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It's also usually better than "Streaming SD."

Netflix says they stream up to 5MB/s for their video quality, which looks great to me. Not as good as a blu-ray I'm sure, but still looks better than standard definition.

Important correction: Netflix's HD tops out at 5 Mb/s, not 5 MB/s.

Bluray max bitrate is 54 Mb/s, but I've generally seen transcoding to 20-30 Mb/s have nearly the same quality.

Correct, that's because up to 16 Mb/s is for sound.

I have (and love) Blu-ray, but as much for the sound as the picture. Blu-rays have incredible audio.

Netflix's "HD" streaming content looks great. I don't know if it's "real" HD or not, but it's better quality than their non-HD stuff.

I know tons of people for whom "I don't own a TV" means "I watch everything on my laptop/computer" rather than "I am opposed to the mass media." So, how well does it work over wifi?

Have you tried VUDU? Their HDX stuff looks awesome.