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Comment by LoSboccacc | Hacker News Reader

In europe we just get netflix lite, with old and uninteresting stuff sparkled with some original content and random rares. I hope someday we'll get this netflix you all talk about.

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Netflix's catalog(ue) is a shadow of its former self. I'm a Netflix subscriber, and can pretty much guarantee that any movie I attempt to watch will NOT be available on Netflix streaming.

I have somewhat better luck with the previous episodes of American TV shows.

Well, they've certainly pivoted their focus from movies to TV shows. But most of their "good" movies were part of the Starz license, and that expired years ago now.

I haven't been a subscriber for years, and this was the main reason I left. But I remember the disc catalogue was still strong. Is that still the case? (I'm in the US.)

I'm a disc subscriber and I think there's only been one movie in the last couple years that I wanted that they didn't have.

I don't approach Netflix as "I want to see this movie so I go here," so much as "I want to watch something, so I'll pick from here." I'm never lacking a choice to watch, even with fairly specific criteria in mind.

If I know exactly what I want to watch (and don't get lucky enough to find it on Amazon/Netflix/Hulu) I pay for PPV. I don't expect magic for <$10/mo, especially when the going rate for a one-off viewing is nearly half that.

You sure used to be able to go there for specific movies. I understand why it's not the case anymore, but I miss what it was.

I honestly don't remember a time when that was true, and I'm pretty sure I joined the service sometime near rollout.

They've had a handful of times where bigger-name movies burst in based on some deal or the other (Starz being the original big one, but there've been others since) but by and large Netflix has always been indie + back catalog as far as I've experienced it in the US.

I would agree. I've been on since day 1 of streaming and I'm skeptical the movie catalog has gotten significantly better or worse. Movies come and go, but overall my queue has consistently had hundreds of unwatched movies in it at any given time.

Are you comparing the DVD service to streaming? It's unfortunately apples and oranges; the licensing is completely different for DVD and streaming, and even different between unlimited streaming like Netflix vs. pay-per-view streaming you can get from multiple other sources.

No, I never had streaming. Maybe it's my shifting preferences, but I remember being able to say "I'll just wait for it to come out on netflix" for the majority of things I was interested in. Not everything, but still more often than not.

The DVD service is still that way. That's why I still keep up my DVD subscription. They have everything, in the way the streaming service can only dream of. You have to be patient, but most of the movies I saw in 2015 were at home from the Netflix DVD service.

Oh, OK. I (and almost everyone else here) was talking in terms of streaming only. As mentioned elsewhere, the DVD service still works like it always did, and has a wide range of movies.

Derp. I meant to say I never had the DVD service. I only ever had streaming! That screwed the entire meaning of my response and it's too late to edit! oops :-\

Yeah. My main beef with Netflix is that I'd like to just sort content based on the 5-star rating. I'll rarely want to watch something that is less than a 2.0. And I'll consider just about anything that is 4.5 and above.

Same here. I also want Steam to let me see the average reviews of games that it shows me on the main screen. I only buy games that are "Mostly Positive" and above, and it's very grating to have to click every title to see that information.

My previous flatrate streaming plan had exactly that and just browsing the far end of "order by rating" was more interesting than watching the moderately dated mainstream movies that scored highest. "Might" be a matter of taste i guess ;)

Have you seen http://instantwatcher.com/

At least they now let you view movies by basic category in the embedded clients, as opposed to whichever dynamic lists they decided to promote that day. Baby steps, I guess.

I'm with you that I'd like to sort/filter by rating, though I also recognize that tends to cause a snowball effect where you're either popular early or never watched at all.

But you can filter Netflix content by rating, at least on desktop. Just select a genre from the top left, and then select "HIGHEST RATED" from the "Sort by" dropdown on the right.

Or is that not what you are looking for?

I can indeed get more information from the website. I just want more of that from the Android client, which is where I spend most of my time. I'd also like to read the text reviews sometimes, so it would be nice to at least have a website link from inside the app, even if they don't want to put that directly in the Android client.

I do have a Windows laptop, but I rarely consume content on that these days. Mostly I am watching from my tablet, sometimes from my phone, and just very occasionally from my Blueray player (because the UI is terrible, slow, and buggy).

So many apps seem to lack the basic: Filter by x and Sort by x for all of the obvious criteria. What bastardized yearning for simplicity has led to removing such a simple clear piece of functionality? It's familiar, doesn't add excessive clutter and scales well between power-users and lesser mortals. Why is it increasingly rare?

Only guess I have for Netflix specifically is the fact that they have built clients for every device under the sun. This was and still is part of their M.O. It is just time consuming and difficult to write a heavier feature set in to all of your clients when theyre on every smart tv ever, Xbox, probably toasters, God knows what else

Content filters are ridiculously easy to implement though. As long as you already have the browsing view, all you need to add is a picker that changes whatever DB query you are using to select the data.

Like in SQL all you would need to do is change this:

  SELECT * FROM movies

to this:

  SELECT * FROM movies ORDER BY rating ASC

When I built a web app for film management, that was by far the easiest thing to implement.

Right, I agree. I was referring to the parent mentioning "the Netflix you all talk about". That Netflix is changing every day.

I used to use Netflix to ship me DVDs, then I protested the Qwikster move by switching to streaming-only, which was great for movies (for awhile) but has been shifting to TV content.

To be honest, I don't use Netflix much, but the value I get is still worth the $8/mo. Some months I don't use it at all, other months I binge-watch The Man in the High Castle.

When I want to watch a movie, I first hit Netflix (hey, free streaming!) to search for it... then I check Amazon Prime on my Fire Stick, because some titles are free. If it's available for rental, I'll pay the $4. If available for purchase only (or unavailable), then I'll hop over to the iTunes store on the AppleTV and hope it's available for rental.

Or I just go to canistream.it, which was about my only original invention ever, until I found out someone had already done it.

canistream.it is you? Or you mean you reimplemented it?

I do use that site quite a bit. It's very useful.

No, I didn't bother since someone else did it first :)

That site looked almost useful, until i found it doesn't allow me to search i.e. Netflix/Amazon Germany, as opposed to Netflix/Amazon USA.

Ironically, not useful in Italy!

It doesn't really work for Amazon US either (well, works for DVD/BD only)

canistream.it doesn't work for amazon and is missing movies :(

The man in the high castle? With Netflix? Isn't that an Amazon Prime series??

This guy had some good observations on that netflix effect http://www.vox.com/2015/11/20/9757186/netflix-video-rental-s...

> I'm never lacking a choice to watch, even with fairly specific criteria in mind.

Do you mean that you get that content on Netflix? Or where do you watch?

At this point I'm fairly certain that I won't be able to find any movie from the list of things I'm interested in on Netflix. On Amazon maybe a few, for separate payment, which would be fine but half of their films don't offer the original audio track and instead force my local language. I absolutely don't want to see a dubbed version though. So, all things considered I think it's a mess if you have specific things to watch in mind.

I mean it's pretty rare I wander into Netflix with the intention of spending time on watching something (not a specific show/movie) and don't find anything I want to watch.

I agree that if you have something specific in mind and don't already know it's on Netflix, you more likely than not won't find it. But I knew that going in, and never expected that to be the case in the first place.

It's really expensive when you approach it like this.

> I pay for PPV

If only this were an option. I'd gladly pay a few bucks to stream a movie. But outside of the US and Canada I don't think PPV even exists at all.

Amazon prime isnt available in my country. I dont know of any other online PPV sites (anyone?)

If I can't stream it from one of these netflix-type sites (and as everyone else has pointed out, the selection is crap) my only options are drive to a DVD rental shop or visit thepiratebay.

And they wonder why piracy is rampant.

iTunes?

On iTunes you can buy movies. As in, to watch multiple times whenever you want. For instance, for NZ$18.99 I can buy Me, Earl and the Dying Girl.

That's ludicrously expensive if you just want to watch it once.

Google Play? I've successfully watched a couple of relatively recent films from the UK.

My theory is we, as subscribers, have hit rock bottom or close to rock bottom in terms of content on Netflix that is not produced by Netflix. This is okay with me. I like Netflix content. But I think Netflix original content is a stick that is useful. It proves Netflix itself can survive without licensing content, that globally available content is useful (see all the people trying to use VPNs to get content available in some markets), and that Netflix original content may become high quality enough that it competes with other networks. So my theory is Netflix original content is useful both in the short term to weather the content draught (due to high licensing costs) and the long term (as outlined earlier).

My fingers are crossed that this gamble is fruitful in bringing the cost to license content back down again to levels that are sustainable for Netflix. I also wonder if we'll ever see Netflix license Netflix original content to another network.

This is all conjecture purely as an enthusiast of Netflix.

It's not included for free on prime, but you can get House of Cards and some other Netflix produced shows on Amazon video if you're willing to pay for it.

I've basically given up on Netflix for movies I want to watch and will rent one-offs from Amazon (digital) for older movies, or Redbox (physical) for current releases. The kids are our biggest users, though. It was a pleasant surprise for Netflix to pickup the HtTYD TV series and produce a new "season."

Their real catalog is on discs, not online. Many great movies aren't online even years after release. I'm on 3-at-a-time sub, can't deplete my disc queue in years.

In my experience, on the other hand, I've found that Netflix has a pretty good selection of movies that I otherwise wouldn't have known I wanted to watch. So yes, if I expected to find tons of hit movies and classics, I'd be pretty disappointed most of the time, but I do feel I get my money's worth of a good selection of left-field films, and my list of favorite movies is a lot longer because of it.

I think this is a move to address that. By making themselves gargantuan, they'll be forcing the studios to come to the negotiating table and grudgingly offer streaming licenses.

Hopefully.

I think that was perhaps the reason they gutted our their cool queue system that was so popular. After they obliterated most of their catalog to cut the cost, people would have been horrified by number of things thatwould have dissapeared from their list. The current UX on Netflix is absolutely horrible. It's even hard to find your own list on tablet devices and do basic functions like prioritize it. The recommendations are same-old same-old stuff that never gets refreshed.

You can actually use a VPN and view shows from other countries without changing any settings. Just connect your preferred VPN provider to the country of choice and go to netflix.com

Yeah, I tried their free month here in Portugal, and the selection was abysmal. And at least for now, they license their "exclusive" shows to our cable networks anyway.

To me it seems like they shot their own foot; now that I've wasted my free month on this, I'm not planning to pay in the future just to find out if their catalogue has improved.

Free month is likely linked to email or credit card number. Either one you can easily get a new one (Prepaid VISA's might work for Netflix).

You can view what is on Netflix without being a member, if that interests you:

http://netflixportugal.netflixable.com/

Interesting to compare, the total number of movies/shows/episodes on netflix for a few countries:

USA: 7004

UK: 3589

Finland: 3380 (So high because they don't dub?)

Sweden: 2542 (But Sweden does not dub either ...)

Germany: 2415 (But Germany does)

France: 2254

Spain: 1482

Italy: 1393

Portugal: 924

(Europe really seems to get netflix light)

I am in Europe, I am on netflix.com, I can't seem to find a way to check the local catalogue (without signing up), what am I doing wrong?

I used the linked 3rd party site above: netflixable.com, choose a country, goto "Alphabetical List".

Example:

http://usa.netflixable.com/2016/01/complete-alphabetical-lis...

The total number of movies/shows/episodes is 7004.

(I hope that was what you where asking about)

Australia has 2467, in case anyone else was curious.

[Though I really wish I could access some of the German language library directly from my Australian subscription.]

You might try using a VPN. I used to work for a VPN provider. This was the main reason our customers used our service.

Yup, I do use a VPN occasionally. I'm not sure if Netflix Germany / rights-holders get paid correctly if I login with my Australian account though, so I try not to do it often... if I knew everyone was getting paid I'd do it a lot more often!

> Finland: 3380 (So high because they don't dub?)

Why would you dub? I mean, why would you either have to dub everything or not include it? Just have at set up a screen that asks which languages you speak, whether you prefer dubs or subs and whether you will accept subs for everything that doesn't have a dub if you previously selected dub.

Why is language so tied to location? Specially in Europe! (and I can imagine there is a pretty large market for shows in Spanish or Mandarin in the U.S. too, and why not have those in French, German, Japanese, Korean, etc too while we are at it...)

I think this announcement probably changes things in the direction I want in this respect. But it always seemed like the obvious choice to begin with.

I agree. I think they should give that choice. I think foreign media companies don't realize that even though many European countries dub movies, lots of people will watch an un-dubbed movie (with subtitles) if that is the only thing available at the time. Lots of people prefer the un-dubbed version (even without subtitles).

Southern European countries like it dubbed, all there shows are dubbed.

Most people in southern European countries like it dubbed. Doesn't mean that they shouldn't be given the option (specially if a dubbed version doesn't exist and is the only way to see the content at all).

From a technical point of view is a trivial fix. From a commercial point of view? Well, either selling content in a different language is profitable, in which case negotiating the licenses is worthwhile, or it isn't very profitable, in which case "license to distribute in Japanese with subtitles inside Italy" should not be a very expensive right to acquire.

Not here in Portugal (thankfully). Only shows for children are dubbed here.

One of many reasons to like Portugal, go on holiday, speak no Portuguese, can still go to the cinema (and have a proud usher tell you that no, they don't dub the films like the Spanish do, because Portuguese people can read).

Same here in Romania. If the movies were dubbed guess almost nobody would watch them :D

Well, to Netflix' credit they offer everything with original audio track and never forced the local (german) audio track on me. A setting that Amazon still can't consistently provide for their paid video selection, which rules out half of their content for me.

Wow Finland is pretty well off, I figured we had it much worse. Yeah, there's a decent amount of stuff on Netflix here but not everything.

I don't know if this problem still exists but at some point in the not too distant past not every title available on desktop was available if you signed up on say Apple TV. If anyone has the numbers I'd be curious how much of the catalog is restricted this way.

This is a humorous complaint. I was using a VPN into England and had checked out Netflix and I thought the selection was great (finally, I can stream Battlestar Galactica. Archer's season 6 is finally out, etc.)...but I'm sure if I were using VPN regularly, and then checking Netflix...I'd have the same feeling of "it's the same ol shit on the front page"

It's not. If the UK is your only frame of reference, you're not getting the full picture. It differs greatly per country.

Yeah, considering switching to Netflix US + VPN. Only decent content here (Ireland) is the Netflix Originals stuff.

hah, that's actually interesting: i've been switching to netflix ireland for the past weeks because it has some unique stuff (like the last season of Archer).

Movie-wise, the most upto date content seems to be in Canada, where they get movies that were in the cinema around 6-8 months. Not sure how much longer that'll last as the licensing deal runs out in middle of this year some time.

I like the selection we have in Canada and I feel it is much better than it was when I first got an account somewhere around 3-4 years ago.

Also, to confirm what you said, we are supposed to get Star Wars: the force awakens first

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/s/netflix-stream-star-wars-forc...

I saw somewhere that we would get it in about six months.

I wish it was "in europe", but it looks like "western europe" :(

I think they haven't updated the map yet. It lists just ~115 countries while the press release mentions 190.

Edit: I am also in one of the grey countries, and I can see the "Start your free month" page on netflix.com, instead of "unavailable in your country."

The 444 Hungarian news portal reports it working in Hungary.

works well in Greece (east-southern?) but the available content is dated, a disappointment really.

Greece is Western Europe.

it's available globally (with only a few exceptions such as north Korea, Iran, Syria, and, apparently, Crimea)

It works for me in Romania

Most of what I watch these days on Netflix are their original programs, which I'm pretty sure is completely in line with their master plan.

That and TV shows that have completed their original run, of which they have a great collection.

Personally, I prefer this. I hate waiting for the next season of a show to come out, so Netflix works for me. I can see why it doesn't work for others though

Same, I mostly just use it for the original shows, and occasionally I'll go on there when I want to watch a random movie. For normal TV shows I'll usually watch them when they air through "other methods", since it's usually many months before a new show/season gets on Netflix.

There's consistently been a new season of a Netflix show that I've wanted to watch every month for a while now, so it doesn't seem like bad value. It helps that I share the account with a friend though, and I'm surprised they still let people do that.

I doubt it will change. Content producers don't want to give away content to an all-you-can-eat service. It's expensive to produce the material, so they need to milk it at every level.

In terms of content quality, Netflix (and their competitors) are the equivalent of a free-to-air TV channel with occasional big ticket titles that they likely blow their budget on.

That's usually because some local player bought the (online) distribution rights for your country for content from major studios before Netflix moved in. Where I live, Netflix has some children's shows and some local stuff. If I want the same choice as Netflix in the US, I'd have to get subscriptions to half a dozen local online video stores. I expect most of those to go out of business in the next few years, and things to consolidate to just one or two players, one of them being Netflix.

It's not even that good here. Most series that ended within the last 10 years are not available. They don't have 9 out of 10 TV series that I want to watch. To make things even worse, they've raised prices from €8 to €10 even though it feels like they're removing more TV series (such as Lost) than they're adding back.

Yeah, it was a total disappointment to subscribe to Netflix just to discover that almost everything I was interested in, wasn't there.

Just use a VPN or proxy dude... it's not hard.

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