Netflix is HUGELY dishonest. I almost signed up with them again until I realized:
If you aren't already a customer, they claim that ALL movies are in their library. Even ones currently in theaters and unreleased on DVD! (Even titles like The Avengers that haven't even even finished production yet.)
Blatant false advertising. Here?s how it works--try it:
If you don?t have an account (or if you're logged out), then when you go to their site you can ?Browse Selection? to see if you like their library enough to buy one of their services.
Any movie you search for will come up under Browse Selection. There is NO indication that a given movie is not really available... until AFTER you pay.
In fact, as recently as a few weeks ago, they also claimed that every movie you searched for (including The Avengers) was available to "Watch Instantly." That has been removed recently. Now you simply can't tell which movies are available for Watch Instantly and which are on DVD.
Bait and switch! AFTER you pay, then and only then can you browse their REAL selection, which indicates what is available and what is simply a "placeholder" for something they might or might not someday get. And only AFTER you pay can you tell what's available to Watch Instantly. A tiny fraction of what they indicate before you pay.
I was this close to buying their streaming plan, since everything I searched for came up (until recently) wth ?Watch Instantly.? Awesome selection, I thought! Until I accidentally brought up a current theatrical release and it too said ?Watch Instantly? in the page title. Only then did I realize there was no way to tell what their actual selection was without paying.
Why are people tolerating this? I can find almost no mention of it online. Yet thousands of people must be signing up and suddenly seeing the library shrink once Netflix has your credit card! I can?t imagine advertising getting any more illegal than this.
For the paultry sum of $7.95 a month it is well worth it for all the TV series I never had time to watch. All in excellent HD, no stuttering. You can't get a decent glass of wine for that price!
Canada also has terrible Netflix selection. I don't understand how we can have vastly different amounts of content when I am 30 minutes from the US border... Offer the same service to every country! The Internet is World Wide..... So shouldn't you be able to stream all your content World Wide??
Realistically, though, it's very much of a 'buyer beware' issue. Before signing up for either service, a prudent customer would check to see if the shows they want to watch are available.
The thirty days free trial should remove anyone's doubt. If they pay and are disappointed I have a bridge to sell them!
Canada also has terrible Netflix selection. I don't understand how we can have vastly different amounts of content when I am 30 minutes from the US border... Offer the same service to every country! The Internet is World Wide..... So shouldn't you be able to stream all your content World Wide??
Does seem strange, you seem nice people to me. Maybe licensing issues. You can always spoof a US address.
It was with great fanfare that Netflix helped usher in the world of streaming video. But ever since they helped 'usher streaming video in' all they seem to do is discourage you from using it. Movies from the 1980s and 1990s are noted as 'Recently Added' to their streaming library. In the end, their streaming library is woefully thin. It seems they want to push people to the more expensive DVD plans, which seems to go against the grain as far as technology goes. It seems as though Netflix could make a handsome profit if they moved more of their library to the streaming model. Fewer distribution centers, fewer people, lower mailing costs.
I'm streaming only and they haven't tried to upsell me to a disc plan in quite a while.
I would expect that Netflix wants to go to more streaming. Keep in mind that is up to the copyright holders because of idiosyncrasies in copyright law. With discs, copyright holders don't get much say because they lose that say on the sale of the discs. The best leverage the studios get is offering discounts in exchange for concessions. But the leverage is limited, Netflix can buy the discs from a distributor if the terms are too onerous for the discount.
Quote:
Whatever bad PR Netflix gets, they deserve.
I don't think that's the right attitude to have. Assent to bad PR for the things they actually do. I don't think the ends justify the means. I tend to question someone's reasoning when they perpetuate falsehoods or justify the same.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smallwheels
During the last minute of every show I watch on Netflix the video begins to stutter. The size of the show doesn't matter. It is always in the last minute that it occurs. Netflix customer service representatives say it must be the cache. I replied saying; "If it were the cache it would happen at the same amount of time into each show, not at the last minute of both 90 minute and 21 minute shows.
Anybody else have that problem?
What playback device are you using? I get stutter and buffer pauses all the time with the current AppleTV. On my PS3, it almost doesn't happen at all.
So, shouldn't the headline read something like "Amazon inflates streaming library numbers, unofficial Netflix stats use same method"? Netflix actually isn't saying anything about their numbers. They're not misleading anyone, in fact, as said, they don't say as to *not* mislead anyone.
As for the count, you could argue both ways. For a show I'm interested in - if an hour show lasted 7 seasons, that's @140 hours worth of viewing I'm mostly interested in - that's the same as about 70 movies since I'll be watching most of them but just as with 10 movies there's no way I'm watching, or a show lasting 7 seasons I'm not interested i watching, then it doesn't matter either way you count it. But it is easy to tell Amazon is not on the ball. They list every show by season so while it seems like there are plenty of series, a show onfor 7 seasons appears 7 times on the list ... while on Netflix, it's navigation allows for seasons to all appear under one heading ... Amazon "HD" is very weak and iffy ... at least for free prime titles ...
Personally, I could no longer justify paying the additional fee for streaming, so I just canceled my streaming Netflix service (only kept the DVD by mail).
The meaning seems pretty clear. If someone says to you "I watched a great TV show last night" do you assume that they mean that they watched all 192 episodes of 24?
During the last minute of every show I watch on Netflix the video begins to stutter. The size of the show doesn't matter. It is always in the last minute that it occurs. Netflix customer service representatives say it must be the cache. I replied saying; "If it were the cache it would happen at the same amount of time into each show, not at the last minute of both 90 minute and 21 minute shows.
Anybody else have that problem?
This is quite normal though understandably, annoying. Towards the end, it usually drop out in term of quality and smoothness. I have the same problem though not with Netflix but video playback of NFL videos on iPad as well. More like 'command' problem rather than cache. The file tells the player that is is nearing the end so, much like people, it just say bleh! it almost finish. I'm outta here. Now. So the quality drops
Canada also has terrible Netflix selection. I don't understand how we can have vastly different amounts of content when I am 30 minutes from the US border... Offer the same service to every country! The Internet is World Wide..... So shouldn't you be able to stream all your content World Wide??
Territorial licensing is the issue. One movie network I used to have, (I believe it was Turner Classic Movies), would come up with "We do not have the rights to broadcast this show in Canada.
I have discovered after I have down loaded something large on my Mac over FTP for example, I get issues with Netflix, rebooting the Airport Extreme always fixes the problem.
Interesting that you posted that as I've experienced a similar issue, but not with Netflix. I found that if I had downloaded a large amount of material, say 10GB, in a short period of time that my network connection would have connection issues.
Rebooting the Airport Express would fix it. I wonder how common an issue this is.
The meaning seems pretty clear. If someone says to you "I watched a great TV show last night" do you assume that they mean that they watched all 192 episodes of 24?
I think the meaning is ambiguous enough, but I don't think it makes sense to call an entire TV series one title, when a TV series might have 100x the run time of one movie. But even "17,000 movies and TV episodes" sounds pretty impressive, and it's more specific without adding to the word count.
Any way you measure it, you're probably not going to measure quality, and that's a fundamental problem. They could say they have 5,000 or 10,000 hours or entertainment on tap, which still sounds pretty impressive at first, but if you only care about 5% of what they offer, that's pretty limiting. One thing I was annoyed by in Amazon's PS3 app is each season is listed separately in the scroll bar. I'd much prefer all of a series under one banner and click to drill down to seasons, not one banner per season on the top menu.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ltcompuser
Territorial licensing is the issue. One movie network I used to have, (I believe it was Turner Classic Movies), would come up with "We do not have the rights to broadcast this show in Canada.
Apple ran into this problem a lot too when they are expanding iTunes to more regions. Sometimes the rights are held by a different subsidiary, sometimes the rights are held by a completely unrelated company. I imagine sometimes the negotiation only covered one territory because other territories weren't in the business plans yet, making a deal for rights in additional territories just weren't covered yet.
Does seem strange, you seem nice people to me. Maybe licensing issues. You can always spoof a US address.
netflix does know where you are (ie usa or canada) meaning using an american sign-in in canada gets you the canadian netflix content... because netflix is an app, they can find out the receiving IP address, thus the location of where the tv is located....
meaning if they do an ip route trace, spoofing your ip address will do no good, because you can not spoof the ip route trace... (though i suppose if you have uber1337-Tcpip-kungfu skills you could spoof the ip trace... anythings possible????)
The meaning seems pretty clear. If someone says to you "I watched a great TV show last night" do you assume that they mean that they watched all 192 episodes of 24?
And if someone asks what TV shows you like, do you list individual episodes?
netflix does know where you are (ie usa or canada) meaning using an american sign-in in canada gets you the canadian netflix content... because netflix is an app, they can find out the receiving IP address, thus the location of where the tv is located....
meaning if they do an ip route trace, spoofing your ip address will do no good, because you can not spoof the ip route trace... (though i suppose if you have uber1337-Tcpip-kungfu skills you could spoof the ip trace... anythings possible????)
I very much doubt they are doing anything other than a simple database lookup on where the IP is assigned.
This is a genuine grievance, but I don't think it is as significant as you say. As other have pointed out if you are new to Netflix, your first month is free. So you are not out of anything.
With that said, I can see how what you describe might upset some people, but does many people really think a movie not released yet is available now? I think what you describe is merely a flaw in how its database works. For instance, as an actual member I can search for any movie, even those not released. It will than let me put said movies in my queue and tell me they are not available yet. Being able to put them in my queue now though is handy for when the movie does come out.
Moreover, you can go to sites like Rotten Tomatoes and select the Netflix button and it will place not yet released movies in my Netflix queue. I doubt too many people honestly thought they could see those movies now. When people cancel Netflix, it does allow people to tell Netflix why they are quiting. If what you point out was a big issue, I am sure Netscape would have addressed it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nagromme
Netflix is HUGELY dishonest. I almost signed up with them again until I realized:
If you aren't already a customer, they claim that ALL movies are in their library. Even ones currently in theaters and unreleased on DVD! (Even titles like The Avengers that haven't even even finished production yet.)
Blatant false advertising. Here?s how it works--try it:
If you don?t have an account (or if you're logged out), then when you go to their site you can ?Browse Selection? to see if you like their library enough to buy one of their services.
Any movie you search for will come up under Browse Selection. There is NO indication that a given movie is not really available... until AFTER you pay.
In fact, as recently as a few weeks ago, they also claimed that every movie you searched for (including The Avengers) was available to "Watch Instantly." That has been removed recently. Now you simply can't tell which movies are available for Watch Instantly and which are on DVD.
Bait and switch! AFTER you pay, then and only then can you browse their REAL selection, which indicates what is available and what is simply a "placeholder" for something they might or might not someday get. And only AFTER you pay can you tell what's available to Watch Instantly. A tiny fraction of what they indicate before you pay.
I was this close to buying their streaming plan, since everything I searched for came up (until recently) wth ?Watch Instantly.? Awesome selection, I thought! Until I accidentally brought up a current theatrical release and it too said ?Watch Instantly? in the page title. Only then did I realize there was no way to tell what their actual selection was without paying.
Why are people tolerating this? I can find almost no mention of it online. Yet thousands of people must be signing up and suddenly seeing the library shrink once Netflix has your credit card! I can?t imagine advertising getting any more illegal than this.
Well said. If somebody ask me what TV shows do I like to watch, I don't say House, Season 2, Episodes 5 through 15 excluding Episode 7. I simply say House. In my mind a show means the entire series. If somebody told me a new service has 720 titles, I signed up, and they were all Power Rangers episodes I would be pretty upset if it cost me money.
Amazon is trying to make it seem like it has more content then it really does.
Quote:
Originally Posted by I am a Zither Zather Zuzz
And if someone asks what TV shows you like, do you list individual episodes?
And they'll get away with it because no one cares about them.
Apple, on the other hand, can't sneeze without people saying the color of the snot is a reason to sue or sell.
If Apple sneezes, it'll be called sign of failure, even though the sneezing will be copied, patent claims filed, and books written about the secret behind the Apple sneeze. Trolls will say how Apple didn't invent the sneeze, (even though everyone will start sneezing the way Apple sneezes), and post endlessly about how Google's snot tastes so much better. And fans will proclaim that competitors who are still sneezing the old way are now doomed.
This is what the net neutrality fight is all about. Companies like Comcast seem to think they should get paid both by their subscribers and by those who offer content to their subscribers. So if a company like Netflix doesn't want to pay money to Comcast for content that Comcast's users have already paid Comcast to deliver, Comcast will often times throttle the speed for content coming from a company like Netflix. When I was with Comcast I used to suffer that problem sometimes when using Netflix and Vonage. I since switched to my only other reasonable option, which is AT&T DSL. I hate AT&T almost as much as Comcast, but I very rarely experience the drop outs that I did with Comcast. Oddly enough AT&T's DSL speed seems quicker than Comcast's speed (which shouldn't be the case).
Netflix has also tried to battle the problem by adjusting the quality of content on the fly based on the bandwidth the ISP is allowing it. On my X-Box Hulu Plus suffers more than Netflix (not terribly more), I suspect this is because Hulu Plus doesn't adjust its bandwidth on the fly.
Some people have also reported that Apple TV sometimes experiences some networking issues. I am actually quite happy with Netflix's streaming performance. The content selection when it comes to recently released to DVD movies could use a little work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
As I said to Smallwheels I get superb HD from Netflix with FiOS. I wonder if it is better in some areas than others. Are you using FiOS or cable? I ask as I suspect Comcast and other old cable technology companies still suffer contention ratios unlike FiOS.
Comments
Netflix is HUGELY dishonest. I almost signed up with them again until I realized:
If you aren't already a customer, they claim that ALL movies are in their library. Even ones currently in theaters and unreleased on DVD! (Even titles like The Avengers that haven't even even finished production yet.)
Blatant false advertising. Here?s how it works--try it:
If you don?t have an account (or if you're logged out), then when you go to their site you can ?Browse Selection? to see if you like their library enough to buy one of their services.
Any movie you search for will come up under Browse Selection. There is NO indication that a given movie is not really available... until AFTER you pay.
In fact, as recently as a few weeks ago, they also claimed that every movie you searched for (including The Avengers) was available to "Watch Instantly." That has been removed recently. Now you simply can't tell which movies are available for Watch Instantly and which are on DVD.
Bait and switch! AFTER you pay, then and only then can you browse their REAL selection, which indicates what is available and what is simply a "placeholder" for something they might or might not someday get. And only AFTER you pay can you tell what's available to Watch Instantly. A tiny fraction of what they indicate before you pay.
I was this close to buying their streaming plan, since everything I searched for came up (until recently) wth ?Watch Instantly.? Awesome selection, I thought! Until I accidentally brought up a current theatrical release and it too said ?Watch Instantly? in the page title. Only then did I realize there was no way to tell what their actual selection was without paying.
Why are people tolerating this? I can find almost no mention of it online. Yet thousands of people must be signing up and suddenly seeing the library shrink once Netflix has your credit card! I can?t imagine advertising getting any more illegal than this.
For the paultry sum of $7.95 a month it is well worth it for all the TV series I never had time to watch. All in excellent HD, no stuttering. You can't get a decent glass of wine for that price!
That's part of the reason I quit using Netflix.
Realistically, though, it's very much of a 'buyer beware' issue. Before signing up for either service, a prudent customer would check to see if the shows they want to watch are available.
The thirty days free trial should remove anyone's doubt. If they pay and are disappointed I have a bridge to sell them!
Canada also has terrible Netflix selection. I don't understand how we can have vastly different amounts of content when I am 30 minutes from the US border... Offer the same service to every country! The Internet is World Wide..... So shouldn't you be able to stream all your content World Wide??
Does seem strange, you seem nice people to me.
It was with great fanfare that Netflix helped usher in the world of streaming video. But ever since they helped 'usher streaming video in' all they seem to do is discourage you from using it. Movies from the 1980s and 1990s are noted as 'Recently Added' to their streaming library. In the end, their streaming library is woefully thin. It seems they want to push people to the more expensive DVD plans, which seems to go against the grain as far as technology goes. It seems as though Netflix could make a handsome profit if they moved more of their library to the streaming model. Fewer distribution centers, fewer people, lower mailing costs.
I'm streaming only and they haven't tried to upsell me to a disc plan in quite a while.
I would expect that Netflix wants to go to more streaming. Keep in mind that is up to the copyright holders because of idiosyncrasies in copyright law. With discs, copyright holders don't get much say because they lose that say on the sale of the discs. The best leverage the studios get is offering discounts in exchange for concessions. But the leverage is limited, Netflix can buy the discs from a distributor if the terms are too onerous for the discount.
Whatever bad PR Netflix gets, they deserve.
I don't think that's the right attitude to have. Assent to bad PR for the things they actually do. I don't think the ends justify the means. I tend to question someone's reasoning when they perpetuate falsehoods or justify the same.
During the last minute of every show I watch on Netflix the video begins to stutter. The size of the show doesn't matter. It is always in the last minute that it occurs. Netflix customer service representatives say it must be the cache. I replied saying; "If it were the cache it would happen at the same amount of time into each show, not at the last minute of both 90 minute and 21 minute shows.
Anybody else have that problem?
What playback device are you using? I get stutter and buffer pauses all the time with the current AppleTV. On my PS3, it almost doesn't happen at all.
So, shouldn't the headline read something like "Amazon inflates streaming library numbers, unofficial Netflix stats use same method"? Netflix actually isn't saying anything about their numbers. They're not misleading anyone, in fact, as said, they don't say as to *not* mislead anyone.
I was thinking the same thing.
[...]
During the last minute of every show I watch on Netflix the video begins to stutter. The size of the show doesn't matter. It is always in the last minute that it occurs. Netflix customer service representatives say it must be the cache. I replied saying; "If it were the cache it would happen at the same amount of time into each show, not at the last minute of both 90 minute and 21 minute shows.
Anybody else have that problem?
This is quite normal though understandably, annoying. Towards the end, it usually drop out in term of quality and smoothness. I have the same problem though not with Netflix but video playback of NFL videos on iPad as well. More like 'command' problem rather than cache. The file tells the player that is is nearing the end so, much like people, it just say bleh! it almost finish. I'm outta here. Now. So the quality drops
Canada also has terrible Netflix selection. I don't understand how we can have vastly different amounts of content when I am 30 minutes from the US border... Offer the same service to every country! The Internet is World Wide..... So shouldn't you be able to stream all your content World Wide??
Territorial licensing is the issue. One movie network I used to have, (I believe it was Turner Classic Movies), would come up with "We do not have the rights to broadcast this show in Canada.
I have discovered after I have down loaded something large on my Mac over FTP for example, I get issues with Netflix, rebooting the Airport Extreme always fixes the problem.
Interesting that you posted that as I've experienced a similar issue, but not with Netflix. I found that if I had downloaded a large amount of material, say 10GB, in a short period of time that my network connection would have connection issues.
Rebooting the Airport Express would fix it. I wonder how common an issue this is.
The meaning seems pretty clear. If someone says to you "I watched a great TV show last night" do you assume that they mean that they watched all 192 episodes of 24?
I think the meaning is ambiguous enough, but I don't think it makes sense to call an entire TV series one title, when a TV series might have 100x the run time of one movie. But even "17,000 movies and TV episodes" sounds pretty impressive, and it's more specific without adding to the word count.
Any way you measure it, you're probably not going to measure quality, and that's a fundamental problem. They could say they have 5,000 or 10,000 hours or entertainment on tap, which still sounds pretty impressive at first, but if you only care about 5% of what they offer, that's pretty limiting. One thing I was annoyed by in Amazon's PS3 app is each season is listed separately in the scroll bar. I'd much prefer all of a series under one banner and click to drill down to seasons, not one banner per season on the top menu.
Territorial licensing is the issue. One movie network I used to have, (I believe it was Turner Classic Movies), would come up with "We do not have the rights to broadcast this show in Canada.
Apple ran into this problem a lot too when they are expanding iTunes to more regions. Sometimes the rights are held by a different subsidiary, sometimes the rights are held by a completely unrelated company. I imagine sometimes the negotiation only covered one territory because other territories weren't in the business plans yet, making a deal for rights in additional territories just weren't covered yet.
Does seem strange, you seem nice people to me.
netflix does know where you are (ie usa or canada) meaning using an american sign-in in canada gets you the canadian netflix content... because netflix is an app, they can find out the receiving IP address, thus the location of where the tv is located....
meaning if they do an ip route trace, spoofing your ip address will do no good, because you can not spoof the ip route trace... (though i suppose if you have uber1337-Tcpip-kungfu skills you could spoof the ip trace... anythings possible????
The meaning seems pretty clear. If someone says to you "I watched a great TV show last night" do you assume that they mean that they watched all 192 episodes of 24?
And if someone asks what TV shows you like, do you list individual episodes?
Context has meaning.
netflix does know where you are (ie usa or canada) meaning using an american sign-in in canada gets you the canadian netflix content... because netflix is an app, they can find out the receiving IP address, thus the location of where the tv is located....
meaning if they do an ip route trace, spoofing your ip address will do no good, because you can not spoof the ip route trace... (though i suppose if you have uber1337-Tcpip-kungfu skills you could spoof the ip trace... anythings possible????
I very much doubt they are doing anything other than a simple database lookup on where the IP is assigned.
With that said, I can see how what you describe might upset some people, but does many people really think a movie not released yet is available now? I think what you describe is merely a flaw in how its database works. For instance, as an actual member I can search for any movie, even those not released. It will than let me put said movies in my queue and tell me they are not available yet. Being able to put them in my queue now though is handy for when the movie does come out.
Moreover, you can go to sites like Rotten Tomatoes and select the Netflix button and it will place not yet released movies in my Netflix queue. I doubt too many people honestly thought they could see those movies now. When people cancel Netflix, it does allow people to tell Netflix why they are quiting. If what you point out was a big issue, I am sure Netscape would have addressed it.
Netflix is HUGELY dishonest. I almost signed up with them again until I realized:
If you aren't already a customer, they claim that ALL movies are in their library. Even ones currently in theaters and unreleased on DVD! (Even titles like The Avengers that haven't even even finished production yet.)
Blatant false advertising. Here?s how it works--try it:
If you don?t have an account (or if you're logged out), then when you go to their site you can ?Browse Selection? to see if you like their library enough to buy one of their services.
Any movie you search for will come up under Browse Selection. There is NO indication that a given movie is not really available... until AFTER you pay.
In fact, as recently as a few weeks ago, they also claimed that every movie you searched for (including The Avengers) was available to "Watch Instantly." That has been removed recently. Now you simply can't tell which movies are available for Watch Instantly and which are on DVD.
Bait and switch! AFTER you pay, then and only then can you browse their REAL selection, which indicates what is available and what is simply a "placeholder" for something they might or might not someday get. And only AFTER you pay can you tell what's available to Watch Instantly. A tiny fraction of what they indicate before you pay.
I was this close to buying their streaming plan, since everything I searched for came up (until recently) wth ?Watch Instantly.? Awesome selection, I thought! Until I accidentally brought up a current theatrical release and it too said ?Watch Instantly? in the page title. Only then did I realize there was no way to tell what their actual selection was without paying.
Why are people tolerating this? I can find almost no mention of it online. Yet thousands of people must be signing up and suddenly seeing the library shrink once Netflix has your credit card! I can?t imagine advertising getting any more illegal than this.
Amazon is trying to make it seem like it has more content then it really does.
And if someone asks what TV shows you like, do you list individual episodes?
Context has meaning.
And they'll get away with it because no one cares about them.
Apple, on the other hand, can't sneeze without people saying the color of the snot is a reason to sue or sell.
If Apple sneezes, it'll be called sign of failure, even though the sneezing will be copied, patent claims filed, and books written about the secret behind the Apple sneeze. Trolls will say how Apple didn't invent the sneeze, (even though everyone will start sneezing the way Apple sneezes), and post endlessly about how Google's snot tastes so much better. And fans will proclaim that competitors who are still sneezing the old way are now doomed.
Netflix has also tried to battle the problem by adjusting the quality of content on the fly based on the bandwidth the ISP is allowing it. On my X-Box Hulu Plus suffers more than Netflix (not terribly more), I suspect this is because Hulu Plus doesn't adjust its bandwidth on the fly.
Some people have also reported that Apple TV sometimes experiences some networking issues. I am actually quite happy with Netflix's streaming performance. The content selection when it comes to recently released to DVD movies could use a little work.
As I said to Smallwheels I get superb HD from Netflix with FiOS. I wonder if it is better in some areas than others. Are you using FiOS or cable? I ask as I suspect Comcast and other old cable technology companies still suffer contention ratios unlike FiOS.