Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

help.netflix.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 243 posts

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#101

Post by elamje »

2bitencryption wrote: post #4

Didn't ever expect to see this capability. A bit unrelated, but: anyone remember in the "early" days when Netflix held competitions to develop the most accurate recommendation and ratings engines? Giving out million dollar prizes? And held possibly state-of-the-art tech for this? And then one day completely gutted the star rating system, replacing it with a much-despised "thumbs up/down" system, giving up their "so g…

A small detail many forget is that Netflix pays very different prices for different shows. I don’t know the exact negotiated rates, but basically you can envision a blockbuster is going to cost more per stream then a Netflix Original. Eventually Netflix was/is bound to game their own recommendations since it saves them costs.

The only case I can see where this incentive doesn’t exist is for shows that Netflix pays a fixed price to stream rather than a unit price per stream.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#102

Post by Twirrim »

coreyp_1 wrote: post #7

The Autoplay is REALLY, REALLY, A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G!!! Actually, I hate most of the current design (UI/UX). It's really streamlined when all you want to do is push "play", but everything else is, quite frankly, laborious.

Our old Apple TV, which we've had since maybe 2012, finally died. Given how much use it gets, I've been amazed how long it kept working.

Bought a new one late last year, and the whole UX is a big step backwards, but the Netflix app and the automatically playing previews is high on the list of annoyances.

It feels like one of those "Do you actually dogfood this? Have you actually compared it to previous releases?"

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#103

Post by scarejunba »

spidermango wrote: post #98
gdulli wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a law of conservation of advertisement. It's not like you were going to get away from ads forever when switching from real TV. I prefer the purely interstitial (untargeted) commercials from real TV. With a DVR I can fast forward them, or always at least mute. Having Amazon/Netflix "recommend" things to me through what should be a functional unbiased system is more insidious.

lol, the sheer stupidity in the mental gymnastics people will employ to back their outrageous behaviors in avoiding the "targeted ads" bogeyman

It's so out of touch with how most people think, it's genuinely fascinating to see. I wonder if it's a true belief or some sort of facade.

I think I'd easily bet 3:1, $1000 that if you polled people they'd rather have targeted end-of-show ads than untargeted mid-show interstitials.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#104

Post by monk_e_boy »

underbluewaters wrote: post #20

It's amazing it took this long. I can understand how some people might be okay with this feature but it causes me actual anxiety to use the Netflix app on my AppleTV. Before autoplay I could mindlessly browse looking for content. Now I hurry through to check if there is anything new and get out as fast as possible. They must know that people use the app less since this change... right?

Yeah, it's a nightmare when my kids are browing using my account -- tons of 18+ horror gets shown in amongst cartoons. It's such a dumb system.

Yes, we have more than one account. Mistakes happen.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#105

Post by aidos »

I was excited then for a second but I don’t think this means what I think it does. Does this mean it’s possible to disable the auto play on trailers for something unrelated when you finish a series?

I literally finished Bojack Horseman after years of watching 30 minutes ago. End it’s left hanging there in a poignant moment but I have to jump up to stop the trailer for god knows what, and the a minute later I have to do it again after the credits have finished. Years of investment in a show, but I’m not allowed 10 seconds to stop and digest it. (PS amazing series)

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#106

Post by bostonfincs »

elamje wrote: post #101
2bitencryption wrote: post #4

Didn't ever expect to see this capability. A bit unrelated, but: anyone remember in the "early" days when Netflix held competitions to develop the most accurate recommendation and ratings engines? Giving out million dollar prizes? And held possibly state-of-the-art tech for this? And then one day completely gutted the star rating system, replacing it with a much-despised "thumbs up/down" system, giving up their "so g…

A small detail many forget is that Netflix pays very different prices for different shows. I don’t know the exact negotiated rates, but basically you can envision a blockbuster is going to cost more per stream then a Netflix Original. Eventually Netflix was/is bound to game their own recommendations since it saves them costs. The only case I can see where this incentive doesn’t exist is for shows that Netflix pays a…

I believe most if not all shows/movies on Netflix are acquired through a general use license for a period of time rather than a “royalty scheme” based on number of views. So while they definitely want to promote original content as in the long run it saves them money (in license acquisition costs) the per stream cost is relatively homogenous.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#108

Post by myhf »

Smaug123 wrote: post #68
paxys wrote: post #52

Now PLEASE give an option to turn off autoplaying the next episode like 3 seconds into the end credits.

That is an option demonstrated on that very Netflix help page, if I understand your request correctly.

There is an option for "off" or "on (when the credits start)" but not "when the music finishes" or "when the video finishes".

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#109

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

psychometry wrote: post #41
2bitencryption wrote: post #4

Didn't ever expect to see this capability. A bit unrelated, but: anyone remember in the "early" days when Netflix held competitions to develop the most accurate recommendation and ratings engines? Giving out million dollar prizes? And held possibly state-of-the-art tech for this? And then one day completely gutted the star rating system, replacing it with a much-despised "thumbs up/down" system, giving up their "so g…

They obviously determined that thumbs up/down either generated better training data or more training data. They wouldn't intentionally make their recommendations worse just for the sake of it.

> They obviously determined that thumbs up/down either generated better training data or more training data.

I'm guessing that the definition of "better" changed at some point, perhaps when they went from 1-5 stars to +-1 thumbs.

In Netflix's early years, I was confident that their classifier's goal was to predict my future rating for a given video. I.e., it was part of a larger system designed around my viewing pleasure.

Around the time they switched to thumbs, I started suspecting the classifier was being used to manipulate me towards optimizing Netflix's profitability, instead of my viewing pleasure.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#110

Post by dwighttk »

Someone1234 wrote: post #83
hanniabu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm sure this had a lot to do with it, I wouldn't be surprised if they also came up with a better rating system using statistics on the amount of views, how long it's been out, what percent watched it all the way through, etc.

If that were true, wouldn't the actual recommendations be better rather than substantially worse?

better for Netflix or better for us?
Post reply on HN