[#MWC17] Netflix Reed Hastings delivers keynote at Barcelona

Mobile World Congress opened in Barcelona on Monday with a keynote address from Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings. Hosted by Francine Stock of the BBC, they discussed the future of internet TV in an increasingly mobile landscape.

Hastings noted that not only is consumer habit changing, but the way movie industries work are changing. It’s becoming increasingly global, while demand falls heavily on instant videos whether movies or drama. Below is an excerpt of the interview. (More after the video)

Hastings also mentioned some new features coming to Netflix on mobile. These include supporting HDR on mobile, and mobile encode optimisation.

With HDR on mobile, LG G6 phones are one of the first to get support for both Dolby Vision and HDR.

“We’re very excited about HDR because while 4K offers more pixels, HDR offers better pixels that have greater depth. Now you don’t have to have an expensive TV to get HDR: bringing the best picture quality to a small screen and making the best picture quality even more accessible.”

Shows like the Marvel series are a popular binge watching trend on Netflix, and Iron Fist will be following soon.

Netflix is also working on improving encoding to give great video quality using less bandwidth, for both broadband and mobile.

“We’ll soon roll out new video encodes for mobile devices, providing someone who has an extremely poor internet connection watching on a cell network something that once was considered impossible: a great watching experience @ < 200 kbps. And with the efficiency of these new encodes, if this person is worried about data caps, they will be able to stream up to 30 hours of Netflix with a 2GB data cap.”

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