9 ms·

The Netflix Website Gets a Major Upgrade

138 points by philip1209 11y ago

philip1209 11y ago
It's built using ReactJS, NodeJS, and FalcorJS Source: https://twitter.com/NetflixUIE/status/610506318860783616 https://twitter.com/NetflixUIE/status/610506318860783616
- smaili 11y ago
  Was this redesign part of that one blog post from Netflix that criticized ExpressJS? Can't remember off the top of my head when that was posted.
  - aquilaFiera 11y ago
    Not really; they were done by different teams.
- KurtMueller 11y ago
  Is there any info anywhere on when FalcorJS will be released?
hfsktr 11y ago
Can't wait to see it in action. I didn't care much for the site as it was. My biggest pet peeve was the difference between dvd/streaming interfaces. The DVD version would let you click to advance but the streaming list would only advance while hovering. Second biggest is they don't have, last I saw, an easy way to see if a movie is now available on streaming when it's on the dvd list. Maybe I misunderstood how it worked (is there a better way!) but it scrolled too slow for me. I usually wait a month to see if anything is new because of how infrequently they get new movies[0]. [0] streaming seems to be almost all tv shows now and they have those getting on the 'new' list constantly. On that front...how come FOX/WB/etc don't compete and take those views? Last time I checked FOX only had the last 5 episodes when I really needed the a full season to catch up. Making me go somewhere else for their own content just seems weird.
- duaneb 11y ago
  > On that front...how come FOX/WB/etc don't compete and take those views? Because it's a lot of work running a dedicated streaming service. Personally, I wouldn't do that. A better model would be licensing + free views (as they already do).
disposition2 11y ago
I kind of wish they wouldn't have changed it years ago...I feel like (as with just about all software 'updates' these days) they continue to remove useful features (like the ability to actually browse with a modicum of filter options) in favor of 'curating' results for 'you' and new graphics. I'll continue to use InstantWatcher and other 3rd party resources when I want to find something / browse and then back to Netflix when I know exactly the search term I'm looking for.
- endymi0n 11y ago
  Shameless self-plug: You might like our site at https://justwatch.com https://justwatch.com - all the filter options at your power and it doesn't make dizzy when scrolling :)
  - ohitsdom 11y ago
    Netflix and Amazon Prime- nice! Any plans on integrating Rotten Tomatoes scores?
    - kbenson 11y ago
      Yes please. Alternate list display options are nice as well. Generally I browse instantwatcher for new releases with the short synopsis turned on, which includes star ratings and rotten tomatoes where applicable. And please, no hover info, unless it's in the cover art display, as generally I'm viewing on my phone (unless you correctly identify touch events and count them as a hover). It's surprising how many sites get this aspect of mobile usage wrong.
    - endymi0n 11y ago
      Ratings are on the way, less than a month. The non-optimal UX with the country switcher is due to a significant amount of VPNed users searching for other countries' content in case you were wondering. Still discussing how to improve on that.
    - bjwbell 11y ago
      Amazon Prime - no chromebook or android tablet support :-( Chromebooks, tablets and Arch Linux are all I run. Now I really don't feel bad about pirating.
vitd 11y ago
I'm excited to see they're trying new things, and it does look slick. That said, I just wish they'd get rid of the stupid horizontal scrolling list of movies. It's just not efficient and it works poorly. They could have use these same effects in a vertical list or even 2D grid that has normal button/wheel-controlled scrolling, zooming in when you clicked on a specific movie. But the 1D horizontal list that you can't scroll normally is really limiting and makes me avoid the website.
- splawn 11y ago
  Yeah when I am being indecisive about what to watch, the scrolling starts to make me feel dizzy.
- leephillips 11y ago
  Just click on the category title above the horizontal list (I hate that, too) to get a grid view.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- boken 11y ago
  Me, too. Until then, under chrome/userContent.css in my Firefox profile folder, I will keep: @-moz-document domain(netflix.com) { .slider .agMovieSetSlider { position: relative !important; width: 100% !important; } .slider { overflow: auto !important; height: auto !important; } } Edit: It strikes me that this may break with the coming redesign. Oh well, that drawing board's not such a rough thing to be dragged back to.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- bluthru 11y ago
  A "show more" button that appended another row or two would be much better.
malloreon 11y ago
fingers crossed this fixes the netflix recommending me things I've already rated before. Heads up netflix: if I've rated something, I don't ever want it to be recommended again outside of "watch it again."
- mdm_ 11y ago
  Another Netflix annoyance: if I watch the pilot episode of a series, then weeks and months pass, and I never watch another episode of that series, it's probably safe to infer that I didn't like it and you can stop recommending stuff to me based on my "interest" in that series. I feel like there's a few of these really common-sense things that Netflix doesn't pick up on and probably don't require some fancypants algorithm to detect.
  - corin_ 11y ago
    Is it possible the fancypants algorithm knows you better than you do, knows you will like that series if you watched 3 episodes instead of just the pilot, and is hoping you'll change your mind and listen to it?
    - ohitsdom 11y ago
      "I know the first couple episodes suck, but stick with it. You'll thank me come season 2." AKA, the "Parks and Rec" effect.
  - skolor 11y ago
    Its actually the opposite that annoys me: if I was watching a TV series, the last time I was logged in I watched episodes, and there are still remaining episodes, stop asking me to rate the series. Its a minor but consistent annoyance that I'll be 3 episodes into a series and it wants me to rate the entire series.
- drdoom 11y ago
  Or shows that you watched months ago but Netflix does not know about. Or why you have 5 sreens of categories to choose from, but all categories have the same shows in them, anywhere around 60-75%.
chengiz 11y ago
The Netflix website is a piece of shit. Their recommendation system is crap. I liked a Robert Redford movie, now even his crap ones show up as five stars. They have decent movies but it's impossible to find. Their search sucks. Their foreign category has everything and the kitchen sink. Their scroll gives about ten movies then is done, even though they have a hundred movies fitting the title. If they had a good system, you wouldnt need instantwatcher and whatdoiwatchonnetflix. It's good to know that the major upgrade involves - ooh I dont have to click anymore, how cool.
andor 11y ago
Technically it might be completely rebuilt, but I guess that most people won't notice. They added more animations and a video element on top, both of which makes it slower. As functionality and layout are the same as in the old version (which was pretty good already), I don't see how this one is "more like an app and less like a series of linked web pages".
Someone1234 11y ago
> With the new Netflix website, we’ve created a richer, more visual experience, and a website that works more like an app and less like a series of linked web pages. Information appears in-line and in context rather than on a separate page, which makes exploring the catalog faster than ever before. Eww. So now linking something to someone is broken, the back and forward may or may not work, middle click definitely won't work, and all for what? So they look a little cooler? Meh.
- ohitsdom 11y ago
  Have you actually tried this, or are you just speculating? I just did, and linking still works. Looks like they still have separate pages for movies/shows. But even for single-page sections, I'd assume they are updating the hash so linking works.
  - Someone1234 11y ago
    Hasn't rolled out to my account yet. Per Netflix's blog post they're doing it in blocks. I was replying to what Netflix said. Which is all the information I have available to me until they deploy it to my account.
    - ohitsdom 11y ago
      You're assuming they don't have updating URLs. That would be a massive oversight. Almost all popular SPAs that I use have linking implemented, so I don't know why you'd assume Netflix would fail to do this.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
delgaudm 11y ago
Does anyone know why you cannot filter by rating the same way you can by genre? Is it a hard problem to solve?
- Infinitesimus 11y ago
  I've always thought the reason was to remove the bias of only watching movies everyone else likes (i.e. only those that majority gave high ratings) but I'm shooting blindly here. It would be great if someone from the team gave input
- ajmurmann 11y ago
  I honestly wonder if they try to direct users towards certain content because they might have different deals around the content that makes watching certain movies for them better than others. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why they would make finding something worth watching so hard.
EugeneOZ 11y ago
And still no catalogue before purchase.. "We have something interesting, but will show it only after purchase" - very cool.
- pfg 11y ago
  Isn't the first month free anyway?
  - EugeneOZ 11y ago
    You should give them your payment card credentials first. I know they are big but it doesn't mean they can't be hacked. And when you submitted card credentials, only way to remove them is send email to privacy@netflix.com and wait for reply.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      You could do what I do: keep an online-charges-only debit account that contains just enough cash to cover recurring services and gets on-demand cash deposits to cover one-off charges.
      - Nullabillity 11y ago
        My bank (Swedbank/Sparbanken Nord) forces you to do it like that. They won't approve online payments on your regular card, instead you have to go to their website and create a temporary card number with a limited balance and an expiration date counted in months rather than years.
        jordanthoms 11y ago
        As a customer I prefer the US model: Give your card number to pretty much everyone, mark off the fraudulent/unwanted transactions on your account each month, carry on.
        11y ago
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I'm a bit jaded but it looks like a really great change to focus on what you can watch versus reminding you that there used to be a movie in this space that you can no longer watch. I love Netflix as an instant streaming service, and I really dislike the hoops that big media makes folks jump through, but after having yet another movie I recommended to a friend that I had streamed on NetFlix but had disappeared, I switched back to buying movies on disc that I want to have in my library.
berns 11y ago
Unless you're logged in the site is useless. I'm not a client so I can only comment as a prospective buyer. There isn't much to comment, though. It's a horrible experience. The help search is also useless. Tried the following search terms: pricing, plans, movies, guide; the results are always the same, the first result is always "Can I stream Netflix in Ultra HD?".
walterbell 11y ago
With the new site, will it be possible to: - deep link to a movie listing - deep link to a start time (like YouTube)
- city41 11y ago
  Deep link to listing: yes, as you open up the details view on a title, the URL updates to reflect that. You can use that URL to go straight to the title, for example here is Daredevil: http://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=80018294&jbp=2&jbr=1 http://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=80018294&jbp=2&jbr=1
  - walterbell 11y ago
    The previous site allowed anonymous viewing of a movie listing, for recommending a movie to a non-subscriber. The Daredevil movie listing link goes to a login page, is that expected?
spacko 11y ago
> When you hover your mouse over a title, you will now see a slideshow of images from that movie or show. We hope this slideshow will give you a better feel for what the show is about than reading the description alone. Well, this is a standard feature of any average Joe's porn site for about 5 years now
- harlanlewis 11y ago
  There may be different expectations regarding spoilers.
- wesleytodd 11y ago
  Built this for our site (stream.me) in like a day and a half. Makes you feel good about your work when big companies with much bigger teams "announce" features you have already tackled :)
  - duaneb 11y ago
    I would imagine it's much harder to roll out at scale. Netflix's ui has been pretty terrible for a while, though, I wish they would have an alternative to the grid view. Sometimes I can't find the genre I'm looking for.
    - wesleytodd 11y ago
      Front-end features have nothing to do with "scale". Does it work in the browsers? That is all that matters. EDIT: FWIW, we also implemented this feature on our last site which was the #63 most visited site in the world at its height. So we have done it "at scale"
      - okbake 11y ago
        Well the front-end feature is only trivial after you've pulled the frames from the 10k titles, ensured they're spoiler free and not useless shots, and allocated the resources to cache and store them. I think thats where the scale aspect comes in to play. Theres also a certain degree of testing and integration that are effected by scale.
ams6110 11y ago
No word on whether any of this will apply for those who use a game console.
- shortstuffsushi 11y ago
  Unless I'm mistaken, this update makes it in line with the consoles. I have an Xbox One, and it currently looks much like the site does now.
comrade1 11y ago
I've sort of given up on Netflix but maybe I'll take a look. I mean, I still pay my monthly fee but I now watch all of my stuff through Plex. I just subscribe to a show and it appears in my Plex server, with a much better ui than netflix. I'm overseas and at first I tried to use the Plex Netflix plugin and connect to Netflix through a VPN that I would have dynamically open whenever it went to a range of ip addresses, but Netflix's amazon range kept changing - I assume to stop people like me from accessing from overseas. And so I gave up trying to do it 'proper' and now I just download their shows and watch them from my own server. I live in a country where it's legal to download - just not share, and I think what I do is completely reasonable. But I at least still pay my monthly fee.
- bduerst 11y ago
  How do you use plex with your TV? I set something up with a RPi a while ago, but performance was ridiculous. Chromecast support from mobile app was also buggy.
  - comrade1 11y ago
    Haven't owned a TV since 1999... I don't like how they become the focus of the room it's in. However, I do like the new oled tvs, especially the super thin one that can be hung up at any time (prototype only now) and may get one when they're available.
  - SG- 11y ago
    PlexConnect with an AppleTV here, works pretty well: https://blog.plex.tv/2013/06/04/introducing-plexconnect-an-appletv-client-which-thinks-different/ https://blog.plex.tv/2013/06/04/introducing-plexconnect-an-a...
  - Consultant32452 11y ago
    Roku ftw.
anigbrowl 11y ago
Over the past four years, web browsers have changed a lot, becoming more sophisticated and allowing for richer visuals and animations. I am used to this eye candy already from using it on the Playstation. but what I would really like is an ability to curate my own lists (instead of having just one), things on the stay on my list in the order they were added (pairs or occasional trilogies always end up 'drifting away' from each other for no special reason) and to see more information about who made a film than just 3 actors and a director. What if I want to search for films by a particular screenwriter? Other missing features: request a film for streaming that's not currently available, so they have some way to gauge demand; a higher-priced streaming tier where you have access to the extra features that come on a disc, like interviews or director commentary; Scene search. Netflix has a massive incumbent advantage now, and a deservedly earned one, but user-side development has slowed to a crawl since they went into producing their own content, and the risk for investors is that the market cares more about user experience than the output of Netflix's TV studio (although I personally think their content division is outstanding). Oh, and please stop ejecting me from the credits of a film to show me what you think I want to want to watch next. There is nothing more annoying than to be sitting there in a reflective mood following a great film, thinking about what I watched as the credits rol and the music plays, only to get kicked out into a static advert for some other film usually wildly inappropriate/irrelevant. It's like being woken up when you're still dreaming, and every time it happens I want to throw something at the television.
- ajmurmann 11y ago
  Agreed on al of these. A lot of this used to exist, but it's gone now. Instead we have big pictures and shiny stuff no one needs.
- ajanuary 11y ago
  > Other missing features: request a film for streaming that's not currently available, so they have some way to gauge demand; As a UK user, it'd also be nice to be able to somehow monitor when something that's only available in other territories (i.e. US) becomes available in the UK.
danso 11y ago
> Scrolling through rows is now much faster, with a mouse-click advancing a full row at a time. Jesus. Not only have other competitors had this (Amazon Prime, HBO)...Netflix itself had this nav "feature" before it moved to the tedious mouseover scroll it's had for the past couple of years. The slow-scroll was so infuriating that I thought it had to be the result of some incredibly counter-intuitive A/B insight. But now that they're reverting, it just seems like a poorly conceived idea.
drdoom 11y ago
I keep hearing praises of Netflix's recommendation engine. I wonder when they will roll that out! Because when I browse Netflix, I have 5 pages of categories, each with upto 75 shows. However, and this is the critical point, each of those categories contains about 60-75% the same shows, presented in different order. And with no respect to genre, to boot.
oimaz 11y ago
The killer part of this redesign is the in-context, in-line information cards which makes shifting through the netflix's catalog a breeze.
saberworks 11y ago
I wish they would bring back plain text titles under each cover image. Hovering over each image isn't an adequate solution.
mmcru 11y ago
my question is, do i still have to google some arbitrary and arcane silverlight hotkey code in order to change video quality?
- TheHippo 11y ago
  Silverlight has been ditched for over a year now, so I guess no ;-)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- dysfunction 11y ago
  I don't understand why the console Netflix apps have the ability to show you exactly (ish) the quality you're currently streaming at (on PS3, hit 'select' button and it'll say "720p" or whatever it's at), but the PC browser client doesn't.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    Press ctrl+alt+shift+d . The video resolution will appear, along with a bunch of other debugging info.
- jaredsohn 11y ago
  The same hotkey (Control+alt+shift+S) still works for me with Chrome in the HTML5 player and shows the same interface as before.
mattnguyen 11y ago
What frontend framework was used? Any lessons learned? I hear Netflix uses Ember, Angular, and React for different applications. I imagine a wonderful eng blog post will be posted in the near future :)
nly 11y ago
You know what would be better? Ditching Silverlight. Fucking thing crashes on me every few minutes. I've been trying to watch the last 6 minutes of an episode of HoC for about 30.
- simoncion 11y ago
  I've been using the Netflix "HTML5"[0] player for what seems like at least six months. Check your playback settings and flip the "Use HTML5 player" switch. [0] It's actually the EME player, which uses a binary blob for video decryption. But, The Industry calls this DRM scheme HTML5 video decoding, so whatever.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    They call it HTML5 player because it's using the HTML5 <video> tag and using native browser controls. Being decoded by an external module isn't determinant - in fact, Firefox uses the same infrastructure (GMP) for both encrypted and unencrypted videos.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      Oh, I know why it's called what it's called. Lumping patent and copyright issues under the "Intellectual Property" umbrella harmed productive non-wonky discussion of the issues. I expect that lumping DRM'd and unencumbered video playback under the same umbrella will be similarly damaging to non-wonky discourse.
- SG- 11y ago
  As mentioned they've had HTML5 playback for browsers that support which is basically Safari, Chrome and even Firefox I think. Safari was the first browser that got supported and it's been working on Macs for ages without Silverlight installed.
neovive 11y ago
I'm looking forward to a follow-up article from their development and/or ops team. Netflix tech articles are very interesting. I'm sure there is a good tech story behind this upgrade.
brianstorms 11y ago
What I don't understand is how Netflix seemingly ignores a user's incredibly valuable feedback regarding a given title. For example, you're browsing all the titles and you see some stupid animated movie you have no intention of ever seeing. You select it, to get the detail view, then click "Not interested" or if that doesn't appear (why I don't know), you click one star. You're telling Netflix basically, "I don't wanna see this, ever, so please don't recommend it to me." But... Netflix keeps recommending it. Come back a day later, it's still there in the list while you're browsing titles. Spend an hour indicating "Not Interested" on all the crap and filler (there is a ton) of streaming content Netflix shows you, and it makes no difference. It's all there the next hour, the next day, the next week. I reckon Netflix is afraid the truth would be revealed, that they have VERY little streaming content, if they honored a user's "Not interested" and hid those from the genre lists. Why, you might wind up with a handful of titles listed. But would that be so bad? I would be perfectly fine if Netflix's lists were EMPTY today. I would still come back tomorrow to check to see what was new (gosh, imagine if Netflix sent me a notification of some sort listing out what's been added since last time I looked). Today's "Major Upgrade" does not, so far as I know, include these kinds of improvements. I sure wish it did.
- Consultant32452 11y ago
  I'd be interested in seeing what kind of (negative) correlation there is between giving a movie 1 star and watching it. It seems obvious to me that your assumption is true, that if you give a movie 1 star you'll likely never watch it. But human psychology/behavior is pretty stupid and often irrational.
- berkay 11y ago
  Can't agree more. I can't figure out why this is possibly the case. Similarly I have lots of that I have seen (and rated in Netflix) presented on my home page. Why? I don't even have an hypothesis. Netflix also don't have trailers, which means I have to go to IMDB or Youtube to see a trailer.
- mixmastamyk 11y ago
  Wish I could whitelist the shows to watch in the kids section, most of it has little educational value.

138 points by philip1209 11y ago

It's built using ReactJS, NodeJS, and FalcorJS Source: https://twitter.com/NetflixUIE/status/610506318860783616 https://twitter.com/NetflixUIE/status/610506318860783616

smaili 11y ago
Was this redesign part of that one blog post from Netflix that criticized ExpressJS? Can't remember off the top of my head when that was posted.
- aquilaFiera 11y ago
  Not really; they were done by different teams.
KurtMueller 11y ago
Is there any info anywhere on when FalcorJS will be released?

hfsktr 11y ago

Can't wait to see it in action. I didn't care much for the site as it was. My biggest pet peeve was the difference between dvd/streaming interfaces. The DVD version would let you click to advance but the streaming list would only advance while hovering. Second biggest is they don't have, last I saw, an easy way to see if a movie is now available on streaming when it's on the dvd list. Maybe I misunderstood how it worked (is there a better way!) but it scrolled too slow for me. I usually wait a month to see if anything is new because of how infrequently they get new movies[0]. [0] streaming seems to be almost all tv shows now and they have those getting on the 'new' list constantly. On that front...how come FOX/WB/etc don't compete and take those views? Last time I checked FOX only had the last 5 episodes when I really needed the a full season to catch up. Making me go somewhere else for their own content just seems weird.

duaneb 11y ago
> On that front...how come FOX/WB/etc don't compete and take those views? Because it's a lot of work running a dedicated streaming service. Personally, I wouldn't do that. A better model would be licensing + free views (as they already do).

disposition2 11y ago

I kind of wish they wouldn't have changed it years ago...I feel like (as with just about all software 'updates' these days) they continue to remove useful features (like the ability to actually browse with a modicum of filter options) in favor of 'curating' results for 'you' and new graphics. I'll continue to use InstantWatcher and other 3rd party resources when I want to find something / browse and then back to Netflix when I know exactly the search term I'm looking for.

endymi0n 11y ago
Shameless self-plug: You might like our site at https://justwatch.com https://justwatch.com - all the filter options at your power and it doesn't make dizzy when scrolling :)
- ohitsdom 11y ago
  Netflix and Amazon Prime- nice! Any plans on integrating Rotten Tomatoes scores?
  - kbenson 11y ago
    Yes please. Alternate list display options are nice as well. Generally I browse instantwatcher for new releases with the short synopsis turned on, which includes star ratings and rotten tomatoes where applicable. And please, no hover info, unless it's in the cover art display, as generally I'm viewing on my phone (unless you correctly identify touch events and count them as a hover). It's surprising how many sites get this aspect of mobile usage wrong.
  - endymi0n 11y ago
    Ratings are on the way, less than a month. The non-optimal UX with the country switcher is due to a significant amount of VPNed users searching for other countries' content in case you were wondering. Still discussing how to improve on that.
  - bjwbell 11y ago
    Amazon Prime - no chromebook or android tablet support :-( Chromebooks, tablets and Arch Linux are all I run. Now I really don't feel bad about pirating.

vitd 11y ago

I'm excited to see they're trying new things, and it does look slick. That said, I just wish they'd get rid of the stupid horizontal scrolling list of movies. It's just not efficient and it works poorly. They could have use these same effects in a vertical list or even 2D grid that has normal button/wheel-controlled scrolling, zooming in when you clicked on a specific movie. But the 1D horizontal list that you can't scroll normally is really limiting and makes me avoid the website.

splawn 11y ago
Yeah when I am being indecisive about what to watch, the scrolling starts to make me feel dizzy.
leephillips 11y ago
Just click on the category title above the horizontal list (I hate that, too) to get a grid view.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
boken 11y ago
Me, too. Until then, under chrome/userContent.css in my Firefox profile folder, I will keep: @-moz-document domain(netflix.com) { .slider .agMovieSetSlider { position: relative !important; width: 100% !important; } .slider { overflow: auto !important; height: auto !important; } } Edit: It strikes me that this may break with the coming redesign. Oh well, that drawing board's not such a rough thing to be dragged back to.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
bluthru 11y ago
A "show more" button that appended another row or two would be much better.

malloreon 11y ago

fingers crossed this fixes the netflix recommending me things I've already rated before. Heads up netflix: if I've rated something, I don't ever want it to be recommended again outside of "watch it again."

mdm_ 11y ago
Another Netflix annoyance: if I watch the pilot episode of a series, then weeks and months pass, and I never watch another episode of that series, it's probably safe to infer that I didn't like it and you can stop recommending stuff to me based on my "interest" in that series. I feel like there's a few of these really common-sense things that Netflix doesn't pick up on and probably don't require some fancypants algorithm to detect.
- corin_ 11y ago
  Is it possible the fancypants algorithm knows you better than you do, knows you will like that series if you watched 3 episodes instead of just the pilot, and is hoping you'll change your mind and listen to it?
  - ohitsdom 11y ago
    "I know the first couple episodes suck, but stick with it. You'll thank me come season 2." AKA, the "Parks and Rec" effect.
- skolor 11y ago
  Its actually the opposite that annoys me: if I was watching a TV series, the last time I was logged in I watched episodes, and there are still remaining episodes, stop asking me to rate the series. Its a minor but consistent annoyance that I'll be 3 episodes into a series and it wants me to rate the entire series.
drdoom 11y ago
Or shows that you watched months ago but Netflix does not know about. Or why you have 5 sreens of categories to choose from, but all categories have the same shows in them, anywhere around 60-75%.

chengiz 11y ago

The Netflix website is a piece of shit. Their recommendation system is crap. I liked a Robert Redford movie, now even his crap ones show up as five stars. They have decent movies but it's impossible to find. Their search sucks. Their foreign category has everything and the kitchen sink. Their scroll gives about ten movies then is done, even though they have a hundred movies fitting the title. If they had a good system, you wouldnt need instantwatcher and whatdoiwatchonnetflix. It's good to know that the major upgrade involves - ooh I dont have to click anymore, how cool.

andor 11y ago

Technically it might be completely rebuilt, but I guess that most people won't notice. They added more animations and a video element on top, both of which makes it slower. As functionality and layout are the same as in the old version (which was pretty good already), I don't see how this one is "more like an app and less like a series of linked web pages".

Someone1234 11y ago

> With the new Netflix website, we’ve created a richer, more visual experience, and a website that works more like an app and less like a series of linked web pages. Information appears in-line and in context rather than on a separate page, which makes exploring the catalog faster than ever before. Eww. So now linking something to someone is broken, the back and forward may or may not work, middle click definitely won't work, and all for what? So they look a little cooler? Meh.

ohitsdom 11y ago
Have you actually tried this, or are you just speculating? I just did, and linking still works. Looks like they still have separate pages for movies/shows. But even for single-page sections, I'd assume they are updating the hash so linking works.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  Hasn't rolled out to my account yet. Per Netflix's blog post they're doing it in blocks. I was replying to what Netflix said. Which is all the information I have available to me until they deploy it to my account.
  - ohitsdom 11y ago
    You're assuming they don't have updating URLs. That would be a massive oversight. Almost all popular SPAs that I use have linking implemented, so I don't know why you'd assume Netflix would fail to do this.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

delgaudm 11y ago

Does anyone know why you cannot filter by rating the same way you can by genre? Is it a hard problem to solve?

Infinitesimus 11y ago
I've always thought the reason was to remove the bias of only watching movies everyone else likes (i.e. only those that majority gave high ratings) but I'm shooting blindly here. It would be great if someone from the team gave input
ajmurmann 11y ago
I honestly wonder if they try to direct users towards certain content because they might have different deals around the content that makes watching certain movies for them better than others. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why they would make finding something worth watching so hard.

EugeneOZ 11y ago

And still no catalogue before purchase.. "We have something interesting, but will show it only after purchase" - very cool.

pfg 11y ago
Isn't the first month free anyway?
- EugeneOZ 11y ago
  You should give them your payment card credentials first. I know they are big but it doesn't mean they can't be hacked. And when you submitted card credentials, only way to remove them is send email to privacy@netflix.com and wait for reply.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    You could do what I do: keep an online-charges-only debit account that contains just enough cash to cover recurring services and gets on-demand cash deposits to cover one-off charges.
    - Nullabillity 11y ago
      My bank (Swedbank/Sparbanken Nord) forces you to do it like that. They won't approve online payments on your regular card, instead you have to go to their website and create a temporary card number with a limited balance and an expiration date counted in months rather than years.
      - jordanthoms 11y ago
        As a customer I prefer the US model: Give your card number to pretty much everyone, mark off the fraudulent/unwanted transactions on your account each month, carry on.
        11y ago

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I'm a bit jaded but it looks like a really great change to focus on what you can watch versus reminding you that there used to be a movie in this space that you can no longer watch. I love Netflix as an instant streaming service, and I really dislike the hoops that big media makes folks jump through, but after having yet another movie I recommended to a friend that I had streamed on NetFlix but had disappeared, I switched back to buying movies on disc that I want to have in my library.

berns 11y ago

Unless you're logged in the site is useless. I'm not a client so I can only comment as a prospective buyer. There isn't much to comment, though. It's a horrible experience. The help search is also useless. Tried the following search terms: pricing, plans, movies, guide; the results are always the same, the first result is always "Can I stream Netflix in Ultra HD?".

walterbell 11y ago

With the new site, will it be possible to: - deep link to a movie listing - deep link to a start time (like YouTube)

city41 11y ago
Deep link to listing: yes, as you open up the details view on a title, the URL updates to reflect that. You can use that URL to go straight to the title, for example here is Daredevil: http://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=80018294&jbp=2&jbr=1 http://www.netflix.com/browse?jbv=80018294&jbp=2&jbr=1
- walterbell 11y ago
  The previous site allowed anonymous viewing of a movie listing, for recommending a movie to a non-subscriber. The Daredevil movie listing link goes to a login page, is that expected?

spacko 11y ago

> When you hover your mouse over a title, you will now see a slideshow of images from that movie or show. We hope this slideshow will give you a better feel for what the show is about than reading the description alone. Well, this is a standard feature of any average Joe's porn site for about 5 years now

harlanlewis 11y ago
There may be different expectations regarding spoilers.
wesleytodd 11y ago
Built this for our site (stream.me) in like a day and a half. Makes you feel good about your work when big companies with much bigger teams "announce" features you have already tackled :)
- duaneb 11y ago
  I would imagine it's much harder to roll out at scale. Netflix's ui has been pretty terrible for a while, though, I wish they would have an alternative to the grid view. Sometimes I can't find the genre I'm looking for.
  - wesleytodd 11y ago
    Front-end features have nothing to do with "scale". Does it work in the browsers? That is all that matters. EDIT: FWIW, we also implemented this feature on our last site which was the #63 most visited site in the world at its height. So we have done it "at scale"
    - okbake 11y ago
      Well the front-end feature is only trivial after you've pulled the frames from the 10k titles, ensured they're spoiler free and not useless shots, and allocated the resources to cache and store them. I think thats where the scale aspect comes in to play. Theres also a certain degree of testing and integration that are effected by scale.

ams6110 11y ago

No word on whether any of this will apply for those who use a game console.

shortstuffsushi 11y ago
Unless I'm mistaken, this update makes it in line with the consoles. I have an Xbox One, and it currently looks much like the site does now.

comrade1 11y ago

I've sort of given up on Netflix but maybe I'll take a look. I mean, I still pay my monthly fee but I now watch all of my stuff through Plex. I just subscribe to a show and it appears in my Plex server, with a much better ui than netflix. I'm overseas and at first I tried to use the Plex Netflix plugin and connect to Netflix through a VPN that I would have dynamically open whenever it went to a range of ip addresses, but Netflix's amazon range kept changing - I assume to stop people like me from accessing from overseas. And so I gave up trying to do it 'proper' and now I just download their shows and watch them from my own server. I live in a country where it's legal to download - just not share, and I think what I do is completely reasonable. But I at least still pay my monthly fee.

bduerst 11y ago
How do you use plex with your TV? I set something up with a RPi a while ago, but performance was ridiculous. Chromecast support from mobile app was also buggy.
- comrade1 11y ago
  Haven't owned a TV since 1999... I don't like how they become the focus of the room it's in. However, I do like the new oled tvs, especially the super thin one that can be hung up at any time (prototype only now) and may get one when they're available.
- SG- 11y ago
  PlexConnect with an AppleTV here, works pretty well: https://blog.plex.tv/2013/06/04/introducing-plexconnect-an-appletv-client-which-thinks-different/ https://blog.plex.tv/2013/06/04/introducing-plexconnect-an-a...
- Consultant32452 11y ago
  Roku ftw.

anigbrowl 11y ago

Over the past four years, web browsers have changed a lot, becoming more sophisticated and allowing for richer visuals and animations. I am used to this eye candy already from using it on the Playstation. but what I would really like is an ability to curate my own lists (instead of having just one), things on the stay on my list in the order they were added (pairs or occasional trilogies always end up 'drifting away' from each other for no special reason) and to see more information about who made a film than just 3 actors and a director. What if I want to search for films by a particular screenwriter? Other missing features: request a film for streaming that's not currently available, so they have some way to gauge demand; a higher-priced streaming tier where you have access to the extra features that come on a disc, like interviews or director commentary; Scene search. Netflix has a massive incumbent advantage now, and a deservedly earned one, but user-side development has slowed to a crawl since they went into producing their own content, and the risk for investors is that the market cares more about user experience than the output of Netflix's TV studio (although I personally think their content division is outstanding). Oh, and please stop ejecting me from the credits of a film to show me what you think I want to want to watch next. There is nothing more annoying than to be sitting there in a reflective mood following a great film, thinking about what I watched as the credits rol and the music plays, only to get kicked out into a static advert for some other film usually wildly inappropriate/irrelevant. It's like being woken up when you're still dreaming, and every time it happens I want to throw something at the television.

ajmurmann 11y ago
Agreed on al of these. A lot of this used to exist, but it's gone now. Instead we have big pictures and shiny stuff no one needs.
ajanuary 11y ago
> Other missing features: request a film for streaming that's not currently available, so they have some way to gauge demand; As a UK user, it'd also be nice to be able to somehow monitor when something that's only available in other territories (i.e. US) becomes available in the UK.

danso 11y ago

> Scrolling through rows is now much faster, with a mouse-click advancing a full row at a time. Jesus. Not only have other competitors had this (Amazon Prime, HBO)...Netflix itself had this nav "feature" before it moved to the tedious mouseover scroll it's had for the past couple of years. The slow-scroll was so infuriating that I thought it had to be the result of some incredibly counter-intuitive A/B insight. But now that they're reverting, it just seems like a poorly conceived idea.

drdoom 11y ago

I keep hearing praises of Netflix's recommendation engine. I wonder when they will roll that out! Because when I browse Netflix, I have 5 pages of categories, each with upto 75 shows. However, and this is the critical point, each of those categories contains about 60-75% the same shows, presented in different order. And with no respect to genre, to boot.

oimaz 11y ago

The killer part of this redesign is the in-context, in-line information cards which makes shifting through the netflix's catalog a breeze.

saberworks 11y ago

I wish they would bring back plain text titles under each cover image. Hovering over each image isn't an adequate solution.

mmcru 11y ago

my question is, do i still have to google some arbitrary and arcane silverlight hotkey code in order to change video quality?

TheHippo 11y ago
Silverlight has been ditched for over a year now, so I guess no ;-)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
dysfunction 11y ago
I don't understand why the console Netflix apps have the ability to show you exactly (ish) the quality you're currently streaming at (on PS3, hit 'select' button and it'll say "720p" or whatever it's at), but the PC browser client doesn't.
- simoncion 11y ago
  Press ctrl+alt+shift+d . The video resolution will appear, along with a bunch of other debugging info.
jaredsohn 11y ago
The same hotkey (Control+alt+shift+S) still works for me with Chrome in the HTML5 player and shows the same interface as before.

mattnguyen 11y ago

What frontend framework was used? Any lessons learned? I hear Netflix uses Ember, Angular, and React for different applications. I imagine a wonderful eng blog post will be posted in the near future :)

nly 11y ago

You know what would be better? Ditching Silverlight. Fucking thing crashes on me every few minutes. I've been trying to watch the last 6 minutes of an episode of HoC for about 30.

simoncion 11y ago
I've been using the Netflix "HTML5"[0] player for what seems like at least six months. Check your playback settings and flip the "Use HTML5 player" switch. [0] It's actually the EME player, which uses a binary blob for video decryption. But, The Industry calls this DRM scheme HTML5 video decoding, so whatever.
- icebraining 11y ago
  They call it HTML5 player because it's using the HTML5 <video> tag and using native browser controls. Being decoded by an external module isn't determinant - in fact, Firefox uses the same infrastructure (GMP) for both encrypted and unencrypted videos.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    Oh, I know why it's called what it's called. Lumping patent and copyright issues under the "Intellectual Property" umbrella harmed productive non-wonky discussion of the issues. I expect that lumping DRM'd and unencumbered video playback under the same umbrella will be similarly damaging to non-wonky discourse.
SG- 11y ago
As mentioned they've had HTML5 playback for browsers that support which is basically Safari, Chrome and even Firefox I think. Safari was the first browser that got supported and it's been working on Macs for ages without Silverlight installed.

neovive 11y ago

I'm looking forward to a follow-up article from their development and/or ops team. Netflix tech articles are very interesting. I'm sure there is a good tech story behind this upgrade.

brianstorms 11y ago

What I don't understand is how Netflix seemingly ignores a user's incredibly valuable feedback regarding a given title. For example, you're browsing all the titles and you see some stupid animated movie you have no intention of ever seeing. You select it, to get the detail view, then click "Not interested" or if that doesn't appear (why I don't know), you click one star. You're telling Netflix basically, "I don't wanna see this, ever, so please don't recommend it to me." But... Netflix keeps recommending it. Come back a day later, it's still there in the list while you're browsing titles. Spend an hour indicating "Not Interested" on all the crap and filler (there is a ton) of streaming content Netflix shows you, and it makes no difference. It's all there the next hour, the next day, the next week. I reckon Netflix is afraid the truth would be revealed, that they have VERY little streaming content, if they honored a user's "Not interested" and hid those from the genre lists. Why, you might wind up with a handful of titles listed. But would that be so bad? I would be perfectly fine if Netflix's lists were EMPTY today. I would still come back tomorrow to check to see what was new (gosh, imagine if Netflix sent me a notification of some sort listing out what's been added since last time I looked). Today's "Major Upgrade" does not, so far as I know, include these kinds of improvements. I sure wish it did.

Consultant32452 11y ago
I'd be interested in seeing what kind of (negative) correlation there is between giving a movie 1 star and watching it. It seems obvious to me that your assumption is true, that if you give a movie 1 star you'll likely never watch it. But human psychology/behavior is pretty stupid and often irrational.
berkay 11y ago
Can't agree more. I can't figure out why this is possibly the case. Similarly I have lots of that I have seen (and rated in Netflix) presented on my home page. Why? I don't even have an hypothesis. Netflix also don't have trailers, which means I have to go to IMDB or Youtube to see a trailer.
mixmastamyk 11y ago
Wish I could whitelist the shows to watch in the kids section, most of it has little educational value.