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

Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

streamingobserver.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–548 of 548 posts

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#541

Post by bcrescimanno »

herge wrote: post #497
blakeyrat wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish Netflix had the YouTube-esque ability for users to make and share playlists. All the Star Trek series and films are on Netflix. Wouldn't it be great to have a playlist of every episode by original air date? (So you don't get confused when Deep Space 9 refers to an event in First Contact?) Wouldn't it be awesome to have a playlist of only the top 20 Voyager episodes, so you don't have to suffer through t…

I think their UI is purposefully bad to make it hard to notice titles coming in and out of circulation, as the deals they have with different production companies expire.

Their UI (which I worked on heavily) is actually VERY optimized and an immense amount of testing around success metrics goes into it.

It has far less to do with "not noticing" and much more to do with the algorithms knowing what you might want to watch that you didn't already know you wanted to watch.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#542

Post by bcrescimanno »

paol wrote: post #318
bcrescimanno wrote: post #304

TL;DR: A former Netflix employee isn't surprised because films very little business sense for Netflix. Former Netflix employee here--though I left in late 2013. I remember sitting at a company meeting and Reed Hastings explaining that AAA film content was never going to be the bread-and-butter for Netflix for several reasons. Most importantly: Between traditional, "linear" television and Netflix, the experience that…

If that's the case, that leaves the problem (from the consumer's point of view) of where to get access to a complete(ish) catalog of films. Netflix actually achieved this back in the disc-by-mail days. So we're actually moving backwards. I'm not particularly ashamed to say I turn to unlicensed torrents for this purpose, but I would prefer if it weren't necessary.

Sadly--this isn't really something Netflix (or anyone) can possibly offer given the way that the entertainment industry licenses content.

When they made the transition to streaming, they had to acknowledge that they could no longer provide the one-stop shop with everything to watch. Instead, they had to pivot to a model largely based on "something for everyone to watch." My personal opinion is that they missed a good opportunity to socialize that pivot.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#543

Post by IshKebab »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #539
IshKebab wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People may spend more time binge watching TV than watching films on Netflix. But they should be concentrating on customer satisfaction, not racking up viewers. My girlfriend already jokes that if you search for a film on Netflix they realise and immediately remove it. Then you get the dreaded "Films related to X" search result. It's really really bad if Netflix gets a reputation for having a small catalogue, even if…

> But they should be concentrating on customer satisfaction, not racking up viewers. I assure you; they are. Despite the very vocal people around the HN community to talk a lot about hating the selection, the data says that most people are pretty happy with it--and only getting happier.

Where is this data? Are you talking about the hilarious statistic that 94% of subscribers are happy with the service?

I tried to watch a film last night and searched for all of these very popular films.

* Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels

* 28 Days Later

* Go

* Gladiator

* American Beauty

* Speed

Then I gave up. When you try 6 very well known films and none of them are on there it changes how you think of the service from "most stuff is on there" (like Spotify for example) to "I have to search Netflix to find something I like" (like a normal TV channel). It's very different.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#544

Post by AlexB138 »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #283
AlexB138 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you have to leave your phone's screen on the entire time to use screen casting?

Yes. It's essentially mirroring the phone screen so you've got to focus on watching movie or a show and not worry about playing with the phone notifications. That's a trade-off.

My concerns were more along the lines of power drain.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#545

Post by erikjsanders »

caleblloyd wrote: post #510
oldmanjay wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really a flaw of netflix, is it? If you believe it is, I'd love to understand your reasoning.

I used to love going to blockbuster to rent a flick, because I could do it on a whim (near-instant gratification). Because of streaming services like Netflix, blockbuster went out of business. I don't plan for movie night days in advance. I'm not going to rent that shit in the mail. So after a few years of not touching my DVD player, I threw it out. The content owners are the real ones losing out here. I'd pay $4 to…

You can rent and stream many movies from Amazon for 3.99 SD and 4.99 HD. I'm not sure if these prices are discounted since I am a prime member.

I just recently started using VidAngel though, and I'm happy with it so far. They advertise being able to filter movies, but you can always just filter a single word if you don't want anything filtered. It's $1 for SD and $2 for HD. They have an interesting licensing model though so you sort of have to have a constant $18-$19 deposit with them.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#546

Post by shadowfiend »

izacus wrote: post #350
shadowfiend wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I now, the answer is yes to Windows (not Linux), and you can legally watch US stuff in Europe as long as your iTunes account is associated with a US account as far as I know (98% certain I did exactly this a couple of years ago). However, iTunes is only pay-per-view for some films, and hasn't been pay-per-view for TV episodes for some time. TV episodes you must buy (either one at a time for typically ~$3 or…

> As far as I now, the answer is yes to Windows (not Linux), and you can legally watch US stuff in Europe as long as your iTunes account is associated with a US account as far as I know (98% certain I did exactly this a couple of years ago). Sorry, but according to content right owners (Sony being named among the chief ones), that's not legal or acceptable. If they say you're not allowed to watch a movie in EU, it's…

Then I guess Apple doesn't enforce that legal restriction ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That seems unlikely to me, though. More likely there is more subtlety to it than that.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#547

Post by shadowfiend »

reitanqild wrote: post #216
shadowfiend wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I now, the answer is yes to Windows (not Linux), and you can legally watch US stuff in Europe as long as your iTunes account is associated with a US account as far as I know (98% certain I did exactly this a couple of years ago). However, iTunes is only pay-per-view for some films, and hasn't been pay-per-view for TV episodes for some time. TV episodes you must buy (either one at a time for typically ~$3 or…

Ok, guess I wasn't clear enough. I'm not a US citizsn, so I guess this means a bunch of VPN trickery && buy gift cards using EBay && enter fake zip codes or is there a simpler way? I, like many others really want to buy. For me pirating is last option (after "let's just do something else, I don't need to see that movie after all")

No, that's correct. If you're not a US citizen unfortunately this does not help at all :/

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#548

Post by bcrescimanno »

IshKebab wrote: post #543
bcrescimanno wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they should be concentrating on customer satisfaction, not racking up viewers. I assure you; they are. Despite the very vocal people around the HN community to talk a lot about hating the selection, the data says that most people are pretty happy with it--and only getting happier.

Where is this data? Are you talking about the hilarious statistic that 94% of subscribers are happy with the service? I tried to watch a film last night and searched for all of these very popular films. * Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels * 28 Days Later * Go * Gladiator * American Beauty * Speed Then I gave up. When you try 6 very well known films and none of them are on there it changes how you think of the service…

The data is internal; I obviously don't have access to it anymore. That said, having worked at many companies in my career, I can tell you that Netflix is far more data-driven than any company I've personally experienced--even to a fault since pure data-driven thinking is where Qwikster came from.

You don't like the selection. You're looking for films. Films make up a very small percentage of Netflix streaming content and Netflix streaming usage.

If you are still thinking of Netflix (the streaming service) as "most stuff is on there" then I'm happy to see you reframe your thinking--it's not now, nor has it ever been, that.

Post reply on HN