Do you have difficulty loading DVD's?

If so, you might want to check out Netflix's new feature, Watch It Now.*

For someone with a hand impairment, it might fill a gap.

You need a Netflix subscription to use it and it's being made available over the next five to six months across the country. The way it works is that you get online viewing time in hours equal to the number of dollars you pay on your selected subscription plan. The 3 DVD's at a time plan for 17.95 gives you 18 hours of viewing time, for example.

When you go to your Netflix home page, you'll see a box that says "Watch It Now" (again, when available in your area). You click on that and it leads you through a very short download to allow you to stream/watch movies that you can pick. I found the selection to be adequate, especially in the areas of documentaries and dramas. There were some other categories that seemed lacking, such as comedy and thrillers, in my opinion. ( I also didn't like that I can't play movies on my Mac but luckily I do have a PC with Windows.)

Once you select your movie, you hit the Play button and the movie begins to download. When it's ready to play, the button Play pops up and you simply hit that. Voila! You're done. As you watch, the movie continues to download. I had no lags or interruptions except when I, the quadriplegic, accidentally closed the viewing window at one point. I thought I would have a difficult time finding my place in the movie, but I simply went back to Netflix, clicked Watch It Now and then set the bottom feed to about a half hour into the movie and forwarded/rewound from there with my head cursor to find my place. It was no problem at all.

My computer with DSL only downloaded at a basic streaming level, but it was adequate. The quality of the picture could have been better, especially when I tried to watch the movie in full screen.

I think it's a great alternative to struggling with hard copy DVD's. As their selection grows and they work out the glitches with no availability on Macs, Netflix is offering something that can be a real help to people who need to do things on their computer due to their disabilities.




*I received no promotion or gift in exchange for this blog post.