

Comparing quality of films in the iTunes & Netflix libraries - johnb
http://blog.goodfil.ms/blog/2012/05/16/netflix-vs-itunes-for-movies-youd-actually-watch/

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zackzackzack
Comments on the data visualization/interface:

1\. Differentiate netflix/itunes by color or marker.

2\. Find a better way to show density. Messing with the opacity would help, as
would contrasting colors. Nothing fancy like 3D, just a way to convey the
density of points.

3\. K nearest neighbours is counter intuitive at first. A better layout/ui
could have been that when you hover over a point, it shows up to the right as
one big poster, without any neighbours.

You have good data that is trapped in that scatter plot.

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zackzackzack
Ahh the data points aren't disjoint sets with respect to netflix/itunes.
Interesting.

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zackzackzack
Rolling with the whole talking to myself thing, I went investigating and
implemented some of the suggestions with d3 and pilfered assets:

<http://cold-mountain-3633.herokuapp.com/> (tested only in chrome)

1\. Does "hover and update only one poster at a time" right. If goodfli.ms had
built there website as something that communicated via json instead of HTML, I
would have rolled this sort of page into the graphic as well:

<http://goodfil.ms/film/89441-cars-2>

2\. Attempted to make a visual difference between netflix and itunes. I
couldn't figure out how they determined whether something was in itunes, so
the colors are more of a proof of concept than anything meaningful.

3\. Rolled out a trick using fisheye distortion to allow people to explore
density spatially via their mouse. To learn how it was done, think about how
this works:

<http://bost.ocks.org/mike/fisheye/>

Overall, this is quick, dirty and probably missing the point of the original
graphic.

Self serving plug: if you, fair reader, have data you want to be smeared in
d3.js lipstick, I do requests:
<https://www.odesk.com/users/~~80bea7ba2750c34b>

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nextparadigms
Doesn't it make sense that if there will be 100,000 available titles, then the
average percentage will be even lower? Why is he trying to suggest that just
because Netflix has more titles that means the quality is poorer so people
watch fewer movies on Netflix?

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geelen
That's true, but given that Netflix and iTunes have libraries of similar size
(~10k), the comparison is meaningful. For subscription services, there's a lot
publicised about the number of titles they offer for their fee/month,
sometimes incorrectly.

[http://www.fastcompany.com/1830524/the-juiced-misleading-
siz...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1830524/the-juiced-misleading-sizes-of-
netflix-and-amazon-streaming-libraries)

The point is, even if Netflix did offer 100,000 titles, would they offer any
more of the most popular films? I'll be running the numbers against Amazon
prime and Lovefilm soon, so we'll see how they compare.

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jerf
One point that you may want to consider is that a Netflix subscription +
selected a la carte services is a powerful and cost-effective combo. In my
household, Amazon & iTunes aren't in competition _per se_ with Netflix.
Netflix gets its monthly fee regardless. When the 3 year old wants to watch
something, it's Netflix. When I'm browsing around, it's often Netflix. When we
want something in particular and won't wait, it's Amazon or iTunes a la carte.

While I wouldn't mind if Netflix would start offering a la carte as well,
personally it's not much of a bother. The videos play either way.

So the whole "vs" approach may not be the most accurate. I'm not limited to
any one of them, and with a month of Netflix costing less than a single top-
tier movie "purchase" on iTunes it's not hard to justify a bit of mix and
match.

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bostonvaulter2
Do you know anything that can help you search through all of the different
libraries? Searching individually is a huge pain.

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xanados
This site will search all of the streaming services in one interface, and I
use it for Netflix/Amazon if there is a particular movie I'm looking for:
<http://www.canistream.it/>

~~~
bostonvaulter2
Thanks! That is exactly the type of thing I was looking for.

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Steko
Wife and I spend a few hundred dollars a year via itunes on shows and movies
we love and want to own in high quality.

We also pay netflix under ten bucks a month and for that we save a few hundred
dollars each month vs what it would cost to itunes all those shows.

Can anyone say how Amazon's streaming offering compares with netflix? Is it
basically the same shows and movies (meaning we should go for one or the
other?)

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ghaff
Amazon's catalog is smaller than Netflix'. I also find the discovery aspect is
difficult. (i.e., you go to related recommendations and now you're out of the
stuff that's available for free streaming to Prime members.) I signed up for
Prime when I dropped Netflix streaming and I've found it to be mostly a
disappointment in that respect--although the free second day shipping has been
a bigger feature in practice than I expected it to be so I'm happy on net.

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davidwparker
This would be more interesting if goodfil.ms actually had TV shows. The top 40
or so of my Netflix instant streaming are TV shows and I've already watched a
ton previously.

Movies, I don't care so much about... otherwise, I'd just use Redbox.

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ryan-allen
I'm really interested in watching this space, in Australia there's a few
Netflix competitors (QFlicks I think, which I have on my PS3), and there's
literally very little of interest in their library.

On the other hand, the Apple TV is $110 now, and the library is quite large,
and the quality is great!

We don't have Netflix in Australia so it's pretty much a one man show in terms
of viable alternatives.

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Mythbusters
It depends on how much you watch but for most, these two optons can't even be
compared cost wise. Unless you watch less than 2 movies per month, the Netflix
is way more cost effective as compared to iTunes at least here in the US.

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pgrote
Does anyone know of a site that shows this sort of data with Amazon Prime
movies?

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ricardobeat
I'm curious about that too. I browsed a bit around Amazon Instant after
updating my PS3 yesterday and was surprised by the great selection of TV shows
and films, way better than both iTunes and NetFlix. Too bad streaming is not
actually available yet here in Brazil :/

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uptown
I've found Apple and Amazon beat Netflix on content, and Amazon always beats
Apple on price.

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russell_h
Whenever I want to watch something I search for it on Netflix, Amazon then
iTunes in that order. I've found its worth it to keep a Netflix account around
because:

1\. A few times a month they actually have something I want to watch. It
doesn't take very many occurrences of this to save me money over
Amazon/iTunes.

2\. Occasionally I just want to watch something, and don't really care what.
Its nice to have a decent sized library of content that is available at no
additional cost.

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smackfu
Yeah, it doesn't take much to break even on Netflix at $7 a month. They have
BBC Sherlock for instance, which iTunes wants $7 an episode for. So that's
three months right there.

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sukuriant
As a person that watches Netflix almost every single night, for often times
hours on end, how does Netflix's unlimited streaming compare in price to
Apple's offering?

The 8 or whatever dollars a month is VERY well used by me; and, I go to vudu
or Red box for the things I might want to watch that aren't available.

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ghaff
If you watch hours a night and find content on Netflix (or some other all you
can eat streaming service) that meets your requirements, that's going to win
hands down against an a la carte service every time. Personally, my viewing is
more on the order of 5 or 6 hours a week so I tend to gravitate towards
services that let me buy exactly what I want even if at a premium. I dropped
Netflix streaming when they changed the pricing (I still have the 2 DVD per
month plan) and occasionally am tempted to resubscribe but never quite get
around to it.

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ileitch
I haven't tried Netflix, but I love that I can now see all the films in my
queue that are available on iTunes.

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sbochins
I'd like to see netflix's library compared with films on imdb above a certain
rating and number of reviewers. I'm pretty sure you'd see similar numbers like
%1.5. Would also be interesting to filter this by dates. I'm sure there aren't
many new movies on Netflix of high quality. Kind of a shame.

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Terretta
Here: <http://instantwatcher.com/>

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alexmchale
I wrote a web app that will automate iTunes movies & shows searches for you. I
wrote it to know when Game of Thrones Season 2 is available on iTunes (among
other things).

<http://upcoming.anticlever.com/>

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r0s
What useless data points, totally subjective and boil down to popularity
almost immediately.

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bediger4000
Agreed. I don't have that much time to watch Netflix, but just seeing what my
kids scroll past really tempts me. My tastes just differ: I'd really like to
watch the old 60s "Thunderbirds Are Go!" for example.

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abruzzi
Good to see that "Aguirre Wrath of God" is tops in quality and rewatchability.

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geelen
Agreed!

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jcampbell1
The size of the library is important, but more relevant is creating value for
the customer. In my case, both Netflix and iTunes shit the bed. I want an
interface where my wife and I can sit on the couch and collectively pick out a
movie to watch. iTunes and AppleTV offer a large catalogue, but never "sells"
the movie. There are no user ratings or any other information to give us
confidence (false or otherwise) to buy. Content is available, but not
discoverable in iTunes. Netflix was once solid, but they oversimplified the
interface and now there is no way to browse by genre.

That being said, I think there is an opportunity for something like
"goodfilms", but I signed up and it combines the worst parts of itunes with
the worst parts of netflix. I am not sure who it helps. Even the cute chart
they present is deeply flawed from a UI perspective. They could have at least
color coded the dots.

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pvidler
iTunes has user ratings and reviews, although they seem to be read-only on the
Apple TV (I believe you need iTunes to write your own). You can't sort by user
rating, which is also a problem in the app stores.

Netflix on the Apple TV has genre listings — I believe Apple designed the
interface, so it may be a little different from other versions.

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adventureful
If Netflix would give me a $20 / month streaming option that enabled me to get
access to a good library of movies, I'd pay it without hesitation. Their
selection is shockingly horrible. Feels like walking into a second rate VHS
rental store in the 1980s.

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evoxed
This a hundred times. I just set up my parents with a Hulu account so that my
dad could devour what little of the criterion collection he hasn't already
seen at least twice. If Netflix could find a way to offer all these, with
commentary or other dvd features, I'd say there's a pretty healthy market.
Evens if that market is relatively small, it's the leg up they need against
Hulu's (and iTunes, Amazon, etc) movie offerings.

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DavidAbrams
Buried for not being an analysis of PICTURE quality.

