Netflix finally gives us the feature we've been waiting for
Christmas just arrived early for binge-watchers everywhere. Netflix giving us an offline viewing option—but not necessarily for everything in its library.
Starting today, Netflix subscribers can choose to download movies and TV shows to watch later—even when they don't have an internet connection. The company announced the surprise update on Tuesday in a blog post:
Many of your favorite streaming series and movies are already available for download, with more on the way, so there is plenty of content available for those times when you are offline. For example, Orange is The New Black, Narcos and The Crown are available for download today.
This may be another way of saying that not all of Netflix's content is available for download. Netflix's homegrown shows like The Crown are sure bets. However, it's likely that Netflix has to make deals with each of their content partners to secure download rights.
Netflix is not exactly a pioneer in this area. Amazon introduced a similar feature for its Prime video streaming service over a year ago.
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We've still got questions about the feature, like how many episodes you can download, and how long the download files stay resident on your mobile device. Netflix's help page does mention download quality (stating that you can choose between Standard and Higher), but warns that the latter requires more storage space, and takes longer to download. The page also recommends iOS 8.0 or later and Android 4.4.2 or later to support the new download-friendly app.
Topics Netflix
Lance Ulanoff was Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. Lance acted as a senior member of the editing team, with a focus on defining internal and curated opinion content. He also helped develop staff-wide alternative story-telling skills and implementation of social media tools during live events. Prior to joining Mashable in September 2011 Lance Ulanoff served as Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for the Ziff Davis, Inc. While there, he guided the brand to a 100% digital existence and oversaw content strategy for all of Ziff Davis’ Web sites. His long-running column on PCMag.com earned him a Bronze award from the ASBPE. Winmag.com, HomePC.com and PCMag.com were all been honored under Lance’s guidance.He makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Fox News, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kelly and Michael, CNBC, CNN and the BBC.He has also offered commentary on National Public Radio and been interviewed by newspapers and radio stations around the country. Lance has been an invited guest speaker at numerous technology conferences including SXSW, Think Mobile, CEA Line Shows, Digital Life, RoboBusiness, RoboNexus, Business Foresight and Digital Media Wire’s Games and Mobile Forum.
