Netflix is great! It is the largest video streaming platform on the planet! But,
after a while, no matter how many movies and tv shows it makes available,
inevitably you get to the point where there's nothing new to watch.
So, here are my top 10-ish tips to help you get the most out of Netflix,
and enable you to find video content that you didn't even know existed!
Welcome to my Tech Gear…
Let's get into it!
Now, Netflix is available in over 190 different countries, but that doesn't
mean that everybody's got access to the same content. Certain movies, and certain tv shows,
are only available in certain countries. For instance, at the time of this video,
if you want to watch Pulp Fiction then you have to live in Canada. And the only place
in the world where you can watch Lord of the Rings is if you live in Turkey. So, if you're
in The States and you want to watch Lord of the Rings, well, on Netflix, you're out of luck!
Fortunately there is a way around this. And that is a VPN.
A VPN is a Virtual Private Network and basically enables your PC,
your mobile phone, whatever device you're using, to log into a country. Then,
once you're logged in you can then log into Netflix, and then Netflix will think you're
in that country. Giving you access to all the movies and tv shows for that country!
A word of warning here though because Netflix doesn't encourage the use of VPNs,
but it also doesn't aggressively stop you from using it either. Technically, Netflix could
cancel your subscription if it caught you using a VPN. But I've never heard them of actually doing
it. Plenty of people around the world have been using VPNs for years with no issues.
There are lots of companies offering VPN options. Certainly the easiest that I've found to use
so far has been ExpressVPN. There is an app for pretty much every device. Whether it's your PC,
your mobile phone, or even Android TV. Connecting to a country of your choice is
as easy as logging into the ExpressVPN app, choosing your country you want to log into,
and click on ‘connect’. It is just so easy to use.
So once you have connected to your country of preference, say Turkey in this case,
then you log into Netflix after you've connected to the VPN
and Netflix will then show you all the videos, movies and tv shows
available in Turkey, including Lord of the Rings. So it's definitely worth having a go.
ExpressVPN have a special deal on their 12-month subscription where you get 35% off.
If you use the link in the description down below you'll get an extra three months free as well!
They are not paying for, or sponsoring,
this video by the way. I just find them really easy to use, so go check them out.
So finding out what movies and tv shows are available in what
country can be a little bit hit and miss as you log into each country.
Fortunately there is a really easy way to find out what movies are available where.
You need to go to a website called unogs.com,
or Unofficial Netflix Online Global Search tool. There it will give you a list of all the movies
and the tv shows, and the countries that they're available in. You can either browse
a website or type in a particular movie and it will tell you if it's available.
So if you use that website, along with the VPN,
you've got a really powerful set of tools that enable you to find new videos, new movies,
new tv shows, that you otherwise wouldn't have known were there.
Now, just browsing movies in Netflix can be a thankless task because you seem to spend
hours and hours just trawling through the movies and just finding nothing that you want to watch.
Now there are some categories in the Netflix app that will give you a little bit of a narrow
focus if that's the type of movie that you want, but there are so many more categories than just
the ones that the app shows you. Fortunately there is a website called whats-on-netflix.com
that will show you the category id of every category that Netflix understands. Then just go to
your browser and type in the Netflix genre url. I will put that link in the description down below.
Just type the category id at the end. So if you want to look up something like ‘Australian Crime
Thrillers’ then you can just type that category id and it will show you all the movies that are
available in that genre. It's a quick way of being able to narrow down and focus on subcategories
that you absolutely want to watch and save you wasting hours just trawling through Netflix.
So a few of the next tips rely on Netflix profiles. So in your Netflix account you
can set profiles for every person in your house, and then all recommendations that
you watch in your profile will just be relevant to you. That's really useful if your other half
is binge watching Grey's Anatomy because then you won't get recommendations for it on your profile.
You can also create profiles for your kids too,
and you can age restrict the content too so they're not going to see anything inappropriate.
Now as well as streaming videos on Netflix you can also download them as well. Now that's great if
you want to watch them on a plane for instance. This does only work with the Netflix app,
so on your phone, your tablet, or your PC. It won't work if you're watching Netflix
in a browser. So in the Netflix app, if you find the movie or the tv show that you want to watch,
there should be a download button. If you click on that
the app will then download it so you can then watch it offline. Now there is some content
where the download button isn't available but for most content it should be there.
Sticking with the download theme, the Netflix app has ‘Smart Downloads’. There's actually two
different options in this space. The first one is ‘Download Next Episode’. This will actually allow
the app to download the next episode when you finish watching the one you're watching. So if
you're working your way through Grey's Anatomy, or Stranger Things, or anything like that,
it's great to know the app will just automatically download the next one ready for you to watch.
So if you do intend to binge watch the season it's a good feature to turn on.
There's also ‘Downloads For You’. This will let Netflix choose the movies and
tv shows that it downloads based on your previous viewing preferences. So if you're
not too sure what to watch just turn it on and let Netflix do the hard work for you.
You can set the storage limit. So you can choose how much storage space you
want the Netflix app to use when downloading movies. The more space you give it the more
movies and tv shows it will download. You can also set storage limits per profile so if you
want to go and download every episode of Grey's Anatomy you can go ahead.
Meanwhile, you can stop your kids from downloading the entire series of Avatar…
Although that's actually a good series!
So if you've been flicking through Netflix for hours and still haven't managed to pick
something that you want to go and watch then just click the ‘surprise me’ button. This will
allow Netflix to just pick something at random based on your previous viewing preferences. The
more you watch, the better Netflix should get at finding something you're gonna like.
Try it! You might be pleasantly surprised by what it picks.
And when you do finally find something you want to watch you can share that with other people
using the ‘share’ button. On the page of the video you want to watch,
clicking on that will allow you to share that video on most social media links such as whatsapp,
instagram stories and messenger. People can then see on your instagram stories,
or in a direct message, click on it and be taken to the video that you've just shared.
If you are watching Netflix on a PC or a Mac then there are keyboard shortcuts to control playback.
From playing to pausing to skipping, forwards or backwards, to going full screen, to controlling
the volume and even viewing the stats of your stream. It's all there with a simple key press.
I'll place a link in the description down below so you can easily reference them after this video.
If you are watching a movie with subtitles and you do find those subtitles a little hard to read,
or you just want to change it up a bit, then you can change the appearance of those in your Netflix
account. So log into your Netflix account on your browser and go to your profile and then click on
‘subtitle appearance’. There you can mess around with the font and the colors and the size to your
heart's content. Now this is on a per profile basis so it will only change for the profile
that you're in which is really useful if someone wants massive fonts and quite frankly you don't.
If you ever get annoyed by Netflix playing those auto preview snippets
as you're browsing through the videos or automatically playing the next episode,
well you can turn that off! To do that, log into your Netflix account again in
the browser. Go to your account settings. Select your profile and click on ‘playback
settings’. You can then turn either off or on depending on your preference.
Netflix now does TikToks! Well, kind of. The Netflix mobile app now has a ‘fast laughs’
section. Clicking on that will take you to a vertical TikTok-like stream of movie snippets
guaranteed to ensure you waste hours of your life. Flicking through short movie clips,
pretty much how you do watching YouTube shorts and TikTok videos…only with less cats!
I hope this video has given you some tips to help you get the most out of your
subscription. If you have enjoyed the video please don't forget to like and share it.
Consider subscribing if you're not.
And as always…
I'll see you in the next one!