Yes, I caught the news that Netflix was down for 11 hours yesterday (thanks for the tips!) and experienced it first hand. However, I had limited blogging time available and chose to cover the more significant Sirius/XM merger update.

Site outages aren’t so unusual, though this Netflix one is notable for its length… AND apparently a related outage on their back-end, delaying most Monday shipments until today. I’ve been a customer on and off since the early days (1999!) and whatever catastrophic failure they experienced yesterday doesn’t change my appreciation for their service. However, it’s obvious they’re in need of more redundancy - or an improved implementation of their current strategy, which obviously failed.

In my former IT life, one role I had was assisting in the design and implementation of a continuity of operations plan (COOP) for an enterprise-wide messaging system. And fortunately, we never had to test our assumptions and solutions under real world conditions. It’s pretty challenging (though stimulating) trying to account for numerous potential scenarios (including the destruction of a facility and/or death of the employees) and engineer around them… So, I’m willing to cut Netflix some slack as long as downtime remains an infrequent occurrence.

I’ve been using Netflix’s Watch Now feature much more lately mostly because of the excellent Netflix plugin for SageTV that allows me to browse, search, and play the Watch-Now movies from the comfort of my couch.  The plugin has been improved by Morgan (the plug-in developer), but once you start a movie or show there were still some issues controlling everything without pulling out a keyboard and mouse. This has been a stumbler due to the fact that Netflix offers very few keyboard shortcuts for the service. Well, I’ve been tinkering with a program called girder to make my remote control communicate with my PC. And in doing so I discovered a few hidden windows commands that give you more control over the Netflix Watch-Now feature.

Grab your IR receiver and head on over to Brent Evans Geek Tonic for complete instructions (or to just download the gml file).

Microsoft’s cross-platform multimedia engine Silverlight 1.0 has only been shipping since September, yet they’ve gone ahead and announced a v2 beta is on the way:

Silverlight 1.0 focused on enabling rich media scenarios in a browser, and supports a JavaScript/AJAX programming model. We are shortly going to release the first public beta of Silverlight 2, which will be a major update of Silverlight that focuses on enabling Rich Internet Application (RIA) development. Silverlight 2 does not require the .NET Framework to be installed on a computer in order to run. The Silverlight setup download includes everything necessary to enable all the above features on a vanilla Mac OSX or Windows machine. The Beta1 release of Silverlight 2 is 4.3MB in size, and takes 4-10 seconds to install on a machine that doesn’t already have it.

In other Silverlight news, my pals over at jkOnTheRun noticed that Silverlight is installed with Microsoft Office 2008 on OS X. (I’m still waiting for my copy…)

Why should you care? Netflix says 2008 is the year their movie streaming service comes to OS X. They currently utilize Microsoft DRM and demonstrated a Silverlight client last spring…

Quite a few seemed to think today would be the day Microsoft and Netflix jointly announce a (new) Xbox 360 video service at the Game Developers Conference. However, I wasn’t optomistic. And it didn’t happen. While I’d like to see a revitalized Live Marketplace and expect it’d be good for both companies, it’ll take some time to get from survey to service… And having read some cagey commentary from Netflix’s corporate rep, it may very well be on the table.

Place your virtual wager… Which arrives first: Gears of War 2 or Xbox Netflix video streaming?

I wasn’t planning to cover this, but the amount of attention it’s received (and the amount of pings I’ve received) have led me to say something: Netflix movie streaming to PS3 and/or Xbox 360 ain’t gonna happen any time soon. When conducting market research surveys, scenarios are often presented in the present tense, as if they currently existed. For example, last summer Netflix gathered opinions on the possibility of a $50 or $100 movie-renting set-top box. Seen one yet? So let’s be clear - gaming console Netflix movie viewing doesn’t yet exist and you probably won’t see anything like it for many months, if ever.

Having put it in perspective - I think this could be a killer app for any gaming console and something I’d personally appreciate. Tons of movies, perhaps unlimited viewing included with my monthly subscription on a box I already own, and the Netflix name to market the service (and console). However, Netflix will find several barriers to entry… Going beyond their technical challenges, Microsoft currently runs their own movie service on Xbox Live. Would they consider augmenting it or replacing it with Netflix? Because the only way Netflix will land on the 360 is with Microsoft’s blessing. Unless they go the extender route which isn’t as clean or elegant and would reduce their potential customer base exponentially. (more…)

Reuters reports,

Netflix said that with such a clear signal from the industry, it will only buy Blu-ray discs going forward and will phase out stock of HD DVD by about the end of the year.

Yep, I’m putting my money where my mouth is - my HD DVD player is listed on ebay and my Netflix account has been updated (above). Toshiba may have purchased a $2.7 million Super Bowl ad spot, but that’s the last gasp of a dead format.

In this next-gen optical disc battle, HD DVD “bought” consumers by selling hardware at a loss while the Blu-ray camp “bought” the studios. I’m not discounting or dismissing HD DVD’s technology, but we’ve reached the tipping point in terms of studio support and content. HD DVD could have the best hardware in the world, but without movies it’s not very useful. The quicker the HD DVD camp throws in the towel, the better for everyone.

Interestingly, I’m going back to sitting on the sidelines. I’m not sure I care enough to pay current Blu-ray player prices (unless I “accidentally” buy a PS3), given the HD content I can TiVo or rent via my Xbox 360. Not to mention, 480p DVDs are often good enough. In fact, if the Toshiba HD-A3 booted faster and was slimmer I would have kept it around as an upscaling DVD player.

Moman is fresh out of DVR-ed HD content and wondered if I (or any ZNF readers) have any suggestions on how his family might weather the remainder of the writers strike.

Unfortunately, things will get worse before they get better. Even if a deal is struck soon, it’ll be months before we see fresh content that hasn’t already been written and filmed. And speaking of that content - though I haven’t yet decided if I like it, the Terminator spin-off recently began. Plus Jericho and Lost will premiere shortly. Brent Evans is maintaining a list of other winter series.

I’ve really enjoyed both seasons of Dexter and know Moman will too, but he’s going to have to stay up late and watch it when the kids are sleeping. CBS will be running an edited version during prime time, but I suggest Mo pull the trigger on a Netflix subscription and check out the original. And speaking of previously aired shows, Burn Notice finally showed up on Amazon Unbox and iTunes a few weeks ago - I raced through the entire season on TiVo, iPhone, and MacBook Pro. Highly recommended.

Otherwise, with scripted television and college football mostly over, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time playing Call of Duty 4 and intend to Netflix Firefly. Though, that may have been the case anyway as the studios haven’t been allowing good content to incubate/blossom before pulling the plug. Fortunately for Melissa, she’s content with Bret Michaels, Snoop, and American Idol.

For continued strike coverage, a show status Wiki is being maintained and the LA Times is blogging the situation. Any suggestions for new series, past series, or smart reality content to check out?