Netflix – Browse By Language
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Netflix – Browse By Language

Byrichard

Recently Netflix added a Browse by Language option which means that you can browse for content by original language. Yesterday I saw that I can browse for content in French, Italian, Polish,, Korean, German and many more languages. I could list more but that’s dull. Instead I want to focus on the opportunities it opens up. 



With YouTube, Apple Films and other platforms you can search for films but they are either in French, German or Italian in Switzerland and it’s hard to find content that is in its original language. 


For English speaking YouTube creators they always say with “frogspawn VPN you can pretend you’re in country A to watch content from there” etc. This does appeal to me in rare situations. What appeals more is the freedom to search for French, Italian or Korean content. By watching a film made in French, Italian, Korean or any other language you are entering a different culture. 


One of my favourite films, when I watched 90 films in the span of 9 months or so was that I saw films I would not otherwise see. Brotherhood, the Korean film is excellent. I also really enjoyed Hong Kong martial arts films. 


It is for this reason that last night I watched the King’s Affection, episode 1.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4zM7jHdVFc


With Netflix and Amazon Prime it is was to get stuck watching US and UK content without thinking of watching content in other languages. Netflix has now made it possible to explore the world of film and television, on an international, cross-cultural scale. You have thirty two languages to choose from. Now you see why I didn’t list them all earlier. 


Last night Netflix removed Young Sheldon from Netflix Switzerland so I was angry. I cancelled my subscription until I noticed the browse by language feature, and then Netflix became as rich and diverse as a film festival. By selecting Russian, Romanian, Telugu or another language you travel through space and time to other cultures, other values, and different ways of seeing the world. 


I had skimmed over Netflix France and noticed that they had a lot of extreme sports content. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_86DhJsW2w


And Finally


Film and Television is a great way to discover new languages, new cultures, and new ways of seeing the world. By making Netflix more international they are helping to bring more people into contact with more cultures. This is good. 

CuriosityStream – a place to find interesting documentaries

Byrichard

Yesterday I started exploring CuriosityStream, a video streaming website that makes finding and watching documentaries easy. You can have a trial run of seven days but after watching three documentaries since yesterday evening I am convinced that it is a place where I want to watch more content. 


I like documentaries that are well produced and enhance my understanding of topics. The documentaries I have watched are Dawn of the Oceans and the first episode of Quantum Physics yesterday. Today I watched Ships that Changed the World. 


For documentaries to be worthwhile they must inform and educate their audiences without sensationalism and breathless commentary. They must also provide information that is interesting and relevant. I also believe that to a certain degree they need to be neutral. With Netflix I feel that their documentaries are out to push an agenda, are not that well produced and slide towards low production values and partisanship. 


When documentaries are well produced they are like books. They enhance your understanding of a subject and by the end of the film or episode you come away having learned something.  



The categories so far are Science, History, Technology, Nature, Society, Lifestyle and 360 videos. In the 360 videos I noticed that there is the ZDF documentary about volcanoes. This was one of the most impressive and effective uses of 360 video I have seen. 


You can browse through these categories and find films on specific topics and watch them then and there or you can browse through and add these documentaries to a watch list. This is useful when watching series. 


A sample watchlist. 


When you find documentaries that are especially interesting you can share them straight from curiositystream to Facebook and Twitter. 



Curiositystream is quick to respond to tweets. If you have comments or feedback there is a high probability that they will be seen. 


https://twitter.com/CuriosityStream/status/1055459403002867712

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Video piracy in the 21st century

Byrichard

A few days ago I was watching a Magnum PI episode where Higgins had a film camera pointed at the television screen to record a game of snooker broadcast from “half way around the world” by satellite.  Today I noticed this article speaking of the way in which twitter’s Periscope app and Meerkat were used to pirate a fight.

Piracy is nothing new but the simplicity with which people can pirate and share content has evolved. Piracy required rolls of films at first. These rolls had to be developed and then copies had to be made. This could take several days. VHS came along and made it easier. With several VHS decks you could make several copies at once. Steve Jobs is well known for the boot leg tapes he had of music concerts. My generation streamed live music concerts using mobile phones. Football enthusiasts used satellite receivers and streaming software to re-distribute live football matches years ago. This is true both for european Football and American football.

The live streaming of broadcast content is now so simple that multiple people, using social media, redistribute content as it happens. There is no lag time. There is no exclusivity possible. PeriscopeTV and Meerkat have made it very simple to share live events circumventing the gate keepers.

Gate keepers provide the highest audio and video quality possible for their customers and for this reason they are safe for now. The pirated copy has low video and audio quality and is filmed by a mobile phone camera. Social networks such as Twitter and sporting organisations will need to strengthen their collaboration. Both of them can and will benefit from joining forces. If PeriscopeTV and Meerkat both get paid by the Fight promoters to carry the signal as premium content then the pirate streams will be of less interest. Price will have to reflect the platform on which content is being shared of course.

Net Neutrality and The United Kingdom

Byrichard

Slashdot today quoted Small fries as saying that the Net Neutrality Debate crosses the Atlantic.

Analysts believe that ISPs will be forced to place stringent caps on consumers’ internet use and raise prices to curb usage. Attempts have been made by players in the industry to form a united front against the BBC by asking the Internet Service Providers’ Association to lead the campaign on the iPlayer issue.

There is a golden age for video sharing online. With services like operator 11, I can’t help but look forward to future versions as bandwidth increases. The idea that an ISP would think of “stringent caps on consumers’ internet use…” appears counterproductive. Apple has recently sold over 3 billion songs on iTunes, now imagine how many films they could sell if only they provided movies to Europe and the rest of the world. Tell those people they need to pay extra for the bandwidth and see how they respond.

Add to this the recent article about a grandmother in Sweden getting 40Gbs per second to her home, taking into account that countries such as Japan have 100+ Mb/s and the recent increase of bandwidth in Switzerland and you may conclude that there is no need to increase the cost of bandwidth or throttle packets from programs such as the iplayer because other countries are doing the opposite.

With the “BBC … being asked to cough up to pay for bandwidth charges, otherwise, traffic shaping will be used to limit access to the iPlayer” is surprising because of its role as a public service broadcaster and because of the user license fee paid by all television owners in the UK. This content is already available to the British public and they have paid for it. Various ISP thinking of getting more money out of new developments goes against the purpose of the World Wide Web and current social trends which require increased bandwidth.

A decade ago the web was static pages of text with the occasional image whereas now it’s video and radio on demand where the user creates their experience according to their feelings. As people spend more time online so their need for interesting activities increases hence photo sharing and increasingly video sharing websites. These websites need bandwidth and a lot of it. As I write this article I’m listening to a stream coming from Last.fm. Last night I was watching three simultaneous streams from Operator 11 and found that I could stream from two laptops at once to this website. I was using a lot of bandwidth and it worked flawlessly.

By giving the user the freedom they desire for how they use the internet and a variety of websites so you allow new phenomena to occur. With restrictions on photo-sharing Flickr would never have been and it’s the same with Youtube. Restrictions stifle creativity and markets that should have been stagnant rather than improving. As a result, I am for net neutrality because of how many great things are currently accessible online. I also believe that those analysts should experiment with the medium and see what doors are open as a result of new trends and see whether they can subsidise these startups.

Om Malik:

Their arguments sound hollow, on one hand they urge subscribers to sign-up for faster download plans, and pay premium prices. And yet, they complain when subscribers finally find an application that puts their web speed to work.