Netflix? Multiple Devices? Legally. Is the Wii useful at all in this endeavour?

I posted this question on QT3 as well, I lose track sometimes of which people are really great at giving advice on which forum! I hope no one from either forum is offended that I asked in both places.

So I'm thinking about dropping most of my cable movie channels, as they no longer seem to have anything worth watching. I'll keep HBO for Game of Thrones, but other than that I can do without them.

IF!!

Will Netflix fill that void? I have a 50 inch LED tv in my main room tv watching room, and I might dig out the Wii from the basement to connect to it for Netflix.

My son uses a PS3, so I know his tv will have good quality video.

My daughter will be streaming to her iPad2.

Is the Wii worth using for Netflix? I'm fairly spoiled on HD quality video at this point, if it can give me DVD quality video I'm okay with that.

Can I have one account and stream to all three devices legally? I don't want to create three accounts and pay $8.00 a month for each, that defeats the purpose of cutting the cable channels.

I've used my Wii for Netflix in the past but it's not an HD device so you're only going to get 480p video. Good enough for a secondary room I guess but I wouldn't connect it to the main TV.

As for Netflix I don't think it really fills the same role as subscriber TV. The selection is quite a bit smaller. We gave up DirecTV about 18 months ago and Netflix and Amazon Prime video have filled enough of the "gap" that we were satisfied, though what really ended up happening was we just stopped watching as much TV. A few weeks ago we even cancelled Netflix though my wife and inlaws are in the next room watching Downton Abbey on Amazon streaming as we speak.

My understanding of the streaming limit is that you can stream to two devices simultaneously...there's no limit on the number of total devices...just the number that can watch at the same time.

Well poop.

That was a discouraging report Spoofy, but I thank you for the reply.

I should probably warn that we were already pretty atypical in our viewing habits. We watch zero sports, almost no network TV (though we were watching Parks & Rec and Community on Hulu Plus before just getting bored of them) and we watch relatively few movies.

My wife watches Downton on PBS via an HD antenna when it's seasonal and Amazon Prime when it's not.

I liked the discovery channel type things like "How it's Made" and "Dirty Jobs" and stuff. Oddly enough Netflix has a lot of that stuff and it certainly has plenty of movies though they tend to be older/B level.

My gripe with Netflix is generally that the networks and other content providers seem to be shutting them out of showing the stuff most people would *really* want to watch and what you get instead is the stuff that remains.

YMMV :)

You can get a Blu-ray player for under $50 that will have a Netflix app on it and allow you to stream in HD. The one I have also has an Amazon app for streaming the free stuff that comes with Prime, and a YouTube app (I make play lists of stuff on my PC and then watch them on the big TV - bonus: no comments!).

So to be clear, you're asking if Netflix will replace Showtime, Starz, Cinemax, etc.? First you'd have to tell me what those channels have on them, because even when I've had them in the past, the only thing I ever watched was Spartacus.

If it's really random semi-new-release movies you want to watch, but you don't watch those channels often, then you're probably better off with Xbox/Play/Amazon/iTunes rentals. An occasional $3 rental is probably cheaper than a cable package that's $x more month after month. If you watch them for back-catalog stuff, then Netflix will be good. If you watch them for new seasons of premium shows, then you probably need to keep them.

I should have been more clear, I will keep ALL of my other HD channels because I love sports, it's the movie channels I want to dump. Showtime, Starz, etc. I sort of like Epix at the moment because they have all of the Marvel movies, but I'll drop them too. I'll keep HBO strictly for Game of Thrones. I only need Netflix to fill the movie void, not tv in general.

Kool Moe Dee on Qt3 (Yeah, that's alliteritive as hell!) basically said the Wii sucks for HD streaming, so I asked if this thing would solve the problem.

http://www.staples.com/Netgear-NTV3...t_958036?cid=PS:GooglePLAs:958036&KPID=958036

Jason and mkozlows, sorry, you guys replied while I was typing!

Epix specifically has a Netflix deal, and the marvel movies are all(?) on Netflix.

As for devices, I've only used a 360 and misc. Android tablets, but people like Rokus, I think.

Netflix does have a limit to the number of devices that can be activated. IIRC, it's 8, with no provision for "deactivating". Once you hit your limit, there's nothing you can do, short of canceling your account and opening a new one (using a different email address).

Thanks Case.

So if I am reading this thread correctly, I can buy some sort of device like the one I linked or get a Blu-ray player with a Netflix app installed like Jason said. I can then create a Netflix account and get all the movies I want to see. My big tv, my son's tv (through his PS3) and my daughter (via iPad2). Am I missing something?

rei on QT3 just recommended the apple tv device, I honestly had no idea what "apple tv" meant until he mentioned it and I googled it. Seems like a pretty cool option, but is it worth twice as much as the netgear thingy I linked above?

At this point I'm looking for an option to stream HD Netflix to my 50 inch tv, Wii has been counted out.

I have 2 AppleTVs. They work great if you've bought into the Apple ecosystem.

If you want a cheap streamer, Roku is probably your best bet. I'd say, really, forget the non-platform vendors. Your real choices are Xbox 360, AppleTV, PS3, or Roku. (Theoretically GoogleTV, but everyone agrees that's junk.)

An expensive alternative is a tablet with an HDMI output on it (like the Nexus 10, but not the Nexus 7, and I don't know about iPads), which'll work great for that purpose and a lot more beside, but not really hitting the "cheap" metric.

I just checked, and yes you can deactivate devices. It's an all-or-nothing option, though. As the below screenshot indicates:

Yeah, the AppleTV is great if you're running an iPad/iPhone for the remote, iTunes for the streaming library, and have generally drunk deep of the Kool-Aid. Otherwise there's generic option that are quite similar, such as the Roku.

I would also add that it's not hard to get other video formats onto the AppleTV.

You don't have to activate an iPad. Netflix will work the way you want it to just fine. From personal experience.