The trip
I’m from Europe. But that’s not specific enough for the problem I’m about to describe. I should say I’m from Slovakia. Or is it Slovenia. Whichever, point is, EU Commission’s big project called #SingleDigitalMarket is not functioning yet and that means that Netflix & Amazon & Ebay & Spotify … don’t work where I live. Most of the modern popular digital services work only in selected EU countries.
This summer I visited my aunt in Germany where all those fancy services just work so I decided to test how home entertainment in the first world looks like.
So I went to Mediamarket to buy Google Chromecast for 25€, then hooked it up to her TV and connected it via WiFi to 2Mbps DSL internet line (a bit slow for my taste — at home I have 20Mbps, but to my surprise that’s enough to stream from Netflix). This transformed her dumb HD TV to a smart TV with all sorts of apps, Netflix being one of them.
Next thing, I signed up with (German) Netflix. First month of usage is free of charge. Great. But be aware. Once I left Germany and came back to Slovenia I wasn’t able to access my Netflix account to change subscription plan or cancel it because users with Slovenian IPs (and of many other EU countries as well) simply have no access to their login page. I had to use one of many (free) VPN services to fake my GEO-location first and only then I was able to log in and close my Netflix account. But more on that later.
Well, using VPN could’ve been an option to continue to use Netflix from Slovenia. Actually, faking my location on a permanent basis and continuation of the Netflix affair was the original plan (however risky it may bee and just recently Netflix has announced a crackdown on VPN users). But before I’d sign up with one of the premium VPN services, I wanted to test the UX of the Netflix. What a better way of doing this than when you are at your aunt in Germany.
Movie marathon
First day after signing up to Netflix we watched 5 films and two TV shows. True couch potatoes.
General experience: sehr good.
A quick note: controlling Netflix app from iPhone turned out to be smoother and overall better than from Chrome browser. Honestly, I don’t understand the fuss about Chromecast. Sure it’s cheap, but controlling it and pushing custom content to it is just too painful. IMHO Apple TV is much more reliable, it supports more multimedia formats and has an option for wired connectivity which is a big plus with multimedia files and home routers.
The day after, he didn’t call
The second day we watched just one TV show and one film. Reason being we were out most of the day, but more importantly there simply wasn’t anything worth watching. Either the choice sucked or I already watched the thing.
I was surprised on how limited the choice of movies and TV shows is on Netflix. I’d been planning to end my torrent life and switch to legal streaming services altogether. Instead I found that even the most prominent service suck and had to second guess that noble plan.
Netflix is legal and neat, but limited choice of content is it’s biggest flaw.
I know Netflix is all about pop culture. Art and classic art content just isn’t there. But the problem is pop content itself. For instance, we watched Dallas Buyers Club and I fell into Mcconaughey mood. So when I looked for other movies from this actor there just wasn’t any (or was there one that I watched already, I don’t know for sure, but you get the point).
The third day we watched one or two TV shows, but the horse was already dead. No point in hitting it any more.
Legally blonde
Sure, there are other options but Netflix. HBO GO or cable TV movie rental service or iTunes.
Actually HBO GO is legally available in Slovenia, but it’s library is even smaller than that of the Netflix. HBO has some of the best TV shows out there, but hooking up to a ~10€/month service just to see one show I want is not what I have in mind.
On that legal note, Netflix over VPN actually isn’t legal way of using it. You just might be downloading torrents if that’s your only reason behind switching to Netflix in one of the countries where it is not officially present yet. At the moment, ease of use in my opinion is the only justifiable reason to do so and most important reason for me to give it a go in the first place. That is, if you’re at peace with the selection of movies and shows they have.
Cable TV rentals are even worse in that respect plus their UI is bad beyond words. It would be easier to teach my grandmother to use torrents than to show her how to find a movie on a cable TV with a Set-top-box remote. Why don’t they just stop trying?
As far as iTunes goes. Their choice of TV shows and movies is somehow the same or worse as Netflix’s. I singed up my aunt to the iTunes a while ago but she eventually stopped using it. It was too complicated for her (Apple design OMG) and the stream was unreliable (her DSL might have something to do with it, although Netflix seems OK with it).
My aunt watches movies on the go as she commutes to work by train. Off-line usage is another example where streaming services are still lagging behind file-sharing or hard media option. Just to prove that fact and to my despair soon after her iTunes experience she reverted to portable DVD player. Which made me think what this obsolete technology still has in it so that people buy it. I meditated on this again when I was shopping at the Mediamarkt and at Saturn store. So many DVDs and DVD players. Why? How’s this the first world?
One more thing regarding politics. Important reason why my aunt dislikes iTunes and would dislike Netflix as well is the regional content block. What this means is that she doesn’t see French movies in her German iTunes Store. Same would be with Netflix. She is a true polyglot, she speaks English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Slovenian. Watching movies is also a language learning experience for her. That regional limitation is a huge bummer and is also a big business loss for media services and content creators. This was also the argument behind Single Digital Market agenda when it was announced. So, let’s hope things will improve eventually.
Anyhow, Netflix was supposed to be my next secret weapon to turn my aunt from buying DVDs. Touché.
Forget Netflix, enter Plex
After that poor German Netflix experience I turned again to a home media solution I was using for a while now. I updated my home Plex media server and set up two more of them for family and friends. Doing that made me read manuals and forums once again and I realised how awesome Plex actually is. There are so many features available out of the box for free on top of just being network media storage and DLNA server.
Plex has it all. Pretty looks and tech goodies. It’s biggest and actually only downside is managing the library.
One has to download an item first (torrents are humans too, can be legal I mean), then rename downloaded files according to the manual and put them in the right folder.
The other possible downside could be the hardware one has to have (linux server with lots of storage in my case). But all that aside, Plex media provides an experience unmatched today by any streaming service out there.
Sold already? Just do it: plex.tv.
One interesting Plex feature I’m about to play with is connecting many Plex server instances over the internet to one big happy media library family. This way I can watch content my friends store (and choose to share) on their home media library.
Where to go from here
I hope some day I would be able to say `Netflix take my money`. But for the time being that’s not the case.
What Netflix and HBO GO need to fix is the price vs content irritation. Also the policies in the EU need to evolve as well.
I’m just not ready to pay 50% more on a monthly basis just to add HBO and Netflix to the all-subscriptions list. One of them needs to become good enough so I won’t need to sing up with both of them and at the same time this one needs to be more than good enough so I wouldn’t mind cancelling my TV plan. In an ideal world there would be just Netflix, no live TV and no torrents. One problem needs one solution. For pop content right now there isn’t one that rules them all. Same goes for sports, art cinema, music …
Until legal services don’t ramp up their offer torrents will continue to consume 1/3 of the internet traffic. Although this approach carries the burden of manual labour and a bit of know-how it has little or no content irritation which is a big leverage. Unless you use another underground service build upon torrent technology called Popcorn time that has successfully solved both of those pitfalls. But Popcorn is a whole different story I won’t go deep into. Let’s just say I haven’t met a person using it that hasn’t complained how sluggish their computer has become. Besides I’m not a computer-screen-cinema person. Popcorn may work for some and may get a lot of airtime but it’s fame is limited because it won’t get on TV screens and in the living rooms the same way Netflix can.
To sum it up, for the time being, Plex is the way to go. I’m just not sure where they are going business wise by targeting home server infrastructure market and how long they will stick with us, but I haven’t put much thought on that yet. On the other hand, future definitely is with Netflix and alike. Just not yet.
Update: since writing this post, Netflix has spread its presence all over the world. The essence of what I wrote here still applies. Their European libraries are just too limited. For example, even Netflix's original show ‘House Of Cards’ is not in Slovenian library. I've heard that they sold rights to that show to a local VOD provider and now they can't even distribute their own content. What a mess!
