I'm the developer of Now Playing, an application for the iPhone dedicated to providing information to users about movies. Netflix integration is a natural fit for my app, and i'm enthusiastic about being able to provide support for an upcoming release.
However, the current limits on the app worry me. I have 2 millions customers currently. Conservatively, if 1% of my customers use Netflix, then that means 2000 users would be using netflix support at the beginning. Considering that each user will need several requests just to get the requisite data, plus any additional requests on top of that, i'll be easily blowing past the 5000 requests per day.
Indeed, i'm currently receiving around 200 requests *per second* for Now Playing just to support its current feature set. i.e.: delivering showtimes and movie data for theaters close to the user. At that rate, i would exhaust the Netflix API limit in just 25 seconds.
Currently, other API providers out there (like yahoo) provide limits, but only enforce them on a IP basis. That way no particular user can abuse the system, but their API can still be usable by applications that have thousands (or millions) of users.
Is there some way i can get an equivalent setup for Now Playing?
We would want to understand more about what your application is doing exactly before we granted a higher limit, in order to ensure that your application is being reasonably efficient in its use of the API and that it makes business sense for us to allow a higher limit. You can contact us at apisupport(at)netflix(dot)com.
For example, were you aware that you can request an index of all of our catalog titles with one request via the catalog index API? Also, do you know that you get 5000 additional requests per day per authenticated user if you make requests using the access token of each user?
A problem I hope to have is related to this thread. I understand that the per user limit is also 5000/day, but if I have a very large number of users (let's just say 1 million for round numbers), and 10% of them access the app on a given day, just the calls to authenticate so I can get to the per user limit is going to blow past 5000. Would it be possible for the calls that it takes to get the user authenticated (so I can then use per user calls) not be counted toward the 5000 / day, 4 / second limit?
All update queries return the affected titles with all the details you see when first downloading a Queue (including title expansion). This means that for anytime your application is run it should only request the Queue once, and then rely on the update responses to adjust the Queue locally. Otherwise you are duplicating the amount of calls needed.
On that note, those of you who want additional information like actors, synopsis, etc. should read about title expansion, which will further reduce the calls needed.
The architecture of your program should be carefully considered to keep the API calls to a minimum.
I'm the developer of Now Playing, an application for the iPhone dedicated to providing information to users about movies. Netflix integration is a natural fit for my app, and i'm enthusiastic about being able to provide support for an upcoming release.
However, the current limits on the app worry me. I have 2 millions customers currently. Conservatively, if 1% of my customers use Netflix, then that means 2000 users would be using netflix support at the beginning. Considering that each user will need several requests just to get the requisite data, plus any additional requests on top of that, i'll be easily blowing past the 5000 requests per day.
Indeed, i'm currently receiving around 200 requests *per second* for Now Playing just to support its current feature set. i.e.: delivering showtimes and movie data for theaters close to the user. At that rate, i would exhaust the Netflix API limit in just 25 seconds.
Currently, other API providers out there (like yahoo) provide limits, but only enforce them on a IP basis. That way no particular user can abuse the system, but their API can still be usable by applications that have thousands (or millions) of users.
Is there some way i can get an equivalent setup for Now Playing?
John McLaughlin – 1 year ago
I had a similar question -- For any kind of reasonbly complete app 5000 is fairly small -- Is there a process for getting a higher limit?
Michael Hart – 1 year ago
We would want to understand more about what your application is doing exactly before we granted a higher limit, in order to ensure that your application is being reasonably efficient in its use of the API and that it makes business sense for us to allow a higher limit. You can contact us at apisupport(at)netflix(dot)com.
For example, were you aware that you can request an index of all of our catalog titles with one request via the catalog index API? Also, do you know that you get 5000 additional requests per day per authenticated user if you make requests using the access token of each user?
Dan Hinsley – 2 months ago
A problem I hope to have is related to this thread. I understand that the per user limit is also 5000/day, but if I have a very large number of users (let's just say 1 million for round numbers), and 10% of them access the app on a given day, just the calls to authenticate so I can get to the per user limit is going to blow past 5000. Would it be possible for the calls that it takes to get the user authenticated (so I can then use per user calls) not be counted toward the 5000 / day, 4 / second limit?
Michael Hart – 2 months ago
Hi Dan,
You only need to auth a user the first time they use your app. You can retain their tokens and secrets for future reuse.
We'll also adjust query limits when necessary. Longer term, we'll likely remove the call limit for auth resources.
Dan Hinsley – 2 months ago
Thanks
eddiewebb – 1 month ago
Just a thought for some developers.
All update queries return the affected titles with all the details you see when first downloading a Queue (including title expansion). This means that for anytime your application is run it should only request the Queue once, and then rely on the update responses to adjust the Queue locally. Otherwise you are duplicating the amount of calls needed.
On that note, those of you who want additional information like actors, synopsis, etc. should read about title expansion, which will further reduce the calls needed.
The architecture of your program should be carefully considered to keep the API calls to a minimum.