Getting Hulu and Netflix to Work on PS3

For my first post, I just wanted to write a quick summary of a product that I learned about yesterday.

I have long been looking for a solution to access Hulu content and Netflix content on my Sony Playstation 3 (PS3 Netflix Hulu). Unfortunately, there presently is not much information out there that does not require a signifigant amount of programming or a seperate unix server.

Although the solution is not perfect, I recently stumbled upon MediaMall's PlayOn product.
Here's how it works.....

Simply download there software (in the link above) onto a Windows XP machine. I used a 1.6 ghz intel Acer laptop with 1.5 gig/ram (nothing overkill). The software installs in just a couple of minutes. After that, fire up your PS3 or XBox. On the PS3 simply navigate to the Video Menu choice and you will now see PlayOn for Hulu and PlayOn for Netflix. At the time of this writing, the netflix option is not functional, but I will write more when it is up and running (with a review).

From the video menu, you simply navigate to the TV show you want to watch on Hulu and click on the show. There is no search functionality presently, so you have to know what you are looking for alphabetically.

Once you click on the show you want to watch, I have experienced up to a one minute delay (with a blank screen) on my tv. But after that, the show runs with no problems (you need a broadband connection). I experienced one or two lag periods, nothing major, and was able to do some light surfing on the laptop while watching the show. Although the picture quality is not fantastic (on a big screen) it is definitely better than watching your favorite tv show on a computer screen.

Basically, the playon sever is reading the stream to your pc/laptop and then sends the re-encoded stream out to your ps3 or xbox. Unfortunately this means that your pc has to remain powered on of course while you are watching shows.

The PlayOn software gives you a 60 day trial, and then has a one time cost of $60. If they do get the Netflix on PS3 then I would definitely spend the money.

My experience is that the Roku Netflix box is easier to use and does not require the pc to be on, but for now I am happy if they get the feature running on the PS3 so I can redeploy my roku box to another tv.