# Netflix "instant queue" and profiles



## westside_guy (Mar 13, 2005)

I am very happy to see that the wait is over, and Netflix streaming to my Tivo HD is a reality! All of the movies in my "instant queue" are now available on my Tivo as well. However we discovered one issue (that admittedly is only tangentially Tivo-related).

We have a couple of profiles on our Netflix account. Mine is the main one, and I can maintain an "instant queue". My daughter's queue, though, doesn't seem to have that as an option. When she tries to access instant watching from the Netflix website, she's instructed to "talk to the primary account holder" (which is me, of course) - but I can't find any way to enable instant viewing for her profile.

Has anyone else run into this?

Thanks!


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## Enrique (May 15, 2006)

What did you set her "Maturity Level" as on Netflix, And what was the movie?


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## Enrique (May 15, 2006)

I was kinda looking around and it looks like with profiles you can't use "instant queue". You can only have one "instant queue", but more then one "DVD queue" with profiles.

From Netflix:


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## nemein (Jul 3, 2008)

Enrique said:


> What did you set her "Maturity Level" as on Netflix, And what was the movie?


It doesn't matter. The "watch now" has never been available to the profiles. It kind of made sense when you had a limited time per month, but now that they have gone to unlimited it doesn't really anymore. At least they finally created the "watch now" queue... before everything was intermixed w/ your regular queue. That was just a mess.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Netflix tried to yank profiles completely but pulled back due to massive user feedback.

To incorporate instant watch queues into profiles is a large undertaking. For instance they easily tie a instant watch device like TiVo in without a lot of hassle at all. If you were trying to switch profiles then they have to program that in and also come up with a way to type all that via remote.

I would also find great functionality in a USB keyboard for the TiVo, search of all titles available from the TiVo directly and profiles so I can have the Mom abd Dad queue adn the family queue, just like our DVDs are set up now.
I am sure Netflix and TiVo know this as well though and will happily use what is working NOW and look for improvements over time.


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## westside_guy (Mar 13, 2005)

Thanks, folks. It is a bit disappointing. I understand that fully incorporating support for profiles would be a large undertaking - but heck, if the instant queue just showed all the instant-watch options available for both profiles in total that'd be something.

What makes it harder is - when she browses Netflix' website, she doesn't even get any hint that any of her movies are even available as an instant option (and yes, some definitely are - plus she has no restrictions on her queue). So to add any of hers to the instant menu, I'll have to manually go through her entire queue and investigate them, one by one, to see if they are available instantly.

Oh well, thanks again!


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## OhFiddle (Dec 11, 2006)

westside_guy said:


> So to add any of hers to the instant menu, I'll have to manually go through her entire queue and investigate them, one by one, to see if they are available instantly.


Don't know if you already know this or not but you can add her to your "friends" list and then when logged in to your own account, click the link to view her whole queue list. Not the scrolling bar with the pictures, but the link that says "Queue: 25 Movies". In that view you can see her whole queue and the stuff that is instant is marked and has a button to add them to your own instant list. There should be a better way to accomplish this, but it is the quickest I have found so far.

I imagine they have it set up to only do instant on the main account so you don't setup profiles for a bunch of people not in your household and let them watch your unlimited streaming stuff.


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## westside_guy (Mar 13, 2005)

OhFiddle said:


> Don't know if you already know this or not but you can add her to your "friends" list and then when logged in to your own account, click the link to view her whole queue list. Not the scrolling bar with the pictures, but the link that says "Queue: 25 Movies". In that view you can see her whole queue and the stuff that is instant is marked and has a button to add them to your own instant list. There should be a better way to accomplish this, but it is the quickest I have found so far.
> 
> I imagine they have it set up to only do instant on the main account so you don't setup profiles for a bunch of people not in your household and let them watch your unlimited streaming stuff.


I didn't think about trying that - thanks!


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## westside_guy (Mar 13, 2005)

*OhFiddle* - thanks again. I set her profile up as a "friend", and now it's pretty easy to add all her streamable stuff to our instant watch queue. It's not perfect; but it's not particularly onerous. Maintaining it should be pretty easy.

Thanks to everyone for the replies!


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## mr_director (Jan 15, 2009)

I can't believe that I found a solution!

What should be real, though, is the option to simply view, from a family member profile, if the movie is even available, as westside_guy said above. But it doesn't. I don't think it would affect licensing issues if there was an option to view if a movie was available for instant, and, if it was, have the ability to add it to the main account holder's instant queue. I called Netflix and told them to add this option. Who knows if they will. Seems easy.

I was so excited about finding this solution, I posted a detailed problem/solution post on my blog (add www): collegeisamovie.com/2009/01/want-to-know-how-to-add-netflix-family-profile-movies-to-the-main-profiles-instant-queue-quickly-and-easily/ 

Thanks again guys. Hopefully Netflix will fix this issue in the future.


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## berkshires (Feb 22, 2007)

ZeoTiVo said:


> If you were trying to switch profiles then they have to program that in and also come up with a way to type all that via remote.


Scroll through a list of legit choices like with padding or recording quality.

Nice to read about the trick.


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## Scyber (Apr 25, 2002)

I don't think we will ever see this integrated into profiles. When netflix tried to kill profiles last year they basically said it was b/c they were too hard to integrate into new features and only a small percentage of users used the feature. 

After the user feedback/uproar forced them to keep profiles, the impression that I got was that we wouldn't see much new development in regards to the profile feature (like the ability to delete a profile....). 

So I wouldn't get your hopes up on seeing this integrated. It seems like the profile feature has been deprecated by netflix. I thought I had heard that new users can't even setup profiles anymore. Could be wrong on that though.


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