Friday, July 20, 2007
Discussion Thread: Your Queue
More or less? Sacrosanct page, simple and direct? or highly useful central core that steers your experience, and should it be packed with options, columns, and controls of various kinds. What should it do? How can it be simple yet more powerful? Is drag n' drop working for you? Sounds like various sorting options are highly desired. What else?
129 comments:
I really like what you guys have done with the queue. The drag and drop is great. A drop down menu to reorder according to a particular genre would be cool. Perhaps a "your friend is watching this now" notice/ graphic on the queue.
I would like the abillity to have multiple queues within the same profile. For example, there are a lot of movies that I have added to my queue because they are on WATCH NOW. I would like to keep them in a separate area so I don't get them in the mail by mistake.
So far I'm ok with the Drag and Drop option but it's still not the best way in my opinion, but I'll be darned if I can figure out something better in my head. I do wish you could put things together by genre. I honestly think the more dynamic you can make it the cooler it would be. As far as the genre stuff goes it would be great to put things in genres. I log into netflix every morning to see when my next movie is going to be in, see if my friends left me any comments and check my queue. Often times I do a little rearranging to set up the next batch of movies that will be sent off. I tend to get in moods for films and I like to set up my next round based on my mood. So if I log in and I'm ready for some horror films, I could look at the genres placed together and then pick what I want to see from that. Or perhaps something that automatically sorts your queue so it goes drama, comedy, horror, classic, foreign, drama, comedy, horror, classic, foreign etc. and you can rearrange from there? I wonder if I'm just shooting in the dark on this one here though. Maybe this will help?
About 2/3 of the DVDs I get are TV shows, and I've occasionally bollixed up my queue and received discs out of order. SO I feel like there might be some way you could improve the experience of TV shows in the Queue.
Drag and drop is great. There should also be a way to re-order your "saved" films, not just ones that are available. It would also be really great if you could flag a film to jump from "saved" to the top of your queue when it releases. I expect I'm not alone in immediately saving every film I'm interested in seeing as soon as it comes out in the theaters, and would like greater power over how it ends up in the queue.
In terms of other features such as sorting, more info, etc., it seems like it would best to have lots of semi-hidden functionality that can be enabled by power users but that is otherwise mostly invisible. My grandparents still can't manage their own queue -- my parents have to do it for them.
The addition to drag and drop made the queue perfect! Don't change a thing!
Ever since the very beginning of Netflix, the #1 thing in the queue that we have WISHED FOR -- that we would ABSOLUTELY LOVE -- would be a "queue notes" field next to each movie so we can make a little reminder for ourselves of why this particular movie is in our queue. We would use this feature to type in "queue notes" to ourselves like these:
"Mom wanted me to see this movie."
"Katie at work recommended this to me."
"Heard about this movie in that United Airlines magazine and it sounded interesting."
"This is in my queue because this is the same director who directed Roger Dodger."
"After watching this movie, be sure to let Tom know how I felt about it."
"If I like this movie, then consider adding movie XYZ to my queue, which is by the same screenwriter."
"This is the movie that the guy at the convention was raving about."
"People to report back to after seeing this movie: Karen, Cindy, and Jay."
"Saw half of this on the flight to Amsterdam -- got up to the car robbery scene."
With 439 movies in our queue and counting, it is absolutely impossible for us to remember why we've added movies to our queue anymore. Often times, those movies were placed there based on the recommendations of other people, but then after we see the movie, we forget who to report back to on whether or not we liked the movie or not. Sometimes, the very REASON we add a movie to the queue is reason to move it up or down in our queue.
Please note that these queue notes would be DIFFERENT than the PERMANENT NOTES that we can leave to ourselves on the "Friends" page. These notes are temporary & designed to jog our memory about a movie, and are only important while the movie is still in the queue. Once the movie leaves the queue, the note is not important anymore. On the other hand, the PERMANENT notes on the Friends page are for us to give lasting reviews of the movie that we can go back to refer to over & over again.
These new "queue notes" would be an EXTRAORDINARILY VALUABLE TOOL for us to have in our queue.
I agree about the notes feature request. I have talked about that idea with friends for a while now. I have a handful of movies in my queue that I can't for the life of me remember why I put them there. It could even be taken a step further and the note could be printed in the envelope or at least sent with the shipment notification email.
This "queue notes" feature could even potentially be an important way to help Netflix keep people as subscribers for a longer amount of time!
Case in point: I've already forgotten why 99% of these movies are sitting in my queue, so I'm about to do a major spring cleaning of my queue and get rid of ALMOST ALL of these movies which no longer look interesting to me. Yet the less movies a subscriber has in their queue, the less likely they are to continue their relationship with Netflix. On the other hand, if someone clings onto their queue with dear life and clings onto all 500 movies sitting in their queue, then you've got them as a member for life. These "queue notes" would help members keep the movies in their queues permanently, because they would know exactly why those movies are there... and therefore, would help Netflix keep these members for longer as paying customers.
You could even give these "queue notes" a different name other than "Queue Notes". You could call them "queue reminders" or "queue reasons" or "memory jog" or something like that. "Queue Notes" works for me, but people might get confused with the terminology because there are already "notes" on the friends page as well.
But whatever you decide to call it, this feature would be simply invaluable for us.
The drag-and-drop queue feature does not work in Safari. We would like to see this fixed for Safari.
Kill the 500 title limit!
I know, I know, I'll never actually watch all the movies in my queue. But there really are that many, and more, that I want to watch, and I've already split into multiple queues for this purpose. It's things like TV series that really make the queue explode, like 10 disc seasons of Farscape, or some of those exceptionally long anime series. And I don't really like having to do the maintenance of adding individual next discs every time I finish watching one.
I wouldn't mind if the queue were then broken into a 'next' page as a punishment. I also know quite well that there are database speed implications for loosening this limit. But, it's still my #1 complaint about Netflix.
Ok...no clue how this would be done...ideally i think a pulldown menu with an additional sortable column for who referred the film to me. because sometimes you just watch a movie and you don't remember why you're watching it or how it got to be in your queue. items in the list would be 1. myself 2. netflix 3 on up would be my netflix friends and then one option for other with field to type the name. then if you type a new name that's not in the pulldown you get a screen asking you if you'd like to add that name to your list of suggesters. If yes, then it adds the name. Then you can do things like "Sort by Referrer" or "See all films suggested to you by Joe" All of this would be optional, so as not to be annoying to someone who doesn't care about any of these details. Maybe even offer it as a plugin for those who want it. Also if you offer the api then people can just make awesome plugins for netflix like they do for facebookhee.
facebookhee=facebook. don't know what happened there.
My most desired are Tags and Notes. Tags would allow me to organize my Post-Apocalyptic movies together or my Brat Pack movies which I want to watch in order. Notes would allow me to remember why I added it, such as listing the website that had the great review and analysis comparing it to one of my other favorite movies.
Less important but nice would be the ability to add or remove metadata from the Queue; that is I don't care about the MPAA rating but would like to see the release date.
Wow, put me down for the Queue notes. I never thought about it, but now I am and it sounds great!
I love what you've done w/the queue and am open to even more features. I'm with whoever said that they'd like to be somehow notified when "saved" movies become available; either they jump to the top of the queue, I get a message...something. Right now I have 300+ movies in my queue and I often miss when a saved movie I'm dying to see becomes available as it just starts creeping anonymously up the queue without fanfare.
1) Private Queue or Movie Notes. I agree with other comments that it would be useful to be able to add private notes about a movie. I don't really care whether the notes display right on the queue page, or only on the movie details page. Note that Amazon has long offered this sort of notes functionality on their Wish List feature.
2) Multiple Queues per profile. I maintain two queues, one active list of DVDs I want Netflix to ship and one "holding" queue (with zero DVDs allocated to it) with ideas for the future (DVDs I don't want Netflix to ship now, but which I want to remember and eventually move to the active list). Currently, I do this by maintaining two profiles. It certainly would be nice to manage both queues within one profile, as someone else already suggested.
3) A "freeze" or "do not ship" checkbox. I'd like the ability to "freeze" a movie in my queue, preventing Netflix from shipping it. This can be useful for new releases, for example. At certain times, I want Netflix to ship me only new releases at the top of my queue and not ship older titles lower on my queue. Currently, I have to temporarily delete movies from my queue to achieve this.
4) Instant delete without postback to server -- i.e. AJAX delete. Netflix is using AJAX for the movie info popups and for drag and drop. It would be nice to be able to delete a movie from the queue without having to wait for the entire queue page to refresh again from the server.
I love scott rose's idea of the queue notes. That would be an INCREDIBLY useful feature for me.
It seems that a lot of people posting in this thread would like to see some changes to the saved movies at the bottom of the queue. My question is, why do those have to be separate at all? When I add a movie to my queue that's unavailable, why not just put it in my queue? If it ever makes its way to the top then your delivery logic should skip it anyway. That way, saved movies get added to my queue in order, instead of getting appended to the bottom when/if they become available.
I'm going to have to second the comment about increasing the queue size. 500 is very small, especially once you start adding TV shows and anime series. I have a list of almost 2000 movies alone that I'd like to rent. Multiple queues might work as long as we are able to directly move a movie from one queue to another. I'd much prefer, though, to have them all in one queue, maybe with multiple pages, rather than loading them all on one page.
Not sure I'd use the sorting or notes options that other people have suggested, but that's just me and I can see how they might be useful for other people.
Slightly off topic, but I know a lot of people (myself included) who would love to see a "coming soon" tab that would comprise of all the movies that are either in theaters or in that 3-4 month window where they are out of theaters and awaiting release on DVD. As it stands, people have to go search for each movies title and I think there would be a large volume of people who would enjoy being able to have a consolidated list of movies that aren't quite on dvd yet that they could just kinda do a "mass add" to their queue and then they won't have to go searching movie by movie. I was hoping this would come down the pike sometime, but I can imagine it may be a larger undertaking than some of these other changes. Then when the movie is released on DVD, it is pushed out into whatever genre it falls into and just have it be kind of a cycle. This is my #1 hope.
1) I second the queue notes ("My buddy told me", "This won Best Picture", etc.)
2) Minimize the "Buy Now" jazz. Make it a smaller icon in a column, not a row unto itself. When you have a group of movies together in your queue that are all for sale, the screen is way too cluttered.
3) Add an icon if a movie in your queue is available to watch now.
4) I would like to see the queue longer than 500 movies. I currently have 500, plus a Word document where I list what to add next; where's the sense in that? I'm not just whining for organization's sake; I love the "From your DVD queue" feature in "Watch Now". But if the movies are on the Word document and not in my queue, I have no way of knowing I can watch them now.
5) A button where you can turn on "Don't send me the next disc of any series until I have returned the last disc" for watching series in order.
6) A "Move all new releases to top of queue" option (though I like Eric's suggestion of eliminating the 'Saved' section altogether, bypassing this problem).
Ooh, the notes idea is a great one. I currently keep a copy of my queue in Excel so I can keep track of what I've added and what Netflix hasn't listed yet (like festival films that don't have distributors yet), and I tend to put a few words like "got good Sundance buzz" or something so I remember why it's there, but notes within the queue would be so much more convenient.
And I also vote for integrating the "saved" movies with the others. That would just make a lot of sense.
I already mentioned multiple queues for a single profile on a different post; but I'm intrigued by the idea of a Watch Now queue. I use a custom list for this now--I wonder what the different would really be?
1) I'd like the ability to sort my queue without rearranging queue order. This would help me find movies in my queue without messing up the order I already have in place. Naturally, when in "sort" mode, drag-and-drop reordering would have to be disabled. Most helpful sort-on items for me would be genre and release year.
2) I'm always stuck hovering just under 500 movies in my queue and I hate it when I hit the cap. I'd be OK with having additional queue "pages" if you increased the cap.
3) I had never thought about it before, but I really like the idea of queue notes. Maybe it could appear in the Movie Info rollover so that it doesn't clutter the screen.
I always thought it'd be neat (maybe depressing?) to have a "Date Added" in the queue to note when the movie was, well, added to the queue.
Queue notes (and generally, tagging) are not bad, but I think overall I want to make features location independent. If there's a queue note feature, I want it any time the movie
Similarly, in the queue, why can't I get to other functions for the movie, like review writing, immediately? The hover layer provides space for additional functions,
Mostly, the queue to me needs to be:
1) Longer. Unlimited length would be good.
2) Load faster. Not bad now, but not great. Needs to work at 500, thru lazy loading by blocks maybe, or add pagination. If pagination is added, search needs to work really, really well.
3) Multiple queues per profile. I have 5 profiles for overload and types of movies (tagging, again)
4) Grouping. Even if optional, a way to irrevocably tie all movies in a group (usually, series) together to be moved as one.
5) Anchoring. I find movies in my queue routinely by searching the whole library. To get to the movie in the queue to re-order or delete means I then go to the queue, wait for a load, and search on page for it
6) Better solution to 5 might be queue controls in the movie details. I should be able to remove, and maybe move (at least "move to top") any time I can see the movie, not just when I added it, or when I am in the queue list. It routinely happens that I hear about a movie in some way I decide I should see soon, but when I go to NF its already there; so, I want to raise its shipping rank.
Yes, PLEASE get rid of the 500 queue limit. Personally I don't care if you ever add one more feature to the site except that one.
I think we all agree that "Queue Notes" would be insanely useful. That is #1 on my list after reading that suggestion. I like it a lot. I find myself often adding movies to my queue just because 1 actor or actress I like is in the movie.
1 month after adding the movie, I say, what the heck is "Primeval"? Oh yeah, it's got that dude from Prison Break in it. (Don't rent Primeval, by the way.)
I wouldn't make the ability to leave a queue note too intrusive in the service though. What I mean is, keep the Queue notes area minimized, but make it so that 1 click makes it pop up to type it perhaps a 2 sentence long note. You wouldn't need any more space than that.
Otherwise, the queue is good for me right now. (Albeit, the RSS feed for my queue is still out of order. Netflix customer service is completely unwilling to help me with the issue, and that sucks.)
I vote for queue Notes also. Just a bit of space to say why we put a moive in the queue. For example "Netflix recommended", "Directed by Miike", "Stars Bruce Willis", "Bob wants to watch this one". This would be extremely helpful.
Sorting by star rating and genre whould be great.
In my queue, I'd like to see the year of the movie along with the movie title. The reason is because out of the currently available Instant Watchable movies, most of the movies I want to see are old ones. So, I want to balance the DVD queue by mixing in some fresh newer titles near the top.
Support Safari for drag and drop queue. I hate having to re-arrange with numbers. Also clearly mark titles as instant watchable, so I know to put it on the bottom of my queue for watching later, instead of having it shipped to me.
I have run into the problem of adding an old TV show to my queue that contains a 10 disc set and before I realize it I have four discs of Mork and Mindy reruns at home. I have always thought it would be nice if you could set a maximum number of TV Episode Discs that you would have at home at once. So if I set the option to 2 then I would only have two discs of Mork and Mindy reruns at any given time and I would always have a fall back cache of two movies.
Just a thought...
I want to be able to see the movie year in my queue without having to click on anything. I would also like to be able to sort by year, title, rating, genre, etc. I would prefer to be able to sort by just clicking on the header of the column versus a drop down menu.
I would also like to be able to tag movies in my queue to possibly remind me of why I added a certain movie such as this is from the Criterion Collection or so and so recommended this to me.
I would also like have multiple queues under one profile. I would like to separate out tv shows from movies.
I would like to know the status of a movie in saved. Not the newer ones as it already does this but for example I've had the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights saved for quite a while. It's driving me nuts to not knowing if it's ever going to be out. I would like to at least know a percentage of the chance that Netflix is ever going to receive it or if it is never going to be out.
I love the drag and drop feature.
Wow, I didn't think I had that much to say.
kmc's comment reminded me of something else I thought of a while back...could it be possible to search for "Criterion" and get all the films available that are in the Criterion Collection? (And similar series of films, like "Infinifilm" or whatever else different studios call their special edition series...I don't think they're using Infinifilm anymore, but they put out some good features under it.) Anyway. I'd love to drop all the Criterion discs in my queue without having to cross-check between Criterion's website and Netflix.
First off I'd have to say the drag & drop feature was long overdue, but I'm glad that it's finally here. Now you should replace the "Move Top of My Queue" button with a miniature drag and drop queue of your first 3 or 5 movies: This would help when one wants to put receive a movie soon but not right away.
Television series should add episode information. And be rated by episode as well as the already existing overall dvd rating. This would allow one to see what episodes they have watched and which ones are of better quality. One should be able to "subscribe" to series so that they are automatically added when a new disc comes out. Setting a limit to how many TV DVDs are at home at once. (Some of these features could be used for "Watch Now" later on.
Things a second:
Viewing Queue By Genre
Notes
Facebook App
There is no part of the netflix experience about which I feel more strongly than my Queue. For a movie-bufff like myself, Netflix finally lets me watch the number of movies I want to see without breaking the bank. Because of this, the Queue is the center of my movie-watching experience. The order of movies in it changes sometimes several times a day according to how I am feeling and what I want to watch (yes, I am obsessed). The drag and drop feature was LONG overdue, but I feel that it's only a start towards something great.
First of all, I need multiple queues. Like the profiles feature, but in one profile. What I want is this: Underneath my "At Home" window in my queue, I want all of my queues tabbed, identified by name and then, in parentheses, how many slots are allocated to it. An example of this for me would be my "Personal Movie" queue, a "TV Show" queue, and a queue for films my brother wants me to see.
Second, I want to be able to schedule my queues. What I mean by this is that perhaps I want all-you-can eat on my "Movie" queue, but only 4 discs a month to come from my "TV" queue, and only one a month from my "Brother" queue. One queue would have to be designated as
"primary". When I see my one-a-month "Brother Queue" movie, that slot would revert back to my designated main queue until the end of the month, at which point my old settings would return.
This way, I could manage my movie-watching expirence at the beginning of the month rather than constantly re-ordering my queue to make sure I don't overkill on TV shows or see too many films that my brother likes.
These features would essentially ensure that I would never see a DVD or download a film outside of Netflix ever again! The system would be so streamlined that going outside of Netflix would be an even bigger inconvenience than it is now!
Also, the Queue Notes idea is genius and I can't believe I never considered it. Mark me down for that one as well.
In the event that Mac functionality is ever added to Watch Now, it would be nice to have some kind of icon listen next to a film in my queue to let me know that it's available in that format.
Lastly, I want to be able to check a box when I add a series that ensures I'll never be sent discs out of order in the event that one is unavailable.
Thank for reading. I love that this blog is here!
Count me amongst the many people here who usually miss the moment when my "saved movies" move into the normal queue. I would love some sort of an alert to let me know that my saved movies are now available. Or even better, as others suggested, why not just have the saved movies mixed in with the other movies in the queue? That way, we can put them in the order that we want to receive them in, but if they're not released yet, Netflix will just skip over them when it's time to ship me a movie.
I would love to have the option to simplify my queue when desired. Like tonight. My connection is painfully slow, and it would be great if I could hide images, stars and so-forth. Titles and numbers only.
While I am way past the early time when I had huge numbers on the queue, these days I only have new releases. It would be nice if I got new releases within a few days, instead of 3 months. New customers are not loyal customers, you know. You can kiss their asses but they have not proven to be steady, year after year, revenue producers.
Just a thought.
Please get rid of the 500 limit. I've been around long enough that I remember the *50* limit, so I know it could be worse... but, still. The limit should be high enough that nobody knows what the limit is.
I like the drag & drop, but I don't love it. I like it because it's faster than the update button.
When your queue is 500 titles deep, searching is a pain in the ass. I keep trying to bring it down but it's not easy. I would love to be able to sort by title. If not sort, then search queue for title would be helpful. If title isn't feasible then at least sorting by genre would make it easier.
Other than that, I really don't see the need for anything else. I'm still not sure why people would feel the need to hide some titles. *shrug* Thanks for all your hard work guys!
username: PhillyKat
I understand that there has to be some reasonable cut-off to the length of the queue so that the site speed isn't compromised, which is why, once I got to 500 I started copying recommended movies into a document. What would be nice, and something that might help some of these dazzlingly well-organized folks, would be to have the queue titles selectable - and therefore editable - which would allow people to do all their meticulous prep-work in 'Word', or whatever (even a 70,000 title list!), and then transfer it to the queue as space became available. But this may well not be technically feasible - just throwing it out there.
I don't understand why people are saying they want to search their queues. Every single web browser in the world has the ability to search for any text on a page. If you're looking for something on the page, simply use your web browser's search feature!
ive pretty much fueled out my movies with only 28 to go and adding more later but yea the drag and place is kinda annoying. makes it alot simpler to switch the movies to w/e position u want but clicking on the movie to see info and etc is kinda a hassle. then again i preferd the old fashioned way. :D
Totally agree with Scott on this one, I didn't want to point it out for fear of stating the obvious. I've never had the desire to resort my queue (queues are ordered by definition!) or search within it, besides a simple text search that my browser provides. Am I just missing some really important use case here?
I find that the 500-title limit on Netflix's queue length is woefully inadequate. I need at least a thousand, and I would use 2000 if it was available.
[BTW: That "other" DVD-rental company allows 999 titles in its queues.]
If you could enlarge the queue it would make me a very happy customer!
Shaun, the only thing you might be missing is that here there and everywhere as you are on this site you come across as awfully smug. Just the facts please, without quite so much 'tude.
Sorry Shaun. I think it was just one too many "I don't need it so why should anyone else?" that got my goat - 'it' being queue sorting in this case. But you're certainly no more guilty of that than any of us. I'd have erased it I could, but the garbage can icon has gone missing; and I believe you have our backs on the Firefox interface issue, so you'll be getting no more trouble from me!
Well, you know, I never suggested not to add the feature. I asked the question about its use out of sheer curiosity. In general I'm not going to fight against features I wouldn't use...
I would love to see my friends rating on movies they've seen in my queue. Sometimes I add a movie because of a friend's rating - but it gets "lost" in my queue. It'd be useful to see the rating off to the side of the title - and maybe even be able to sort based on their rating.
I like anonymous' idea of showing Friends' average ratings for a movie in the queue. In fact, I usually pay more attention to friend ratings (the "purple star" scale) than site ratings, since I have enough friends to make it a decent sample size, and since most of my friends produce good recommendations for me.
This wouldn't be a feature useful to everybody (i.e., those who don't use Community features), so maybe it could be a user option? Have the queue display sitewide ratings, friends ratings, or maybe both?
Honestly, I was pretty happy with the queue as it was. I only have 100-140 DVDs in it at a time and don't do much rearranging or deleting.
The drag and drop is OK, but I don't use it that much.
Personal queue notes is a good idea, but I doubt I'd make much use of them.
I'm not a big viewer - about 3 - 4 DVDs a week on average, so having more than a couple hundred or so DVDs is kind of useless to me.
I know it's odd, but I'm happy with what you have now.
A way to move movies easily between the different queue profiles would be great. Also, when a movie goes into "save" status. Why not be able to determine where at in the queue the movie will go to when the movie becomes available instead of always going to the end of your queue.
I just had a thought on the drag and drop functionality. It would be nice to be able to drag and drop more than one disc at a time (if there's a way to do this currently, I haven't figured it out). Only being able to do one at a time can get tedious and it ends up being easier just to change the number and click "update". Using the Ctrl key functionality for selecting/de-selecting multiple discs to move would be a good solution.
n+1: non-destructive sorting, upping the limit, user-customizable pagination.
my #1 most wanted feature is a way to roll-up multi-disc sets so they can be moved as a unit.
Let me Sort By Year please!! :-)
I agree with others that we need more control over TV shows. I have many shows in my queue and would love to have some way to monitor my progress without just adding all of the DVDs. I would rather have a way to view a list of all of the TV shows that I am watching, and then see which discs I have previously watched and add the next unwatched one to my queue. Maybe this would be something that existed outside of the queue all together.
I also think the "view by genre" would be useful. When I am in the mood to watch a comedy I don't want to just browse through my whole queue, which remains completely filled at 500 -- would love to see that limit raised -- and see if I can find one. I want to view every comedy in my queue and bump up the one or four that I'd like to see.
Sorta queue related.... Start shipping/receiving on Saturdays!
I second the anonymous recommendation that Netflix ship/receive on Saturday since the USPS does run on that day, but, unfortunately, that's more of a business decision than a queue update. Netflix would have to hire more staff or restructure schedules to accomodate the extra hours.
I'd like to see some sort of connection between my queue and my friends. and maybe have an area in the queue for saved movies that won't count against the 500 limit in the queue because they aren't really in my queue, maybe notifications when unavailable movie become available (that aren't new releases)
Two features I don't think anyone mentioned: 1)The ability to shuffle/randomize your list (perhaps with an undo) 2)A column for "date added" so I can see how long a movie has been in my queue. The ability to sort on this would be nice too!
It's a conspiracy! First Netflix is offline, now Hacking Netflix is gone!
Doesn't Blockbuster already ship & receive on Saturdays? If so, that is one more major advantage that Blockbuster has over Netflix.
Blockbuster is currently attacking Netflix's achilles heel of not having brick-and-mortar stores in which to exchange movies, and I'm not sure why Netflix isn't fighting back by exposing Blockbuster's achilles heels?
For example, Blockbusters CENSORS and RE-EDITS the movies that they rent to customers! You are NEVER guaranteed that you are seeing the ACTUAL movie when you rent from Blockbuster! This happens with ALL sorts of movies, from documentaries to dramas to comedies to horrors, etc. ALL movies may be censored by Blockbuster! ALSO -- Blockbuster says they have no late fees, but that's actually not true! If you don't return a movie within a certain number of days, they charge you for the entire cost of the movie & then will charge you a 10% restocking fee if you return the movie after that. Also, Blockbuster's selection of movies -- outside of new releases -- is POOR at best. Also, their shipping takes MUCH longer than Netflix and they often ship randomly from different points in your queue instead of delivering what's the #1 movie in your queue.
Why isn't Netflix fighting back by exposing the dozens of Blockbuster's flaws to the public?
And meanwhile, why not try to become as good as Blockbuster in the following areas:
- Saturday shipping/receiving
- Full cast/crew credits on the website.
- Some sort of in-person DVD exchange.
I would like a way to put my own account on hold. I'm moving and in between addresses for a while. I don't want to cancel my subscribtion, but I don't know how true my address will be for a while.
Scott Rose said:
"- Some sort of in-person DVD exchange."
Totally off topic, but I agree, and Netflix needs to partner with Redbox to accomplish this efficiently.
justin, call their customer service number (it's finally published: 1-877-638-3549
i have to say: it's pretty easy to find under the HELP menu at the top of the page.
It would be great if you could sort by the headers, such as putting the movies in alphabetical order or sorting by genres, rating stars or MPAA ratings. Also, add a column for the year. I like the idea of a notes column too! Thanks!
Just asking here, but what would be the difference between having a "movie queue" and a "TV queue" and just setting that up as sub-accounts? Assign one or two titles at a time to your TV account and the rest to your movies account or whatever.
I would like to be able to set it so that a random movie from the queue gets sent to me - kind of like a shuffle option. It wouldn't have to re-arrange the order they are listed in, in case I want to turn the shuffle off and go back to knowing what will be next, but I thought that would be neat.
The drag and drop is okay, but not great. The thing I'd like to see the most is queue notes. Like others, I sometimes forget why I added a movie.
Betsy, if this idea doesn't get added, just sign up with Blockbuster as well at the one-out-at-a-time level, and then you'll never know what the hell you're going to get next!
RANDOM!!
I think that it would be great if Netflix had a function that would allow customers to have films from their queue sent to them randomly. This way, customers would be able to receive movies that they want, but be surprised every time they open a red and white envelope! And if one gets sick of this function, they could simply turn it off!
Any feelings?
I love some of these ideas, namely queue notes, sorting, and the ability to choose what categories appear in the queue (date vs. MPAA, etc.). I would love to be able to sort my queue by how highly the films are recommended (high to low or low to high).
"Betsy, if this idea doesn't get added, just sign up with Blockbuster as well at the one-out-at-a-time level, and then you'll never know what the hell you're going to get next!"
Now that's funny!!!
Regarding the feature request for random shipments -- you may want to check out the excellent Mac OS X software program called "Netflix Freak", which lets you click one button and it automatically reshuffles your queue in a random order. You would still KNOW what's coming next because the #1 movie is the one that Netflix would ship to you, but at least the program would "shuffle things up" for you. Check it out here:
http://www.thelittleappfactory.com/application.php?app=Netflix%20Freak
I know someone said it already, but I like the idea of being able to select multiple movies for drag and drop. This would work really well with series discs when you want to move a bunch of them together.
And of course, the queue notes idea is pretty brilliant.
The drag 'n drop is working very well for me! I adore it for shorter moves.
My queue wishlist:
1) And icon that tells me a particular movie is available over on Watch Now.
2) I'd like to be able to sort by the various headers but have it revert back to the original sort unless I save it. Ala an Excel Spreadsheet.
just want to say i support the already mentioned
1. drag and drop (thank you)
2. queue notes
3. a queue you can sort w/o changing actual queue order
4. sortable queue by tags, drop down menu or filter
5. Saved movies going to top of list upon release or doing away w/ saved list and just put in queue as added
I would love a Shuffle Button on my queue to break up patches on the queue of similar movies. When you've hit a spree of adding too many of the same type of movie or director, etc. Would like this feature to use very much like shuffling cards to get a more even distribution. Would not like random, I don't know what's coming though. Thanx!
I believe the area that needs the most work on Netflix is the Queue, even with the drag and drop feature (which isnt all too important if you have a large queue..100's). Currently you cannot arrange your queue by genre or release date, the two most important search terms i think. In addition, the ability to search your queue (or arrange it) by director, or actor would be amazing. I, like many netflix fans, am a huge movie buff, and sometimes i just want to go through someones filmography etc. This is incredibly frustrating with the current format (you cant even organize it by rating!). Am I completely missing something here? If i am, im sorry for wasting your time.
Using your words a sacrosanct page, simple and direct is a good way to describe how i fell about the que page. Don't get me wrong the drag and drop change was a great one, but pls don't add a bunch of useless features to otherwise clutter up the page. I enjoy the simplicity of it.
Only thing i would change is the drag and drop feature has made it harder to get the movie info to pop up when you mouseover, has to be very exactly on there to make it work. If you could make it easier to see that info, perhaps by making the drag and drop stuff work more to the rt of the movie title that would be great.
Maybe a random sorting button? Something to randomize my queue to change the order around.
I would like to be able to put more than 500 titles in my queue.
I agree with the posts requesting "watch now" info displayed in the queue. I wouldn't even mind a dedicated section (similar to "saved"). When you go to the watch now tab, you can see which movies are available from your queue. The reverse would be nice as well...I don't want a movie mailed to me if I have the option to watch it whenever I want. I assume others feel the same way.
I don't know if it is just me, but I have one difficult time navigating my queue. It freezes and drops off of its own accord. It is quite annoying. When I contacted Netflix about it, I was told I needed to get a n ew computer. Why would I do that just to accomodate Netflix??
I have a nasty feeling that if our entire wish list is accommodated we'll ALL be having to buy a new computer.
1) The ability to freeze a title, keep it in queue order, but cannot be sent till unfrozen.
1b) Harder, but, create a connection for automatic unfreezing.
I'm thinking about:
tv [Don't send Sledge Hammer Season 2 Disc 3 till Disc 2 has been sent. That might be a simple coding, since you have them linked already, if harder for Season 2 Disc 1 frozen for Season 1 Disc 4. Or don't send Smiley's People till Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is finished.
movies series [Don't send White till Blue has been sent]
member created order [all Johnny Depps in order, all John Milius in order, ..., or any other combo. Currently mine might be freeze The Quiet American (2002) till The Quiet American (1958) has been sent.)
This would also permit family member queues for those not getting at least 1 out of n. For instance, we receive 3 at home, and two kids get 1 out of every 6.
2) Move Saved into the regular queue. Of my 7 Saved, one is the oldest in my queue, Road Racers. Two have been in my numbered queue and then dropped to Saved: Maigret Collection and Hard Boiled. Hard Boiled popping quickly back to the ordered queue, but no longer ordered correctly. IOW, if and when Road Racers becomes available, I'd want it automatically on top without monitoring, while Danton would sit around 100 and slowly climb awaiting its DVD release.
3) Note field.
4) Extend the titles of same titled items, maybe with dates:
The Quiet American (1958)
Crash (1997)
5) Increase the 500. Every bit helps. 501 is 0.2% better. Hey, I've already seen it higher when series popped out of Saved. I have 578 in my backup Excel file.
I have had several newer releases in my queue now for quite sometime. I realize that im not your only customer but getting one of these every now and again would be great. In short it takes too long to get the newer releases. Thinking of going to Blockbuster.
@Drom John : You know, there are some really good anti-psychotic drugs out there these days, with only minimal side effects. We will all be pulling for you.
I'm still waiting for the drag and drop feature. My friends and family have had it for months now and I'm still waiting. Is it still in the process of being rolled out or something?
What I would like to see as a feature in the quene is a simple icon that could appear next to each title that would give you an idea of distance/ availability.
That is if a movie is not available from your local netflix hub and will need to be shipped from say Timbuktu, it would be nice to know in advance so you can decide if you want to wait for it.
I hate it when I get into a series and a movie needs to be shipped from a far away place and I have to wait 3, 5, 7 days to receive it.
I wish you could put an unlimited number of movies in the queue. Mine is maxed out and I have to keep paper lists of what movies I want to add when I have less than 500 again.
Also, the "this movie is available for purchase" blocks are annoying. If I want to buy a movie, I'll look to see if you have it. I don't need you to tell me you have it.
The "save' feature is great. :)
Control, control, control.
Randomize button.
Ability to hide and expose controls as a preference.
This is off topic, but I can't find anywhere else to bring it up. I find it very, very annoying that it is almost impossible to get a new release from Netflix the week it comes out. If there ever was a reason for switching to Blockbuster, this would be it. It doesn't seem to matter when you request the movie or on what position it is on your queue. You can be sure you won't get the movie. Can't Netflix anticipate (based on box-office receipts) what movies are going to be in high demand when they come out? What about a premium service that would guarantee new releases? I would pay for that. No, I don't want some old TV show or a "classic" instead. I like to see what's new and that's what I want! I recall reading an article about how Netflix "chooses" who gets new releases, and if you watch too many movies - forget it. You won't get them. How about it, Netflix? Again, sorry for the off topic rant, but this is something I've wanted to comment on for some time.
Anonymous, I'm not a Netflix shill, I swear, but I happen to belong to both, and in my experience Blockbuster O.L. is not only no better, but actually worse. In fact I've given up ordering new releases from either and go to a store, where they're usually much more available - even if you have to hang out awhile and ask an employee to wave to you when a copy is returned . I can only suppose that to satisfy everyone they'd have to order 50,000 copies, and then find that after 2 weeks people are on to the next set of releases. They obviously have to be profitable to stay in business. Not pretty, but true. And given how hard it must be to keep us all happy, I think Netflix does a phenomenal job.
Maybe your queue just hates you...
I know mine hates me...
I have had several movies listed as "very long wait", but when I login as a different account, the movie is usually available...
hmm...
Anoymous off-topic here again. I love Netflix too, and would hate having to go to a Blockbuster store to get a new release. But I have been tempted... I know it is not practical that Netflix would have a new release for everyone who wants it, but why not a better explanation of "short, long, and very long wait"? And I think my idea of a premium service gauranteeing new releases is worth considering. Are you listening Netflix? How about a response? And yes, sometimes I do think my queue hates me.
I've almost never had to wait for a new release...perhaps that's a function of what I tend to watch, though. I got Renaissance immediately upon release last week, and I received Zodiac as soon as I put it to the top of my queue. I've had DVDs showing "long wait" that were shipped immediately. I do tend to put movies into my queue as soon as Netflix has them available (pretty much as soon as the trailer is released I start putting them into "saved" mode)--does that just put me higher in the waiting list or something? Generally, though, I don't care when I get new releases, so perhaps Netflix has me tagged as a non-new-release-hoarder and doesn't throttle me or something? It would be nice to know a little more about how the shipping order algorithm works.
I agree with the call for an expanded queue, notes function and to know what is available to Watch Now. I also would like to see a better way to search for movies that are WITHIN my queue. Maybe there is something I don't know that others do, ut I have to scroll through my 500 movies to find one thing, often several times because I miss it. Would be nice to type in the name and have it take me right there. Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller?