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73% of Subscribers Would Download Netflix Content, Says Survey (allflicks.net)
An anonymous reader writes: A report surfaced a couple weeks ago suggesting Netflix is soon going to let users download videos for offline playback. AllFlicks decided to poll 1,000 stakeholders to see what they think of the bold new idea. In their survey, they asked respondents to tell them how important offline viewing was to them. Nearly two thirds of Netflix subscribers said offline support was either "Important" or "Very Important" to them. About a quarter of all respondents chose the most enthusiastic option, "Very Important." Just plain "Important" was the most popular answer, at 39%, and "Not Important" netted a significant minority at 34%. They followed up by asking subscribers if they think they will download Netflix videos if offline viewing becomes possible. The respondents agreed overwhelmingly that they would download Netflix videos if it became possible. A whopping 73% said they would, while only 16% were confident that they would not. In an open-ended question, AllFlicks asked when would they use the feature. Respondents said they'd need offline support when traveling (in particular, air and car travel), camping, and working out in the gym. They did also mention public transit and train commutes. In addition to offline playback, Recode reports that Comcast will allow Netflix onto its X1 platform.
More like 100%.
Stop making a distinction between streaming and downloading. We all know you can't stream if you can't download. Stop confusing the less nerdy folks, they're the ones making laws.
Amazon already lets you do this.
Couldn't this help to reduce overall consumed bandwidth? I mean, set your local device / player to download the media overnight (or during the day, non-peak hours) and then watch during peak hours.
Sure, the same amount of bandwidth would be used, but it would make balancing the network usage a lot easier.
In theory, there could even be a setting along the lines of "low priority bandwidth consumption during x hours" or "media must be downloaded by y time". Even if 2-3 episodes in advance are cached, that could help.
see what they think of the bold new idea
... for definitions of "new" which include "the way internet video was in from the beginning, before artificial restrictions made it more difficult to store the entire video as it is fetched over the network."
Just wait till you're stuck on a plane with a kid who wants to watch their netflix...
Airline internet ranges from 1) nonexistent, 2) very expensive, and 3) not capable of video streaming.
I always bring movies with me when I travel, but I generally just pirate them before my trip to make it easier.
Means you got a tap with running water but you don't have a bucket. Streaming IS Downloading !! you just need the right tools to save on disk.
It certainly could! My DSL is barely capable of streaming during non-peak hours - but during peak hours (after work, before bed), it's completely unusable.
So I just pirate my content - it's a lot easier than waiting for the industry to figure out what I want and need...
dsl is a fixed rate connection, theres no "peak hours" but the problem is the shit 6 megabit speed limit
I could use this a lot. I watch Netflix sometimes when camping using my phone as a hot spot. Gotta watch the data real close. If I could d/l the content I want to watch, say Marco Polo Season 2 like last weekend, I would consume more Netflix content.
But if has to be done correctly. It would have to allow playback on a device that is different from the device that d/l the content.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Hotels never have good enough bandwidth to watch Netflix. This could help!
Also considering the fact that Amazon has allowed this for at least two years with Prime Video, I don't see how it is considered "bild", if anything it is Netflix bowing to competitive pressure and playing catchup.
Netflix is late to the game with this. Amazon Prime Video has allowed this for almost a year. The Starz App allows it. The more the merrier.
The offline content will likely require an internet connection to authenticate before every playback, or some other mechanism to deactivate whenever Netflix feels like it. They randomly pull content all the time from their streaming catalog.
This is why torrents are a better option. Nobody's going to delete that show you just started watching.
slow to stream. Even with my dial-up connection, I can still download a gigabyte movie in only about four days.
Netflix so-called HD videos have a very low bit rate compared to Blu-ray.
Only 4-5 Mbps for Netflix vs 15-40 Mbps for Blu-ray.
Even though Netflix uses more modern compression algorithms, with that much difference in bit rate, the Netflix video looks significantly worse than Blu-ray, especially on a 106" projection screen in my home theater.
The audio also leaves much to be desired.
The difference will only get worse with the Ultra HD Blu-ray standard, which has 82 to 128 Mbit/s bit rate.
-- Julien Pierre http://www.madbrain.com/blog
73% of Subscribers Would Download Netflix Content, Says Survey
And 100% of torrent users already do.
At my old house service would just stop periodically for no reason I could discern.
This made streaming terrible. If I could download before hand, this would be great.
Sadly, I mostly use my Roku, which I am pretty sure can't actually store an entire episode of Orange.
People have had access to "offline content" for years. They're called "DVD's".
I don't respond to AC's.
Never to forget that the sneaker net is also far more bandwidth efficient. It takes only minutes to transfer over a whole terrabyte of content. As thumb drive capacity increases so the exchange of content over sneaker net will increase.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
In an online poll of existing clients, given a choice between "Yes", "Yes", and "No", roughly 2/3 of respondents answered "yes". Upper end (74% slightly above margin of error) may be attributable to people who don't subscribe (and cannot be polled) because it was important for them to access Netflix offline when they chose not to subscribe.
Gently reply
What more modern compression algorithms? Blu-Ray and Netflix use the same h.264 compression algorithm - Blu-Ray uses the high profile that runs at a high bit rate (typically 25Mbps average, but Blu-Ray can peak at 100Mbps). Maybe Netflix has better codecs that can do more with every bit, but unlikely.
In fact, Netflix is more like the "Digital Copy" download you can get - which can be aywhere from 2-8GB for the movie. And I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix acquires their video content direct in this way as the studios can tweak their encoders to better allocate the bits.
Audio is a big thing - on Blu-Ray they have lossless codecs that can run around 5Mbps with 7.1 surround ssound. Netflix has been using Dolby Digital+ (a slightly tweaked Dolby Digital format that either gives you better quality for the same bitrate, or the same quality at a lower bitrate). The only unfortunate thing is the DD+ bitrate is so low that older receivers that support DD+ may not be able to lock onto it. (It runs slower than DVD's 640kbps)
As for 4K, Netflix requires 25Mbps, and I think Netflix is also using the same HEVC codec that UHD Blu-Ray does. Though the main reason for UHD Blu-Ray is not 4K resolution (most movies are still presented in 2K format! Few are 4K) but HDR.
HEVC is about twice as efficient as h.264 - as in the same quality at half the bitrate. Blu-Ray used that coupled with BDXL style discs (33GB/layer) to achieve a quadrupling of pixels - using HEVC to halve the bitrate, and then a new disc format to double the disc space from 50 to 100GB, thus allowing 4K to be stored at the same quality.
My internet usage will drop significantly when the 80+ hours/w of Rescue Bots and iCarly my kids watch is stored locally on my device...
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
compression algorithms make considerable difference. A Blu-ray is designed with the lowest common denominator in mind as it has to play on all devices. Netflix only has to play on a Netflix player, something they maintain directly. still it is slightly less than Blu-ray but does not make the outputs significantly different. Ultra HD uses 25+Mpbs for Netflix.
I ride the D.C. Metro on a daily basis for at least 20 minutes at a time. LTE/3G availability occurs generally when you stop, and barely works if at all in between stops. If I could download..or Hell even CACHE 20 minutes of a show that would help a LOT. I'm not sure why Netflix will not allow it. I'm wondering if it would take having to re-write all their legal contracts with content providers.
Neat! Where in my iPad do I put this so called "dee-vee-dee"?
I had long ago thought that Netflix should do something to allow off-hours downloading to allow people to watch these shows during their normal evening hours. This would help ease the complaints that ISP's often voiced (and took action against) around the network being overused during prime time viewing hours. If a person could queue up a few movies or shows which they wanted to watch the next day, the system could download them overnight. This would also help improve the experience for people with slower internet connections in that the show would not experience delays during playback or suffer from quality degradation as the system compensates for lower bandwidth availability etc.
I assumed the major limitation for this would be around what licensing would allow Netflix to do. There would also be hardware changes required (for storage) but that could be addressed in future hardware refreshes for devices such as Apple TV etc.
The report of this survey sound very much like advertising for Netflix. I remember a time when companies would quietly take a survey and then use the results to direct their company. I wouldn't even hear the boring details of the survey until the product came out with a proper news release.
I need this with the state of rural broadband in Canada being as poor as it is. With Netflix's track record of introducing services in the US first and a shittier version everywhere else whenever they get around to it, I'm not holding my breath.
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Systems Administrators: We read the manual so you don't have to.
Get rid of that as well, and you'll see the count of torrented movies drop significantly.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."