The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Categories
Operating System

Netflix On the Go for the First Time Ever

Netflix: everyone’s favorite source for TV shows and movies–old classics, new favorites, even new versions of old classics. It’s incredibly convenient to have an entire library of videos to watch–at least until you find yourself watching Friends at 2 am the night before an exam. The only inconvenient thing about Netflix? It’s only available as a streaming service.

Until now.

On November 30th, 2016, Netflix announced that it would, for the first time, make select movies and TV shows available for download. This feature has been a long time coming, and people have been calling for it for a long time. Some competitors have had it already. Amazon Prime, for example, has allowed Prime members to download Prime videos to Amazon devices for at least two years.

Netflix is, as far as I can tell, being pretty generous about the download feature. It’s going to be available for members of both the lower-priced subscription and the higher-priced subscription–they aren’t using it to bait users into paying for the more expensive subscription. Also, Netflix is including movies and shows that aren’t Netflix originals–crowd-pleasers such as Parks and Rec or Sixteen Candles.

Of course, everything has a limitation. Netflix’s is the actual quality of the picture. The shows and movies currently available for download have two options: a lower-quality, faster-download option, and a higher-quality, slower-download option. The catch is that the higher quality isn’t as good as the highest quality stream. The other limitation is, of course, the actual movies and shows that are available for download. The selection is currently still very limited; items such as Friends and Bob’s Burgers aren’t available. Netflix did state that more shows are forthcoming.

The conclusion? Netflix has made a step in the right direction, but they’ve still left room for improvement.