The Real Reason Netflix Won't Offer Offline Downloads

Megalith

Megalith

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If I’m reading this right, Netflix won’t let you download anything because they think you’ll be overwhelmed when given the choice.

“…you have to remember that you want to download this thing. It’s not going to be instant, you have to have the right storage on your device, you have to manage it, and I’m just not sure people are actually that compelled to do that, and that it’s worth providing that level of complexity.”
 
Not sure I believe it, but even if what he said is true, a server on a plane doesn't help me, if I have to pay $10-$30 for WiFi on the plane.
 
Is this Netflix's Florida moment, I mean seriously the companies pushing the cloud/streaming as if they answer to everything. When choice trumps all of that it will be sad that within my lifetime i will talking to my lil satanins spawns lil satans and i tell them the good old days of physical media/radio/media choice.
 
Have an option to preload a movie/series when it comes out. Have a hard drive size limit. preload overnight. Gee no one would want that...

You ever try to watch anything during prime time...

I have 35mbs and i cant stream 1080p youtube from 7-10pm...
 
Downloading is such an unfamiliar concept that users will obviously be confused. How many RAMs do I need to download a TV?
 
Megalith said:
If I’m reading this right, Netflix won’t let you download anything because they think you’ll be overwhelmed when given the choice.

“…you have to remember that you want to download this thing. It’s not going to be instant, you have to have the right storage on your device, you have to manage it, and I’m just not sure people are actually that compelled to do that, and that it’s worth providing that level of complexity.”
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Apparently the stain who made that statement has never been on a fucking plane.
 
Have a beta, let those who want this service sign up to opt-in and try it. If you get enough interest, formalize the beta and move forward with developing the service platform. Seems simple enough to me.
 
I never understand these people who think a feature is too complex for their user base. They basically just said you're stupid. When companies or people reach this point, things usually start to go downhill.

What's the hurt in providing the option?
 
SparkedFire said:
I never understand these people who think a feature is too complex for their user base. They basically just said you're stupid. When companies or people reach this point, things usually start to go downhill.

What's the hurt in providing the option?
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I don't like it but they's not wrong... the average user is an idiot. Providing the option means supporting it, maybe doesn't make business sense.

On the other hand I think there's more to it than just this point, it's certainly also a form a DRM to maintain a captive consumer base, which is not an unusual business model.
 
This makes perfect sense. My parents wouldn't know how to handle the files and would likely complain that it's taking a lot of time for the movie to 'load'.

The big misconception is that Netflix is doing well because it's legal.

It's not.

It's doing well because it's simple.

Netflix wins over piracy because it's easier to watch something on Netflix than it is to pirate something. The advanced crowd is already torrenting files anyways so they aren't the audience that Netflix is targeting.
 
SparkedFire said:
I never understand these people who think a feature is too complex for their user base. They basically just said you're stupid. When companies or people reach this point, things usually start to go downhill.

What's the hurt in providing the option?
Click to expand...

Some states still wont let you pump your own gas...
 
The real reason not to offer downloads is because many of the devices people use to watch Netflix don't have the storage space. Even Amazon's flagship Fire TV only has about 5GB of usable space.
 
Janic said:
The real reason not to offer downloads is because many of the devices people use to watch Netflix don't have the storage space. Even Amazon's flagship Fire TV only has about 5GB of usable space.
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The device should be able to detect how much space is available for caching as well as default the video quality to something appropriate for the screen size.

At Super HD quality it uses up to 6Mbps or 2.7 GB/hour. If the device is a 5" phone, I think we can safely reduce the bit stream and drop to stereo sound. Regular HD/Stereo, which gets you down to about 945 MB/hour.

There's no doubt they'd have to do some R&D and testing to get the UI right, but it's doable. The feature is mostly for trips where you know you won't have internet access (e.g. a plane or camping in a remote area). I guess it'd also be useful for people that have lousy internet bandwidth. They could d/l it to their computer via the W8/10 app to watch later. I think they're going to have to add the feature to stay level with Amazon.
 
nightanole said:
Some states still wont let you pump your own gas...
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Vote For No Gas Pumping In 2016!

Chris-Christie-thumbs-up-300x207.jpg
 
I don't think I would use this feature even if they did offer it.

Half the time I never know what I want to watch until I scroll through the menu for 10 minutes. And my kids watch a lot of cartoons, but bandwidth for animation is low enough that it starts up fast.

Netflix already provides local ISP's with cache boxes that hold the most popular content. I believe Youtube does this as well.
 
killboy said:
This makes perfect sense. My parents wouldn't know how to handle the files and would likely complain that it's taking a lot of time for the movie to 'load'.

The big misconception is that Netflix is doing well because it's legal.

It's not.

It's doing well because it's simple.

Netflix wins over piracy because it's easier to watch something on Netflix than it is to pirate something. The advanced crowd is already torrenting files anyways so they aren't the audience that Netflix is targeting.
Click to expand...

This is 100% correct. I would love to DL a TV Show, but the avg person would not know how to handle it. The number of phone calls Netflix work get for support would jump. I feel like Netflix works the way it is. If it wasn't working, they would change.
 
westrock2000 said:
I don't think I would use this feature even if they did offer it.

Half the time I never know what I want to watch until I scroll through the menu for 10 minutes. And my kids watch a lot of cartoons, but bandwidth for animation is low enough that it starts up fast.

Netflix already provides local ISP's with cache boxes that hold the most popular content. I believe Youtube does this as well.
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That's rather interesting, the part about local cache boxes. I never knew Netflix went that far to keep latency low.

As far as the this idea though, I wouldn't mind it. I'm trying to watch House of Cards right now but it's not even loading on my Xbox 360. I think Netflix is getting too many requests at the moment being 7pm here.
 
nilepez said:
The device should be able to detect how much space is available for caching as well as default the video quality to something appropriate for the screen size.

At Super HD quality it uses up to 6Mbps or 2.7 GB/hour. If the device is a 5" phone, I think we can safely reduce the bit stream and drop to stereo sound. Regular HD/Stereo, which gets you down to about 945 MB/hour.

There's no doubt they'd have to do some R&D and testing to get the UI right, but it's doable. The feature is mostly for trips where you know you won't have internet access (e.g. a plane or camping in a remote area). I guess it'd also be useful for people that have lousy internet bandwidth. They could d/l it to their computer via the W8/10 app to watch later. I think they're going to have to add the feature to stay level with Amazon.
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So you either get two whole hours of downloads, or the downloads videos looks like shit? Either way it is likely to be a bad experience for the common user, because they won't understand why it sucks so much. Keeping it streaming ensures people with usually get the best audio and video their connection can handle, which helps the overall impression of the service.
 
Submitted my last post before I finished...

Also allowing for local content ensure the user experience is different on every platform. A SmartTV won't be able to download much of anything (many only have <2GB available), someone's 64 GB smartphone could hold dozens of hours of mobile quality videos, and a FireTV is going to hold about one movie or a few shows. And the. Why can't people just cache the content on their own PC as a media server at that point?
 
My phone is packing about 16GB of offline Spotify content. The application has a simple caching preference for how much space to use. It's not hard for an application to figure out how space there is and if content will fit.

It would be nice to have offline playback feature with say Netflix, and allow the end user to decide how much space and at what quality it is cached at (ala Spotify).

Netflix is just making shit up.
 
m2h said:
My phone is packing about 16GB of offline Spotify content. The application has a simple caching preference for how much space to use. It's not hard for an application to figure out how space there is and if content will fit.

It would be nice to have offline playback feature with say Netflix, and allow the end user to decide how much space and at what quality it is cached at (ala Spotify).

Netflix is just making shit up.
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One whole cached album is just over 100 MB at max quality

A full length movie is pushing 5+ GB

This is like saying because you can fit a weed whacker an and a rake in your garage, everyone else should have room for a school bus.
 
Are they suggesting that, despite waiting a day or two at a time for our DVDs of choice to arrive in the mail, we might be baffled as to why our 4GB download wasn't instantaneous? And are they also suggesting that the ubiquity of 1TB hard drives is insufficient to store said 4GB download?

As others have pointed out already, this is about maintaining an impression about the service, and about not having to manage the bulk transfer of large files and the infrastructure those kind of transfers require to run well. Classic strategy, though it is a sound argument in this case, the inability to provide a service because they have conditioned their customers to expect a certain kind of service.
 
zalazin said:
netflix bullshit... this is to prevent overiding of drm...
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And we have the winner.

The movie studios don't want this, so Netflix is going along with their wishes.

It's too bad, since the ability to download/cache a show would help people with slower or congested internet connections (just pick the shows the day before so they can download).
 
I wouldn't be opposed to this. I would even go so far as to be willing to invest in a home NAS setup that had "caching." enabled so I could say locally download to it a couple movies for watching or a series or two for watching at home without eating into my bandwidth. Sure I have 85/85 today. But soon enough we will see a "free nights and weekends" package for bandwidth like we do power today. Being able to do all my big downloads of shows over night in an automated fashion now would be ideal.
 
The main issue here is bandwidth. There is a reason Netflix switched to Amazon services. Not only do they offset risk, but can mainly focus on media production rather than all the tech behind it all.

Also copyright, this is probably the main reason why. You dont own ANYTHING Netflix offers, nor have you paid for any of it. You were simply given permission to stream the content for $8+ a month.
 
Why doesn't Netflix allow downloads?

1) DRM. The entire platform they have is a form of DRM. It's one that allows them broad control over what gets shown to whom. The minute you start storing things on a local device, it gets VERY tricky, since you have no control over said device and no idea how it operates.

2) Licensing agreements with content providers. Likely they would have to negotiate such things with content providers. Meaning it would cost them more money.

3) Platform simplicity. What they have now is a very straightforward, unified system for delivering content. Basically they'd have to come up with some sort of black-box player application. And, again, we're back to the problem of having your software installed on an untrusted machine.
 
ocellaris said:
So you either get two whole hours of downloads, or the downloads videos looks like shit? Either way it is likely to be a bad experience for the common user, because they won't understand why it sucks so much. Keeping it streaming ensures people with usually get the best audio and video their connection can handle, which helps the overall impression of the service.
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What are you talking about? The lower rate that I quoted is there normal HD. If you stream from a PC, that is the max rate.

This is doable, and ultimately, if I'm on a 6 hour flight to L.A., I'd rather have decent quality than nothing or better quality for 20 bucks. I can promise you, Netflix is going to back track on this. People want it, and Amazon is offering it for less money.
 
ocellaris said:
Submitted my last post before I finished...

Also allowing for local content ensure the user experience is different on every platform. A SmartTV won't be able to download much of anything (many only have <2GB available), someone's 64 GB smartphone could hold dozens of hours of mobile quality videos, and a FireTV is going to hold about one movie or a few shows. And the. Why can't people just cache the content on their own PC as a media server at that point?
Click to expand...

Why would you download to the TV in your living room TV? PC's are easily attacked. I suspect this is why they don't over 5.1, SuperHD or 4K on PCs.
 
nutzo said:
And we have the winner.

The movie studios don't want this, so Netflix is going along with their wishes.

It's too bad, since the ability to download/cache a show would help people with slower or congested internet connections (just pick the shows the day before so they can download).
Click to expand...

Netflix is rolling back their movie content, but Amazon is not, so how can Amazon offer downloads if it's a Studio issue?
 
Google play offers offline viewing rentals, so the drm issue can't be that big of a hurdle.
 
Megalith said:
If I’m reading this right, Netflix won’t let you download anything because they think you’ll be overwhelmed when given the choice.

“…you have to remember that you want to download this thing. It’s not going to be instant, you have to have the right storage on your device, you have to manage it, and I’m just not sure people are actually that compelled to do that, and that it’s worth providing that level of complexity.”
Click to expand...
Like people don't already have to do this with their DVRs?

Come on now...If your average cable subscriber can handle storage management, surely the tech-literate Netflix user base can do it!
 
Kueller said:
Like people don't already have to do this with their DVRs?

Come on now...If your average cable subscriber can handle storage management, surely the tech-literate Netflix user base can do it!
Click to expand...

Tech literate? I wouldn't bet on it. Nevertheless, i think they can handle this one, especially if Netflix puts the required R&D, development and focus group testing into it. It'd be a shame if they lost their advantage to Amazon simply because they wouldn't give the people what they want in user friendly manner.
 
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