Top Five Tips for Netflix Subscribers in 2021 (Including Travelers and Expats)
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It’s no surprise that online streaming services for movies and series have had a big influx of customers in the last year. A survey conducted in the US shows that an astonishing 40% of people stay up all night binge streaming content from at least one of the several popular streaming services.
If Netflix is your streaming service of choice, it’s advisable to tweak the settings of Netflix to be able to maximize your enjoyment at the lowest possible cost. Netflix has many out of the box features from which to benefit.
The website TechFool.com, which educates readers about technology and how to protect yourself from its dangers, recommends these tips to help you get the most out of your Netflix subscription, a few of which are particularly relevant to watching Netflix in Mexico or when traveling.
Five top tips to make the most out of your Netflix subscription
Download – if you know that you’re going to be away from a regular internet connection for a long period [which is likely to happen more often in Mexico] you can still enjoy the benefits of your subscription by downloading several episodes of your favorite series to watch later.
Get a VPN (Virtual Private Network) – A lot of content (shows/series) on Netflix is restricted in certain regions (this also applies to YouTube). It is unfair for viewers outside of those regions to miss out on such great and large content. This is where a tool called VPN (Virtual Private Network) comes in handy.
A VPN for Netflix allows you to connect to any server you want in the world. What this means is, if you are outside of the US, by simply connecting to a US VPN server, you are able to watch all content on Netflix that’s available to US audiences. Having such a tool in 2021 is definitely a no brainer - not just for bypassing restricted content outside of your region, but for improved anonymity and privacy online.
Be sure to take advantage of the trial period before committing to a contract to test that the VPN works for the streaming services you use, including music streaming services. This also applies to YouTube. After a time in Mexico, algorithms will redirect you to YouTube.mx if you don’t have a VPN (meaning no more Saturday Night Live videos).
Give Ratings – When you watch a new movie or series, it’s recommended to rate the content, as this adds up to the algorithm Netflix uses to recommend movies to you.
Manage Profiles – Netflix has 5 different subscription packages to fit each person’s pocket and profile setting. If you are looking to share your account with family or friends, there are the Standard or Premium plans that allow multiple profiles and screening on multiple screens. Netflix needs to track each person’s selections and determine what genre of movies and series to recommend. With several profiles, each person can watch and keep up with their favorite series at the same time.
Remove AutoPlay – In a survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, over 60% of people fall asleep while watching video content. For someone watching the series, the Autoplay feature would simply keep playing the next episode, resulting in a major loss of data.
Watching movies with friends in Mexico on Netflix
If you watch movies with Mexican friends who don’t speak or speak very little English and you only speak some Spanish, certain movies are better than others to watch together.
With hundreds of movies to choose from, most of us look for curation. We can look up Netflix Best Original Movies, Best Terror Movies and Best Documentaries. You can find Best Date Night Movies, and even Best Movies to Watch with Friends. As a Spanish student in Mexico, I can find lists of Best Movies in Spanish or Best Spanish Movies (not the same).
Watching Netflix with friends who don’t speak English
We are blessed that subtitles and dubbing has improved drastically in the last 20 years. Netflix has done by far the best job in offering both audio and subtitles in a variety of languages (Bravo!). After a hard day of mangling a second language and wrestling with the preterite versus the imperfect verb tense in Spanish, there’s nothing better than shutting up for a few hours and relaxing by watching a movie with Spanish-speaking friends.
But finding the right movies to watch when your friends don’t speak English (and you’re still wrestling with what the word pos means in Spanish) can be challenging. You have all the normal challenges of finding a movie everyone likes, along with additional challenges of not losing anyone along the way because of language barriers.
Some great American movies don’t have Spanish subtitles. Some Spanish language movies have English subtitles that move so fast they require a lot of concentration or lose a lot of meaning in the translation. You want a movie that visually illustrates the story line well enough that no one has to read subtitles too closely to keep up. The idea is to relax.
Most comedic dialogue moves too fast. Humor often isn’t easily translated between cultures or subtitles destroy it. Some suspense movies, thrillers, detective movies and period dramas can be difficult to follow for viewers with less than bilingual language skills. Movies you see alone might inspire, move you or make you think. Movies with friends should be simply to entertain. Although dark movies can be excellent, you may not want to end an evening with friends on too dark a note.
After several years now navigating this terrain, I have found two genres that tend to be better for watching when you don’t share a common language - action (not too violent), romcom and mild (not too bloody) horror movies.
Plan your movie in advance
It’s frustrating to have your guests and your hot popcorn ready and then have to play around with technology before you can enjoy the movie in another country. Plan ahead. Gather your list of movies and confirm how (and if) you will be able access them from Netflix where you are and which country’s server you need to use to do so. If you want to watch a movie originally produced in Spain, don’t forget to try a server in Barcelona. Do this kind of research in advance.
You also want to determine beforehand what combination of audio and subtitles you’ll use. Most of the time, people like to keep the audio in the original language (whether that be English or Spanish) but not always. It’s a matter of personal taste, the profile of the actors, the nature of the movie and the complexity of the plot. Don’t forget to check reviews to weed out real duds.
Movie recommendations to watch with Mexican friends
Selections on Netflix change all the time but these will give you an idea of characteristics to look for when trying to find a movie to share in a duo language environment.
Extraction - Action movie plots are so timeworn and predictable anyone can follow them. This movie is equally popular in Mexico and the plot is visually well represented. English/Spanish audio and English/Spanish subtitles.
The Expendables 2 - I haven’t met a guy yet who doesn’t like this hokey, gleeful, brawling movie by Sylvester Stallion, mainly for the series incredible fight scenes that anyone can appreciate. English/Spanish audio, Spanish subtitles. Netflix Mexico only. Alternate action movie: Redemption: English with Spanish subtitles.
Pan’s Labyrinth - Mexican Director Guillermo del Toro (Shape of Water) created this fairy horror story utilizing his favorite bad guys - Spanish Fascists you’ll love hating. US Netflix only. European Spanish with English/Spanish subtitles.
Fury of a Patient Man - A mild mannered man plots revenge against his girlfriend’s killers. The Spanish movie won several Goya Awards (Spain’s Academy Awards). European Spanish with English subtitles. US and Mexican Netflix.
Veronica - Supernatural horror film - The movie is more supernatural than horror. What makes it especially intriguing is that the Madrid police report confirms that the events as described are factual. Imagine a police report that says, “The house was haunted. Period.” Spanish audio, English subtitles. US and Mexico Netflix.
About Time (Cuestión del Tiempo) - An adorable time travel RomCom with enough flashback scenes to make it easy to follow in either language. Netflix Mexico and Netflix US. English/Spanish audio and English/Spanish Subtitles
Silence of the Marsh (El Silencio de Pantano) - Pedro Alfonso reached international fame in the Spanish series Money Heist (Casa de Papel), the most watched foreign film in Netflix history. This movie blurs the life of a writer who kills people you kind of want killed anyway with the books he writes. Available on Netflix Mexico English/Spanish audio and English Spanish subtitles.
You get the idea - Look for simplicity and moderation in genre (and flashbacks!) when selecting a movie.
Sharing Netflix movies from a laptop
These days, many single people don’t own televisions (I haven’t had one since 2008). They watch movies from laptops. You still can share movies when you don’t have a television or are traveling. Under the category of “Things Mexicans Do That Make More Sense Than You Think,” I include buying one of those large bluetooth speakers (the ones I used to make fun of...until I tried one with my laptop when my portable speaker weren’t loud enough). You see them all over Mexico in the most unlikely of places, in grocery stores, or in front of pharmacies and in shoe stores.
I have always carried portable speakers in my suitcase, but what’s good for music isn’t always the best for movies. The larger portable speakers (bocinas) turn laptops into a more theater-like experience with better ambient sound. You can buy one for $40 dollars in Mexico. If I had to buy one every time I came to Mexico, it’d be worth it.
Watching movies on US Netflix or US or Youtube (that you can rent for a few dollars), especially when the movie is not available on the local Netflix is a great way to bond with the natives when words fail you. I highly recommend it.
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TechFools is a tech blog aiming to inform readers about the potential dangers of technology and introduce them to the best ways to protect themselves online.
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So tell me one more time, you say, “What does it cost to live in Mexico?”
About the author:
Kerry Baker is the author of four books. If Only I Had a Place about making the most out renting as a foreigner and the pitfalls, The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico, and most recently The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico.