Netflix adds 2,500 instant Starz videos, Mac support soon

At last, a better selection for streaming Netflix subscribers is on tap, including flicks like "Spider-Man 3," "Gone Baby Gone," and "No Country for Old Men." Also: Netflix promises Mac support for its "Watch Now" titles before the year is out.

About 1,000 movies from the "Starz Play" broadband movie service are live on Netflix, including "Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End," "Superbad," "Enchanted," "The Pursuit of Happiness," "Ghost Rider," and "Resident Evil: Extinction," with another 1,500 titles to arrive "in the coming weeks," according to a press release.

That's on top of the 12,000 streaming titles that are already available to Netflix subscribers—and yes, all the new movies and TV episodes will be included when the new "Xbox Experience" (which, among other features, adds Netflix "Watch Now" videos) gets rolled out next month.

Meanwhile, those of us with Macs won't have to wait much longer for "Watch Now" support—or at least, that's what Netflix execs are promising.

According to a post on the official Netflix blog, the company is "busy working on a solution" to bring streaming Netflix movies to Mac users, who've had to do without since the Windows-only service launched back in early 2007. "We'll have something for you by the end of the year," the post concludes.

As Ars Technica notes, Netflix ran into "some rather hefty DRM obstacles" in terms of bringing "Watch Now" support to the Mac, hence the lengthy delay. Maybe so, but Amazon seems to have cleared any hurdles with its revamped "Video on Demand" service, which works quite nicely on my MacBook Pro. So ... what's the problem, again? (Sorry—patience isn't one of my virtues.)
 
In any case, Netflix's "Watch Now" service—which was little more than a curiousity at launch—is looking better and better as the months go on. And now that more titles are on the way, Xbox support is imminent, and streaming support for Macs is (hopefully) on the horizon, well ... movie fanatics like me might soon need an intervention or two.

Related:
New content to watch instantly [Netflix blog]