Netflix Rolling out Video Preview Feature to Keep Viewers Engaged During Searches

Netflix announced a video preview feature Tuesday designed to keep subscribers within Netflix while they search for content. Netflix’s video preview service shows content in real time to help subscribers “decide whether to hit play,” said Stephen Garcia, director-product innovation for TV, and Chris Jaffe, vice president-product innovation, in a blog post. A new interface that will roll out globally over the next few weeks will be available on Netflix-enabled devices, including “the majority of game consoles and Roku devices,” they said. A company spokeswoman emailed us that initial products to support view previews are the Sony PS3, PS4, Xbox One and S and Roku 2, 3 and 4 streaming media players. Smart TVs and the Xbox 360 will be updated in coming months. The phased global rollout was used to ensure smooth deployment, the spokeswoman said. Video previews aren’t teasers or conventional trailers, said the blog post, but are “specially designed video synopses” that help subscribers choose content by “quickly highlighting the story, characters and tone of a title.” Netflix testing showed “people watched more of a story, demonstrating these previews helped them browse less and watch more,” they said. Our Roku player hadn't received the update by midday Tuesday, but a YouTube video embedded in the blog post showed a brief sample of a video preview in the upper right corner of the screen. The roughly eight-second clip showed four scenes from Stranger Things. Video previews were developed at Netflix and then tested to learn which content helped subscribers make “quicker and more confident decisions when browsing,” the spokeswoman said. Previews vary in length and can be as long as a “couple of minutes,” with different titles requiring different types of previews, she said.