Getting Netflix Instant Viewing, Netflix profiles, and a PS3 to play nicely?

March 4, 2010 11:33 AM

Getting Netflix Instant Viewing, Netflix profiles, and a PS3 to play nicely?

My wife and I have seperate profiles for Netflix in order to ensure optimal personal recommendations and such. (While our tastes mostly overlap, there are definitely areas where they do not.) We recently got the disc that allows us to use Netflix's Instant Viewing functionality on our PS3.

Unfortunately, I think the PS3 Instant Viewing is going to bork up my recommendations. Anything we watch that way is currently considered viewed and/or rated under my profile.

Right now when I go into Netflix account/profile management, my wife's profile doesn't seem to even have instant viewing as an option.

How can I configure our profiles/accounts so that our Instant Viewing on the PS3 doesn't bork my recommendations?

posted by entropicamericana to Technology (7 answers total)

Best answer: Not sure how it affects your recommendations, but I do know that it is a Netflix policy that doesn't allow you to have Instant Viewing available on multiple profiles. So the only way you can see movies by instant viewing through PS3 is to add to your (the main) profile, which I guess means it is impossible for that not to mess with your recommendations. Sorry!
posted by Grither at 11:39 AM on March 4, 2010

Grither's got it. I've tried to do the same in the past, and it's not worked one bit.
posted by deezil at 11:42 AM on March 4, 2010

Could you order another Netflix disc but from your wife's account? You might have to set up another PS3 account too, but that's trivial.
posted by valadil at 11:45 AM on March 4, 2010

Response by poster: Oh, for pete's sake.

And I'm guessing there isn't a way to make a new, blank profile be the main profile with Instant Viewing capability and making my current main profile with its gobs of ratings and such a secondary profile. Right?
posted by entropicamericana at 11:46 AM on March 4, 2010

You may want to contact Netflix directly for that. You might have to call to have them officially change which account is the "main" profile account.
posted by Grither at 11:49 AM on March 4, 2010

entropicamericana, they do it so you just can't make a bunch of profiles and hand em out to your friends. I see Netflix's point on all this, and they've handled it about the best they can
posted by deezil at 11:55 AM on March 4, 2010

Best answer: When I called Netflix to try to change which profile was primary (for exactly this reason), they said they couldn't.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:55 PM on March 4, 2010