A recent product announcement went out with a big splash on “Netflix officially sponsored” and it’s hard to understand what that means.
Dynamic smart projector brand, Emotn, is thrilled to announce the launch of its first and latest Netflix officially licensed projector ….
Emotn Product Launch
Yesterday’s product announcement from Emotn had me scratching my head to try and figure out what the company meant by bringing Netflix into the value proposition for its projector. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to give them to me using the form at the bottom of this article. In the meantime, it sent me down a rabbit hole of Netflix partnership and licensing programs which, mercifully, turned out to be interesting in their own right.
Netflix’s Partnership Programs
In a conversation that Display Daily had with streaming expert, Jan Ozer, it was quite clear that Netflix has an extraordinary set of processes to ensure that the content that appears on its channels is of the highest quality in terms of the quality of the source files. The company has criteria for partnership programs with everyone from localization service providers, post-production houses, and fulfillment companies, as well as a depth of information on content security, camera and image capture equipment, metadata, visual effects best practices, an a myriad of other processes that directly influence what the audience sees on the screen. You can check it all out on the Netflix partnership help center. If you are in the business of creating content for, or delivering content to, Netflix, you can’t ever say that you didn’t know what the technical expectations are for being streamed by Netflix.
On the technology side, Netflix is constantly updating its tech blog with very specific information on how its infrastructure works and how content can best leverage its technology to achieve better results at output. None of that translates into endorsement of output devices or displays. Not that I can find. But, why would Netflix want to do that anyhow? The company has optimized its server infrastructure to be able to deliver the same experience on every device that could be possibly used to watch its content, and that’s where the emphasis should remain. It’s not Netflix’s job to tell consumers that they would be better off seeing one of its movies on a 75 inch OLED screen. The company is focused on making sure that the consumer with a home cinema and one riding a subway and watching a show on their smartphone, share exactly the same experience interacting with the Netflix app which includes guaranteeing deliver across all networks and display formats.
So, why would Netflix ever need to endorse a display, ever? It doesn’t and, probably, never will. So, I answered my question, unless someone can correct me on that point, and it leads to another point that bears some reflection: who needs to have a better display if the ultimate end goal is to deliver everywhere all of the time? TVs started off as tiny little screens housed in giant wooden boxes filled with heavy tubes of glass. They have evolved into ever flatter, ever lighter, ever brighter products. If we were still relying on broadcast TV and cable for our content, we might have found more investment from content procuders to push newer display technologies. I suspect they know that the ideal demographic for movie watching is pretty okay with seeing something on their phones. Not a lot of motivation to change things.
The pandemic is over, all but the virus part, and people want to get out the house so, Hollywood doesn’t want those cinematic releases at home. Live broadcasting of sports events would be a motivating factor for all kinds of new display technology but it costs more than the market can bear to do anything more than 1080p and, you’re ending up with newer generations content to watch highlights on their phones because who wants to sit in front of a screen for four hours watching the boring bits in between the action, and the ads. You can see all the pretty displays of flowers on screens at your local electronics store but it is no substitute for the wow factor of a movie or TV show that begs to be seen on a big screen at home. Streamers are doing just enough and no more. Kind of makes you yearn for the days of Blu-Ray, when you could tie the purchase of a big display to a device that promised more than anything you were getting from the cable company.
