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Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

media.netflix.com

511–520 of 523 posts

Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely hope not. If you bought a book but were told you could get an extra chapter of storyline added in for extra money, you'd wonder "Does it contribute to the story in any way?" Ultimately, no. Or "will the story make sense if I do not buy this extra chapter?". Hopefully yes; hopefully the story makes sense without this extra chapter. I wouldn't want to watch a film with extra fluff that added nothing to the…

I hope not either. But this is a popular model in videogames, and it somehow both pissess off players and earns the studios tons of money. You obviously can't apply it to every movie, but you could appply it to quite a few. For instance, there's little point in extra content for Inception, because the movie world is defined by the start and the end of that very movie, and as you said, it has to make sense in its basi…

The Animatrix seems like a real example of something along those lines. A DVD of 6 short episodes that expanded on the Matrix story universe. They were done by different directors/writers/makers, like authorised fanfic or something. In my opinion it was a great addition, better than the full-blown sequels, and certainly not a distasteful cash-grab.

I think this could totally work for something like Inception too. The film has a backstory suggests at a wider context beyond what's shown in the scenes. Most stories do. That's why fanfiction exists.

Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could spin up a DigitalOcean droplet in the London region around once a week and use youtube-dl to download the bits you're interested in. Cost would be like $0.10 per month. You could even make a script that sets up an OpenVPN droplet and automatically tears it down, would still be very very cheap.

I ran openvpn on digital ocean before. But then I wanted one in the UK sometimes, and in the US sometimes. And then I tried to watch HKTV from Taiwan, so needed one in HK. So I ended up with ExpressVPN. But... let's see what happens this year. Especially with netflix!

If you set it up manually each time, sure, that won't work very well. But you should be able to automate that - create the config (CA and everything) once and then just spin up a droplet via the API, install the packages, copy and unpack the config. I don't think you'd need to customize more than the sever's IP address in the config.

I built something similar with sshuttle (way easier than OpenVPN) two years ago, it's at https://github.com/lorenzhs/instavpn but it uses the old DO API and is rather hacky. sshuttle also isn't very good for streaming.

Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#513
Netflix is seriously disrupting the cable TV business model, no the least for example here in Sweden where channels often air TV shows months or even a year after they've aired in the US. Why would I want to watch something both with ads and also months late? It's like choosing to suffer for being late. It doesn't even make sense anymore.

Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can indeed get more information from the website. I just want more of that from the Android client, which is where I spend most of my time. I'd also like to read the text reviews sometimes, so it would be nice to at least have a website link from inside the app, even if they don't want to put that directly in the Android client. I do have a Windows laptop, but I rarely consume content on that these days. Mostly I a…

So many apps seem to lack the basic: Filter by x and Sort by x for all of the obvious criteria. What bastardized yearning for simplicity has led to removing such a simple clear piece of functionality? It's familiar, doesn't add excessive clutter and scales well between power-users and lesser mortals. Why is it increasingly rare?

Only guess I have for Netflix specifically is the fact that they have built clients for every device under the sun. This was and still is part of their M.O. It is just time consuming and difficult to write a heavier feature set in to all of your clients when theyre on every smart tv ever, Xbox, probably toasters, God knows what else

Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#515
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure used to be able to go there for specific movies. I understand why it's not the case anymore, but I miss what it was.

I honestly don't remember a time when that was true, and I'm pretty sure I joined the service sometime near rollout. They've had a handful of times where bigger-name movies burst in based on some deal or the other (Starz being the original big one, but there've been others since) but by and large Netflix has always been indie + back catalog as far as I've experienced it in the US.

I would agree. I've been on since day 1 of streaming and I'm skeptical the movie catalog has gotten significantly better or worse. Movies come and go, but overall my queue has consistently had hundreds of unwatched movies in it at any given time.

Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could that fit with Netflix's current culture? They're big on content that's curated, high-quality, high-definition (with graceful degredation). Live news' editorial agility and responsiveness would require a department with a substantially different attitude and expertise. They're capable of expanding and pivoting though, more than most companies, so if they decide it's a priority, it's possible. It seems like a pre…

Before doing a cable news type thing they would probably be better off starting with a PBS / 60 minutes type program. Long form journalism that still has value the next day. Making a Murderer is already in this direction.

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Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#517
post #68

Can someone confirm whether signing up to e.g. Netflix in UK and using VPN with USA ip will give US selection of the movies? I signed up in USA and regularly switching to UK netflix for some EU tv-series which are not available in USA. If that works, it would make the subscription quite interesting even for the new countries which just got released.

Yes you can switch your Netflix region simply by using a PureVPN service.

Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#518
post #70

In europe we just get netflix lite, with old and uninteresting stuff sparkled with some original content and random rares. I hope someday we'll get this netflix you all talk about.

Yeah, considering switching to Netflix US + VPN. Only decent content here (Ireland) is the Netflix Originals stuff.

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Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran openvpn on digital ocean before. But then I wanted one in the UK sometimes, and in the US sometimes. And then I tried to watch HKTV from Taiwan, so needed one in HK. So I ended up with ExpressVPN. But... let's see what happens this year. Especially with netflix!

If you set it up manually each time, sure, that won't work very well. But you should be able to automate that - create the config (CA and everything) once and then just spin up a droplet via the API, install the packages, copy and unpack the config. I don't think you'd need to customize more than the sever's IP address in the config. I built something similar with sshuttle (way easier than OpenVPN) two years ago, it'…

I'll have a go! Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Netflix Is Now Available Around the World

#520
post #265

Netflix managed to snag Lee Collins (one of the original creators of Unicode) from Apple recently, which helps explain how they could accomplish the i18n aspects of this with such a broad range of countries.

You need one of the original creators of Unicode to translate an app?

Nah. What I mean is it was very sudden and broad, which is a feat. Usually companies roll this stuff out slowly, market by market.
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