For all you American readers with an interest in film the subject of Netflix is probably dated, it is however new for a returning ex-pat. I can though, if you bear with me for a moment, share a hint about an even more robust Netflix experience. For those of you outside the United States well I’m sorry to say, in the infamous words of Mr. T, “I pity the fool who don’t have the Netflix.”

Netflix on its own is a phenomenal service for a film lover. For 8 dollars a month I get one DVD of my choosing that I swap out any time I want with all postage and envelopes provided by Netflix. There exists also the possibility to pay more and have more than one film out at a time, a tiered system, with I believe up to 7 films at about 40 something dollars per month.  Their catalogue is simply astonishing, and as of yet there exists only two films that I have searched for that they do not have immediately available. Living in San Francisco there is a two day turnaround on swapping out a film, 1 day to send it back and 1 day for them to send out a new one from my film que. This equates to the possibility for me to see 3 films a week if I am ambitious and film hungry.

I know, I know those of you that don’t have access to Netflix are now wondering if your country should indeed be called civilized without such a service and those of you already acquainted with Netflix are wondering what’s in this conversation for you, where is the aforementioned nouvelle information. Well here it is in the form of 1 word and a set of numerals, XBOX 360!

In the market for a next-gen console the selling point for me in regards to the debate on what to buy, a PS3 or XBOX 360, came down to the fact that the 360 allowed for the streaming of Netflix’s on-demand choices. While one can also watch these on demand choices over the PC we all know that by exhibiting films in such a manner it’s really bastardizing the film viewing experience, especially when you have just bought a brand new honking plasma TV and surround sound system. Netflix on the 360′s streaming service, at least for me, exceeded my original expectations. The quality of the stream is shockingly amazing, providing HD quality choices which are unexpected as I was expecting something slightly better than youtube approximating normal digital cable TV. Add to that the fact that when I began to look through the over 12,000 choices Netflix has on their streaming service I realized that a great many of them are high quality films. That is one is not presented with a few decent films with the rest occupying the B-film category. Out of the 300 films I originally placed in my Netflix que, 58 of them were available as on demand choices filling in any evenings where I find myself without a film. Pure awesomeness and an absolute steal for 8 dollars a month.

Now, one is not forced to buy a an XBOX 360 there exists other gadgets that will stream Netflix, however as is the case with debate surrounding the benefits of buying a PS3 with people arguing the point that you basically get a free gaming console with your blue ray player, on account of standalone blue ray players being pricey, I would say the XBOX 360 is an even better deal when coupled with Netflix.