Netflix Mac streaming actually works

A while back, I posted a review of Netflix’s lackluster PC streaming support.  Since then, they’ve moved the service to Microsoft’s Silverlight technology and added Mac support.

Silverlight is similar to Adobe Flash in that it’s typically deployed as a browser plug-in.  Like Flash, it can display animation, audio, video and interactive applications.  In this case, it’s used for a bit of each.

The Netflix player is built entirely Silverlight and protects the video content with Microsoft’s PlayReady DRM.  This prevents users from doing anything but watching the streaming content.

After a simple opt-in on the Netflix website:

and an extremely brief buffering screen:

you’re treated to a nearly instantaneous video presentation:

An immense improvement over my previous experience!  Now if we could only get a better selection of video content, HD and offline viewing…