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Movies United States Entertainment

Netflix's US Catalog Has Shrunk by More Than 2,500 Titles in Less Than 2.5 Years 158

Posted by msmash from the shrinking-library,-growing-distress dept.
According to a report on AllFlicks, a website that lists and categorizes Netflix content, the streaming service's library for American subscribers has shrunk by a third since 2014. The report claims that in March 2014, the US Netflix library consisted of about 6,500 movies and 1,600 television shows. As of this month, the same library offers 4,330 movies and 1,200 TV shows. An article on Quartz explains the shrinkage: The reason is that securing international streaming rights to shows and movies is exceedingly difficult -- laws and regulations differ by country, as does the type of content that people around the world consume. Netflix hopes that its library in other countries will eventually rival its comprehensive selection in the US.
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Netflix's US Catalog Has Shrunk by More Than 2,500 Titles in Less Than 2.5 Years More

Netflix's US Catalog Has Shrunk by More Than 2,500 Titles in Less Than 2.5 Years

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  • Fine Tuning (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TylerJWhit ( 4050171 )

    All this tells me is that Netflix has looked at what people actually watch or want to watch and have lessened everything else. Furthermore, the real question is, how many titles do they have in their current catalog. How much of a percentage is 2,500 titles.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      All this tells me is that Netflix has looked at what people actually watch or want to watch and have lessened everything else.

      Isn't that how cable TV became the wasteland it is today? Only pushing programming that was extremely popular, reaching for the easy money, and shelving anything more innovative that might be a gamble or only appeal to a niche audience?

      What's Netflix's excuse for doing it? It's not like they have a limited airtime to divvy up and make money on. The shows are just data on a hard disk somewhere and will be there to chase the long tail and give them more content to count in their marketing.

      • Re:Fine Tuning (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Verdatum ( 1257828 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @11:53AM (#51776813)
        The distributors of the film licenses have realized that streaming is pretty much their entire market these days. So they've learned that they should be asking for more money from them in order to stay afloat. Depending on the license agreement, Netflix will either pay a negotiated flat-rate to have unlimited streaming rights, a fee per view, or a combination of the two. But it's very rarely going to just be a fee per view. So when Netflix' license to a movie ends, they have to think long and hard before deciding to relicense it, if they are given the opportunity at all. Now that there's competition from Amazon, Hulu, and Google Play, the licensing company may very well have already promised the next time chunk to someone else.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

          Something is fundamentally wrong with modern capitalism if selling to only one vendor, instead of all vendors, is more profitable.

          • Something is fundamentally wrong with modern capitalism if selling to only one vendor, instead of all vendors, is more profitable.

            Why would you expect a price war to be more profitable than a monopoly?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Atryn ( 528846 )

            Something is fundamentally wrong with modern capitalism if selling to only one vendor, instead of all vendors, is more profitable.

            Suppose you can sell content X to distributors A, B and C. If that alone were all, then yes, selling A+B+C would be better than selling to only A.

            However, if distributor A is willing to also buy "exclusivity rights" for a sum greater than the money from B+C....

        • Competition from others is tough. The consumer isn't going to want to subscribe to multiple services after so recently having learned to cut the cord. All those services have 95% of the content in common anyway, it's only the last 5% that they're fighting over. I am not going to pay $10/mo for just one tv series no matter how good it is.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          You have forgotten the whole rent or buy issue. Will netflix be taken down by others selling permanent licences to online libraries, just like Steam for games or Apple iTunes. Is netflix a fad that will fade against distributors like itunes, whose popularity will grow and shrink and grow again and again, but people keep coming back. Of course no one can trust M$ who will sell it to you and then cancel it and say what licensed copy, we shut down that failing business arm. It really depends how low the price

      • Isn't that how cable TV became the wasteland it is today? Only pushing programming that was extremely popular, reaching for the easy money, and shelving anything more innovative that might be a gamble or only appeal to a niche audience?

        You're not looking hard enough, then. If you really want entertainment, or informative things, there's PLENTY out there. Heck, just on the broadcast channels, I record way more than I can watch (partly so I have new stuff all through summer).

    • Eh, half the loss was probably Starz pulling out. It is probably more closely related to the fact that other content providers are coming online and many of the content creators have ties to them so no more selling your content to Netflix for a super reasonable price. Netflix's long-term strategy is going to be original content anyway. Even now if you ask people what they have watched that they enjoyed most on Netflix it is likely to be the original content.

    • Furthermore, the real question is, how many titles do they have in their current catalog. How much of a percentage is 2,500 titles.

      Your answer is in the article summary::

      ...has shrunk by a third since 2014. The report claims that in March 2014, the US Netflix library consisted of about 6,500 movies and 1,600 television shows.

    • This gets me wondering where you go legally for the less popular stuff? Discs may be a dying breed, but they still seem the best place, beyond the unofficial sources.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RatBastard ( 949 )

      Except that the movies I can no longer find are popular and the crap I can't escape is third-rate shovelware crap.

    • Early on it was easier to license stuff for streaming. Then the content owners started seeing a shift away from traditional cable towards streaming and were annoyed/surprised/jealous. When the content came up for relicensing again the content owners negotiated much more strongly.

      For example, some stations didn't want to give any streaming rights for anything they had because they had a plan to do their own streaming in the future (like CBS with it's mindblowingly stupid streaming; 5 episodes for free or i

  • scratching my head (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    > According to a report on AllFlicks, a website that lists and categorizes Netflix content, the streaming service's library for American subscribers has shrunk by a third since 2014.

    > Netflix hopes that its library in other countries will eventually rival its comprehensive selection in the US.

    So they're going to equalize the catalog sizes by shrinking the American catalog to be more like it's international catalogs? Makes me scratch my head, but I'm not a MBA or a management consultant, so what do I k

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Maritz ( 1829006 )

      Yeah the context goes missing there somewhere. "US Netflix catalogue is shrinking. It has shrunk a whole lot! Netflix hopes that its international catalogue rivals the US catalogue some time."

      Maybe (sounds a bit crazy I know so ignore me if I'm talking shit) the submitter should quickly read the summary once before posting..?

      • Re:scratching my head (Score:5, Insightful)

        by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @11:55AM (#51776835)

        Maybe (sounds a bit crazy I know so ignore me if I'm talking shit) the submitter should quickly read the summary once before posting..?

        Or maybe the editor should do it before posting the story to the front page?

        Just kidding! That would buck almost twenty years of Slashdot precedent.

    • Netflix is not shrinking the catalog by choice, the catalog is being taken away from them by the content owners. They don't have have a limit on how many shows they have, they don't have to drop an American show in order to get a title from an international catalog.

  • Bad summary. (Score:5, Informative)

    by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @11:27AM (#51776607)

    Although the summary is simply quotes from the article, the way they presented them makes it nonsensical. (The US Netflix library is shrinking because it's hard to secure international streaming rights?) The actual article at least has a couple real reasons -- competition from Hulu and getting rid of obscure titles.

    • Re:Bad summary. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by yodleboy ( 982200 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @11:43AM (#51776711)
      "and getting rid of obscure titles."

      thereby removing one of the great attractions (for me anyway) of Netflix. Being able to watch things I may have just heard about in passing or stumbled across while browsing the catalog.
      • Exactly. I pretty much only watch the obscure stuff on Netflix. Fortunately, a lot of the obscure stuff is also inde stuff, and those titles tend to be far far easier to license; so they're more likely to stay up. But yeah, if that starts to dry up, I'll drop my subscription without looking back.

        • I just dropped mine last month. It was harder and harder to find something new and interesting that wasn't already dumped on youtube in decent quality.

      • Re:Bad summary. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by networkBoy ( 774728 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @12:23PM (#51777025) Journal

        Netflix's deep catalog ended my piracy, since they made it so much easier...
        I even bought a fire stick to get access to Prime content, only to find that nearly everything on prime you still have to pay extra for.
        Time to fire up uTorrent and Plex once again :/
        (I liked not having to manage my own content catalog for a few years).

        • Huh? You're not being logical.

          If netflix ended your piracy, why not keep using netflix?

          Plus, you're conflating Amazon Video and Amazon Prime Video. Everything on Amazon Prime Video is _by definition_ free (i.e. included with your existing Amazon Prime subscription).

          Amazon Video is separate, paying for rentals (and I think purchases) of other things.

          • Huh? You're not being logical.

            If netflix ended your piracy, why not keep using netflix?

            No, I see it. I've had similar thoughts. It used to be that you could go to Netflix and type in the name of a semi-recent (say, from last summer) popular movie that you didn't see in theaters, and there was a better than even chance that it was right there, ready for you to watch. It made impromptu Friday-night movie nights with the kids easy. Nowadays? Well, the last two times we tried this, literally nothing of interest was available.

            Go try it yourself. Inside Out? Nope. Big Hero 5? Nope. Age of Ultron? N

            • Netflix "still" has DVDs and Blu-Rays of everything.. So does RedBox.

              (Personally, I was a Netflix customer from way way way back, from before it was unlimited, and it was effectively $4/DVD.. Though several years ago, basically all rentals were 'rental versions' with no extras.. So if it were that, why not just go to Redbox or wait for it to be on HBO? Plus, I Tivo more than I can watch already, so I cancelled.. Though I do have Amazon Prime, and "play" with the video every once in a while.. Don't use i

              • Re:Bad summary. (Score:5, Insightful)

                by chefmonkey ( 140671 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @06:15PM (#51779337)

                Netflix "still" has DVDs and Blu-Rays of everything.. So does RedBox.

                Re-read what the original message in this thread said: "Netflix's deep catalog ended my piracy, since they made it so much easier..." -- sending little plastic-and-metal disks around isn't easier than piracy.

                Re-read what I said: "...impromptu Friday-night movie nights..." -- sending little plastic-and-metal disks around isn't conducive to this kind of opportunistic moment.

                It's not that the DVD/Bluray service is useless, just that it's qualitatively worse than the alternatives of legally streaming or illegally torrenting the same content for most people. And decimating their content catalog is going to push people to one of those two behaviors.

                But more to the point: Netflix's stock took a 9% pounding when an independent analysis firm predicted that 2016Q1 subscriber numbers would be 13% lower than Netflix had forecast. I don't see how the next three quarters can be much better for them unless they get their content licensing shit back together. And at some point, a 9% quarter-over-quarter decline will make them a wholly-owned subsidiary of someone else. Or a bankruptcy liquidation.

                • Re-read what the original message in this thread said: "Netflix's deep catalog ended my piracy, since they made it so much easier..." -- sending little plastic-and-metal disks around isn't easier than piracy.

                  For those who care about being moral/legal, it is.

                  I guess you do a lot more "random" movie picking than I do. Sure, back when I went to actual video _stores_, I wouldn't know what is in stock so picked something from the new releases that was left. (Since they didn't have a way I could queue things or

                  • Re-read what the original message in this thread said: "Netflix's deep catalog ended my piracy, since they made it so much easier..." -- sending little plastic-and-metal disks around isn't easier than piracy.

                    For those who care about being moral/legal, it is.

                    Oh, well that's sorted then. If content producers could just live in a world where that's the rule rather than the exception, everything would be fine.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

              No, I see it. I've had similar thoughts. It used to be that you could go to Netflix and type in the name of a semi-recent (say, from last summer) popular movie that you didn't see in theaters, and there was a better than even chance that it was right there, ready for you to watch. It made impromptu Friday-night movie nights with the kids easy. Nowadays? Well, the last two times we tried this, literally nothing of interest was available.

              Go try it yourself. Inside Out? Nope. Big Hero 5? Nope. Age of Ultron? N

    • I have noticed that a lot of the less popular mid-1990 and 2000 TV shows with only 1 to 3 seasons have dropped off and been replaced with fewer more popular long running shows and netflix originals.

    • Although the summary is simply quotes from the article, the way they presented them makes it nonsensical. (The US Netflix library is shrinking because it's hard to secure international streaming rights?) The actual article at least has a couple real reasons -- competition from Hulu and getting rid of obscure titles.

      Competition is a big one. Hulu's free offerings have gotten much worse (and mostly they flood it with intrusive or deceptive advertising about their subscription service, like claiming they have X eps when only X-150 are available unless you subscribe to their premium service), but they are paying for more content. Amazon Prime has its own big library. Even the cable companies have amazing on-demand content libraries now, just terrible interfaces. You would think it would drive prices down, but it's act

  • So they'll get the goal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @11:30AM (#51776625)

    International will be as comprehensive as US content withers away...

    The real explanation is simple, Netflix was not taken very seriously as a potential channel to displace traditional revenue channels (was seen as free money for little threat), and as Netflix proved it would displace the usual revenue channels, the content holders began being far more demanding as renewal time came around.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      IP holders absolutely cannot stand other people making money off of their intellectual property. This is seen all throughout all kinds of IP whether trademark, patent or copyright. This is part of why Netflix refuses to release any kind of numbers for their shows. If the owner of the show knew it was the number one thing people use Netflix for, they'd start demanding $15 per netflix user for netflix to keep the show. (Meanwhile patentholders typically demand royalties in excess of 5-10% of a product's g

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by acroyear ( 5882 )

      see my other post - in addition to being more demanding, many (esp HBO and Disney) are looking to build or already have their own competing service, and the value of that service depends on having exclusives.

      • You're right. And in addition to these players wanting to have their own paid streaming service, they're also trying to leverage iTunes to extend life support to the buy-on-DVD revenue stream resurrected as buy-on-demand. Instead of going straight to Netflix, a lot of studios will throw their recent movies on iTunes for paid rentals and purchase-only viewing options.

    • Re:So they'll get the goal (Score:5, Informative)

      by sydbarrett74 ( 74307 ) <sydbarrett74.gmail@com> on Friday March 25, 2016 @11:53AM (#51776815)
      Precisely. I remember a couple of years ago Starz demanded extortionate fees during contract renewal negotiations and Netflix declined (citation [cnn.com]). A huge swathe of A-list movies and TV shows disappeared from streaming as a result. It's clear that the content providers want to provide exclusive access to their catalogues solely through their own fragmented, stove-piped streaming services.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Agripa ( 139780 )

        I was mostly interested in the B-list movies Netflix had. When those got dropped and the A-list movies were restricted to other broken services, I dropped Netflix but did not see any other service as a substitute; they did not have the content I was interested in and were largely broken or had other restrictions making them unpalatable.

        I see the same thing happening with various new poorly working and untrusted game networks versus Valve's Steam. GOG works but EA now restricts their games to their own use

    • International will be as comprehensive as US content withers away...

      The real explanation is simple, Netflix was not taken very seriously as a potential channel to displace traditional revenue channels (was seen as free money for little threat), and as Netflix proved it would displace the usual revenue channels, the content holders began being far more demanding as renewal time came around.

      I think the bigger factor is competition.

      Amazon and Hulu are competing for shows and the broadcasters are starting up their own services as well, I know they lost some titles in Canada because the Canadian networks launched CraveTV and Shomi and they're keeping a lot of shows exclusive for those.

      As consumers we want one service to have everything, but the market naturally goes towards exclusive content. A the broadcast rights to a hit show becomes way more valuable when people will actually buy your service

      • It's hard to see Amazon Prime as a competitor to Netflix. I have both and my queue on Netflix is about 15 times the size of my amazon list. Hulu doesn't qualify in mind at all as competition since they are showing mostly TV shows that you can get OTA and and with commercials on top of a paid subscription.

        • Hulu now has a commercial free service for a few bucks more a month.

          However, there are still some shows that don't qualify for the ad free service. With those you still get 1 commercial before the show, but it is otherwise not interrupted.

      • And yet they're doing a bad job making money through other channels. I actually want to buy a Blu-Ray of Arrested Development season 4 and it's still not out there. It's been out for 3 years and they already get my subscription money - why won't they take more of my money and give me the Blu-Ray?

      • I think the bigger factor is competition. Amazon and Hulu are competing for shows

        This - in the world of streaming anime, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have gone from not even being on the radar to serious players in less that a year. There's a huge shakeup coming as a tipping point is reached with cord cutters, and of the Big Three are busy jockeying for market share.

    • Imo, it's a pendulum swung.
      First they didn't take it seriously as a threat, so the deals were easy.
      Now they see them as competition, and they're being dicks about licenses.
      Finally (when they realize the internet has long since eaten their lunch), they will come back begging for a distribution channel...

  • ...there's The Pirate Bay.

    Honestly, media companies, wouldn't it just be cheaper and easier to authorize TPB to distribute your products and charge $20/mo for access?

    • It doesn't have to be pirate bay, but I would definitely pay $20 (or more) a month for a service like Netflix with "All The Content". All the movies and major tv shows would be a great thing to have access to. Let all the services (Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Google, etc) have all the content for the same price, and let them compete on who can deliver the best experience.

    • This model was tried before. It was called Napster. When they tried to go legit, the company sank like a stone. Everyone left.

      • Napster was fscked a long time before they ever tried to make it legit. Going legit was an effort to make some money trading on the name recognition but it was already too late at that point as competitors had moved in and the market was being dominated by other commercial ventures as well as other file sharing methods.

  • or Netflix will become the next Redbox.

    I have seen how "the obscure" titles have dried up, which is sad.
    There are a lot of foreign and classic films that deserve to be available.
  • This month they opted me in to the 4 screen plan at higher cost even though I only use a single screen at best a few times a month. It's not even worth figuring out how to get the single screen plan I am just going to cancel.

  • In the mood to watch a concert and netflix has little offering. Their music category really should be much bigger, there is no excuse for under so little content.
    I'm finding myself on youtube red watching concerts due to the lack on netflix. And I get free google music with youtube red. (no commercials)

    If it wasnt for daredevil, house of cards and narco, I'd have canceled. Been viewing amazon prime video more lately, since I get it free with prime...

    • I am starting to agree with you.

      A couple of years ago Netflix was indispensable. Now I am considering cutting it. I have Hulu commercial free plan and Amazon Prime which gives me most of the stuff I want to watch with the ability to pay à la carte for TV shows I really want to see right away.

      Netflix is increasingly the go-to for falling asleep viewing like STTNG or old X-Files. I also like Dardevil and Jessica Jones and I REALLY loved "The Killing". But their other shows are not that great.

      If they rais

  • It really has nothing to do with international rights. Cost may be a factor, but it isn't the most important right now. They can license whatever the studios will sell them.

    The studios aren't selling.

    The reason is that they figure they've got the killer show that is enough to get them to install the service for just that studio's output. HBO and Starz are already exclusives (with HBO recently revoking Netflix's license with Sesame Street), Disney's working on theirs, CBS has forked off their own instead of signing on to Hulu with the other networks.

    At $15/m, they figure they've got the one killer show that is enough to get that monthly subscription, and they're gambling they're right by taking their material off of Netflix.

    In the end, "cutting the chord" is not going to save anybody any money, because instead of paying cable $99+ / month for shows and HBO, they're going to have to sign on to 7 services to get the same shows they want to watch, resulting in the same $99/month.

    • Re:I18N a cost, but US rights getting harder (Score:5, Insightful)

      by twotacocombo ( 1529393 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @12:00PM (#51776869)

      In the end, "cutting the chord" is not going to save anybody any money, because instead of paying cable $99+ / month for shows and HBO, they're going to have to sign on to 7 services to get the same shows they want to watch, resulting in the same $99/month.

      Not really. As long as there's no long term commitment to these services, people like me will just binge watch everything we want in a month, then cancel and move on to the next service. That is, until they start pulling dick moves like only keeping the 2 or 3 latest episodes, at which point they will get none of my money.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by The Rizz ( 1319 )

      In the end, "cutting the chord" is not going to save anybody any money, because instead of paying cable $99+ / month for shows and HBO, they're going to have to sign on to 7 services to get the same shows they want to watch, resulting in the same $99/month.

      With no commercials, and being able to watch on my schedule instead of theirs? Deal. And it's only going to be $99/mo. if you're actually interested in something from every channel, and you don't end up splitting costs with friends (i.e., Bob, you get HBO and I'll get Stars and we can get together to watch the shows).

    • In the end, "cutting the chord" is not going to save anybody any money, because instead of paying cable $99+ / month for shows and HBO, they're going to have to sign on to 7 services to get the same shows they want to watch, resulting in the same $99/month.

      This is exactly the thinking of the Studio Execs and it is fundamentally flawed because they don't realize that for the new generations Social Media, gaming and Web Surfing are entertainment options which they are now competing against. In large part the cord-cutters are not people that can't afford Cable but rather people that can't justify the expense for an entertainment option which they are not be using all that much

  • DVD Library Shrinking Faster (Score:5, Insightful)

    by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @11:57AM (#51776845) Homepage

    I still pay for DVD subscription for anything that isn't streaming. And they are shrinking their deep catalog fast. My queue has almost as many unavailable titles as available titles now. They are dumping used discs at Dollar General or Big Lots fast.

    It used to be that just about anything you could think of was available on disc, and then there was streaming with the more limited catalog. Now, DVD is less and less worth paying for. I am turning to buying a copy of a movie rather than having any way to rent for the more obscure titles.

    • Push all the 'very long wait' titles to the top of your queue. They're usually being phased out. As a bonus, if one becomes available you'll get an extra disc for free, if it's been at the top of your queue for a while.

      I'm considering switching to the two-disc plan just so my kids get to see some of the classics before they dump them on Dollar General.

      • Out of 200+ titles on my queue that haven't been phased out yet, more than 20 are Very Long Wait. Lots of older classic movies I'd never seen, but also a lot of obscure and UK/Canadian TV.

  • It's about Licensing, Stupid! Content is expense (Score:5, Informative)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @12:21PM (#51777007)

    Netflix is NOT the cause of this -- it is the greedy asshole content providers. Have a NetFlix (streaming) subscription but travel to Canada or over seas and want to watch Netflix? Tough shit -- you are forced to use a proxy / VPN workaround due to retarded licensing contracts. The content providers don't have a fucking clue that some people want to watch anything anywhere and that we're willing to pay for it. They want to nickel and dime every region independently to maximize profits.

    The actual reason Netflix's catalog is so sparse -- where the fuck is Seinfeld? Big Bang Theory? -- is because licensing costs go up about 10% every few years. Sadly, Netflix just doesn't the capital nor critical mass that the cable industry has. :-/

    Here is a list of Movies not on Netflix [mgo.com]

    People think "cutting the cord" is a solution. That doesn't effect the content providers AT ALL. The cable companies are big enough that a few lost customers aren't going to make a difference. The cable industry is so OVER saturated that the terminology is "churn". Cable box penetration has remained consistent for the past ~10 years.

    It is a similar reason Netflix basically ignores its deaf subscribers and screws up the subtitles. The solution would be crowd source the whole dam thing but you can thank the lawyers for fucking that over.

    * http://theweek.com/articles/45... [theweek.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      What I miss are the older movies.
      I love movies from the 1930s,40s, 50s, and 60s. The ones that used to be on AMC and TMC.
      Where are all the old westerns?

      • I love movies from the 1930s,40s, 50s, and 60s. The ones that used to be on AMC and TMC.

        Indeed. Looking at what Netflix streaming offers, there is only a single Danny Kaye movie. Just wow on that one.

        Danny Kaye has starred in many hit movies and tv shows that also include other famous actors and actresses, including stars like:

        Angela Lansbury, Bing Crosby, Boris Karloff, Benny Goodman, Mia Farrow, Dinah Shore, Flip Wilson, Sandy Duncan, Telly Savalas, Vincent Price, Casey Kasem, Richard Chamberlain, Eli Wallach, Carl Reiner, Brian Dennehy, ..... just to name a few.

        Netflix streams a sing

    • It is a similar reason Netflix basically ignores its deaf subscribers and screws up the subtitles.

      How do they even screw that up? A LOT of their streaming TV content is transferred straight from the beta broadcast tapes. In fact, a lot of times while streaming a TV episode, the picture will drop to a blue error screen that looks like you'd see when a VCR hits a bad spot on the tape.

      This means that the Netflix encodes are coming straight off the tapes that likely have EIA-608 Closed Captions embedded on line 21 of the broadcast picture. It's a matter of just ripping and converting the timing instructi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TheSync ( 5291 )

        There actually is an FCC rule about this [fcc.gov] based on the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA):

        Full-length Internet video programming must be captioned if the programming is shown on TV in the U.S. with captions after Sept. 30, 2013.

        We don't actually use "line 21" any more, as analog is dead in the US. CTA-608 [cta.tech] and CTA-708 [cta.tech] format captions are carried over HD-SDI in ancillary data packets, or more likely for Internet workflows, they are carried in user data or SEI messages of the compre

        • We don't actually use "line 21" any more

          See above - talking about shows on Netflix actually transferred from SD broadcast tape. The older captions would literally already be there.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by TheSync ( 5291 )

      retarded licensing contracts. The content providers don't have a fucking clue that some people want to watch anything anywhere and that we're willing to pay for it. They want to nickel and dime every region independently to maximize profits.

      I don't think anyone in the media industry is unaware of the consumer desire to watch any content anywhere, but the problem is that in many territories "non-internet media" like cable TV and over-the-air TV is paying so much more than Internet media SVOD distributors. Y

  • As the years go by, you're paying more and getting less for your money. On top of that, the Netflix quality is the worst of all the major players. I ran a test where I found the same movie on Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and Netflix, and tried playing all 3 on the same TV on the same evening over the same internet connection. Netflix's was noticably worse, and bandwidth monitoring on my connection showed that it was also the only 1 of the 3 which didn't make full use of available bandwidth.

    Physical media + Plex

    • As the years go by, you're paying more and getting less for your money.

      That's been my experience as a subscriber since maybe 2008. At first it was great, I could catch up on old tv series and there were plenty of movies available that I wanted to watch. Eventually I made it through my backlog of shows and started noticing that movies that used to be on the service were now missing and that when I would search for a particular movie to watch it was more than likely not available.

      I've been thinking about canceling my plan for awhile, but $9.99 a month is cheap enough that I

  • The same thing is happening with DVDs (Score:3)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 ) on Friday March 25, 2016 @01:38PM (#51777607)

    More and more things in my DVD queue keep being silently moved from the "next to be mailed" section into the "saved" section with wait times of "unknown", never to come back out. There's never any explanation or even warning.

  • Just a couple of days ago I canceled my netflix subscription because of the user-hostile behavior of their roku app. Just clicking a show to read a more detailed description or get a list of actors in it would cause it to play automatically. Hit back, then select it again, it autoplays again. It's impossible to browse the catalog and add shows to my queue. Their support channel is useless, they just say they'll pass the suggestion on. There are threads on reddit and the roku forums with many people com

    • I actually kind of like the feature you describe.

      It doesn't auto play for 3-5 seconds or so after you select the title and if you move the selector at all it won't auto play.

      This is a Roku specific implementation though, it has nothing to do with Netflix. I use Netflix on a lot of different platforms and only the Roku does the auto play thing.

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