The alternative would be flash (which is a steaming pile of shit for osx and linux) and DRM for flash is shockingly expensive.
With silverlight, I can watch a 720p video on my mbp and use less than one core. I can not say the same for flash.
A 720p video from Netflix? That definitely wasn't the case for me last time I tried, maybe 2 months ago.
edit: to clarify, it's not even possible to stream 720p from Netflix on a Mac, regardless of how many cores it might take.
I'm still not happy about needing to install Silverlight, but at least the quality is now comparable to what I get on my Xbox 360 and PS3.
The alternative would be flash (which is a steaming pile of shit for osx and linux) and DRM for flash is shockingly expensive.
With silverlight, I can watch a 720p video on my mbp and use less than one core. I can not say the same for flash.