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Netflix - two year old TV now obsoleted.
sevenlayermuddle:
I browsed Netflix earlier, delighted to see a “new” Black Mirror. Oddly, the duration showed as 2 minutes. ???
Turned out the 2 minute duration was just an advert urging me to buy new hardware, telling me my two year old Firefox OS TV didn’t support this Netflix content. Nor does my Apple TV, despite running latest TVoS.
Moments later I received an email...
--- Quote ---We noticed you tried to play Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Unfortunately, this is an interactive programme that is only compatible with newer smart TVs, most streaming media players, game consoles and web browsers, and iOS and Android devices running the latest version of the Netflix app.
--- End quote ---
Heck, my TV is “newer”, it’s only two years old! >:(
And no way do I want to sit fiddling with an iPad or whatever, I just want to watch TV. This might be the stimulus I need to ditch Netflix. Darned if I’ll pay a subscription that contributes to making of program material that’s 100% incompatible with perfectly modern TVs. :(
chenks:
this was a unique situation where the episode was interactive and required certain specs.
but sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a 2 year old TV running Firefox OS is almost cerainly being close to "obsolete". the TV manufacturer picked a donkey for an OS.
sevenlayermuddle:
Per the TV, what I really wanted was a big, high spec TV, with built in freeview, but no smart features. Seemed not to be easily available these days, only “smart” TVs with built in obsolescence. So I settled for the Panasonic, on the basis that at least it wasn’t Android. :D
I’d not mind so much, but the remote has a large and prominent ‘Netflix’ button. It is so large and prominent that it’s easy to hit by mistake and so even after I cancel Netflix, that darned button will still be there. I have no doubt at all that Netflix will have paid Panasonic to put the big button on the remote, so you can’t entirely blame Panasonic.
Anyroads, over the past year or so I had already become fed up with Netflix’s inability to get the black levels right on most movies. A few recent movies have been correctly encoded, but most are still wrong. This seems to be a well known issue, though it may go unnoticed by the majority of viewers. Annoys me so much that several times recently, I’ve paid extra to watch the same movie from another source such as iTunes, rather than Netflix’s washed out version for “free”. Dropping support for my TV is just the final straw.
chenks:
support for your TV hasn't been dropped.
this one-off interactive show didn't exist when your TV came out, you still have access to the same netflix now as you did then.
strange you picked firefox OS over android though, firefox OS was never going to be the standard and was dead before it launched.
sevenlayermuddle:
Consider the simple economics...
Netflix’s money comes from their subscribers, of which I am one.
They spent some of that money making/buying material that they knew was useless on my TV.
That leaves less Netflix money to be spent on material that would have been useful to me, so I am getting less material available than I did before, hence my view, they have dropped support for my TV. :(
Thanks anyway for your input, Chenks. :)
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