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We know that many of you are subscribers to Netflix, and that many of you have a lot of questions about where the company is heading as the streaming video market grows and more companies — even retailers like Best Buy, Walmart and Sears — get into the on-demand video business. Well, Netflix has just agreed to respond to questions from Consumerist readers on this and other topics.
So now is your chance to submit your questions to us. You can go ahead and put them in the comments below, but your best chance of being heard is to send your submission to tips@consumerist.com with “Netflix Query” in the subject line.
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I tend to return 2 or 3 disks in a single envelope (separate sleeves obviously). Does this help y’all as a company by saving on postage? Or is it logically problematic?
Huge fan and want to help y’all as much as possible!
I wonder the same. My next movies seem to come more slowly when I stick more per sleeve.
According to hackingnetflix.com, Netflix prepays for all of their envelopes so you’re not saving them money by combing mailings.
But it should save on postage to send 2 in the same envelope. I agree that I get movies more slowly when I do that.
Are you concerned about proposals to cut back mail delivery? What, if any, strategies do you have in mind for mitigating the negative effect of this on your customers?
#1. When will TV/Movie studios stop being assholes and let us stream everything? I hate getting DVDs by mail.
#2. Netflix, why are you making me so lazy? I literally cannot be bothered to get up off my lazy ass and pop a disc into my PS3 haha. I’ve had the same Blu-Ray disc for months; haven’t even watched it yet.
#3. Your Windows Media Center app is buggy as hell. I have been infuriated by it more times than I care to remember. When will it start doubting me when I tell it I am in fact very much connected to the Internet? Worst thing is when I’m in the middle of a movie, it’ll tell me that my Internet connection has slowed and show the progress bar screen, only the progress bar doesn’t move. Ever. I have to press Stop, go back to the menu, and press Play again. This gets annoying after a while.
#4. Also, the ability to switch from HD to SD while watching in WMC would be nice. My HTPC’s Atom processor is too underpowered to handle HD video playback, and the fact that Silverlight lacks hardware acceleration isn’t helping either. My graphics processor is basically useless in this scenario. I know Netflix has no control over Silverlight, but the option to switch from HD to SD when watching in WMC would really help. As it is, I can’t watch any HD Netflix content on my TV. It’s kind of a pain.
I am extremely happy with my Netflix experience, but there are various little things that occasionally tend to drive me nuts. Still, you guys rock, and I can’t say enough good things about you and your service. Thanks for being awesome Netflix! Keep up the good work!
What is the status of 5.1 channel audio for streaming (if they have already implemented this please let me know it was not there the last time I tried to stream)
Same question- I know there has been some 5.1 testing on streaming (I think on select PS3s), when it is rolling out?
Why have you trivialized and continue even now to try to remove the community features (friends, sharing of queues, etc)?
The answers to many of the questions asked so far can be found at hackingnetflix.com. Many other answers can be extracted with some difficulty at the rather flaky netflixcommunity.ning.com
Can you please use something better than Silverlight on the Mac?
Can you please allow me to use the service I pay for with my US credit card billed to my US address without having to use a proxy when I’m working out of the country? (Even Apple lets me do that!)
Actually, being able to not receive disks when out of the country would be nice, too.
Is there any way to add a search option to the Wii menu? My girlfriend and I watch different movies / TV shows online and sometimes her movies will be the only ones showing since it is her account. If I could type in a movie name to be able to watch it on my Wii instead of having to turn on the computer, search for it there, then add it to the list and then finally have it show up on the Wii menu to be able to watch it on my TV that would be better.
Also as other people have said, play all for TV shows. The other night I was watching Bunnies recreating movies in 30 seconds so every 30-40 seconds I had to hit play again.
Can you please add folders to my instant queue? I’d like to be able to sort my streaming titles into different groups.
Also, can you let me have several different streaming queues, which I can assign to different devices. Example: I want to have one queue for my kid’s Roku, one for my Xbox, etc.
Second!
I agree with the instant streaming part, and sheesh why do I have to get movies like “Glengarry Glen Ross on DVD. Please expand your streaming section!
Why are there pieces of scenes missing in your instant streaming movies/tv shows?
no disks, Unlmited streaming for 5 Bucks a month, and put ALL of the star wars movies/shows on there (including ewok adventure, droids, the holiday special, yeah you know what i’m talkin about!)
What the hell happened to Gray’s Anatomy? Not the crappy tv show, but the excellent piece featuring Spalding Gray! One day it’s in my queue, the next it’s in the no-man’s-land of Saved DVDs. I want my Spaahlding, Netflix!
I setup accounts for my kids with ratings management under my main account thinking they could login, create their own queue and watch/rate movies. But they could not. This is setup only DVDs. What a disappointment. Will you eventually allow for sub-accounts to stream with their login?
I can’t believe this didn’t get mentioned more…
Instant Queue/Streaming is pretty weak. I refer primarily to selection/availability. The Starz agreement was a step in the right direction. I realize the studios are the big roadblock here, and until they wise up lots of people will just BT what they want (which is probably fine by NetFlix when it comes to server and bandwidth and royalties costs). But when will I be able to stream any movie that’s available by mail?
They did just spend almost $1 billion to expand streaming, but I agree that discs are completely obsolete.
Definitely. To some extent I think the mailed disc model probably saved them alot of money in that the “all you can eat” plan had physical limitations to it – no matter how efficient you were the mail was the bottleneck, which protected their worst-case scenario pricing model. I don’t know if they have to pay the studios differently for something watched via streaming…I suppose they’ve factored that in.
Embrace the streaming studios. Blow it off at your own peril.
Everyone mostly asked the questions I was wondering; I don’t have a Roku box yet but am concerned that subtitles don’t appear on it. I get them just fine streaming on my computer.
The only thing I really have to say is I would like more stuff on the streaming. I still like getting DVDs (although it takes me forever to watch them sometimes!) but streaming is more convenient.
I love Netflix and I also want to thank you for not jacking up my autopay. You’re the ONLY company I trust to do that. So far I have had no problems. And thanks for having older movies. I get very behind on watching and it’s nice to know I can find it somewhere. Brick-and-mortar stores hardly ever had older stuff, except Movie Gallery and they’re gone.
Why can’t I stream movies if I live on US territories?
- Once they’re legally able to, is there any reason why Wii support won’t be available as a download run off the internal flash drive or an SD card? It’s not a big file at all. If they provide a downloadable/update-able version, will it include full library browsing support any time soon?
- Could they make a better effort at procuring corrected versions of shows/movies? For example, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel have random edits and 5 of the 12 seasons in the franchise are shown in widescreen when they were composed for 4:3, so there are a lot of bloopers on the sides.
- Can they add a comments box to the problem reporting pages to better explain the problem?
2 Questions: I travel alot for business. When can I watch netfilx while traveling throughout Europe? 2) My family (4 of us) is very very techie; we all have individual laptops & iThings. Just recently, Netflix changed their policy to only allow 2 people at a time to stream videos to their laptops — is that permanent??
1) When will you support “Instant Watch” on Linux?
2) Roku is a Linux box, so it is technically possible for Linux work with
“Instant Watch”. Why not support the distros such as Ubuntu as well?
3) Are you contractually bound and/or pressured to not support Linux
and/or Android?
4) Moonlight 2.0 is a Microsoft backed version of Silverlight 2.0 for
Linux. Why is it not sufficient if Silverlight 2.0 was?
Why won’t you just buy Gamefly and get it over with?
~I
I travel outside the US quite a bit–when will I be able to stream to my laptop overseas?
I am TIRED of watching streaming video that is interrupted 2-3 times by “Your connection has slowed messages”. What can or is being done to end that particular irritation?
I wish they’d bring back some form of the friends feature. Just once in a while I want to flag a film for other people to see. Not every time, I don’t want to spam people, but if I find a real gem (Moon, for instance) I want an easy way to suggest it.
Dear netflix
WHEN THE H…. ARE YOU GOING TO START STREAMING TO PUERTO RICO !!!
thnx
Couple of Thousands people waiting to give you money
I understand the point Netflix makes about how hard it is to caption a movie, but how hard can it be to provide a list of captioned movies? With such a small selection of captioned movies, it’s not feasible to navigate to the movie details before learning if it’s captioned.
As a Canadian who’s anxiously waiting for the day Netflix brings their streaming service up here, I’ll ask a few questions as well:
1) How much for the service?
2) Because your service will be streaming only up here, as opposed to mailing/being mailed DVDs/BDs, will the selection be better for us than for Americans? (sorry, had to ask)
3) Will you convince Samsung to update the firmware to my Bluray player so I can enjoy your service on my TV? I know my model has the ability to do so, but the localization of the firmware doesn’t allow it.
4) Can you provide internet service up here without the uber-restrictive bandwidth caps that will be a hindrance to using your service? I know one particular ISP who shall remain nameless (okay, screw that, Rogers) that announced lower bandwidth caps not even two days after Netflix announced they’re coming to Canada. Nice, not?
- How do I reset taste, genre, etc, preferences? After selecting once that I really care about to “watch often”, title suggestions dwindled to 0-2. After setting most of the preferences to “watch often”, there was slight improvement in title suggestions, but still does not approach the list Before Selection.
- “Not Interested” choice does not seem to have any effect. What gives?
- When would there be increase of anime titles in titles available for streaming (on Wii)? I find more titles via detour to computer than from the browsing list presented.
This affects many Netflix, consumerist.com users and Hard of Hearing and Deaf entertainment consumers!
Question: Is there a reasonable projection date of when Netflix Streaming catalog will have majority of closed captions and is there yet a way to search already enabled Closed Captioned Titles? and if not, is there going to be and when?
we await equal access.
How is the Android app coming along, if they’ve in fact hired a Dev for it yet…
Will there ever be a way to request titles for Instant Streaming? Or is there a way now?
I know that I desperately want to watch the entire Ruroni Kenshin series (in Japanese with subtitles, but I’ll settle for a dub), but there’s no way my wife will let me get 22 discs in a row of my choosing. The series stopped being produced years ago, so I can’t imagine the cost would be too high. I think there are at least 9 other people who like me who are eager to see this series.
On the “Rental Activity” list of all the DVDs previously rented, can you provide a link “Watch Instantly” so we know that old movies we’ve seen before are available for streaming?
If I am on a one disc at a time plan, how am I supposed to have a spare sleeve and mailer to use in case I lose the one with my movie which is the solution you give on your FAQ. Can’t you just send out a welcome package with one free sleeve and mailer to every paying customer? Alternatively, you could have done this when you mailed out the Wii disc, but that was a specialized mailer that wasn’t returnable.
Why do some TV shows, especially older ones, require you to rent the disk to see every episode (like Emergency) and others don’t (like Adam 12). Watching TV shows like Lost or 24 are awesome via streaming. But I find it annoying that I have to add a specific disk of Quantum Leap, for example, to my queue to watch one or two episodes that are not available via streaming. I can understand that the studios don’t want streaming to compete with what is new, such as the last season of Lost, and that may be in such demand that people go out and buy the series, but I don’t think anyone is running out to buy Quantum Leap.
And, in the same vain, when will you get more older TV classics like Barney Miller or 8 is Enough?
I would like to have multiple Streaming queues so that I can segregate the G and PG rated fare my kids watch, from the PG-13 and R rated films my spouse and I watch. Not having this option is one of my biggest complaints, especially since the addition of streaming on the Wii (which my family loves) but which also makes access to the streaming queue much simpler for the kids, and I’d like to feel safe letting them go downstairs to the living to watch TV on weekend mornings while my wife and “sleep in.”
Help a guy out here please?
Do you ever plan to give users the ability to delete an obsolete profile/queue? It’s been more than a few years now.
I bet no,
as long as you have a profile, they have prior business with you and can spam you to kingdom come.
Is there any chance of getting a “sort” feature for the instant queue? It would be nice to be able to sort by genre, film length, rating, etc.
Would you please make some newer movies available for streaming? Maybe you could have a window where they are only available by DVD and then make them availalble by streaming. Also, I would like to see current TV episoides like Hulu does. I love the streaming on the Wii, Thanks Brian
I would like Netflix to list actual new releases in the “New Releases” section. Right now the New Releases section is full of old movies that Netlfix just happened to get in stock recently. I have to leave the Netflix site and do a Google search if I want to find out which new movies were recently released on DVD.
Why won’t you let me have more than 500 movies in a queue?
When I click on the link for TV shows to stream on the website and in the iPhone app, the first 10 it shows me are
Family Guy vol.8
Family Guy vol.1
Family Guy vol.7
Dexter Season 1
Family Guy Vol.6
Weeds Season 1
SpongeBob SquarePants: Season 2
Avatar: The Last Airbender: Book 3
Weeds: Season 5
Arrested Development: Season 1
How the heck is this sorted? I can’t figure it out. Would it be possible to at least group all seasons of a given show in one place, ordered by season? The way it’s set up now makes it hard for me to see (a) if there are any new TV shows on streaming that I want to see, and (b) whether all the seasons of a particular show are available, so I don’t start a show only to be disappointed later on.
Are you ever going to add lists to the instant queue on the consoles?
I got a ton of crap on my list for both me and the wife and it takes over a minute to scroll to the end. It’d be nice to break it down into playlists or something instead of just having the entire queue scrolled in line. Maybe set it up so you could have 2-3 lists that you could put stuff in using the website so I could put TV shows in one list, Movies in the other and then just have the main part of the queue as whatever isn’t sorted.
Why do so many seasons of TV shows have random “disk only” episodes? I run across this all the time where episode X of disk Y is disk only, I don’t get it.
It might have something to do with copyright issues: maybe the episode used a pop song which they don’t have the rights to stream. Copyright issues are so insane sometimes.
I love watching TV series on DVD’s, but sometimes actually would like to watch several different ones. Any chance for streamed TV series, to arrange a playlist of shows or movies?
Like Lost S1Ep2, Farscape S2Ep4, Family Guy S4Ep6… Giving people what they really want, ad hoc TV.
Thanks for a great service! I don’t watch much ‘normal’ TV anymore (my wife still watches reality shows though)
Yes…I”ve been using the streaming service for over a year now. Problem is we have 3 kids that use it as well. I’d like an option to select which person is viewing at that time, as to make the recommendations much more accurate to each person. I don’t want seperate username/password. Just maybe a pop-up window when first logging in, asking who is this.
Anyone?
I am tired of getting those things in the mail that state, Thanks for Being a member! And because you’re a valued member, we are going to give your family and friends a free month! How about, give me another free month of service? Am I not the valued customer?
My husband and I love to just watch old episodes of South Park. But because we’ve watched all the episodes, everytime we watch one episode it goes straight to the last episode of the series. Can Netflix please fix this so we don’t have to go through all 209 episode to find the one we were on? Maybe reset the plays after you have completed the entire season or have a choice to reset what was watched so it doesn’t just skip to the end everytime you rewatch a series.