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Comment by tumblewit | Hacker News Reader

Netflix is so much superior to Prime. Prime has a hard time maintaining 1080p but Netflix has such varying bitrates from as low as 1mbps to as high as 20mbps while watching The crown. And the best part is how snappy the app itself is and instantly starts playing anything. Apple and Prime have a lot of work to do. Prime is possibly the worst streaming platform currently. Though their own fire stick is superior in every way compared to iOS apps or the web app.

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I’m in Japan, with an English-language Amazon account, yet Prime insists on displaying Japanese subtitles on absolutely every thing I watch. Doesn’t matter what the original language of the content is, doesn’t provide an option to turn it off. Huge, bright white subtitles - much bigger than what Netflix uses. Been this way for years.

Sometimes I have fantasies about sending an email direct to Jeff Bezos just to say: dude, did you know about this?

Suffice to say, I don’t watch much Prime.

May be dumb to say, but have you checked to confirm you don't have subtitles enabled? If you bring up the player controls you notice a little "cc" in the lower right hand corner (at least in the English version as shown on my TV). If you click on the cc you can configure the closed captions, turning them off or on, changing language, or changing color.

Prime has burnt in subtitles for approximately 90 % of the content outside the US. Which actually might have something to do with their garbage-tier video quality: unnecessary recodes and burnt in subtitles = multiple copies, so more incentive to use bit rates straight from the shitter.

The terrible quality and slowness I think is a remnant from them buying LoveFilm and rebranding it as Prime video all those years back, which was based on that awful Microsoft DRM that I can't remember the name of, was it Silverlight?

It was silverlight. Might still be installed on my desktop.

They are hard coded on Japan prime video (mostly).

It's a lot of stuff like this that adds up. Prime and Disney + also seem to completely forget what I'm currently watching all the time - and even if they remember, it will restart a minute or earlier than I left off. Netflix is always bang on the second. Netflix also always has a 'skip recap' and 'skip intro' button. These things don't happen by chance. Someone worked hard for that!

They are not only displayed, they are hard coded and there is usually 2 separate videos (dubbed and subbed) for non-Japanese content. That being said, new content is starting to have multiple audio and subtitle tracks (like Netflix).

In Belgium we have a 60/40 language split between Dutch and French. Amazon Prime insists to promote to me dutch things (with a special section in the home screen), while I live in the french speaking part. No such issue with Netflix of course.

Seems like all streaming providers have issues with global licensing. Why can’t I pick from all the languages that the provider has available? Why lock it per country Netflix?

Netflix also did a bunch of deals with ISPs and essentially have mirrors of their catalogue in all the right places, and use machine learning to guess when different shows will be watched and shuffle around what they have in those caches.

Meanwhile Apple TV+ will just go ahead and try to use a super heavy 4k stream on my iPhone over 4G - won't even let me download it (at least this was the case a year ago, the last time I was out of wifi range).

There is one very niche area that Prime is quite good and it's their VR app. I have Prime on my Oculus Quest and they've really nailed the player itself, it's like being in an actual cinema. Netflix also have a very good VR app, but none of the other streaming platforms I use have put in any effort in this regard.

Prime has 4k UHD for free, while Netflix doesn't. For me, that's quite an advantage.

Also, given the choice, I'll rent a movie on Amazon because they even give refunds if they detect the quality was low.

Personally, I prefer Disney+ over Netflix/Prime as my experience is that Disney+ comes with more subtitles. Most of the time I can get Dutch subtitles while with Netflix UK that's not the case.

For me in germany prime always has instant, rock solid 4k.

Netflix also never stutters, but it starts with like 480p and gets better over time.

Nevertheless the Netflix UI is far superior.

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