6 Things You Should Know About The Netflix Canada

Netflix opened up operations in Canada on September 22nd, 2010 with the announcement that they would be expanding their popular movie and TV streaming service from America to Canada. Admitedly, the Netflix Canada service features a program catalogue far smaller than the American equivalent but, Netflix Canada has promised and delivered on a steady pace of future additions to its growing line-up of movies, documentaries, TV shows and TV series.  

To attract new viewers, Netflix Canada has embarked on an aggressive Canadian advertising campaign. At the heart of this campaign is the Netflix Canada 1 Month Free Trial Offer. Before you sign-up for the one month of free Netflix streaming movies and television shows, there are a few things that you need to know to get the most out of your free time.

1) Netflix Canada will ask for your credit card:

This is not a serious problem because your credit card will not be billed and if you do not like the service, you can cancel anytime during the first month free of any charges. You don't like entering your card into the Internet? Well, unfortunately there is no way around this so Netflix Canada is probably not for you (free or not).

2) Netflix Canada will bill your credit card $7.99 every month:

If you do like the service, after your Netflix Canada free 1 month trial period has ended, you will be billed $7.99 at the end of each month. This monthly fee gives you unlimited acces to thousands of movies, documentaries, TV shows and TV series 24 hours a day.

3) You can cancel or pause your Netflix Canada account at any time:

You can cancel your account at any time but Netflix Canada does not refund part months. (So if you cancel - do so at the end of your billing period)  Going away for on a long vacation or extended period of time? Why pay for a service you are not using? With Netflix Canada you can pause your account (with the click of your mouse) until you get back and not pay a cent.

4) Know your bandwidth limit:

You will be streaming movies from the Internet. This means that you may run the risk of excess usage fees from your ISP when streaming movies over your Internet connection. Most Canadian ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have created new plans that offer additional download limits at reasonable prices. You may already have plenty of bandwidth but it is worth looking into.  Simply contact your ISP and ask what your maximum download cap is per month. 

Netflix Canada estimates that "standard definition" (normal resolution/quality) programming will use around 1 giga bits (GB) per hour while the HD (high definition) streams will take up around 2 giga bits (GB) per hour. So if you have a 150 GB download limit then you can what around 70 or 80 standard definition movies (at around 1.5 hours per movie) before you will be in excess of your "free" download capacity. After that, most IPS charge anywhere from $1 to $2 per GB for excess usage. You can help save some bandwidth by selecting your download cap in the Netflix Canada application by allowing or disallowing HD programming.

5) Stream Netflix from up to six different sources at one time:

Your account can watch different programming at the same time on up to 6 different Netflix Canada streaming devices. This includes personal computers and Netflix ready devices like Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii and Sony's PS3 consoles; an array of Blu-ray disc players, Internet-connected TVs, home theater systems, digital video recorders and Internet video players; Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as Apple TV and Google TV. You may also manually de-register devices you no longer wish to use for watching instantly. A deactivated device can be reactivated later if you wish to resume using it.

6) Set up your Taste Profile:

On the main page of your account, Netflix Canada will display movies and television programs that it thinks you may like. Netflix trys to figure out your likes and dislikes from two main sources. The most straightforward source is your taste profile.  This is a twenty-some page optional questionnaire. (Don't worry - it goes fast) Ignore it and you will miss out!. Filling in your Netflix Canada taste profile will immediately improve the quality of entertainment suggestions coming from Netflix. Secondly, rating movies that you have already seen tells Netflix (and other Netfix users) what you have liked or disliked in the past and it help tune your account so you are presented only the movies and programs that best suit your taste.

There are more ways to tune your account so that you get the most out of your free trial. It is worth the time and effort to get to know the basics before you start your Netflix Canada one month trial.