back to article Netflix bullish after six-country European INVASION

By any measure, Netflix’s European expansion – adding six more countries – could not have gone better, although this still does not mean the operator will achieve its bullish forecast of penetrating one-third of all homes within seven years of launching in every market. That almost hubristic forecast will depend on factors yet …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    signed-up for free trial in France - still feel it is bad value for money

    well, I was happy to hear Netflix was finally available in France. I signed-up for the free trial. The quality is great, works well etc, as this is standard Netflix service according to my UK friends, but it seems all I am paying for is access to a library (incomplete) of loads of old movies and TV series. Where is the new content? What's worse too is that House of Cards, a show they produce themselves I believe, is not even available as the rights were sold to another French provider!

    Things I wanted to watch:

    -Doctor Who (just old series, not airing the new one)

    -Big Bang Theory (old, not yet showing new ones)

    -Modern Family (again old)

    -Goodwife - no sign of this season either!

    I could go on...

    Never having tried Netflix, I always imagined that the latest shows were available, however it seems that it is not the case, you just pay of a load of old TV. Long live pirate bay as far as I am concerned. I am happy to pay for instant access, but not happy to pay for shows that were aired a long time ago.

    This article has reminded me to check when the free trial is over, as I will not pay for access to a load of old TV series and old movies - not worth it.

    1. James 100

      Re: signed-up for free trial in France - still feel it is bad value for money

      It does vary country by country, as they buy up rights - unfortunately, because those are regional, content in one country might well not be available to another. I imagine they will sort out the House of Cards oddity soon; in the mean time, remember your Netflix subscription works wherever your Internet connection is, showing the content for that country. I'm told the Canadian content is quite good these days, though haven't tried it myself...

      The library is quite good, too. I've been catching up on some old 24 episodes, it meant my mother could easily watch a couple of Robin Williams films when he died - replacement for a Sky subscription? No, but it's a decent service for the price.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: content in one country might well not be available to another

        If Netflix thinks sees that you're in America you can watch a lot more shows

        1. Tom 13

          Re: If Netflix thinks sees that you're in America

          TV Series are still usually old. My rule of thumb is that if it is out on DVD/BR you can get it at NetFlix, otherwise, you have to wait. Yes, this is their meat and potatoes for streaming media. If you want semi-current movies you need their DVD/BR subscription. Still, when Verizon isn't throttling them, I find NetFlix convenient for when I want to rewatch old shows. For example, we have all the Eureka and Stargate series, but finding the right case and then the right disk is a hassle. So I'm more likely to flip to it on Netflix.

    2. FartingHippo
      Unhappy

      Re: signed-up for free trial in France - still feel it is bad value for money

      Re: The Good Wife

      To my (and my good wife's) irritation, the latest season and subsequent seasons will only be available on Amazon Prime. They bought exclusive rights for a mind-boggling amount of money.

    3. Ross K Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: signed-up for free trial in France - still feel it is bad value for money

      " it seems all I am paying for is access to a library (incomplete) of loads of old movies and TV series. Where is the new content? What's worse too is that House of Cards, a show they produce themselves I believe, is not even available as the rights were sold to another French provider!"

      ...

      "Never having tried Netflix, I always imagined that the latest shows were available, however it seems that it is not the case, you just pay of a load of old TV."

      There's always one person who doesn't get it, isn't there? You thought you were getting the same amount of content as a £60-70 per month Sky package?

      Netflix costs €7 per month. How's that bad value for money? You could go to Paris and pay more than that for a coffee...

      1. Naughtyhorse

        Re: €7 per month. How's that bad value for money?

        It's quite simple really,

        I'm an ex uk customer. I signed up, discovered 99% of the library is old stuff that I have seen, but give them a chance... and some repeats of classic movies can be enjoyable.

        watched and loved Lilyhammer, house of cards and quite a few movies. what great value for £6 a month. marvelous.

        By month 3 I had seen pretty much all i was interested in, still 6 quid for some favourite standup shows, pretty good. and still able to feel slightly morally superior to the torrenters (a bit), I mean my 6 quid must be going somewhere creative!

        month 7... haven't even logged in for 6 weeks. WTF am I paying 6 quid a month for.

        End of subscription.

        I'm a bit gutted, because technically the service is excellent. and the opportunity to binge on box set's makes for a nice relaxing weekend occasionally.

        And I get the economics of it, so I understand how unreasonable the following is. but the library is too small, and too shallow and does not change fast enough.

        For £6 a month if there was just 1 movie a month I wanted to watch, or a series every few months, I might have stuck it out for a year or two to let the thing mature. But the utility of the service due to the constraints of content means that for me (and i suspect many many others) the usefulness dropped of exponentially.

        sad really (come to think of it, same as VM's VoD - haven't used that for a few years either for the same reason)

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: signed-up for free trial in France - still feel it is bad value for money

      search for - hola unblocker

    5. big_D

      Re: signed-up for free trial in France - still feel it is bad value for money

      Here in Germany they don't even have the rights for some of their own material. House of Cards is a Sky exclusive at the moment! Until that deal runs out, there will be no House of Cards on Netflix... :-S

      On top of that, I don't know what the general pay-TV rates are like in Germany, but I don't know anyone that pays for channels. Those using cable internet, that I know, seem to just take the FTA channels. Likewise I don't know anyone with satellite that has a Sky subscription over here, they just get the FTA channels - and with over 50 German language channels, there is plenty of choice, so most don't bother with pay-TV.

      The only advantage Netflix would bring, for me, would be original sound track. I currently get Amazon Prime Instant Video as part of my Prime subscription (which I use for the free next day delivery and the Kindle Library), but that seems to currently only be German language.

      Given that I've watched less than 1 film a month on average with Prime, I don't see me getting much out of Netflix. Although I have ordered a FireTV at 49€, so I might start watching more...

  2. James 51

    Does this finally mean that if you have a holiday in France you can watch something when it's raining? Probably not.

    1. Dr_N

      VPN &/or iTunes are still the best viewing options whilst in France.

      1. badger31

        Dr_N is right about the VPN

        Netflix is at its best when connected through a VPN. This now means that (English speaking) people living in these new countries can sign up, connect through a VPN to USA (for the biggest selection). My wife an I ditched Sky TV (£21 - £71 pcm + adverts + contract) in favour of Netflix (watch what you want, when you want with no adverts - just so long as they have it - for £6 pcm with no adverts or contract). For the difference in price, you could go ahead and get Amazon Prime as well (also £6 pcm) and still come out way ahead. With Sky, you are paying to watch adverts. Screw that!

        Oh, and if you are worried about watching it on your big screen telly, get a chromecast or better still something like a Sony BDP-S1200 (although a doubt the sony has an option to connect to a VPN).

        And on the subject of VPNs, if you are not scared of a Linux terminal shell you can (like me) get a VPS in the USA for $13.50 per YEAR (http://lowendbox.com/tag/fliphost-net/). For that you get 500GB of data pcm - plenty. Just install Ubuntu Server, ask nicely to have ppp enabled and install pptpd (plenty of online guides for this). I haven't tried watching Amazon Prime through the VPN, so I can't comment on that, but Netflix works a charm.

        1. Tom 13

          Re: Dr_N is right about the VPN

          Sadly it seems watching Netflix is also best done via VPN in the US, although for slightly different reasons.

  3. a well wisher

    Just need to sort out the of content now then !

    Cancelled my trial after 1st month due to lack of new content

  4. tony

    Back Catalogue

    To me the catalogue is films you may watch if you happened to flick past them but not something I'd actively choose to watch.

  5. masterofobvious

    FYI Netflix has been available in the Netherlands for about a year too.

  6. SteveK

    The main problem is not with Netflix themseves, but primarily that the TV studios don't want to (or aren't allowed to?) license out content to 3rd parties - the rights owners want a chance to sell DVD box sets and their own high priced subscription service first. Then when rights do come up, they're bought by the highest bidder in that country for first showing. This is likely to be especially problematic in a country that hasn't until now had Netflix, as the rights will have already been bought by pre-existing networks.

    When I first looked at Netflix and Lovefilm, I was disappointed that nothing I searched for seemed to be there, but then I changed perspective and looked at what it did have, and what it suggested and discovered some good series that I'd either missed the first time, or had never heard of at all.

    Series (particularly small quirky ones) do seem to be prone to getting cancelled after a season or two, usually without wrapping up the story so I prefer to not invest time in watching something that will get pulled just as I'm getting into it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > Series (particularly small quirky ones) do seem to be prone to getting cancelled after a season or two, usually without wrapping up the story so I prefer to not invest time in watching something that will get pulled just as I'm getting into it.

      Yeah, I made that mistake with the later remake of "V". Was quite an amusing watch until you get to the last episode where the writers were quite clearly on pot....and it was quickly canned without any kind of reasonable resolution.

      Quick check on Wikipedia is a good start for this kind of thing as I know now.

  7. Lusty

    Scifi

    seems pretty good on Netflix now, they have all of Star Trek, Stargate SG1 and Atlantis and several others I've forgotten. I never seem to get to the end of one series before they've added something else I want to watch. I'm still getting through Mythbusters after nearly a year of watching it almost every day.

    1. Spaceman9
      Unhappy

      Re: Scifi

      Unfortunately just this past week I have received and email from Amazon saying that they are removing all SG-1 Atlantis, Universe, from the end of the month.

      I'm quite miffed, as I was only up to Series 7 of SG1.

      1. Lusty

        Re: Scifi

        Time to go Netflix then :) not sure they have Universe yet but I can only assume it's in their plans

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Scifi

        > Unfortunately just this past week I have received and email from Amazon saying that they are removing all SG-1 Atlantis, Universe, from the end of the month.

        That is the problem with relying on these services.

        We've been a longtime user of Netflix signing up in the early days.

        They do drop series and films from time to time. In Canada, they recently dropped a number of the older Top Gear seasons much to the chagrin of my son. On another occasion, we settled down to watch a sci-fi film that we noticed previously to find that it was no longer there. It's pretty annoying.

        Lesson learned: if it's something that you want to watch a lot, get the DVD sets (as cheaply as possible of course).

  8. gbru2606

    Enjoyed the 4 Battlestar Galactica (remake) series which start at about £18 each on the Google Play Store. First month free, now £5.99 a month. I can cancel it now and take a break until we decide to get into another box set. I've used a Chromecast (£30) to smarten up the TV and think it works a treat.

  9. dmangino

    I tried a free version of Hotspot shield. I was able to unblock the websites i like to browse. It's cool but has limitations and a lot of ads popping. I think I was allowed to use it for like 3 hours only. I was so devastated. But then 3 hours is not bad if you are patient.

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