular Roku device in Canada. Nor will it be available through TiVo or the iPod Touch as it is in the U.S.

Read the rest of this entry »

5 thoughts on “A Canadian’s Perspective on Netflix Streaming”

  1. Who knew that Canadians have perspectives?

    For that matter, who knew that Canadians actually exist?

    I always figured that Canadians are to Americans as elves are to Icelanders. Y’know, just harmless folklore that we conjure up in our minds.

  2. Thanks Jamesey.

    It makes sense that it would work on the iPod Touch. But funnily when you look at the list of devices that Netflix says it works on they list the iPad and the iPhone but do not list the iPod Touch. Seems like a glaring omission given how popular the iTouch is. I’ve corrected the underlying post.

    …DAle

  3. As of Sept 25th, seems the content has increased significantly. Many movies that were unavailable are now available.

    As a second note. I would hope it to be available on Tivo. I will give them (Netflix) a call to voice my interest

Comments are closed.