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Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

help.netflix.com

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Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#131

Post by loudandskittish »

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…

I really don't get what's up with that...2012 or so, Netflix was suggesting movies I'd never heard of that I ended up loving. Now when I log in, it just demands I watch Family Guy (ugh) ...and starts auto-playing it, of course.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#132

Post by pjc50 »

reaperducer wrote: post #125
jfengel wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix now has much better sources of information than the self-reported star ratings. Self-reported ratings fail in a lot of ways. Users can upvote what they think they're supposed to upvote. They'll downvote something, then go watch the sequel, because "It's terrible but I love it". And since they're seeking out stuff that they suspect they're going to like, they either compress all of the ratings into the top tie…

All current user ratings systems for movies are terrible because new users can bury a great movie. There are classic, important, society-changing movies from the previous century that were highly praised by contemporary critics and won scads of awards. But then people today watch them with zero context or understanding of what was happening or what the world was like and give them bad ratings because they can only co…

What we need is something more like Amazon's old "people who liked this also liked"; we have to give up on the idea of a rating being an absolute thing for all time for all people. Some people want "critically acclaimed" movies, a lot of people don't. Both are valid.

The situation gets even worse from a diversity and internationalisation standpoint. You have to consider what different national and language groups want.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#133

Post by pgrote »

mr_custard wrote: post #89
pgrote wrote: post #47

Excellent. Now, I'd like to see them do this: 1) Quit emailing me/sending notifications to keep watching shows I start and don't like. 2) Bring back a purposeful, decent recommendation system. 3) Allow filters so only movies/shows in your language or dubbed in your language are shown. (...or just some kind of filter.) Thanks.

The in-app notifications are nnoying for sure, but I've never received emails from them. Email prefs are here: https://www.netflix.com/EmailPreferences Marketing prefs are here: https://www.netflix.com/MarketingCommunications

Thank you.

I should have clarified my response. When I contacted netflix they told me you cannot unsubscribe to one part of the notifications ... it is all or nothing. So, if you turn it off you aren't alerted when new shows are added, etc.

This is what it looks like with an episode list at the bottom.

https://i.imgur.com/gpcrgeI.png

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#134

Post by therealdrag0 »

fmajid wrote: post #128

I'd settle for a "I don't ever want to see this movie, do not show it to me again" button. But of course, if we used it to winnow away the chaff, it would show in stark detail how sparse their catalog really is.

I transferred my to-watch list from IMDB to reelgood.com (wrote a script to do it), which shows what is available on what service I subscribe to. This has cut out the time I spend browsing the catalog.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#135

Post by wvenable »

joncp wrote: post #43
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…

Remember when you didn't have to wade through that awful carousel view to find what you wanted to watch? Or when they didn't try to hide your "continue watching" list in a steaming heap of inaccurate recommendations? Except for a couple of shows, I've almost completely switched to Prime.

The Prime interface is way worse than Netflix. Admittedly it didn't have this awful autoplay but even continuing a show I'm currently watching is a game of Where's Waldo.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#136

Post by philipkglass »

pjc50 wrote: post #127
philipkglass wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netflix Prize competition launched in 2006, before they had started streaming anything. The problem was to recommend a huge DVD-by-mail catalog to millions of users. By the time the competition finished in 2009, streaming was already growing rapidly. Nowadays their DVD business is a small footnote to their streaming business. The streaming catalog is much smaller than the DVD catalog and the consequences for star…

I'm sure there was a narrow window when you could stream seemingly every film, ancient and modern, legitimately. Then the studios twigged and had to kill it.

I don't even mind paying on demand to stream a film. It's annoying and economically baffling when you can't stream a film even if you have your credit card in hand, ready to pay.

Last weekend I tried to find To Live and Die in L.A. -- from the 1980s but hardly obscure. I couldn't find it legitimately available to stream anywhere, for any amount of money.

I even tried Kanopy, which has been my go-to source for films I can't find on paid streaming services, but they didn't have it either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Live_and_Die_in_L.A._(film)

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#137

Post by wvenable »

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #92
ehsankia wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"continue watching" being deep down is my biggest pet peeve. Nothing gets me angrier than having to scroll and search just to continue watching the same show every single day. Statistically, if each show is 8 episodes, then 88% of the time when I come to the homepage, I want to "continue watching" not "find a new show". Why the hell is continue watching not always the very first row.

They deliberately switch around the placement of the homepage queues. The goal is to keep you engaging with the product and discovering new things. They don't want you holding a Netflix subscription just for Friends, or whatever.

But why? Isn't watching Friends a viable reason to own that subscription?

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#139

Post by rpdillon »

glitcher wrote: post #118
ehsankia wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, as much as people hate it, when it comes to recommendation, up/down is all the data you need. Trying to build a system out of a 5 star system just adds unnecessary complexity, and the reality was that people used the star system differently making it even harder. up/down thumb is explicit and cleaner to work with.

The problem with the up/down system for me is not my own ability to like/dislike specific titles, but more the fact that Netflix no longer displays the average of all user votes. Sure different people used the 5 star system in different ways, and there were some who may have misused it by giving poor ratings to things they never intended on watching, but it was a great signal to me for the extremes. Scenario: I'm con…

IIRC, Netflix never showed the average, but rather the rating they predicted you would give it, taking into account your previous viewing and rating.

Re: Turning Off Autoplaying Previews

#140

Post by ravenstine »

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #57
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…

I don't really like star systems because I spend way too much time deciding if something is 3 or 4 stars, or 4 or 5 stars. I much prefer textual descriptions; for example "Terrible", "Don't like", "Okay", "Like", "Favourite", which has the same options as a 5-star rating system, but choosing between 3/4 and 4/5 is much easier IMHO. I don't really know of any system that uses this, except this one music player I wrote…

Netflix should have an "So bad it's good" rating. ;)
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