I'm amazed by all of the answers in this thread, it's amazing how many people are just guessing or making stuff up. Netflix "cheaped out", wants it for "maximum compatibility" (what?), is doing it to be "simpler", or hand-wringing about whether or not it's technically feasible to automatically zoom in on the faces in that way.
It's really easy to explain why they are doing this: the studio is giving them this version of the movie and Netflix is uploading it.
There are plenty of 2.40:1 movies on the service, mostly newer ones. House of Cards is a nonstandard 2:1 aspect ratio. If they cared about cropping the movies they'd do it to all of them. They don't.
The studios just already have these HD transfers of movies that were probably made years ago for television broadcast and that's what they give to Netflix. Case closed.
That said, every movie should be available only in its original aspect ratio, and anything else is bogus. Film aesthetics rely on someone not cropping the shot. For example, in Super 8 the movie begins with a shot of a metal sign at a factory. That sign is 2:40:1, just like the movie's aspect ratio. It's almost certain that JJ Abrams had them build that sign at that aspect ratio on purpose so it would fill the frame. The version on Netflix, it's cropped off and you can't read part of it. Bad.
It's really easy to explain why they are doing this: the studio is giving them this version of the movie and Netflix is uploading it.
There are plenty of 2.40:1 movies on the service, mostly newer ones. House of Cards is a nonstandard 2:1 aspect ratio. If they cared about cropping the movies they'd do it to all of them. They don't.
The studios just already have these HD transfers of movies that were probably made years ago for television broadcast and that's what they give to Netflix. Case closed.
That said, every movie should be available only in its original aspect ratio, and anything else is bogus. Film aesthetics rely on someone not cropping the shot. For example, in Super 8 the movie begins with a shot of a metal sign at a factory. That sign is 2:40:1, just like the movie's aspect ratio. It's almost certain that JJ Abrams had them build that sign at that aspect ratio on purpose so it would fill the frame. The version on Netflix, it's cropped off and you can't read part of it. Bad.