A Netflix executive has hinted that the company plans to bring DVD style extra features to its original programming titles, and if the trial proves successful, to other titles too.
One chief complaint, especially by those still very loyal to discs, is the lack of bonus features on Netflix titles compared to the disc releases, which often feature hours of insightful making-of documentaries, behind the scene footage and audio commentaries. It appears Netflix, in their never ending bid to find new streamable content, may turn to these bonus features to add to their growing content library.
Todd Yellin, vice president of product innovation at Netflix, spoke at the GigaOm Mobilize conference spoke of the importance of bonus features and the company's experiment with it for its original titles.
"The core of the experience is watching the story that the directors and writers contended, and that's like 99 percent of what it is," he said. "But supplemental content, whether that's extra features or so forth, we're going to test that around our own originals," said Yellin.
"We'll experiment around our originals, and if that goes well, then we'll go back to our partners that we license a ton of content from, and I can see possibly doing some extra or supplemental content around that."
Original titles that could see bonus content added include the likes of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black. The former is already available on DVD and Blu-ray, but it was released without any additional content. Many of the non original content are already available on Blu-ray and DVD, and thousands of hours of bonus content that are already found on the disc releases could be made available on Netflix in quick order if Netflix's experiment yields positive results.
