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I know what it does when I don't press play: fills my memory with a boatload of bloated interface that has the shittiest navigation of any media player I've eve

by Walf 9y ago

I know what it does when I don't press play: fills my memory with a boatload of bloated interface that has the shittiest navigation of any media player I've ever used. And I still can't just view a list of all series/movies by date.

nabeards 9y ago
Which media player has an interface you like? I'm usually an outcast for it, but I actually like the iTunes Movies interface myself.
- juanmirocks 9y ago
  Popcorn has a better interface than Netflix IMO
- Nala_Alan 9y ago
  I like mpv the most. It's simple, but still has everything you need (and you can do rest with the keyboard shortcuts), and it's pretty. In my opinion, however, the problem with Netflix player, is not its design. It's that it's pretty laggy, it is not nearly as smooth as for example YouTube player.
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Amazon's UI on the fire stick is so much worse.
- PuffinBlue 9y ago
  I'm not sure about that really. It's like bashing your shin against a coffee table vs walking into a lamppost. Both painful experiences in their own unique ways.
ashark 9y ago
I’ve hated it since pressing play stopped being necessary to start video playing. Now I have to keep the focus bouncing around or else whatever it’s currently on will start yelling at me. Can’t just stop and look around at what’s on screen. It’s stressful. [EDIT] in fact, now that I think about it, I almost never just browse the catalogue anymore, while I used to a lot. I open it and go to search ASAP, then close it if I didn't find what I want or see something else interesting in the related results. The auto-playing is annoying enough that it's almost totally driven me away from that part of the interface. I knew I didn't like it but hadn't thought about how it'd affected my behavior, but there it is. Time browsing catalogue from "lots" to "nearly none". [EDIT EDIT] I might add that full-screen ads you have to scroll past (with no indication that's what you need to do) and other general mucking with the plain grid-layout interface make it wicked confusing for my parents. They just got a Roku solely for Netflix and if it keeps doing that I bet they won't use it very much.
- maxsilver 9y ago
  Yes. And it gets worse -- I really hate the new "fake auto-play". On our Roku, if you sit on a movie or show for just a few seconds, Netflix starts auto-playing a video. But it's not the real show anymore, it's a weird custom-Netflix-made background advertisement for the show using random clips set to odd royalty-free stock music that is specifically not from the show/movie you are actually on and doesn't match. It kind of looks like they set some machine learning robot, or some poorly-paid Amazon Turk people, to generate these clips for much of the titles in their library. Why? Why does this exist? What user testing or data could have happened for Netflix to decide to spend time/money/bandwidth/resources on this? Not an earth shattering issue or anything. But it's a personal pet peeve to encounter this every time I turn on Netflix. It feels like they are trying to video-clickbait me, even after I've already paid them for everything.
  - Jaruzel 9y ago
    On our PS4 the auto-fake-video thingy runs and is SO annoying, but on our Amazon Fire Box, inside the Netflix app, it doesn't play them, you just get a static image. I assume it's down to the horsepower of the relevant client device.
  - staticassertion 9y ago
    All of the complaints in this chain are things I like about the Netflix UX. Just to give some perspective. I use the Netflix homepage primarily, rarely searching. I've watched those ads they play and then started watching the TV show/ movie they're for.

by Walf 9y ago

nabeards 9y ago

Which media player has an interface you like? I'm usually an outcast for it, but I actually like the iTunes Movies interface myself.

juanmirocks 9y ago
Popcorn has a better interface than Netflix IMO
Nala_Alan 9y ago
I like mpv the most. It's simple, but still has everything you need (and you can do rest with the keyboard shortcuts), and it's pretty. In my opinion, however, the problem with Netflix player, is not its design. It's that it's pretty laggy, it is not nearly as smooth as for example YouTube player.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

Amazon's UI on the fire stick is so much worse.

PuffinBlue 9y ago
I'm not sure about that really. It's like bashing your shin against a coffee table vs walking into a lamppost. Both painful experiences in their own unique ways.

ashark 9y ago

I’ve hated it since pressing play stopped being necessary to start video playing. Now I have to keep the focus bouncing around or else whatever it’s currently on will start yelling at me. Can’t just stop and look around at what’s on screen. It’s stressful. [EDIT] in fact, now that I think about it, I almost never just browse the catalogue anymore, while I used to a lot. I open it and go to search ASAP, then close it if I didn't find what I want or see something else interesting in the related results. The auto-playing is annoying enough that it's almost totally driven me away from that part of the interface. I knew I didn't like it but hadn't thought about how it'd affected my behavior, but there it is. Time browsing catalogue from "lots" to "nearly none". [EDIT EDIT] I might add that full-screen ads you have to scroll past (with no indication that's what you need to do) and other general mucking with the plain grid-layout interface make it wicked confusing for my parents. They just got a Roku solely for Netflix and if it keeps doing that I bet they won't use it very much.

maxsilver 9y ago
Yes. And it gets worse -- I really hate the new "fake auto-play". On our Roku, if you sit on a movie or show for just a few seconds, Netflix starts auto-playing a video. But it's not the real show anymore, it's a weird custom-Netflix-made background advertisement for the show using random clips set to odd royalty-free stock music that is specifically not from the show/movie you are actually on and doesn't match. It kind of looks like they set some machine learning robot, or some poorly-paid Amazon Turk people, to generate these clips for much of the titles in their library. Why? Why does this exist? What user testing or data could have happened for Netflix to decide to spend time/money/bandwidth/resources on this? Not an earth shattering issue or anything. But it's a personal pet peeve to encounter this every time I turn on Netflix. It feels like they are trying to video-clickbait me, even after I've already paid them for everything.
- Jaruzel 9y ago
  On our PS4 the auto-fake-video thingy runs and is SO annoying, but on our Amazon Fire Box, inside the Netflix app, it doesn't play them, you just get a static image. I assume it's down to the horsepower of the relevant client device.
- staticassertion 9y ago
  All of the complaints in this chain are things I like about the Netflix UX. Just to give some perspective. I use the Netflix homepage primarily, rarely searching. I've watched those ads they play and then started watching the TV show/ movie they're for.