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Katariina Washuk
You can put the secret Netflix menu to work to get full control over what kind of content you devour. It's all dependent on a code-based system. Different numeric codes on the service let you browse and select from thousands of niche genres and subcategories, whether you're into horror or rom-coms.
Typically, you're constrained to the genres available to you via the main Netflix menu. There's no way to choose by specific category other than what's been chosen for you when you log on. Using these codes opens up an entire library of options for you to choose from that can help you better settle on what to watch for the night. It can even help you discover new shows and movies you've never heard of.
Adding these codes to the ends of Netflix URLs lets you directly access collections of movies and TV shows that fall under your chosen category. For example, if you're short on time and want to queue up a shorter movie, you could check the 90-Minute Movies category with the code 81466194. Looking for something for your entire brood to enjoy? The "Family Movie Night" collection, accessed with code 2013975, is chock-full of favorites even Grandma can get into.
There are well over 36,000 codes to choose from, so don't worry about memorizing them or trying random sequences. Resources like Netflix-Codes.com have an entire directory to sift through, so you can search for what you'd like to watch there and find corresponding codes in no time.
Netflix-Codes.com has a comprehensive list of the streaming platform's hidden genre categories and subcategories. In total, there are around 20 top-level categories covering genres like animation, foreign films and classic movies. Within those main genres are many more hyper-specific subgenres denoted by numeric codes.
The entirety of the categories available on Netflix starts with broad main genres like Action, Comedy and Drama, but they get more specific as you dive even deeper. There are straight-to-the-point collections like Movies Directed by Women (code 2974953), or more specifically targeted curated lists, like Supernatural Soaps (code 81238162), just in case you like your werewolves with a side of angst and romance.
Are you a huge Swiftie? Is there another celebrity you want to learn more about? The Pop Culture Icons category (code 81278963) includes picks like the Taylor Swift-centric documentary Miss Americana or the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody.
Maybe you've been told time and time again that you should really get into Korean TV and don't know where to start. Hit up the K-Dramas for Beginners menu (code 2953105) for a selection of hit K-Drama series like Squid Game and Boys Over Flowers.
Rather than relying solely on the standard homepage categories or Netflix's algorithm, you can use these secret codes to pinpoint and explore different nooks and crannies of the catalog to find hidden gems.
If you're not comfortable with editing Netflix URLs, you can use a browser extension to access the secret menus. The Better Browse for Netflix extension for Chrome is a great choice. Here's how to use it:
If the extension is installed, you'll see a Browse All option at the top of your Netflix home screen next to My List. Click it to scroll through the subgenres or to search through specific categories.
Alternatively, you can use the FindFlix: Netflix Secret Category Finder browser extension for Chrome or Firefox. This add-on will create a drop-down menu complete with Netflix categories for your browser that you can scroll through by clicking on the FF icon that will appear on the top right of your screen. There's no need to scroll Netflix natively with this add-on, and it features 7,500 categories alphabetized for your convenience.
4. If you're on a device that has the Netflix app installed, the app should open and take you directly to the genre or subgenre you chose. If you don't have the app installed, it'll open Netflix through the browser and you can view the specific movies and shows available.
I pulled this chapter together from dozens of sources that were at times somewhat contradictory. Facts on the ground change over time and depend who is telling the story and what audience they're addressing. I tried to create as coherent a narrative as I could. If there are any errors I'd be more than happy to fix them. Keep in mind this article is not a technical deep dive. It's a big picture type article. For example, I don't mention the word microservice even once :-)
Given our discussion in the What is Cloud Computing? chapter, you might expect Netflix to serve video using AWS. Press play in a Netflix application and video stored in S3 would be streamed from S3, over the internet, directly to your device.
Another relevant factoid is Netflix is subscription based. Members pay Netflix monthly and can cancel at any time. When you press play to chill on Netflix, it had better work. Unhappy members unsubscribe.
The client is the user interface on any device used to browse and play Netflix videos. It could be an app on your iPhone, a website on your desktop computer, or even an app on your Smart TV. Netflix controls each and every client for each and every device.
Everything that happens before you hit play happens in the backend, which runs in AWS. That includes things like preparing all new incoming video and handling requests from all apps, websites, TVs, and other devices.
In 2007 Netflix introduced their streaming video-on-demand service that allowed subscribers to stream television series and films via the Netflix website on personal computers, or the Netflix software on a variety of supported platforms, including smartphones and tablets, digital media players, video game consoles, and smart TVs.
Netflix succeeded. Netflix certainly executed well, but they were late to the game, and that helped them. By 2007 the internet was fast enough and cheap enough to support streaming video services. That was never the case before. The addition of fast, low-cost mobile bandwidth and the introduction of powerful mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, has made it easier and cheaper for anyone to stream video at any time from anywhere. Timing is everything.
Building out a datacenter is a lot of work. Ordering equipment takes a long time. Installing and getting all the equipment working takes a long time. And as soon they got everything working they would run out of capacity, and the whole process had to start over again.
The long lead times for equipment forced Netflix to adopt what is known as a vertical scaling strategy. Netflix made big programs that ran on big computers. This approach is called building a monolith. One program did everything.
What Netflix was good at was delivering video to their members. Netflix would rather concentrate on getting better at delivering video rather than getting better at building datacenters. Building datacenters was not a competitive advantage for Netflix, delivering video is.
It took more than eight years for Netflix to complete the process of moving from their own datacenters to AWS. During that period Netflix grew its number of streaming customers eightfold. Netflix now runs on several hundred thousand EC2 instances.
The advantage of having three regions is that any one region can fail, and the other regions will step in handle all the members in the failed region. When a region fails, Netflix calls this evacuating a region.
The header image is meant to intrigue you, to draw you into selecting a video. The idea is the more compelling the header image, the more likely you are to watch a video. And the more videos you watch, the less likely you are to unsubscribe from Netflix.
The first thing Netflix does is spend a lot of time validating the video. It looks for digital artifacts, color changes, or missing frames that may have been caused by previous transcoding attempts or data transmission problems.
A pipeline is simply a series of steps data is put through to make it ready for use, much like an assembly line in a factory. More than 70 different pieces of software have a hand in creating every video.
The idea behind a CDN is simple: put video as close as possible to users by spreading computers throughout the world. When a user wants to watch a video, find the nearest computer with the video on it and stream to the device from there.
In 2007, when Netflix debuted its new streaming service, it had 36 million members in 50 countries, watching more than a billion hours of video each month, streaming multiple terabits of content per second.
At the same time, Netflix was also devoting a lot of effort into all the AWS services we talked about earlier. Netflix calls the services in AWS its control plane. Control plane is a telecommunications term identifying the part of the system that controls everything else. In your body, your brain is the control plane; it controls everything else.
In 2011, Netflix realized at its scale it needed a dedicated CDN solution to maximize network efficiency. Video distribution is a core competency for Netflix and could be a huge competitive advantage.
The number of OCAs on a site depends on how reliable Netflix wants the site to be, the amount of Netflix traffic (bandwidth) that is delivered from that site, and the percentage of traffic a site allows to be streamed.
Within a location, a popular video like House of Cards is copied to many different OCAs. The more popular a video, the more servers it will be copied to. Why? If there was only one copy of a very popular video, streaming the video to members would overwhelm the server. As they say, many hands make light work.
Right now, up to 100% of Netflix content is being served from within ISP networks. This reduces costs by relieving internet congestion for ISPs. At the same time, Netflix members experience a high-quality viewing experience. And network performance improves for everyone.
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