Technology News: Netflix wins an automatic download of episodes from your favorite series

The novelty comes to solve the problem of lack of space in smartphone storage

Since 2016, Netflix users can now download episodes from their favorite series to watch offline. The feature has been widely used by those who spend long periods outside a Wi-Fi network or without connection, especially during travels.

The big problem for series lovers is usually the same: lack of space in the internal storage. To solve this, technology comes into play. The new Netflix tool, called “smart downloads”, automatically downloads the following chapters to which the user is watching. And much more than that, with each watched episode, a new episode is downloaded and superimposed on the previous files.

It works like this: the user downloads three episodes of “Orange is the New Black”, for example, Netflix is recording three more as the user finishes each part of the story, superimposing one by one. And that happens with fewer or more file numbers — the exchange is always “one by one” — and even when the plot progresses from one season to another. That is, it is not necessary to “warn” the platform that the recording should continue being made.

Whenever the user wishes, smart downloads can be disabled. All files must occupy the same amount of space as the previous one, even if it is slightly larger, because Netflix claims to convert it so that it is optimized in a mobile environment. For now, the distribution of the update has been released only for Android smartphones and tablets and should soon be coming to iOS as well.

The feature initially is only released for the series chapters because, according to the company’s Product Innovation Director, Cameron Johnson, the platform is still not “sophisticated enough” to determine which movie you will watch after you finish what you’ve finished to download. “Even though we have a great customization system, we do not know what the next movie you want to watch. We’re positioning ourselves that way so we’re not presumptuous, letting people choose for themselves.”