Further Reading Netflix denies accusation that it messed with ISPs’ caching systems

On Wednesday, a Netflix PR director spoke definitively on the subject of offline video watching, declaring that the option was "never going to happen" for users of the Netflix streaming app.

In an interview with TechRadar, Netflix Director of Corporate Communications and Technology Cliff Edwards responded to the question, which was posed comparing Netflix to British services such as BBC's iPlayer and Channel 4's 4oD that offer such offline viewing. TechRadar also quoted Edwards as saying the option was a "short term fix for a bigger problem," which they characterized as "WiFi access and quality."

It's a cold response just in time for the holiday travel season—one in which we'd all prefer to silence an in-flight child by bombarding his or her little eyes with a Netflix-ready tablet. Based on Gogo's no-streaming policy and general lack of bandwidth, we don't see either WiFi access or quality getting that much better in the skies any time soon, and Edwards' statement doesn't offer much relief for vacationers in rural, no-Internet parts of the world, either.

Instead, TechRadar paraphrased his comments about how this topic won't be on users' minds "in five years' time" due to an expansion in Internet access across the board—though there's no telling how many "fast lanes" Netflix will enjoy at that point in time.

In the United States, Amazon Prime Instant Video offers the most prominent offline caching option for its videos, though only for users of Kindle Fire-branded devices, while YouTube's Music Key beta offers offline options for music videos.

Update: We sent questions to Netflix about the technological and licensing hurdles to building an offline viewing platform, but a Netflix representative cut us off at the pass: "We have never changed our position in the years we have been asked this question—we are not providing offline caching." The rep also called the idea of offline video viewing "transitional," then added, "there are plenty of other options if people want offline playback."