Not sure the full motivation behind this but this is very annoying for a parent with kids. Especially if you've lost your remote, or want to quickly find something and cast it to your Chromecast/Apple TV.
I'd prefer video streaming apps be required to support Casting/AirPlay.
I guessed this was coming after you couldn't cast to a device that was logged into a different account. Would be a nice experience to be able to cast Paw patrol from one of the kids accounts instead of cluttering the in-laws view history with kids shows.
By “directs to remote” does it mean the TV remote? I feel like I’m missing something here, it’s just saying “use the smart tv’s built in app”? Directing someone to the remote seems like an overcomplicated way of indicating this?
I’m so glad we use plex, have thought of making the jump to jellyfin though. I tried to use my MacBook Air to watch their excellent Michelin Stars show, but couldn’t watch it on 2/3 of my monitors because they don’t have HDCP built in. Modern disk drives are so cheap you can just download everything in 4K HDR, paired with an OLED display it’s absolutely breathtaking how good modern media can look.
So anyway, with the Michelin show I just downloaded it off a torrent site instead, which is a hilariously easier user experience and it’s caused by the very HDCP that is supposed to prevent piracy.
I've worked in streaming. If you see a feature pulled, or announced and delayed, or announced and never shipped, 99.99999% of the time it's due to licensing. Every single permutation of any action that a user may find beneficial is covered by a different license with a different cost.
Oh. And ads. There's another can of worms if you need to serve ads.
In this case it could be that Netflix is an asshole. Or could be that they really could not figure out proper device attribution and ad reporting to the leeches that are the content owners and ad networks.
Netflix is fucking its business up by trying to be a studio IMO. The service was perfect when they were a streaming platform. The studio arm's script selection and production quality makes me want to gauge my eyes out.
When you pay an arm and a leg every month for Netflix, you're funding a studio that pumps out the equivalent of screeching goblin sounds. Makes no sense.
I don't understand Netflix's decision, but I'm long past caring about things like this. I've had PCs hooked up to all of my televisions for the past 15+ years because of how limiting and frustrating using any other device to play media from can be.
Same - I've been using an Intel NUC with Windows 10 for many years. It does everything I want:
- Netflix
- Youtube without ads via Firefox+uBlock Origin
- Ripping DVDs and converting to .mp4
Those Small Form Factor PCs have only gotten cheaper over time - the most powerful PC I've ever owned in 30+ years is a $300 Minisforum (16 Cores, 16GB RAM) that's doing similar duty in the garage.
shit like this is why I've recently totally given up on everything except Bandcamp and torrents, I really wish I could just pay for the 50gb mkvs with the 10bit color, atmos and film grain like I can for flacs
but good damn is life nice when you just have files, a network and zero drm and limitations
Netflix’s seemingly baffling decisions all make sense when you realize one thing:
Netflix sees no more technological future or market opportunity for themselves that will increase profits, so reduction of features and up charging are the only strategies.
It’s a testiment to the blindness and stupidity of their workers and leadership that in the era of the most cutting edge breakthroughs in video, Netflix believes the future is in removing functionality.
"One Reddit user said customer service explained that devices with remotes can no longer cast, claiming the decision was made to improve the customer experience."
Currently it is impossible to use Netflix on screens connected via DisplayLink. Which is the only way to connect 2 monitors in older M processor MacBooks.
Kind of wild that Netflix is (or believes) it is so far ahead of all the other streaming services that they're nickel-and-diming their customers for every little feature.
Other services were aggressively throwing Black Friday sales in order to boost their subscriber counts. I picked up HBO for 70% off, and there were also Hulu and Apple TV discounts. And I didn't need any of them because there's plenty of ad-supported content on YouTube, Tubi, and other services.
I remember the time when smart homes used to feature in sci-fi literature and concept videos. Being able to walk around your house while having everything seamlessly synced and tailored to your preferences was clearly the future. TV, movies and music automatically playing in whatever room your enter. Files and all other data seamlessly synced between all your devices. Not having to think about how to make the tech work, because it all just works.
The frustrating thing is that we've had all the tech to make this possible for at least 10-20 years now. Yet "smart" homes are getting worse with every passing year. Why? Because consumer technology is monopolized by a handful of large corporations whose goal isn't to make people's lives easier but build walled gardens and restrictions to best extract every last cent.
It's notable that often we have protocols to tie things together. UPnP/DLNA/Miracast have existed for a long time now & have included standards for media playing, light control, others. And many TV's have even implemented!!
I feel like what has always been trickier is control and coordination. There haven't been many people to step up and own the higher level, the thing that coordinates devices.
It's notable to me that recent successful cast protocols (like Netflix+YouTube's original DIAL, Chromecast) have really simplified. Are bottom up flows. They have allowed the phone (second screen) apps to have a direct way to cast, inside the app. To one other screen, to such an extent that multi-room audio works by first making a group that then presents in the app as one device. (Sonos' proprietary casting is the notable exception.) Where-as historically casting was possible but often used dedicated apps, a UPnP Control Point, that talked to a different UPnP Media Renderer to point it at various UPnP Media Servers. A tri-part system, with control as the third point.
Netflix hypothetically could have used the UPnP to do casting. Phone acts as a Media Server (but serves up one-time-use URLs on the net for actual media) to the movie on question. Then act as a UPnP control point to control media playback. But they made DIAL, which reduced it to a two system network. And to have more resident native apps running (with rest channels open between the devices).
It's interesting seeing what folks do with Google Home and Home Assistant. Orchestrating routines and triggers and what not is kind of neat, in some ways wildly hard to imagine from "back then", but also feels so short in other ways. Is such a primitive level of control. It feels like the task of making actual systems coordinateable and orchestrateable, the real dream of ubicomp, is indeed quite far away, unowned, even though in many cases we have advanced computer protocols afforded to us.
just one more cycle of bottom line chasing at the expense of user satisfaction, I promise you guys just one more price rise, just one fewer device allowed it's okay though we have stranger things! You guys love that right?
This is going to be painful for people in a way which I haven’t seen discussed here yet.
A year ago I went on vacation with my family, and the kids wanted to watch Netflix on VRBO‘s TV and so I logged in to my account on the tv. And of course I forgot to log it out when I left - so, predictably, the next people decided they hated my taste and went through and deleted all my likes and dislikes, and rated I swear 100 teen romances. I somehow got my account logged out of that TV, but the account was trashed and unrepairable so I lost about a decades worth of history and started a new one.
Afterwards, I thought I should’ve just cast from the kids iPad. And now that won’t be possible.
Netflix seems to basically do everything in their power to own the experience of using Netflix as much as possible, short of making a device and OS themselves.
This and refusing to work with the Apple TV app are the 2 big examples that come to mind but there are likely others.
I am not really sure what this solves though since you would still be using their app.
Them refusing to work with the Apple TV app was one of my biggest reasons for canceling. They really need to get knocked down a few pegs.
I signed up again for netflix while I was back in the states. when I arived in colombia, netflix gave me an error so I contact customer support. Apparently accounts are now region locked. I would have to cancel my account and then sign up again here (which I can't because they require a new number)
I loved the service but now its literaly unusable for me. whoever came up with these new policies should be "voluntarily" relocated to gaza.
I've resorted to piracy now. Its hard to imagine a company going through so much effort to not take my money.
Chromecast is a dead product. Google killed it, but I think in this case it was when they lost a patent case in good ole Texas. I have several chromecast devices and have no interest in the replacement, google tv streamer.
"... the decision was made to improve the customer experience." Of course that's a lie, but it is ironic, as the reason why chromecast was initially conceived was that TV UX is horrible.
After the better part of a decade spent with chromecast and legal streaming, I have been forced back to the high seas as of late. I can't reliably get programs without onerous subscriptions, each for one or two shows I actually care about.
I suspect they killed it a bit earlier but in different regions and only now it arrived to the US; I went to Croatia in September and couldn't get Netflix to stream from any of my devices onto the hotel room's TV and had to instead link my account to the TV's Netflix app.
53 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 73.9 ms ] threadI'd prefer video streaming apps be required to support Casting/AirPlay.
I’m so glad we use plex, have thought of making the jump to jellyfin though. I tried to use my MacBook Air to watch their excellent Michelin Stars show, but couldn’t watch it on 2/3 of my monitors because they don’t have HDCP built in. Modern disk drives are so cheap you can just download everything in 4K HDR, paired with an OLED display it’s absolutely breathtaking how good modern media can look.
So anyway, with the Michelin show I just downloaded it off a torrent site instead, which is a hilariously easier user experience and it’s caused by the very HDCP that is supposed to prevent piracy.
Oh. And ads. There's another can of worms if you need to serve ads.
In this case it could be that Netflix is an asshole. Or could be that they really could not figure out proper device attribution and ad reporting to the leeches that are the content owners and ad networks.
A hostile move, but understandable money grubbing.
This is less understandable.
When you pay an arm and a leg every month for Netflix, you're funding a studio that pumps out the equivalent of screeching goblin sounds. Makes no sense.
- Netflix
- Youtube without ads via Firefox+uBlock Origin
- Ripping DVDs and converting to .mp4
Those Small Form Factor PCs have only gotten cheaper over time - the most powerful PC I've ever owned in 30+ years is a $300 Minisforum (16 Cores, 16GB RAM) that's doing similar duty in the garage.
seems pretty obvious to me:
netflix wants to charge separately for mobile device vs television.
if you "cast" you don't need two subscriptions/account options.
but good damn is life nice when you just have files, a network and zero drm and limitations
Netflix sees no more technological future or market opportunity for themselves that will increase profits, so reduction of features and up charging are the only strategies.
It’s a testiment to the blindness and stupidity of their workers and leadership that in the era of the most cutting edge breakthroughs in video, Netflix believes the future is in removing functionality.
How can this improve the customer experience?
Other services were aggressively throwing Black Friday sales in order to boost their subscriber counts. I picked up HBO for 70% off, and there were also Hulu and Apple TV discounts. And I didn't need any of them because there's plenty of ad-supported content on YouTube, Tubi, and other services.
The frustrating thing is that we've had all the tech to make this possible for at least 10-20 years now. Yet "smart" homes are getting worse with every passing year. Why? Because consumer technology is monopolized by a handful of large corporations whose goal isn't to make people's lives easier but build walled gardens and restrictions to best extract every last cent.
I feel like what has always been trickier is control and coordination. There haven't been many people to step up and own the higher level, the thing that coordinates devices.
It's notable to me that recent successful cast protocols (like Netflix+YouTube's original DIAL, Chromecast) have really simplified. Are bottom up flows. They have allowed the phone (second screen) apps to have a direct way to cast, inside the app. To one other screen, to such an extent that multi-room audio works by first making a group that then presents in the app as one device. (Sonos' proprietary casting is the notable exception.) Where-as historically casting was possible but often used dedicated apps, a UPnP Control Point, that talked to a different UPnP Media Renderer to point it at various UPnP Media Servers. A tri-part system, with control as the third point.
Netflix hypothetically could have used the UPnP to do casting. Phone acts as a Media Server (but serves up one-time-use URLs on the net for actual media) to the movie on question. Then act as a UPnP control point to control media playback. But they made DIAL, which reduced it to a two system network. And to have more resident native apps running (with rest channels open between the devices).
It's interesting seeing what folks do with Google Home and Home Assistant. Orchestrating routines and triggers and what not is kind of neat, in some ways wildly hard to imagine from "back then", but also feels so short in other ways. Is such a primitive level of control. It feels like the task of making actual systems coordinateable and orchestrateable, the real dream of ubicomp, is indeed quite far away, unowned, even though in many cases we have advanced computer protocols afforded to us.
A year ago I went on vacation with my family, and the kids wanted to watch Netflix on VRBO‘s TV and so I logged in to my account on the tv. And of course I forgot to log it out when I left - so, predictably, the next people decided they hated my taste and went through and deleted all my likes and dislikes, and rated I swear 100 teen romances. I somehow got my account logged out of that TV, but the account was trashed and unrepairable so I lost about a decades worth of history and started a new one.
Afterwards, I thought I should’ve just cast from the kids iPad. And now that won’t be possible.
This and refusing to work with the Apple TV app are the 2 big examples that come to mind but there are likely others.
I am not really sure what this solves though since you would still be using their app.
Them refusing to work with the Apple TV app was one of my biggest reasons for canceling. They really need to get knocked down a few pegs.
I loved the service but now its literaly unusable for me. whoever came up with these new policies should be "voluntarily" relocated to gaza.
I've resorted to piracy now. Its hard to imagine a company going through so much effort to not take my money.
"... the decision was made to improve the customer experience." Of course that's a lie, but it is ironic, as the reason why chromecast was initially conceived was that TV UX is horrible.