Netflix: Should I or Shouldn't I?

Started by pookiethecat, October 08, 2003, 02:40:05 PM

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Jeremy Blackman

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but I was reviewing my Taste Preferences in Netflix and a few of the categories they've been inclined to offer are completely bonkers:

Cool Moustaches
Monkeys
Mexican Sexy Comedies

E: Research reveals that the "Cool Moustaches" category was created to celebrate Movember. That's disappointing.

Jeremy Blackman

Actually I was relieved to find that those categories had not been selected for me. But I'm thinking about it.


wilder

Netflix makes changes to public API after "Streamageddon" backlash
via PaidContent

Figuring out which titles are going expire soon on Netflix just got a lot harder: The company changed its public API Monday night to prevent this information from popping up on third-party websites.

Netflix made some changes to its public API Monday night that make it harder to figure out which movies are going to be taken off the service. The company will no longer provide the expiration date of movies through its API, which will mean that third-party tools like Instantwatcher.com's Expiring Soon on Instant list will stop working.

"With the frequent, often last minute, changes in content flow the title expiration data available through our API has been inaccurate, so we have decided to no longer publish this information," a Netflix spokesperson said via email. The company's Director of Engineering – API Daniel Jacobson reiterated this point in a post on the company's developer blog, adding that members will still be able to find the expiration date for each movie or TV show episode on the title's web page.

The move will likely impact a number of third-party services, and comes two months after Netflix essentially closed its public API to all newcomers. Back in March, Netflix said that it was no longer issuing new API keys because the way the company was changing the API had changed: Initially meant to enable third-party apps, Netflix's API has been playing a key component for the technology behind the company's streaming service.

Restrictions to public APIs have been a common pattern for companies like Netflix and Twitter in recent months, but it looks like there may have been another reason for Monday's changes: Netflix took a number of titles off its catalog in early May, leading some publications to write about "the great Netflix Instant vanishing of 2013" or even a "Streamageddon purge."

Not all of those stories were completely accurate. Some reported a number of 2000 titles disappearing, but Deadline put the number close to 1000. And reports that Warner was pulling titles off of Netflix to power its own streaming service were quickly denied by the studio.

Netflix clearly wasn't happy about all that streamageddon talk. Now it looks like it pulled the plug on another part of its API to prevent us from freaking out in the future — like at the end of the month, when a number of Viacom shows are set to disappear from the service.


polkablues

My suspicion is that Netflix isn't doing a thing themselves, but the content providers are providing them with cropped versions of these movies. Which is a problem in itself, but people shouldn't jump all over Netflix for it.
My house, my rules, my coffee

wilder

Netflix to Expand Beyond Series Into Original Documentaries, Stand-Up Comedy Specials
by Todd Spangler
via Variety

Netflix is moving to mimic HBO even more closely: The Internet streaming service's execs said they will widen the original programming beyond TV series to include documentaries as well as stand-up comedy specials.

"Over the last six months, our move into original programming has begun to redefine Netflix in the eyes of consumers," CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells said in a letter to shareholders discussing second quarter results.

In terms of relative size, about 5% of Netflix's approximately $3 billion in content library net book value is for originals. That ratio could increase to 10% to 15% in the years ahead, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said at a recent investor conference.

Down the road, Netflix's originals initiative will include "broadly appealing feature documentaries" and stand-up comedy specials. "Netflix has become a big destination for fans of these much loved and often under-distributed genres," Hastings and Wells said.

etflix is still buzzing from garnering 14 Primetime Emmy nominations last week, with "House of Cards" earning nine nominations — including Outstanding Drama — while "Arrested Development" notched three, and thriller "Hemlock Grove" landed two.

"We couldn't be more proud and pleased for the series creators, actors, composers, designers and others who are being recognized by their peers for the excellence of their storytelling on Netflix," Hastings and Wells said.

Netflix has not disclosed any viewing metrics associated with specific shows. The company gauges success of each original title "by looking at viewing-to-date and estimated future viewing, relative to cost," the execs said.

So far, Netflix has ordered second seasons of its initial four projects — "Lilyhammer," "House of Cards," "Hemlock Grove" and "Orange Is the New Black," which the streamer picked up for a second run before the first season debuted. Netflix is in discussions with the cast of "Arrested Development" for a fifth season.

Later this month, Netflix will premiere "Mako Mermaids," a series aimed at teen audiences, followed by Ricky Gervais series "Derek," season two of "Lilyhammer," and "Turbo: F.A.S.T. (Fast Action Stunt Team)," its first animated original from DreamWorks Animation.

polkablues

This reminds me, I've been watching Orange Is the New Black and it's pretty great. If you liked Weeds in the early years, before it went off the rails, chances are you'll like it. Same proportion of humor and pathos.
My house, my rules, my coffee

ono

http://criterioncast.com/netflix/

Maybe this has been mentioned before, maybe not.  But this's a list of all the currently-streaming Criterion movies on Netflix.  So for those that complain that Netflix lacks a quality selection of movies, I hear you.  Maybe this will help.

Reel

I wish there was a giant list of text with every netflix title, so I didn't have to scroll thru page after page of cover art.. I swear to god, there are hundreds of movies that they don't even place under any category.

ono

Agreed.  And I'm slightly annoyed as well that they removed the option to put a move that you've just added to your queue (now called My List -- ugh) to the top.  I don't get why they're dumbing things down.  Oh wait, of course I do: to make things more palatable for the masses.

Reel

just sitting here trying to enjoy my evening watching some netflix and the bitch keeps buffering on me. It's been doing this for the past few weeks! What the fuck is wrong with my router?

Sleepless

The Movie Deal Netflix Wants to Make — And It's Not Day-and-Date

Ted Sarandos wants to secure rights to films hot on the heels of their theatrical bows.


"Why not premiere movies on Netflix the same day they're opening in theaters?" Ted Sarandos posited in a keynote speech at the recent Film Independent Forum.

The streaming service's chief content officer stopped short of saying he was actually pursuing such an arrangement, but make no mistake, this was no hypothetical. Sarandos is actively seeking a deal to secure financing for at least one, if not an entire slate of films budgeted well above indie levels, according to sources.

While releasing those titles day-and-date with cinemas would be a tall order, Sarandos wants them 45 days or even 30 days after their theatrical bow.

Netflix declined comment.

That may be a tough get, considering exhibitors are not likely to relax their long-held hard line against anything that encroaches on their exclusive release window, which enables theaters to play movies for at least 90 days before they can be seen on other platforms.

Sarandos clearly understands that, and isn't happy about theater owners' intractability. He accused them of stifling innovation, warning that "not only are they going to kill theaters — they might kill movies," a broadside that is drawing an equally vociferous response from exhibitors.

"It's my opinion that if we do not keep the windows as they are, theaters won't have a chance," said Larry Allen, president and CEO of Allen Theaters, a 108-screen circuit based in New Mexico. Sarandos' proposal would "put us out of business," he added.

A week after floating the day-and-date notion, Sarandos struck a very different tone on the idea, though he still held out the possibility of getting into the theatrical game.

"I wasn't calling for day-and-date with Netflix," he said in an appearance at a Bloomberg event Nov. 4. "I was calling to move all the windows up to get closer to what the consumer wants."

While insiders say it's unlikely Netflix could surmount the significant obstacles that stand in the way of altering traditional windows, they acknowledge it's not impossible. The streaming service may represent the best hope for reviving what's been called premium VOD, a prospect that is starting to seem newly enticing after an overcrowded summer hurt the longevity of pictures like "World War Z" and "Man of Steel."

Sources privy to Sarandos' thinking say he is encouraged by how original TV programming has moved the needle for Netflix, and frustrated by the lack of demand on the service for movie titles supplied through various output deals with companies like Relativity and the Weinstein Co. He's hoping that by accelerating the windows on certain titles he can work the same magic with movies that he has with TV hits like "House of Cards." It's unclear whether he intends to charge Netflix subscribers a separate fee on top of the $7.99 a month they currently pay.

In his original speech, Sarandos suggested going day-and-date on a "big" movie, though how expensive a production he's really talking about is another murky matter. While indie films often go the route of VOD day-and-date release — and in many cases, even pre-theatrical release — "big" to the Netflix chief likely means movies that are in the $15 million-$30 million range, where the proceeds from foreign pre-sales alone can considerably mitigate risk.

Given its own reluctance for deficit financing even with its TV properties, Netflix would almost certainly have to partner with a secondary source of financing that shares the company's appetite for risk-taking to leverage such a plan.

Collapsing release windows continue to be such a hot-button topic in Hollywood that studio executives are loath to address it on the record for fear of offending exhibitors, their longtime partners in shared box office revenue. John Fithian, the president of National Assn. of Theater Owners, refused to be interviewed for this story.

Major studios don't have reason to engage in conversations with Netflix yet, but Netflix may need a studio on its side in order to gain leverage and credibility on the issue. If the streaming service were to go forward and produce films on its own, movie theaters likely would balk at showing them. Larger chains such as AMC Theaters and Regal Cinemas don't show films that are released on VOD the same day as theatrical.

"I think there would have been a better chance at that prior to (Sarandos') keynote address," quipped Tim League, CEO and founder of Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, an indie chain with screens in Texas and New York. "If it were a good movie we thought we'd have an audience for, we'd play it. We've had great success with some VOD titles."

But some studio execs are privately cheering for Netflix even as they concede the company's odds are slim of gaining traction on shrinking windows.

The studios feel that Netflix may be the best partner available for premium VOD, because while pay-TV distributors' VOD platforms play second banana to their linear channels, Netflix has a proven ability to drive eyeballs to an on-demand attraction.

Some say they saw all along that Sarandos was talking a big game on day-and-date, and add he might really be aiming for getting a title after 30 or 45 days in theaters, the latter period reserved for hotel-based VOD, where top titles can go for $20 per rental.

While exhibitors don't want the time new releases spend exclusively in theaters curtailed, a 45-day window would also inflame outlets that typically get the homevideo window to themselves, whether that's Walmart or Apple's iTunes.

Since the studios have never been willing to experiment, there's no research on the effect a more compressed window would have on a film's lifetime cume.

According to Doug Stone, president of Box Office Analyst, 96% of theatrical box office for wide release films this year has come from the first six weeks (or 42 days) of a movie's wide release, up from 93.9% in 2006. The average window is still 120 days, and many agree with Sarandos that there's no good reason to keep films away from consumers' homes for so long.

"Whether (the 90-day window is) worth fighting for is still a question in my mind," says Stone. "Everybody predicted the doom of theatergoing when videotapes were out and permeating the market. What happened is box office kept increasing, and there was more funding for the production of films."

In the end, Netflix may just make a theatrical deal by going the traditional route, said Stone, debuting new movies in theaters like everybody else. "This is a business," he added. "It's not a philosophical argument."

Source: Variety
He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.

classical gas

Not sure if anyone has tried this (I just did) but if you download this app from the Chrome store called Hola you can watch UK netflix.  You download the app, go to the settings and unblock netflix.  Then you go to netflix UK (in the google search it'll say "programmes" in the description) and then click on the Hola icon and click "not working", then you switch to the UK flag and get access.  It's apparently legal and safe and you can watch the final episodes of Breaking Bad.  I also saw The Hobbit and 50/50 on there, but didn't go beyond that.  Anyone had any trouble with this because it seems to work just fine.

Jeremy Blackman

Hey by the way, net neutrality is dead. Guess not enough people cared about it.

This is expected to have huge consequences for Netflix. Prices will probably go up...


http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/01/15/netflix-net-neutrality-costs/4491117/