Netflix: Offline Viewing Is “Never Going To Happen”

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I guess that settles that. :(

For some time now, services like BBC iPlayer and 4oD have offered the ability to download shows for offline viewing, yet Netflix hasn't. And despite the pleas of the masses (or maybe it's just us) it doesn't sound like it's going to happen any time soon - or ever. Speaking to TechRadar, Cliff Edwards, Netflix's director of corporate communications and technology, said "It's never going to happen".
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Hmm.... a streaming service not going to support "offline" viewing? The horror!

When I have no 'net access, it's usually because I don't want 'net access and "needing" off line to watch a movie or show is the last thing on the list of things to do.
 
pcjunkie said:
Why?
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So we can burn through our bandwidth caps in the first hour of the month of course!


And I'm sure this is part of their agreement with the content 'providers', where netflix is not allowed to provide them a local copy of the content.
 
I would guess this is because it would cost Netflix more money to get the licensing to allow people to download the videos, and since places are already charging more for their content, we will never get to have "offline" viewing.
 
Good grief, just slap the WE DON'T UNDERSTAND THE INTERNET bumper stickers directly on their foreheads.
 
yeah, that was pretty much the response I got after asking them about the possibility of using a VM to locally cache popular movies for better playback during high volume times.
 
somecallmeTim said:
Hmm.... a streaming service not going to support "offline" viewing? The horror!

When I have no 'net access, it's usually because I don't want 'net access and "needing" off line to watch a movie or show is the last thing on the list of things to do.
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You have no idea the feature set we could bring to the fore with some caching...The future of comms is being SEVERELY held back by copyright and its only going to get worse. Your sarcasm belies your ignorance of what could be.
 
It already happens. People pirate Netflex streams all the time and post them offline.


Just sayin.
 
Offline viewing would allow people with slow internet connections to smoothly watch really high bitrate 4K material... but nope, we can't have people PAYING for that functionality... *rolleyes*
 
Liger88 said:
It already happens. People pirate Netflex streams all the time and post them offline.


Just sayin.
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Just going to post the same thing. It's already happening. Sadly, Netflix is often the highest quality you can get on a lot of older content. We want DVDs and Bluray releases people! It's sad that the best quality Malcolm in the Middle is on Netflix! What the heck!?

*oh look, it's been ripped from netflix and uploaded over here . . .*
 
About the only thing that I actually like about Comcast is the TV GO android app, which allows you to download some programs for offline viewing. The selection is limited, but at least it's free with your Comcast account. If Comcast can do it, why can't Nutflix?
 
Lith1um said:
About the only thing that I actually like about Comcast is the TV GO android app, which allows you to download some programs for offline viewing. The selection is limited, but at least it's free with your Comcast account. If Comcast can do it, why can't Nutflix?
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Which TV shows do they allow ... doesn't Comcast own some TV stations ... if they are allowing their own materials it isn't too difficult
 
They offer shows and movies from just about every network that you see on your Comcast TV subscription, from the major networks to the lesser networks.
 
Lith1um said:
They offer shows and movies from just about every network that you see on your Comcast TV subscription, from the major networks to the lesser networks.
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Could be incest at its best ... Hollywood likes to support each other and Comcast is very Hollywood with the other companies it owns :cool:
 
Which is one of the reasons I dropped Netflix. Even though my connection was several times faster than needed, we had too many problems during the prime (Friday/Saturday) viewing hours with Netflix "buffering" or hanging. Finally gave up and dumped them.

If I could have selected the movie an hour or 2 before and let it download for off-line viewing, then it wouldn't have been a problem, and I'd likely have kept Netflix.
 
That's simple, people would pop in once every couple of months, load up their queues with offline viewing material, and cancel their subs. They'd have to pay more for licensing too I'm sure.

Shoot, they probably have enough problems with people sharing their subs - not about to let people share subs *and* have offline viewing, they'd never make any money.

It's not the Netflix Movie Entertainment Time Collective for Future Empowerment Growth Happiness. It's Netflix, Incorporated. They're just as money grubbing as any of the rest of them.
 
Netflix will have offline mode, the fact they said they wouldn't says that they will its just not now. Offline viewing is a logical feature and netflix will be behind if they don't do it eventually. They just are not doing it now because they do not have to. Like somebody said, 4k is coming and internet connections/caps will cause issues.

One thing you learn as you get older. When a company says something like this it is usually the opposite of what they say. Companies try to manage the message so much sometimes the only thing left is reverse phycology.

Mind you the specific people telling us this are no the same people that make the decision, they are just the ones who are told to tell us "xyz"
 
I find it stupid, with direct downloads they can really increase the compressions and reduce the bandwidth usage.
 
mt2e said:
Netflix will have offline mode, the fact they said they wouldn't says that they will its just not now. Offline viewing is a logical feature and netflix will be behind if they don't do it eventually. They just are not doing it now because they do not have to. Like somebody said, 4k is coming and internet connections/caps will cause issues.

One thing you learn as you get older. When a company says something like this it is usually the opposite of what they say. Companies try to manage the message so much sometimes the only thing left is reverse phycology.

Mind you the specific people telling us this are no the same people that make the decision, they are just the ones who are told to tell us "xyz"
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It's a legal matter. They are licensed to stream the content, not provide a digital copy for download for offline viewing. So no, it's not them just saying no because they don't want to. To add this feature (if the content providers allowed it at all) would cost them a lot more money, which will be passed right back to the end user.
 
gunbust3r said:
Because we have PC's and 4K screens yet Netflix shovels out BS press releases about bringing 4K to a select number of 4K smart TV's while ignoring us.
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Meh, I'd rather have higher bitrate 1080 streams than over-compressed 4k streams.

The 1080 streams are already over-compressed as it is.

Maybe I've finally gotten to the old age where some new tech no longer appeals to me, but IMHO, 4k is mostly marketing.

1080p looks great, and unless you have your eyes a few inches from the screen, it's tough to even tell the difference.

I - for one - hope 4k goes the way of 3DTV, so that we can unite around a long term 1080p standard, and not give the film industry another reason to sell us the same titles we had on DVD, and re-bought on BluRay yet another time.

Any movie purchase should include a perpetual license to always have "free upgrades" to the latest resolution version of the content.
 
Biznatch said:
It's a legal matter. They are licensed to stream the content, not provide a digital copy for download for offline viewing. So no, it's not them just saying no because they don't want to. To add this feature (if the content providers allowed it at all) would cost them a lot more money, which will be passed right back to the end user.
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I agree, this is probably the reason.

Unless they can stretch the definition of what is a "buffer" to include pre-buffering films on wifi for later watching on the go, this will never happen.
 
CRaschNet said:
I find it stupid, with direct downloads they can really increase the compressions and reduce the bandwidth usage.
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No, streamed videos are very highly compressed during transmission. The video stream is decompressed at the client side, usually by hardware, before being output to a screen.

The only way for it to be more compressed during a direct download than a stream is to use lossy compression format which defeats the purpose.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041303098 said:
Meh, I'd rather have higher bitrate 1080 streams than over-compressed 4k streams.
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+1

Even a high quality 720p video can look noticeably better than an over compressed 1080i stream.

I'd rather they deliver more content with full 1080p/60 video than up scaling the same content to 4k and then over compressing it.
 
Netflix can fuck themselves all they want, people will just turn toward services that do allow caching for offline viewing, such as the Google's Android Play Store.
 
flashoverride said:
It's not the Netflix Movie Entertainment Time Collective for Future Empowerment Growth Happiness. It's Netflix, Incorporated. They're just as money grubbing as any of the rest of them.
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I know right? $7.99 a month for 24/7 unlimited streaming...those thieving greedy fucks...how dare they!!!
 
nutzo said:
Which is one of the reasons I dropped Netflix. Even though my connection was several times faster than needed, we had too many problems during the prime (Friday/Saturday) viewing hours with Netflix "buffering" or hanging. Finally gave up and dumped them.

If I could have selected the movie an hour or 2 before and let it download for off-line viewing, then it wouldn't have been a problem, and I'd likely have kept Netflix.
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Did you call and yell at the people responsible, your ISP? The ones playing peering games trying to get more money from companies like Netflix on the backside, because, you know, you haven't paid them enough? :D
 
The technical issues are the easy ones. It's the legal ones that make it incredibly complicated/expensive.
 
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