Whilst you cannot sign up for Netflix directly in New Zealand there are ways and means.
I looked at my Sky Television account getting bigger and bigger every few months and when I thought about how often I actually watched movies and full shows, I just couldn’t justify it any more. So I bought an Apple TV so I could watch pretty much what I wanted to when I wanted to.
With a little fiddling around.
So how do you get Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer etc?
You need an HDMI television if you want an Apple TV.
Okay – luckily some store somewhere close is always having a sale these days and I had planned on upgrading my television anyway.
Hook up your Apple TV but don’t log in to your New Zealand iTunes account. Set the region to United States.
Register an account ($4.95USD) per month with unotelly.com.
Use the settings they give you to change your router configuration. You could always change the network settings on the Apple TV only but I want to watch things on my iMac and on the Xbox in the living room so I set the whole network up to use the DNS servers.
You need to register with a service like this first otherwise the Netflix website won’t allow you to register.
Register an account ($7.95USD) per month with Netflix.
Log in to your account on your Apple TV and you are away.
I asked Sky to remove my Sky Movies ($20.70NZD per month) and Soho ($9.99NZD per month) and I’m much happier with the amount I pay each month for movies and television shows.
What about my .avi movies and the like?
To play other content you have on your iMac, it needs to be in a format that iTunes likes.
Converting a few hundred movies didn’t hold much appeal for me – I found a shareware converter online and convert them as I need/want to. The one I most like is called Video Drive.
All my photographs display beautifully as a screen saver and I can connect to my Flickr portfolio. Safe to say I am pleased with the small investment and halving my monthly TB costs!
Hope this helps if you are thinking of investing in an Apple TV and/or want to get Netflix in New Zealand.
Love it when you talk Swahillie…& no I can't spell but who's a wonderful Mommy anyway?
thanks for your advices,…I have apple tv and I had the problem with the apple id associated with a NZ account so I will try unotelly.com.
Thanks!!
You need to make sure your region is US so that the Netflix icon shows up. Hope it works out for you – it's a brilliant service!
So how do you get bbc i player.
Hi Andy – I don't use BBC iPlayer however I understand that the unblock-us service might allow access to it and you need to download an app. Sorry I can't be more help than that.