I was trying to find a way to get Netflix or Hulu to work with my PS3 when I found PlayOn. I’m sure there are other options out there, but didn’t find many that looked as developed. You can try it free and that convinced me that it would be easier than hooking the laptop up via HDMI every time wanted to watch something at more than 1440×900!
A Few Complaints
Depending on the ‘channel’ you watch, the quality is moderately low *cough*Hulu*cough*. This is really just wishful thinking on my part, even with the year 2010 right around the corner.
Online video is slowly catching up to the way people would like to use them. So until whoever is in charge decides to get it and make content available at decent qualities, we’ll be watching YouTube quality video (which is getting a lot better, I admit) and stretching it to at least half our screen.
With PlayOn, you need a decent machine pushing the content to your TV. You’re only going to get performance as good as your weakest link. If the computer running PlayOn is weaker or if your internet connection isn’t that fast, your video is going to get bottlenecked somewhere. You’ll lose quality, or it might take a while to load up. Depending on your setup, scrubbing through video can be a pain, and you might not get the video playing again without backing out and starting over.
You don’t have a search option for Netflix or Hulu, so you should know what you want to watch, or don’t mind browsing alphabetically(Hulu) or by Genre(Netflix). You can however, access your instant queue which makes things easier if you’re already organized.
The Good Stuff
I found a coupon and it took $20 off, making it only $20. It’s expired by now so I won’t bother sharing, but if you sign up for their newsletter, or do a little digging, you’re liable to find a good deal sooner than later. It’s been well worth it for me.
It comes pre-packaged with several channels including: Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, CNN, CBS, and ESPN.
Another huge benefit is that in the PlayOn Plugins forum, a bunch of smart folks have and are developing plugins for other channels, and they’re free! I have gotten AdultSwim, MTV, MTV Music (actually has a TON of music videos), SyFy Channel, Spike, and NASA. I haven’t gotten it to work, but you’re supposed to be able to get live streams from space through that one!
If you have been wanting to use your PlayStation 3 for much more, consider the 14-day trial from PlayOn, and see what you think. I’d be interested to know what you think of it.
This is a test comment so I can get the formatting just right!