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Show HN: Netflix Calculator

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I might need something that tells me how much time I spend browsing Netflix only to not watch anything.

My Netflix habit consists of aspiring to actually watch something as a way to relax before bed, opening the app, scrolling through a bunch of lists, deciding “that looks really good, I should probably save that to watch with my dad”, “this looks good but too heavy for me tonight”, “this looks good but only one season that ended 2 years ago, so probably cancelled”, “this looks like a candidate but I’ll keep looking just in case”…

45 minutes later, I’m tired, and either close the app or watch 5 minutes of something only to decide I’m too tired to follow it and that’s that.

I don’t have this problem with short YouTube videos or music. Even books I can eventually power through and make a choice.

But movies and video games I have severe analysis paralysis that leads to a lot of browsing and no actual watching or playing. It’s frustrating.

If you actually seriously want this: I believe both Android and iOS have some method of tracking time spent in apps (assuming that's what you mean when you say "Netflix App").

I was being partially serious - now that you mention it, between this project's ability to show my time spent watching something, and my phone's app usage, I could probably figure the difference to be the time spent browsing vs watching, which might actually be an interesting metric to track.

Same problem. I’ve solved it by not watching Netflix unless a friend with similar tastes recommends something to me directly. I end up not watching much Netflix, which I’ve found is healthier for me anyway. A lot of the “browsing “ or watching in bed was escapism.

>But movies and video games I have severe analysis paralysis that leads to a lot of browsing and no actual watching or playing.

I suffered of this problem as well and I believe I managed to solve it.

## Netflix

- I only open Netflix when I know what I'm going to watch.

- When I don't know what to watch it means I'm not in the mood for anything I'm currently planning to watch. So I don't open Netflix, I go to YouTube instead.

- When I know what I want to watch (these days I'm binging Mr. Robot) I favourite things that catch my interest while using the app. This is the only time for new content discovery within Netflix.

## Steam

It might sound ridiculous but I've found that to power through I need to approach games like work. I have to dedicate time for it - a weekend, or even take a vacation (I found that the time around the end of the year works best for me). Since it is something I plan, I discuss what to play with my friends and make a decision beforehand.

When the vacation comes, I make myself play at least 8 hours a day on the same regime as if I was working. After a few days I get into it and then I can continue the game in some normal occasional schedule as well. I've been able to enjoy the Mass Effect games in this way the last winter and Witcher 3 the year before that. I don't think I've managed to enjoy a single player storytelling game to such extent in the decade before that.

I try to avoid opening my 500+ game 80% unplayed Steam library. When I don't know what to play, I don't open Steam, I open YouTube and watch some let's play instead.

> I only open Netflix when I know what I'm going to watch.

Only to realize that it's not in their library (anymore).

I'm in EU and this didn't happen to me yet (although I've watched Friends while I could).

It sometimes feels like I'm the only netizen who is happy with the Netflix catalogue, but to be honest I think they have a giant pile of great shows; many more than I have time or mood to watch. I believe the issue is that they produce an even bigger pile of shows that are utterly shit, so if you just play something at random there is a high chance of it being low quality. To me that doesn't matter much as long as there is enough of the good stuff.

I solved this by simply not using the streaming services as my catalog service. Make the list in something all encompassing like IMDB so when you pull it up you can quickly find what services have your content available instead of the other way around. Jumping on Netflix so I can find what I want to watch is just backwards. If I have a catalog of movies & shows marked watched later and I can't ever seem to find any available on <x service> then why would I keep an <x service> subscription.

This comes with the bonus that recommendations are based on what you have liked across all services not what the service has it thinks it can convince you is good enough based on only what that service has convinced you to watch before. It also keeps your watch history in one place which makes referencing easier.

Good advice - I think if I approached streaming apps as a means to watch something that I already have chosen to watch, and less as a means of finding something to watch, it would be a more purposeful activity and thus wouldn't feel like something that ends in frustration.

For gaming, there's an added dimension every time I browse my Steam library in that I need to consider not only whether I'm in the mood for each game, but also how long it is, how are checkpoints spaced out, does it have complex mechanics or story line that I would have trouble following if I took a break for a few weeks, etc.

I have identified that starting a new game is the hardest part for me - getting past the tutorial phase, getting into the mechanics and game loop - it always feels like a bit of a chore (that hopefully turns into something fun, eventually). So, just not worrying about it until I can block off a good couple of "work days" to get into it isn't a bad idea.

I should probably give in to YouTube play-throughs more often though. I used to avoid them because I didn't want to spoil the game if I intended to play it some day myself, but realistically I could probably gain a lot of what I'm looking for with less stress this way.

Great life hack, what you said on steam. Will try to do that, too.

I have a list of movies/TV shows in a txt file. New entries go at the end. I watch them in the order I added them. Zero decision fatigue!

This might seem weird but here's how I leverage this:

- 99% of the time it confirms tiredness. However it's also an intriguing moment of interest, built into this time of waning energy. And interests are important to seize on, and work with, as they develop.

- I want to get the most entertaining result, for the time being. The symbol processing part of the mind is back-and-forthing with the physical circumstances of exhaustion, so I have an opportunity to get the needed result via symbolic means.

- I focus only on cover imagery and sort by favorite cover images. I let myself decide not to focus on selecting a movie to watch for the time being. I'm just browsing covers. This is not a time to test the focusing attributes of your mind. Instead, the mind is ready to take you for a ride.

- The images start to bring out imaginings or scenarios in the mind's eye, which build on and depart from what's strictly in the cover image. This is good. You can consider it a lucid, pre-dreaming state as well.

- I frontdoor those moments and inner images [1] for rest, interest-pursuit, and analysis purposes if desired.

Since I started doing that and got good results, I wrote a cron script to randomly select sets of book covers from my Google Play Books and Kindle libraries, and I use those the same way.

Another result is that this connection "browse thumbnails" -> "watch or read that thing" is less strict or even necessary. The covers often don't match the contents anyway, and were not typically created by the director or author. So the reading/viewing often hits like a disappointment. This isn't to say that reading is bad though, and you can do the cover-sorting activity above with textual passages from books, or clips from movies.

1. https://www.friendlyskies.net/maybe/frontdooring-a-new-form-...

Interesting ideas - if I understand, essentially the "browsing" phase is a distinct activity from the "watching/reading/playing" phase, and the browsing phase can become its own form of "unwinding" as a sort of meditative activity?

The comment and link are appreciated!

Thanks, and yep you are right on, plus ideally it's an activity that becomes more justifiably standalone over time, as you play with it and discover how and when it can benefit you. With practice it may even become both a tool in the cognitive toolbox and an enjoyable activity to look forward to.

I'm glad if it's helpful.

> 45 minutes later, I’m tired

I think you're tired to start with, just go to sleep. I realized this with myself and others. Some kind of marketing that "unwind and relax" means you have to watch some TV when sleep will actually bring you more enjoyment.

You can always trade those 45 minutes when you wake up for a movie if you actually want to watch one - and you'll enjoy it more.

I've considered myself "not a morning person" for a while now, but maybe just making sleep the priority at night and attempting to trade that time for a movie or TV show in the morning might be worth a try.

If you haven’t already, disable the preview auto play garbage by going to your profile settings on the website. The option is ONLY available on the website, but applies to all devices that auto play.

You’ll never look back.

Not lately. The quality of content has gone so far down that I would need such a tool for Disney or even Prime.

We have entered the period of series-hell, where content has been algorithmically reduced to the minimum which will make someone come back.

Even re-watching old series is dull. Granted, I still get a chuckle or two from My Name Is Earl (Hulu, and highly recommended if you're American and especially from the south). I'm also trained to lose focus easily, so making me wait a week for an update (or in the case of the latest Star Trek... waiting 1+ years!???) will basically make me forget it even existed.

It feels a bit like a natural finality of television. Anything that could be done has been done. Any story that could be told has been told. They've upped the volume on any aspect - sex, violence, fear, whatever. I am no longer entertained. I've seen reasonable people mutilate people ("Once Upon A Time In Hollywood" I hate you) for no good reason. We might as well be watching people shove grenades up their bums (give porn sites 1-2 years, it will happen).

It all reminds me of a Blackadder scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmk4PfuiPVY

This is when we realize that our reality is a farce, perhaps self-created.

You are welcome for this tour to the end times!

> The quality of content has gone so far down ...

Could anime be to your liking? There is a LOT of good stuff out there, no matter what kinda story you are interested in, many of which simply wouldn't be made at all in the west.

> I'm also trained to lose focus easily, so making me wait a week for an update...

yeah, lots of shows are pretty much "wait until the season has been finished, then binge it" for me.

I wouldn't know where to begin with anime... there could be some of it which is great for me, but most anime is probably not for me.

Thats fair. Any genres you find interesting? Any specific story structure? Target age? I can probably list some that may strike your fancy.

But yeah, I can definitely see/understand not liking most/any anime.

I do like science fiction, particularly of the Star Trek style. I'm less into the Aliens (action/horror) stuff and more into fantasy/exploration stuff. Adventure in general is nice. Conflict is expected (as that's part of any plot), but I don't enjoy shows of inevitable doom usually (although Melancholia was good).

I also like comedy - British, American, southern American. I'm rewatching My Name Is Earl now. I enjoyed Trailer Park Boys for a while. Blackadder was fantastic.

I don't mind some violence, but that shouldn't be the focus. Likewise I don't mind sex (explicit or not) as long as that isn't the point of the show.

Gratuitous, over-the-top violence (modern Tarantino films) are very much not my interest.

I think planetes could be to your liking. It is about a group of people whose job it is to clean space debris [1]

In terms of fantasy/exploration, I'd go with Made in abyss [2], altough that one gets rather dark at times.

For comedy, I think angel beats [3] may be an option. Altough, love is war is probably a better fit.

As a personal highlight, I really like great pretender [5]

And of course, I forgot to add Konosuba [6], which at a glance strikes me as somewhat similar to trailer park boys (altough, havent seen that show)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Abyss

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Beats!

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaguya-sama:_Love_Is_War

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pretender_(TV_series)

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KonoSuba

I specifically focused on seinen, or aimed at adults, shows, rather than shounen, which are aimed at young boys, in this list.

Thanks kindly for the suggestions. I'll check some of them out.

Assuming 40 minutes per entry is way off base imho. Most of the stuff I watched is sitcoms with 20 minutes per episode each. If you are just going to count the lines of the file I "Upload" to your website, maybe don't even do it at all. Also why does the button say "Upload" and right below it says "Your data is processed locally and not sent to any servers.". Upload implies precisely that data is being transferred.

It's great that this page informed me about the existence of that CSV file though. Thanks for that.

And for me, roughly 80% of my entries are feature length films, so 40 minutes is way, way too low. As long as Netflix avoids exposing actual watch time data per entry, this calculator is going to be very inaccurate.

I've looked into this in the past. I would suggest using the full GDPR-style takeout-all-my-data request from:

https://www.netflix.com/account/getmyinfo

As one would expect, Netflix's tracking provides quite a bit more detail. Whereas "NetflixViewingHistory.csv" only provides the title and a date, the "ViewingActivity.csv" from the takeout includes:

  - Start timestamp with resolution down to the minute
  - Watching duration with resolution down to the second
  - The reason you watched it (e.g auto play or not)
  - If the thing was one of those autoplaying trailers, as opposed to a real video
  - What Netflix client type you used (e.g browser vs smart TV vs phone)
  - At what timestamp you stopped watching

I've used it to summarize the series I was watching from week-to-week and how much time I sank into each show.

Thank you for this tip! This is gold!

Pretty neat. For me, I’d love to see something like this for YouTube. Perhaps it’s just my bad habits, but I find I generally spend time on what I’d consider quality entertainment (that is, I don’t regret having spent time on it) for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and the like.

YouTube on the other hand, I’ll usually start with something I consider quality like 3b1b and then end up watching much more of forgettable things I regret. Whenever I go to resume a video on YouTube via browsing my history, I’m always in shock of just how much crap I’ve watched.

Thanks!

YouTube can be a real time sink! Have you checked out https://watchlimits.com/ - maybe that could help you use YouTube better? I would be very interested in hearing about your suggestions about the tool! Please DM me on https://twitter.com/attilczuk or feel free to contact on justyna@watchlimits.com

idk seems wrong:

Analysis results

Found 2123 videos in the watch history. Assuming average 40 minutes per video... Recent stats

    0 minutes this year so far
    0 minutes on average per day during last 30 days

All time stats (over last 0 days)

    1415 hours 20 minutes during all time
    Infinity hours on average per day
    Infinity hours on average per week

Same here:

Found 5098 videos in the watch history. Assuming average 40 minutes per video...

    0 minutes this year so far
    0 minutes on average per day during last 30 days

All time stats (over last 0 days)

    3398 hours 40 minutes during all time
    Infinity hours on average per day
    Infinity hours on average per week

What is your data format? I noticed that in different countries the data is exported differently and the app currently supports 3 different formats. If you give me a sample, I would be happy to update the tool.

Here you are: https://gist.github.com/dhritzkiv/5872d35313e58fef9ebdf32683...

Didn't know netflix actually allows to download this.

Very nice, but now i'm way more curious than before. Like prefered weekdays, top tv shows (i watch and others watch) etc.

I would also like to see when its more or less 'netflix time'.

Like right now we have stranger things, the umbrella academy and better call saul. Could easily be visualized and potentially even inform me when i can unsubscribe temporarily (not that it matters that much for a few bucks per month)

I've been looking for something similar, but for YouTube.

AFAIK the only way to graph viewing time is through the mobile app, bummer :^(.

I'm curious how precise they calculate watch time (e.g., watching two 1 hour videos concurrently on different laptops, is that one or two hours?).

Given the watch time graph's `Y` axis maxima is 24 hours, it counts as one hour.

I average ~100 hours of youtube a week. Am I an outlier in Youtube watch time?

Keep in mind it counts anything you ever played as watched, even if you dropped after one second.

I'm surprised to see I have 100h throughout the whole year (including the caveat I mentioned above). I feel like I spent more time trying to find something decent to watch than actually watching stuff...

I'm not browsing netflix regularly but we have a few tv shows which are worth keeping netflix anyway like the current Stranger Things, The Umbrella Academy, Russion Doll, Better Call Saul, ...

Next to that we watch normally one old TV Show which is the easy way to go to. Right now its Friends. Bevor that it was Star Trek Voyager.

Thats enough for me already to not feel bad for paying $10 per month for it.

But than there is also something we don't have in germany: super weird tv shows like 'The floor is lava' or 'is it cake?'. I scroll through them and watch a whole season in lets say 1-2 hours by watching the start and forwarding to the end or so. And there are so many of them and surprisingly interesting like the glass stuff or the chocolate show with Amaury Guichon, which is crazy :D

I have an injury and am spending more time watching video. I was surprised that Netflix isn’t that great in terms of content any more and their app has gone downhill (1.5x is great, but it often loses video synch if you press the back button repeatedly).

The competition’s apps are mostly worse. Disney’s is probably the best, but content is also blah

Disney suffers from having bits and pieces of their back catalog and not scratching my personal nostalgia itch.

Yeah, there’s a lot of live-action films that they haven’t put up yet.

Good tool, but a sample result will be really helpful so that people can see how it looks without sharing their private data.

I no longer have "Viewing activity" because once it's turned off, there's no way to turn it back on. And I never turned it off, but after fighting with customer support for months I gave up.

The fact that they cannot reverse a simple db change is insane.

Zero. Cancelled it a long time ago and haven’t looked back.

I don’t have a Netflix subscription, but I do have a Disney+ subscription. Is there a similar thing for Disney+?

No :), I'm not sure how hard would it to build it, but I haven't built it yet (also because I don't use Disney+).

I use tvtime.com

I watch a lot of content at 1.5-2X speed

Way to reduce any artistic quality of the movie to 0. Could you explain the reason for this? Are movies/shows too boring in normal speed? Are you trying to watch as many as possible?

I assume the OP is watching documentaries or likewise.

I watch everything at 1.5 movies seasons etc. Stuff is too slow i just want to absorb it.

Can you define what you mean by absorb? My wife loves the TV on in the background while doing other things. Are you after the same goal?

I'm worried about everything being reduced to "content" like it is all interchangeable.

No, the opposite. I want all the content to enter my brain faster and fully focused.

Too much filler cut scenes and slow dialogue. For example, Suits has notorious slow dialogue and lots of cut scenes hovering over city buildings which add nothing to the script. Watching it at 1.5x makes me miss absolutely nothing and reduces episodes of 45 minutes to roughly half an hour.

You miss almost everything, actually. The only thing you retain by watching it at 1.5x speed is the dialogue and some sort of vague approximation of the visuals. I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't be able to enjoy tv as you do, but you're definitely incorrect to assert you're missing "absolutely nothing."

I mean, they've reported that they miss absolutely nothing, and the experience of watching a TV show is a subjective one. While I don't mess around with the speed, I haven't seen any compelling arguments that somebody couldn't get it all watching at 1.5x speed.

My argument is that a movie or tv show is an art medium that coincides partly with time, just like music. Listening to a song at 1.5x speed fundamentally changes what you are listening to and is a significant deviation from what the artist intended.

It could still be enjoyable but to say that nothing is lost is wrong.

What content are you watching?

This is the new “I read 4 books per week”

Reading requires effort.

I was surprised how much attention faculties reading requires once I started back up. I even read articles again instead of just the comments section. I didn’t realize how much I lost until I had to work to recover it.

I now abhor cheap entertainment for that.

Nifty usage of previous history, are you looking up Netflix's title number against an OS database?

Me? Zero hours per month.

Good for you!

Same here.

Like alcohol, drugs and smoking, endless streaming media is just something I don't touch. I know there's an insane amount of good content to watch out there, but I'm content with not knowing what it's like diving into that rabbit hole.

For shame if you watch Netflix.

I can't believe people still watch netflix. Algorithm generated content for simpletons.

No need for you to bashing netflix if you don't like their content.

Its $10 per month, 2 coffees.

I also do watch a lot of tv shows and movies for the last 15/20 years (also stuff besides mainstream) and there are pretty good tv shows on netflix. Stranger Things, The Umbrella Academy, Better Call Saul, Russian Doll, Love Death and Robots (the last season was weirder than usual though), Space force (super quirky, love it!), The Witcher, Arcane, Superstore, Squid Game

The vast majority of media is lowest-common-denominator trash, netflix isn't special in that regard. I dunno. I watch tv to shut off my brain, or more likely put it on in the background while doing something more productive. Lots of people have complicated enough day jobs, let's not begrudge their low-power regeneration state.

There’s plenty of good content. I think people who say this are stuck in a very narrow comfort bubble. The kind of person who gets mad when a single show gets taken away, like The Office.

For example, just check out the best content from other countries. Should take you a while if you have a healthy life balance and don’t watch netflix all day.

There's not "plenty" of good content. There's maybe two months of good content if you subscribed now and haven't watched anything on it before, ever. You're lucky if eight hours of good new content is added a month.

Dunno, that seems like complaining about there being no books to read.

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