This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer for Netflix, with an update on subtitles on content available to watch instantly from Netflix. In the US, more than 3,500 TV episodes and movies have subtitles available, representing about 30% of viewing. (This is in addition to the subtitles already available “burned in” to the picture for all non-English content.) More subtitles are being added every week, and we expect to get to 80% viewing coverage by the end of 2011 (with similar goals for Canada).

We've added this page on the Netflix Website that lists all of the TV shows and movies that are available with subtitles. It is accessible via a link in the Netflix Website footer, via search (for “subtitle” or “caption”), or linked from the detail page of any title that has subtitles.

Subtitles are supported on PCs and Macs, Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, GoogleTV, and the Boxee Box. We expect that Roku and Xbox 360 will support subtitles later this year. Most new Netflix ready devices released this summer or later will support subtitles

For content that has subtitles, look for the Subtitles button in the player on the PC/Mac:


On Netflix ready devices, look for Audio and Subtitles on the movie or TV show detail page before you begin playing:

Hi there, it’s Jamie Odell, director of product management at Netflix, with an update for members who add DVDs to their Queue from the device they use to watch instantly. We’re removing the “Add to DVD Queue” option from streaming devices. We’re doing this so we can concentrate on offering you the titles that are available to watch instantly. Further, providing the option to add a DVD to your Queue from a streaming device complicates the instant watching experience and ties up resources that are better used to improve the overall streaming functionality. This change does not impact the Netflix Web site, where most members manage their DVD Queues.

Hi, Jessie Becker here, VP Marketing, with an update about changes we are making today to our plans and prices.

First, we are now offering a new $7.99 a month plan which lets you instantly watch unlimited TV episodes and movies streamed to your computer or TV. This plan does not include any DVDs. All the titles you can watch instantly on your current plan are also available on this new plan, and as a reminder, not all titles on DVD are available to watch instantly. This new plan is available immediately - if you’d like to switch to this new plan at any time, simply visit Your Account.

Second, we are increasing the prices on our unlimited plans that offer both watching instantly and DVDs by mail. On our two most popular unlimited plans – the 1 DVD out at a time and 2 DVDs out at a time – the price is increasing by $1 a month. We’ve also included below the changes on all the plans. To see how these changes impact your Netflix account, visit Membership Details.

Why the changes? Our selection of TV episodes and movies available to stream has grown dramatically, and as a result most members want us to deliver unlimited TV episodes and movies two ways: streaming instantly over the internet plus DVDs by mail. The price increase will allow us to continue to offer the popular plan choice of unlimited TV episodes and movies streaming instantly along with unlimited DVDs. The new plan, which does not include DVDs, is a great option for the increasing number of members who only want to watch instantly. The $7.99 a month price reflects no DVD shipping costs on this plan.

You might also wonder why we haven’t introduced a new plan that includes only DVDs by mail. The fact is that Netflix members are already watching more TV episodes and movies streamed instantly over the Internet than on DVDs, and we expect that trend to continue. Creating the best user experience that we can around watching instantly is how we’re spending the vast majority of our time and resources. Because of this, we are not creating any plans that are focused solely on DVDs by mail.

To avoid any confusion, here are the new prices on our plans:


We hope you’re enjoying great TV shows and movies from Netflix, and that you’ll continue to enjoy Netflix on whichever plan you choose. We realize you have lots of home entertainment options, and we thank you for your business. As always, if you have any questions, please call us at 800-715-2146.

UPDATE: A number of you have asked about Blu-ray pricing. Blu-ray pricing remains the same.

Jamie Odell, director of product management, here. We hinted at a free Netflix App for the iPhone and iPod touch in April, announced it in June and I’m happy to share that it is available now! If you want to instantly watch TV episodes and movies on your iPhone or iPod touch, all you need to do is get the free Netflix App from the App Store at http://iTunes.com/apps/netflix and have a Netflix membership starting at $8.99 a month. What’s the first thing you’ll watch via your iPhone or iPod touch.

This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer at Netflix. As I promised last year, I'm pleased to report that today we have enabled closed captioning for some TV episodes and movies that you can watch instantly on your PC or Mac. Although it's a limited library of content with subtitles available - about 100 titles - we now have released the technology and we will be working to fill in the library over time.



We have similar technology working in the lab for some of our game console, Blu-ray, and DTV platforms, which will roll out in releases starting this fall, along with support for 5.1 audio.

It's a start, with much more to come. You can try it for yourself with most episodes of "Lost" Seasons 1-4.

Jessie Becker here from Marketing and we’re thrilled to let you know that we are now shipping instant streaming discs for the Wii to ALL members who want one today! If you didn’t reserve a disc already, click here and we will ship you an instant streaming disc so you can instantly watch TV episodes and movies streamed from Netflix via your Wii console. All you need is a Netflix unlimited plan starting at $8.99 a month, a Wii console and a broadband Internet connection. What is the first movie you are going to instantly watch via Wii?

Jessie Becker here from Marketing and we’ve got some great news to share. We are in the final phase of getting ready for the launch of streaming to Wii. Today, we shipped out instant streaming discs for the Wii to some of our Netflix members. Their feedback will ensure that we deliver a great experience to everyone when we launch. Instantly watching movies and TV episodes from Netflix via Wii will be available soon at no additional cost – all you need is a Netflix unlimited plan starting at $8.99 a month, a Wii console and a broadband Internet connection. If you have reserved your disc already, you don’t need to do anything - we will send you an email as soon as we ship the disc. If you haven’t, reserve your disc today at www.netflix.com/Wii and stay tuned for a launch announcement!

We've recently made a slight change to the Netflix Web site to highlight movies and TV episodes you can watch instantly on your TV or computer. When you visit www.netflix.com the first tab you’ll see is “Watch Instantly” followed by the “Browse DVDs” tab. As always, you use these tabs to browse movies and TV episodes you’d like to watch instantly or receive on DVD in the mail.



Using the “Watch Instantly” tab, just find something you want to watch, click Play and the movie will start on your computer, often in as little as 30 seconds. Or, you can click “Add to Instant Queue,” which immediately puts the title in your instant Queue for you to watch any time on your TV via a Netflix ready device like the Xbox 360, PS3, Blu-ray disc players by LG Electronics, Samsung, Sony, and Insignia, the Roku, or TiVo, or on internet connected TVs by LG Electronics and Sony. DVDs and Blu-ray discs continue to be easily found and added to your Queue using the “Browse DVDs” tab. We’ve also moved the “Friends” link from the top of the home page to the bottom.

This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer at Netflix. We've had some inquiries about why Netflix doesn't yet provide closed captioning or subtitles for streaming movies and TV episodes. Captioning is in our development plans but is about a year away.

You might be asking how it could be so hard, since we already subtitle foreign language streams with English subtitles. These subtitles are "burned in" to the video stream at the time of encoding - they are so-called "open captions" that cannot be turned on and off by the viewer. The majority of viewers would object to English captions on English content, so we have to figure out how to let individual viewers turn them on and off.

Encoding a separate stream for each title is not an option - it takes us about 500 processor-months to make one encode through the entire library, and for this we would have to re-encode four different formats. Duplicating the encoded streams is prohibitive in space too.

So we are working on optionally delivering the SAMI file (Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange), or similar, to the client, and having it render the text and then overlay it on the video at playback time. Unfortunately, the tools for rendering SAMI files in Silverlight, or in CE (Consumer Electronics) devices, are weak or non-existent, and there is some technology development required.

I would expect to deliver subtitles or captions to Silverlight clients sometime in 2010, and roll the same technology out to each CE device as we are able to migrate the technology, and work with the CE manufacturer to deliver firmware updates for each player.