Netflix launches in Germany, Austria and Switzerland within 3 days | Hacker News Reader

Netflix launches in Germany, Austria and Switzerland within 3 days

pr.netflix.com

Also France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Netflix announced in May it would launch in 6 European countries this year and this is the week they are all launching.

http://www.wort.lu/en/lifestyle/luxembourg-launch-friday-net...

I'm French, and even though Netflix doesn't have as much contents as it does in the US, I really like using it. I feel that I am supporting something that will make media companies rethink their distribution and pricing means.

I came here to say the same thing (I'm French too). I have used the oft-cited CanalPlay offer, with slightly more hours of shows, and had a hard time finding interesting content, not because it isn't there, but because the recommendation engine is clearly not up to the game.

Things I like most about netflix so far: family profiles (not for parental control, but more because each one has their list, can resume a movie etc), I can force the quality to excellent (our satellite link has a big bandwidth but the latency often confuses the streaming services, ending up with big square pixels), current time in the movie is shared across devices, onboarding is good, recommendations so far have been excellent.

For those looking for a solution that will allow them to watch e.g. the American version of Netflix (which has the largest selection), check out https://unlocator.com/ or http://www.unblock-us.com/. The latter was a bit unreliable for me, whereas the former works well.

To save money, create an American Netflix account instead of a Netflix account in your native country. The way to sign up for the American account is to use one of the VPN services above, change your DNS settings as explained on the VPN service's website, and then go to netflix.com. You should then see the American version and be able to create an account there.

Using my German account works just fine when accessing netflix.com through a US proxy. I'm logged in just the same and get the US catalog instead of the German one.

Sure, but the German account is more expensive.

German copycat portals for whatever usually suck, so I was pretty psyched to hear Netflix was launching, only to then find out that their selection in Germany is mediocre at best. Here is a comparison (in german):

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/netflix-test-information...

I'm seriously considering a US VPN, guess thats the country with the best catalogue. Any experience regarding potential bandwidth issues?

Hola Better Internet is a free extension for Chrome that lets you connect to any site via a proxy, I've used it with Netflix before. It's also handy for getting around YouTube's geoblocking.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hola-better-intern...

I'd just use something like ProxMate, I use it from Argentina and it works wonders. I'd use a VPN por privacy reasons but for now i just enable the extension when I want to use it.

It seems that House of Cards is not available in Switzerland and France (at least French part) because a French TV channel got the rights. Pretty sad.

Source : http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/7d197506-3ef1-11e4-a188-24a0... (in French and paywalled, just change your UA to Googlebot)

As an EU citizen aren't you allowed to register for the UK netflix service?

Pretty sure they need to treat all EU citizens the same.

It's tricky. Article 36 allows some restrictions to free trade:

> ... the Treaty does not affect the existence of industrial property rights granted pursuant to the legislation of the Member States. Accordingly, national legislation on the acquisition, transfer and extinction of such rights is lawful.

So IPR can be restricted nationally. However:

> The second principle is that an industrial property right is exhausted when a product has been lawfully distributed in the market of a Member State by the owner of the right or with his or her consent. Thereafter the owner of the right may not oppose the importation of the product into any Member State where it was first marketed.

To me, this is clearly the case of VPNs: you are lawfully acquiring access to the content in the country where it is sold, and then consuming it in another country.

Use a VPN service (see my comment elsewhere on this page), register for the American service, and then, on the VPN service's website, change your Netflix region to UK or another region.

Netflix support straight out told me to do this... and I wonder about it.

I'm sort of at the point where I don't see a whole lot of difference between just torrenting whatever it is I want to watch and using a VPN to circumvent copyright restrictions... except using bittorrent is cheaper and more amenable to my crappy unreliable Internet service.

The difference is that when you're using Netflix you're actually paying the people who make the stuff you watch.

Well, no. I would actually be paying Netflix and some company providing a VPN and neither of them are making the stuff I watch.

Netflix pays the content owners / studios for the content they serve, and so the screenwriters/directors/actors/producers get paid if you use Netflix.

Not really, they still filter by country IP, so even if you register with the UK version you'll only see the local library without a VPN connection.

That's what I mean. Are they allowed to do that?

Very curious about what's happening to their share price at the moment: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=NFLX+Interactive#symbol=N...

Sounds like a big multi-country European launch should be a good thing, but their stock's really nose dived this week. Anyone know why?

Looks like on Monday all tech stock took a big hit including Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, etc. Then on Thursday Netflix announced it would not make a profit in Europe for 10 years.

Really though, it can be anything and if you look at the stock on a longer time period this really isn't all that big of a deal.

The default assumption would be "buy the rumor, sell the news."

News got out today that contentowners are pressing Netflix to stop people from using VPN to get other regions content.

Do you have a link to that story?

Spiegel Online has a comparison of online video providers (In German):

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/netflix-alternative-maxd...

I welcome these video services here in German. I'm extremely happy to get original audio versions (OV), which the terrestrial channels butcher with German dubbing (with no original audio track offered).

I'll be voting with my cash and the next time Kabel Deutschland contact me again about their shitty cable TV service I'll tell them again why I don't want it. I really don't want to watch Pulp Fiction in German, however funny it sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELLL_qIl80Q

German speaker here, although not native. I found German dubbing for some movies especially war or action movies better then the original some time. German has this tensity that English don't have. I watched The Matrix in German and liked it better than the Original.

The easiest way to watch netflix on Linux is using the Chrome Beta version with a spoofed user agent:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/08/netflix-linux-html5-suppo...

Austrian here. We suffer from a severely restricted library on Netflix, but there is a loophole: If you connect via a VPN in another country (e.g. US, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany,..), you can view the country's respective content. Very clever of them :)

Also Austrian.

Other way around works too, I had a Netflix account before, that I accessed via a VPN, now I also have access to the Austrian Netflix library while paying less (it's cheaper in the US)

I personally don't mind paying a couple of euros more, but I find the available selection unsatisfactory.

I'm not sure how it compares, but this is a common complaint in the US as well. I assume it's huge compared to the Austrian library, but people usually complain that streaming only has the things people don't want to watch - hence the huge uproar when they doubled the price on mail+streaming.

There aren't that many titles though... I don't know how short the list in Austria is, but I wouldn't call the list of shows available in Germany satisfactory. Diverse, yes. I hope they're going to make more shows available.

In Germany and Switzerland (not sure about Austria) it's legal to download (not legal to upload):

- http://thepiratebay.se/

- Or, if above is blocked: http://194.71.107.80/

Austria has similar laws, downloading for personal use is legal.

Regardless whether is legal or not (I guess not), I´m sure is fairly common in the US as well.

The strength of Netflix (and Spotify, Steam...) is that they offer a service that is more convenient, and offers more value, than just downloading the torrent, at least for a large number of users.

I hope they are successful in Europe as well, although the limited library will surely be a problem.

If you're torrenting you're likely uploading too…

Eh, just use put.io or something. I have yet to find a legal service that is as convenient (built-in conversion to other formats, streaming to Chromecast, subtitles etc.) and has as big of a selection. It's not like I'm not willing to pay (put.io costs money as well).

Did you run into any trouble with payment?

I tried and was unable to use my credit because of some security restriction configuration. As I have never changed anything in that regard, I concluded that this must be a default setting.

I'm using it since the first day and it's the best streaming experience I ever had. Sad that it doesn't work on Linux without some workarounds, though.

How will Europe's ISPs react to the bandwidth increase?

Better than the USA? Or will they also pressure netflix for a cut?

Non-profit peering exchanges are more common in Europe: http://blog.cloudflare.com/the-relative-cost-of-bandwidth-ar...

As far as I know, they've had little trouble in the UK (where they peer at LINX) or Ireland (where they peer at INEX); I'd expect similar arrangements in the new countries.

I haven't seen any sort of reaction here in Denmark. Not all of the ISP have their own streaming service so they aren't really motivated to go against Netflix. If the companies with their own streaming service are trying to push to hard, users could just switch.

Prices for ADSL/cabel are pretty much the same for the same speed regardless of provider, so I think the ISP have just found a pricing level that allows them to make a profit and not care about Netflix. If anything Netflix are most likely pushing customers to higher speeds, which costs a bit more.

The Danish version of RIAA/MPAA have tried to force the ISP to pay then money for carrying streaming services, but that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Not sure if it is related to the launch, but I see many dropped packets in the evening since the launch in Germany. My provider is Kabel Deutschland. Anybody seeing similar things?

Anyone knows if the movies/tvshows have original sound and have additional subtitle languages ?

So far i've only watched a few shows and one movie. They all had the _original_ audio track and german subtitles as an option, but not necessarily an english audio track.

As long as I can watch English movies in English, rather than being forced to watch English movies in dubbed German I'll be a happy camper.

Hopefully this gives the German terrestrial channels a kick up the butt. ARD, ZDF, RTL and ProSieben still are too lazy to broadcast both audio tracks (original English and the dubbed German) over cable.

I should get a discount on my TV license. In fact everyone should get a discount, just because German TV is so bad. It's like torture. Except for Tatort. They get a free pass.

Tatort also seams to get worse every year. I like that we at least also have a german version of Shark Tank now. Although it is not as good at least for now.

Yes, English is always available, plus localized sound and subtitles where available. E.g. Austria & Germany have English & German tracks, while Netherlands only have English audio and English and Dutch subtitles.

> English is always available

Not in the Danish version of Netflix, AFAIK. There you can typically choose between three or four (horribly translated) Nordic languages.

If you want English subtitles, one solution could be to use a VPN service such as Unlocator.

Cool! is also possible somehow to had additional subtitles languages ?

Just sign up and try it out. The first month is for free...

Almost always. At least in Sweden I've seen some kids movies that where only available with Swedish dubbing, and I had to do the whole VPN thing to get them with English.

Sound is both Original Version + German dub while subs unfortunately seem to be German only (Netflix Germany).

I've seen English sub options on one or two movies, so fingers crossed it's an ever improving library.

I checked Netflix when it was released in Germany (been using it for quite some time via VPN) and there were English subs for Penny Dreadful at least.

while there's the original language available, the video stream itself seems to be the localized version, i.e. burnt in screen texts are german.

here's a site with a listing of the currently available content for Germany (and Switzerland): http://www.netflixdeutschland.net/

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