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Netflix to Debut New Vertical Preview Feature on Mobile Next Month
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Don’t like this idea at all. I’m against anything that further normalizes portrait/vertical video. Most of the time you have people shoot incredible raw footage that shows up on the news and it’s nearly always portrait instead of being able to offer us a perfect 16:9 picture with lots of detail. I’m still waiting for iOS and Android to include a turn your phone to landscape warning for recording video. It’s one thing to intentionally do it, but most people just don’t know any better. I still remember all the people freaking out that their new HDTVs still were showing black bars on DVDs and Blu-Rays.
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After having this version for at least a month now I can say it’s useful for quickly scrolling through recent higher-profile releases and getting a brief look, but the full-screen vertical nature of the video actually strays to become aggravating. Shots of people Center their faces making it feel like a collection of selfies, thin slivers of what should be sweeping establishing shots obviously don’t work at all, and as the streams are still only 1080p with the resulting quality after being stretched to fill the 1920-2436 vertical res is uncharacteristicly poor. I’m not sure why they didn’t take vertical 1080 crops of the 4K versions..
Oh and no, there’s no way to view the previews in landscape, instead of simply rotating the device to watch horizontally you have to press the (i) button at the bottom right of the preview which takes you to the title’s page, then tap the trailers tab as normal before then selecting one of the ‘traditional’ trailers to view in full widescreen.
If and when I use this feature, it’s a feel for the content to decide where or not to look into it further, like seeing a TV spot and deciding to view the full trailer. Though when I do, I often cut playback short as if feel I’m not getting the whole picture, because you literally don’t, you get a third, and I want to see what the rest looks like.
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Oh and no, there’s no way to view the previews in landscape, instead of simply rotating the device to watch horizontally you have to press the (i) button at the bottom right of the preview which takes you to the title’s page, then tap the trailers tab as normal before then selecting one of the ‘traditional’ trailers to view in full widescreen.
If and when I use this feature, it’s a feel for the content to decide where or not to look into it further, like seeing a TV spot and deciding to view the full trailer. Though when I do, I often cut playback short as if feel I’m not getting the whole picture, because you literally don’t, you get a third, and I want to see what the rest looks like.
[doublepost=1520573684][/doublepost]
I’ve had it for some time too, though I vaguely remember checking a box somewhere which allowed ‘testing of new features’.