Netflix and opening credits (1 Viewer)

[Cranston37+]

To me it’s like watching a movie on TV and having a commercial break every 10mins or hearing a song on the radio and having the DJ talk over the first 10 secs of the song. As Josh said, your expectations should be different when you don’t own the material and are consuming it through other means...

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I don't PAY for TV channel that show commercials (and haven't even watched a movie on broadcast TV in about 30 years), and I also don't PAY for radio stations that talk over music. I don't pay for any of the online music services, but I would not accept hearing announcers talking over music or cross-fading between songs there. I'd want to hear the music just as it is on a CD, with complete intros and fade-outs, with the option to skip over any parts I want without someone else doing it for me.

The beauty of Netflix, at least when it first started, was that it let you watch WHAT you wanted, WHEN you wanted and HOW you wanted- and at least the older Rokus still let you do that. Their interface on current equipment is incredibly intrusive however- it feels like someone grabbing the remote and trying to change the channel before you can grab it back from them and keep it there. At the very least they should include an on/off setting for all of this, which would not be too hard to do. I'd also rather they spend their revenue on acquiring more content than paying people to do things like this. But like cable before it, general apathy from those who don't care will likely ruin Netflix in the end for those who DO care.

BTW when Vudu changed their interface a few years ago, they included an "autoplay" feature for TV series- During the last few seconds of an episode, regardless of what was happening in it, half the screen would be covered by a countdown clock and then the next episode would start playing, cutting off the last second or so of the previous episode even if it had dialogue all the way up to the end. They got a few complaints about that (I told them I would not buy any TV shows as long as they were doing that, and if I had bought any by then I would have asked for a refund if I could not play them complete from beginning to end), so they finally added an On/Off setting for that. The time display that comes on for the first 5 seconds of playback on Vudu is still pretty annoying, but I can hit the Back button to make that go away immediately- it's a bit annoying to have to do that but at least it's at the very beginning and doesn't interrupt anything after that. I've just grown conditioned to turning that display off every time I start something on Vudu, it's become second nature.

 

[Cranston37+]

I don't PAY for TV channel that show commercials (and haven't even watched a movie on broadcast TV in about 30 years), and I also don't PAY for radio stations that talk over music.

You get TV channels and radio stations on the cheap because they run ads. It’s expected you will get a lesser experience in exchange for the cheap price. The same is true of Netflix. If you don’t want to buy a film for $20 a pop, and instead be able to pay $10 for all the films you can watch, you have to expect a lesser experience.

I understand you pay for Netflix, but if you expect them to not do things like interrupting end credits in order to advertise other shows, then you need to be willing to pay a lot more. Those who subscribe to all-you-can-watch services cannot expect the same film watching experience as those of us who buy the movies at a much higher cost.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Fine- then let me pay a few bucks more for uninterrupted content. Their video quality wasn't the best when they first started out, but that was mainly a technical limitation and I was willing to tolerate that for $7.99 per month. Deliberately intruding on content is unacceptable and I won't pay a penny for that, especially when they're paying people to do that with money that could instead be spent on more content. They already want $13.99 per month for 4K access, which I would gladly pay if they at least had an option to turn off all the interruptions.

Someone has finally started a petition about all this. It's pretty clear that Netflix doesn't really care what people think even when they cancel their subscriptions, but it's worth a shot: https://www.change.org/p/netflix-we-want-to-watch-the-credits

 

[Johnny Angell]

I don't want to see that "Skip Intro" indicator pop up onscreen

I personally don't see the big deal about this. I've only seen this on a series like Bosch (that's Amazon) because we've seldom watched movies streaming. I am grateful for this option when we binge and I don't think this is disturbing to most.

I do agree without about the closing credits, particularly of movies. Particularly of movies like Schindler's list. The treatment would find me shouting at the screen.

 

[DaveF]

I like the skip intro feature. When I’m watching five episodes in a row, I’m happy to start skipping.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I like the skip intro feature. When I’m watching five episodes in a row, I’m happy to start skipping.

While I don't have Netflix to use the feature, I do fast forward through the opening credits for a TV series I may be watching via disc, Amazon or Hulu. I don't need to see the same opening titles over and over and over again. I wish all discs of TV series were authored to put a chapter marker at the end of the opening credits, but that is not the case.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Point is that there shouldn't be an on-screen indicator popping up telling you to skip any part. I can watch my discs all the way through without a display saying "Press chapter-skip!" Netflix could just put a message on their menu screens like "Press Enter to skip intro" instead of having that annoying indicator come on every time.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I like the skip feature and find the message very inobstrusive.

 

[Edwin-S]

I always had to back up to the beginning of the credits for WAKFU. What was more annoying was having to constantly go to the menu to select subtitles and the original French language track for every episode. The English dub seemed competently done but I dislike watching dubs for foreign films. They always sound off to me.