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With more and more TV shows being available via Netflix “Watch It Now” feature, including the grand hit Heros, which we still plan to catch up on (never started), momentum is building for easy on-demand streaming of shows/movies, to your Living Room TV.

With that in mind, I finally set a plan in motion to upgrade my media center PC, which is connected to the our big-screen. It was deemed not powerful enough (Athlon XP 1800+ or something, not even X2…) to process full screen H.264 media, which most media is nowadays.

One of key usage scenarios was obviously to wath NetFlix on-demand via this media PC.

So, as soon as I purchase everything, and not even before I finish setting things up, NetFlix goes commando with the following news:

• NetFlix in HD on XBox 360 – Yes, I heard it was coming, but only for Gold members, and never heard anything about HD, until today…
• NetFlix on Tivo Series 3 and HD models – This is great news for us, don’t get me wrong..

Well, I did try full screen Hulu, and it really looks nice, but mostly for their very limited library of 720p content. Installed Vuze on it also, and putting up TVTonic next.

Speaking of the upgrade, I ended up snatching a great deal, instead of upgrading my motherboard/cpu/memory, etc, as I was planning. It would have cost around $350, since I needed extra Vista Permium license for this setup, and that alone is $100. So I was happy when SlickDeals put up a coupon on refurbished Dell Outlet deals last week. Snatched up Dell Inspirion 530 with Core 2 Quad and 4GB of RAM for around that much, and added my own ATSC (HD) Capture Card with nVidia 8400 GS for full screen HD monster. It easily runs at 1080p now, including all media I tried to play full screen thus far. Plus, box itself is Beautiful, in white and slick metal front panel, plus runs practically silent. I am a happy camper!

Now, if only NetFlix would put out a Vista Media center plug-in, for easy and fast navigation of queues and instant playback, in HD, that would be awesome… But I guess they are too busy developing all those custom interfaces, instead of attacking the obvious, easy target…

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Netflix quietly rolled out yet another wonderful feature! By now most of you have heard about Watch Now feature on Netflix, which allows you to watch up to your monthly dollar amount of hours of Movies "On-Demand" over the Internet. For example, if your subscription is $18 per month, you get 18 hours of Watch Now viewing for anything you can find in their, still limited, online library of movies.

But in a very exciting twist, Netlix now allows you to catch up on popular TV series via the same Watch Now feature! Have you heard all the buzz about Heros? I have! And I am the first to admit that I haven’t watched a single episode, although this show is in its second season, I believe.

So, instead of renting DVD after DVD of past seasons, simply navigate to proper Netflix Watch Now page, click Play and enjoy! Of course it still doesn’t work on airplanes or in other such places without Internet connection. Obviously, you will also need an active Netflix account (if you don’t, check out my earlier post for other TV catchup ideas). Plus your common 18 hours a month may not suffice to catch up fast enough, but no-one is preventing you from renting Season 2 on DVD while watching Season 1 streaming.

Did I mention there are No Commercial Interruptions, as of course you would expect from a DVD watching experience. Heroes Season 1, Heroes Season 2, The Office Season 1, 2 and 3 are just some of the examples I came upon. Or how about old Sci-Fi classics: Quantum Leap or Sliders ? Did you forget October is Halloween month, celebrate with Alfred Hitchcock Presents, by watching in dark isolated space over your wireless network, in the middle of the night!

Ah, the long overdue Media Buffet is almost here!

Remember, folks, You heard it here first! Now go tell your friends about it, and about where you read all about it, of course!

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