Netflix and Chill... Offline.

[shermantanker]

Quote

You can finally take Netflix with you onto a plane or the subway. Today the company announced that it’s launching offline playback for “many of your favorite streaming series and movies.” Right now, that selection includes stuff made by Netflix (Stranger Things, The Crown, Narcos, Orange is the New Black, etc) but also a lot of other random choices. You’ve got Breaking Bad. You’ve got Mad Men. You’ve got... Paddington and Minions and Kung Fu Panda 3. This is going to be a huge deal for parents. Movies include Boyhood, Pulp Fiction, Nightcrawler, Good Will Hunting, Hot Fuzz, and more. Netflix says more content will support downloads in the near future.

 

Support will come to both iOS and Android as the apps are updated at some point later today, and the will also have a low and high quality option available for you to choose from. No word yet on the Windows app store version yet (not surprising).

 

I think is is freaking awesome, and never expected them to offer a feature like this, and the past they said they weren't interested. Hopefully other video streaming platforms will offer similar features in order to better compete in the future.

 

The Verge

 

Update: According to a few of the comments on the Verge it is working for them in other countries outside the US, and at the moment they are unable to same them to SD cards.

[NTDaws]

Sick, that will help when travelling to Australia

[ThinkWithPortals]

FINALLY, I can watch Netflix on a plane.

[LAwLz]

Fucking finally.

Having to always have a fast Internet connection to watch Netflix was such a pain in the ass. Too bad it's just for a handful of shows. It should be standard.

[shermantanker]

Just now, LAwLz said:

Fucking finally.

Having to always have a fast Internet connection to watch Netflix was such a pain in the ass. Too bad it's just for a handful of shows. It should be standard.

Well they said more will be coming, so hopefully this is just a staggered roll out over a few months, and not more licensing crap for them to deal with.

[saladcrack]

This would be great if I had a laptop or wanted to watch Netflix somewhere I didn't have internet.  See as though my iPad and iPhone only have 32gb and 16gb respectively this new thing is gonna be pointless for me (yes Apple problems laugh it up).  But generally I don't usually find myself wanting to watch Netflix anywhere else than my house where I have a perfectly good internet connection.

[captain_to_fire]

Finally! No more boring bus rides. But boo hoo to owners of 16 GB iPhones. Say goodbye to internal storage space.

 

 

 

[shermantanker]

Just now, hey_yo_ said:

Finally! No more boring bus rides. But boo hoo to owners of 16 GB iPhones. Say goodbye to internal storage space.

They said goodbye to internal storage space the moment they booted up their iPhones.

[captain_to_fire]

2 minutes ago, shermantanker said:

They said goodbye to internal storage space the moment they booted up their iPhones.

Well music streaming apps alone like Spotify will already chew around 1 GB of storage space even if you haven't saved any of your playlists offline. Can you imagine how much space will be left to a 16 GB iPhone if you synced season 2 of Daredevil or season 1 of Stranger Things?

[Scitesh]

One plus 3 FTW  although I only have 7 GB  left

[Misanthrope]

Interesting question: Can we get true 4k offline then? Or is it still pointless unless you have Win10 and Edge (which I have btw before you MS white knights start bitching about it)

 

How about just 1080p but at a decent fucking bitrate, can we get that offline?

[FloRolf]

But still no real prebuffering for PCs... (currently on a freakishly slow connection). 

And also, why does it have to be implemented in the movies? Why can't we just do that for all content directly, like Amazon does? 

[Zodiark1593]

A use for the work wifi then? 

[Inkz]

I wish Google would bring back the feature for non premium members to watch youtube videos offline again.

[Thony]

So does it mean other people who been watching things offline too are not pirates anymore ?!  

This would be interesting if you could pay monthly fee and download everything within that month and still watch it after your subscription expires.
Do they do any special encoding on their content so its time locked or something ? Otherwise I dont see piracy being illegal anymore.

[PlayStation 2]

Tell me when Friday (yes, that 1995 film) gets onto Netflix.

[Scruffy90]

Just now, Dan Castellaneta said:

Tell me when Friday (yes, that 1995 film) gets onto Netflix.

Hasn't been on netflix in years lol.

 

I think this is cool and all, but with Netflix library shrinking almost 50% over the past few years, I feel like this is too little too late.

[Tech_Dreamer]

Meh, getting bored of Netflix TBH

[Orcblood]

1 hour ago, Misanthrope said:

Interesting question: Can we get true 4k offline then? Or is it still pointless unless you have Win10 and Edge (which I have btw before you MS white knights start bitching about it)

 

How about just 1080p but at a decent fucking bitrate, can we get that offline?

If your using the app then yes I see no reason why they couldn't. They can do it. It's just a matter of if they want to. Like how taxed do they want their servers to be streaming 4k content to phones. Maybe the ISPs would complain about it.

[PocketNerd]

I bet the reason why it isn't everything is cause of licensing.

[Misanthrope]

1 minute ago, jman629 said:

If your using the app then yes I see no reason why they couldn't. They can do it. It's just a matter of if they want to. Like how taxed do they want their servers to be streaming 4k content to phones. Maybe the ISPs would complain about it.

On the contrary they actively encourage users to download at off peak hours: people on hard data caps like satellite services get 10x more bandwidth or even unlimited during the night, for them it would be well worth it to train users to download at night when they've got no traffic load anyway.

[bobhays]

52 minutes ago, Thony said:

So does it mean other people who been watching things offline too are not pirates anymore ?!  

This would be interesting if you could pay monthly fee and download everything within that month and still watch it after your subscription expires.
Do they do any special encoding on their content so its time locked or something ? Otherwise I dont see piracy being illegal anymore.

I guarantee there will be a time lock AND a netflix encryption. This prevents you from watching it outside of a certain time limit, and you can only watch with the netflix mobile apps.

[Matu20]

Pirating has been and will be a very good alternative, until companies start providing some actual offline content with good quality.

[bobhays]

3 hours ago, Matu20 said:

Pirating has been and will be a very good alternative, until companies start providing some actual offline content with good quality.

Don't forget good price. They have ultraviolet which is a service that allows you to download blu-rays you own, but that's the problem. Blu-Rays cost like 15-25 each and that's too much for me.

[Bleedingyamato]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Fucking finally.

Having to always have a fast Internet connection to watch Netflix was such a pain in the ass. Too bad it's just for a handful of shows. It should be standard.

But if you have a slow internet connection and it takes forever to download tv show episodes or movies is there much difference from streaming?

 

 

Though I agree this would be a nice feature for those that want it if they make it standard and not just a few things.