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Netflix Flexes

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Re: Netflix Flexes

#161

Post by cthalupa »

bronco21016 wrote: post #126
throwaway415415 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that bird box was not a good movie? Because it was great.

I think the implication is that it was a copy of ‘A Quiet Place’ which was a great movie. If you saw ‘A Quiet Place’ first ‘Bird Box’ was not great and left you wondering what all the hype was about.

People keep saying this, but I don't think it's particularly true, at least for me. I thought A Quiet Place was one of the dumbest movies I've seen, and that the weakness of the monsters would have been obvious once it was determined how they hunted, if not found completely incidentally through normal attempts at fighting them. It wasn't possible for me to suspend my disbelief because the movie outright uses the very thing I was saying "Seems like X would be effective on them, since they hunt using sound" about 30 seconds into the movie. Even ignoring that, A Quiet Place is about the monsters having mastery over a sense that we share.

Conversely, Bird Box is about robbing us of one of our senses. In one movie, you have to be quiet - you are robbed of a form of expression. But you can still see, you can still hear, you are attempting to hide. In the other, there is no attempt to hide, at least from the monsters or force or whatever you want to call it. You just have to deny yourself one of your most important senses to be safe.

They're both set in a post-apocalyptic world, or at least partially so, but that's hardly unique to them or something A Quiet Place invented.

I thought A Quiet Place was a bad movie with a flawed premise that prevented suspension of disbelief due to just how ridiculous the premise was, and then totally failing to subvert the ridiculousness. I saw it long before I saw Bird Box. I didn't think Bird Box was a great movie, but I did think that it was significantly more enjoyable than A Quiet Place.

Re: Netflix Flexes

#162

Post by WorldMaker »

lh7777 wrote: post #104
happybuy wrote: post #98

All the signs indicate that Netflix has become a user hostile company that is prioritising ongoing user engagement and stickiness over their users needs. It's starting to remind me of another company which at one point in their evolution prioritised user engagement over everything else – Facebook. Once this occurs, it is a long slippery slope which leads to a series of user hostile internal decisions which ultimately…

I think their worst decision of late is to include auto-playing "trailers" (with sound!) when you pause for more than a second on a title. Between that and the lack of a decent "browse by category" interface you mentioned, I rarely bother using the TV UI to discover content. Googling "what's good on netflix" works much better for me. At least you can still disable the auto-play next episode "feature".

I feel like that "feature" saved me from Bird Box, at least; I turned on Netflix, turned my back on the screen to focus on preparing food, and found out there's a level of painfully bad acting that comes across through sound alone.

Re: Netflix Flexes

#163

Post by oweiler »

yboris wrote: post #158
giancarlostoro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And some of them are pretty damn good depending on your interest. Theres a few decent mecha ones at least. I am sure they will eventually land the rights to a solid winner. I do like the end result too lots of subs in different languages and I feel like they dub it in different languages too. The best of both worlds for any type of anime fan.

Kill la Kill and One Punch Man are phenomenal!

If you like Kill La Kill you probably also like Gurren Lagann (which is done by the same team).

Re: Netflix Flexes

#164

Post by WorldMaker »

jrnichols wrote: post #17

The article made a great point about TV Everywhere and the inconsistency of app logins. This is something we encounter with apps like the History Channel app, for example. it wants us to log in, go to history.com/activate, but doing so brings up a blank screen or some bizarre error message. I've been trying to authenticate with DirecTV Now, which should be supported and is on the list, but it just sits there. Is it a…

Something that bugs me a slight bit in the TV app diaspora was that one of the original Hulu mandates back when it was a GE project was to be a strong software provider for TV frontends and backends; that as much as Hulu would be a thing itself there'd also be "Powered by Hulu" opportunities to avoid every TV app having an entirely different experience or missing some should-be standard backend/frontend features.

It shouldn't be a surprise that that original vision was somewhat lost when Comcast bought NBC/Universal and gained a huge stake in Hulu, but it's still a shame that we don't have more "powered by Hulu" apps per that original vision. I still don't understand why NBC/Universal's Seeso attempt wasn't "powered by Hulu" given how central NBC/Universal was as a Hulu content partner (nor why Hulu didn't just inherit the majority of Seeso content when they got bored with the experiment), and that's a large part of why I didn't bother with Seeso. I guess I'm still often angry at the CW for dropping Hulu support for their own app which is just full of technical papercuts that Hulu fixed a long time ago; I would mind the CW app less (even if it was still a separate app) if it was at least "powered by Hulu" and had some of the backend streaming tech improvements, UX improvements, and commercial volume smoothing tech that Hulu uses.

Disney+ supposedly is using backend tech/knowledge from ESPN+, so it won't be entirely from scratch, but with Disney now being majority owner of Hulu, again it seems a shame that it probably won't just be "powered by Hulu", and is likely yet another case where we'll see bugs and UX papercuts that the industry as a whole could have worked to fix together instead of each their own.

Re: Netflix Flexes

#165

Post by mrguyorama »

nojvek wrote: post #108
lsc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... I mean, when this switch occurred (away from having a wide selection of classics towards being more of a cable channel with their own custom content) I canceled my subscription. I switched to amazon video... I can't say I'm always thrilled with the video quality, but amazon video usually has what I want to watch, and they make watching it low effort (They usually charge me a few dollars to watch it, but if I'…

Amazon video has some nice content but their streaming quality is dogshit. For first 10 mins I get pixelated video and then it catches up with SD. Proper HD is a hit and a miss. Also their App for vizio TVs is so bloated that it crashes the TV after a couple of episodes. Netflix on the other hand has their tech together. Beautiful streaming and lightweight responsive app. Please Amazon, pay your Engineers well and ma…

>Beautiful streaming and lightweight responsive app.

You seem to be forgetting the downright user hostile UX, though maybe not as user hostile as Hulu and Amazon and everyone else

Re: Netflix Flexes

#166

Post by V-2 »

oarsinsync wrote: post #157
V-2 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Algorithmically modifying the poster frames / thumbnails of shows to be more appealing to users. Again promoting engagement and misleading users of the true content of the show. But it's not necessarily "misleading". Eg. if I like actor A and you like actor B, and both are starring in the movie, showing us two different posters with actor A and B respectively doesn't really mislead neither of us. With posters it's…

> > Algorithmically modifying the poster frames / thumbnails of shows to be more appealing to users. > But it's not necessarily "misleading" I suspect GP was talking about when Netflix was accused of displaying different posters based on race in an attempt to manipulate and mislead[0]: > Rather than showcasing its two white leads, the poster for Like Father instead suggests to some subscribers that there are major ro…

How does Netflix know what race I am?

Re: Netflix Flexes

#167

Post by mavhc »

V-2 wrote: post #141
mavhc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OA is also a good Netflix show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_OA

Uncompelling ending has by now become sort of a trademark of the (otherwise original and highly captivating) productions involving Brit Marling.

I can see why people hated it, but I like things I can't predict.

Have to wait for S2, being edited currently I think.

I also liked the end of Lost, HIMYM, Quantum Leap, Mad Men, and BSG, so I'm probably just weird.

Re: Netflix Flexes

#168

Post by achillesheels »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #94
2bitencryption wrote: post #25

My takeaway from Bird Box is that if Netflix wants to make any of their original content one of the most-watched media events of the year, they can do it, regardless of the quality of the content itself. All it takes is for them to slip it in to people's "custom, curated" lists at a higher frequency, and maybe do a little subtle social-media engineering on Reddit/Facebook, and bam: instant box office smash of a deriv…

> they can do it, regardless of the quality of the content itself. Yes they can do it but, not without consequences. I thought Bird Box was pretty lame and given a dozen experiences like these, it'd completely destroy their reputation for putting out decent content for me, and I'd unsubscribe in a world where non-original content was an important factor. (and looking at the media landscape, with content companies cre…

From an investor’s perspective, this is principally why I have never liked Netflix’s content creation binge. How much of what they are producing has any long-tail value for their subscribers? The same can be said for the studios, and I suppose we live in a world now where content creators need to stream, but why not develop the tech and seek monopoly rents from Disney, Paramount, et al when they need to stream?

Is digital content streaming that simple that there is no value in creating defensible IP? Or is it more a function of dumb data pipes which do not favor the smartest content distribution so there’s no need for that investment?

Re: Netflix Flexes

#169

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #77
gh02t wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix has also been pushing anime/anime-style originals. I think this is a pretty interesting strategy, anime is relatively cheap to produce and is niche but has a huge fanbase worldwide.

And some of them are pretty damn good depending on your interest. Theres a few decent mecha ones at least. I am sure they will eventually land the rights to a solid winner. I do like the end result too lots of subs in different languages and I feel like they dub it in different languages too. The best of both worlds for any type of anime fan.

It's pushing anime but the originals made by netflix are incredibly low quality (really low) and plot is ok at most.

Disclaimer: I watch a lot of animes since most tv shows don't come even close to their plots, soundtracks and epic moments.

Re: Netflix Flexes

#170

Post by lsc »

Semaphor wrote: post #139
lsc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... I mean, when this switch occurred (away from having a wide selection of classics towards being more of a cable channel with their own custom content) I canceled my subscription. I switched to amazon video... I can't say I'm always thrilled with the video quality, but amazon video usually has what I want to watch, and they make watching it low effort (They usually charge me a few dollars to watch it, but if I'…

Amazon has one huge problem for me: Language. I'm in Germany. I do not want dubbed movies/shows. I need English subtitles (translated subs are useless but I need subs to understand what's being said during loud scenes). Amazon usually (less than Netflix though) has OV, but subs are almost exclusively in German. Netflix, on the other hand, has almost everything in English with English subs (exceptions are foreign lang…

Amazon has issues with language, and I imagine some of it is licensing, but like several times I've done the "try to learn a foreign language by reading the same book in two different languages" thing, and it's really hard to do with the kindle. Like spanish and french and Japanese are mostly just not available to me on my US amazon account.

I mean, I can get an amazon.co.jp and amazon.fr and amazon.es account, and tie them to different kindles, but each time I want to switch kindles, i have to wipe the thing, and get rid of my english books.

I'm totally willing to pay a premium for kindle convenience, and deal with not being able to loan books so easily, etc, etc, the kindle walled garden actually works really well for me in English but once you move out of English, it's just not convenient anymore.

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