Okay, people of the internet...
I have written a Greasemonkey script to automate most of this crap.
It adds "Download" links underneath the "Play" links at the Netflix.com Watch Instantly section.
When you click a Download link, it retrieves the proper URL to the movie, and puts together a working command for you to copy and paste at a command prompt. (Start->Run->cmd)
In other words, you don't need Internet Explorer, you don't need to View Source and find WNPLaylistMovies and notepad and all that business. This script does it all for you.
YOU STILL NEED cURL. http://curl.haxx.se/latest.cgi?curl=win32-nossl
YOU ALSO NEED FIREFOX 2 FOR THIS HACK.
1. install the Greasemonkey add-on for firefox.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748. restart firefox after installing.
2. unzip the attachment from this post onto your desktop. drag the unzipped .js file into your firefox window. click Install when prompted.
3. go to netflix.com and try out your new and enhanced Watch Instantly section. pretty slick, eh?
Make sure you run the command you are given from the folder where you want to save the movie. In other words, if you want to save the movie in d:\videos, you need to enter d: and then cd \videos at the command prompt BEFORE you run the command.
post to this thread if you have any questions or feedback.
Note to users of Linux/OS X/BSD: you can use this script with firefox to download netflix movies. just change the
IAmRunningWindows variable near the beginning of the script to false. you'll still need access to a windows box to de-DRM the downloaded movies.