Why Movie Streaming Services Are Unsatisfying — and Will Stay That Way 323
mendax sends this excerpt from a New York Times op-ed:
"like Napster in the late 1990s, [torrent-streaming app Popcorn Time] offered a glimpse of what seemed like the future, a model for how painless it should be to stream movies and TV shows online. The app also highlighted something we've all felt when settling in for a night with today’s popular streaming services, whether Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Hulu, or Google or Microsoft’s media stores: They just aren't good enough. ... In the music business, Napster’s vision eventually became a reality. Today, with services like Spotify and Rdio, you can pay a monthly fee to listen to whatever you want, whenever you want. But in the movie and TV business, such a glorious future isn't in the offing anytime soon.
According to industry experts, some of whom declined to be quoted on the record because of the sensitivities of the nexus of media deals involved, we aren’t anywhere close to getting a service that allows customers to pay a single monthly fee for access to a wide range of top-notch movies and TV shows.Instead of a single comprehensive service, the future of digital TV and movies is destined to be fragmented across several services, at least for the next few years. We’ll all face a complex decision tree when choosing what to watch, and we’ll have to settle for something less than ideal."
According to industry experts, some of whom declined to be quoted on the record because of the sensitivities of the nexus of media deals involved, we aren’t anywhere close to getting a service that allows customers to pay a single monthly fee for access to a wide range of top-notch movies and TV shows.Instead of a single comprehensive service, the future of digital TV and movies is destined to be fragmented across several services, at least for the next few years. We’ll all face a complex decision tree when choosing what to watch, and we’ll have to settle for something less than ideal."
The oak and the palm (Score:3, Interesting)
The Oak stays strong and the palm tree bends - but with the Hurricane of fed up cord cutters, only one species will survive the storm.
I'm patient.
Rentals are too expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
It shouldn't cost more to "rent" a two year old movie to stream online that it does to BUY it in the bargain bin. Not only that, but many older movies aren't available to rent at all, only for "purchase" (which, when bought online is really a long-term rental anyway due to DRM).
Get the rental prices down. Let me pay $2-$3 to watch a movie rather than $6-$10. And for the love of Princess Celestia, when you PAY for content online, it should look good! No compression artifacts, no buffering. Let me pull down the whole thing, or maybe half of it before watching to ensure a good experience.
Re:Rentals are too expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
It shouldn't cost more to "rent" a two year old movie to stream online that it does to BUY it in the bargain bin. Not only that, but many older movies aren't available to rent at all, only for "purchase" (which, when bought online is really a long-term rental anyway due to DRM).
Get the rental prices down. Let me pay $2-$3 to watch a movie rather than $6-$10. And for the love of Princess Celestia, when you PAY for content online, it should look good! No compression artifacts, no buffering. Let me pull down the whole thing, or maybe half of it before watching to ensure a good experience.
The point of making movies is to rake in huge profits and transferable tax credits while pretending to have lost money. How does providing you good service at a modest price make the current rights holders richer than they already are?
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Streaming services are dependent on the distributors supplying them with movies. First thing to know about the movie industry and streaming is that the movie industry is conservative. Second that it is very possessive about its property.
This means that the movie distributors pretty much set the terms for the streaming companies and not in a way that is in tune with the times.
They dictate the time windows that movies will be available and often also the price at which it will be available to the consumer. Mo
or just say no (Score:5, Interesting)
I have not, and will not, use my cable provider's "on demand" service for anything for which I have to pay ($5 - $10 per selection per 24-hour viewing window). If there were some "bundle" price, al la Netflix, I'd give them $10 for access. Of course, I don't pay the obscene fees for "premium" channels, either. I only have one cable box attached to a screen. I cannot watch all three (four?) at the same time, but I would have to pay an additional monthly fee for each one, even if it is discounted slightly for second, third, ... selection.
I may miss something, but nothing I've heard of justifies the pricing.
Unless you are willing to use Popcorn Time. (Score:2)
Although illegal in many countries (but not all), it is satisfying. And free. It doesn't cover everything, but it certainly covers a lot and is expanding from what I can see. I can't help but wonder when TV shows will be added, along with a choice of where to pull the torrents from (it's locked in to YIFY [yts.re] currently though there might be an easy way to change that, I haven't the time).
Although the team that originally started it dropped the project, it was entirely open source so others could (and did [vr-zone.com]) pick
Did I just read ... (Score:5, Funny)
Did I just read two stories today, telling me both the problem with DVDs and the problem with streaming services?
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Industry Experts? NOT (Score:3)
How did this BUL$4!T get posted?
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The definition of "industry expert" has been diluted to mean "anyone who has blogged about a topic more than once". It's entirely meaningless
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Industry shill: contractor
Industry expert: consultant or employee.
Fuck 'Em we can wait it out (Score:3, Insightful)
Water cooler talk (Score:2)
the product is inherently of no value.
Staying current with popular entertainment may help someone advance in office politics at his workplace and qualifying for a promotion, instead of gaining a reputation as That Guy [theonion.com] and qualifying for constructive dismissal [wikipedia.org].
HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, Starz (Score:3)
Why do you think that HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and Starz (a latecomer, relatively speaking) have all been in existence since the popularity of cable television exploded in the 70s? Because that fragmentation (only allowing one of them rights to a given movie) allows the industry to milk as much money out of consumers as possible. How many people could pay $50 a month back in the 80s for a single channel that carries all movies? Not many. So in essence it was split up into multiple channels, so people could at least subscribe to as little or as much as they could afford.
So of course that backwards, entrenched industry is going to try their hardest to bring that concept to streaming as well.
netflix is doing it wrong (Score:2)
They, and others such as Microsoft, should team up with Google's internet service and start installing it everywhere that the monopolies are delivering poor service and playing games with them.
Except ... (Score:2)
According to industry experts ... we aren't anywhere close to getting a service that allows customers to pay a single monthly fee for access to a wide range of top-notch movies and TV shows.
Just like one service can't provide customers with a wide range of top-notch retail products. Except for Amazon.
Amazon Prime isn't so good either (Score:3)
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I think one difference is that physical goods are purchased a la carte, unlike monthly subscription streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix.
You haven't had Amazon Prime, have you? Only a small subset of the catalog is available "free" to Prime customers. Mostly you have to pay Amazon A la Carte, whether by the episode or by the series. On the plus side, you get a "lifetime" right to replay the content, once purchased. I bought one B5 episode that didn't play from my DVDs, it was a major storyline episode and I just wanted to watch it without dicking around, and that was well worth the two bucks or whatever it cost. I think it was two bucks. But
Explanation for missing back catalog titles? (Score:2)
Much of the explanation involving exclusive deals, etc, makes sense (as in I grok it, not that I like it) for recent titles, but what's the explanation for missing back catalog titles, stuff more than 10 years old?
So much of it is DVD only. I can't imagine there's that much of a market for those kinds of titles on DVD to keep them DVD exclusive.
I wonder why (Score:2)
Viacom is about to go dark in 800 markets and 5 million homes because they want to nearly double their rate overnight: http://www.latimes.com/enterta... [latimes.com]
And TV wonders why it's dieing. Just like the music industry, TV and Movie studios are vastly overestimating the value of their product.
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And TV wonders why it's dieing. Just like the music industry, TV and Movie studios are vastly overestimating the value of their product.
But..... but.... Then how are we gonna see all thoes awesome commercials about awesome deals on catheters and adult diapers, and suing people and you won't pay a dime unless they get money for YOU!, and medicines for depression that might make you commit suicide?
Ermagherd! Ner! NER!
Mr. Manjoo exaggerates (Score:3)
Newsgroups anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
I am sorry, but I have never heard a good argument to use something other than the Newsgroups I've been using since the early 90's.
Currently I pay $8.00 per month to Astraweb and run NZBGet on a little NAS box with front ends Couchpotato for Movies and Sickbeard for Shows. They are internal web pages running on the NAS and you can set a show and movie you would like to see, set the quality you'd like and forget till you get an email that the job is DONE!
At that point the file is LOCAL so none of that buffering BS!
THAT's the glimpse of the future!!!
I see Netflix stutter at my friends' with relative poor video quality. And who wants a limited/changing/shrinking(?) selection anyways?
Yes, some might say that NG's are 'illegal' but downloading is NOT in many county's.. So don't use bit torrents since that's uploading too, but use NG's instead. Combined with SSL access to super fast servers and retention of over 1500 days what's not to like??
Besides, it NG's have music too... I have never doubted where I want to spend my $8/month
Cheers!
Remove the middleman (Score:2)
I hate to say this, as much as I sympathize more with Netflix than a major studio, but shouldn't the studios eventually stream their movies themselves? Is the tech really that hard, why are they outsourcing it to Amazon and Netflix?
Like TV channels, we should just surf the studio websites until we find what we want (using Google, perhaps). That seems the inevitable future rather than one or two clearinghouses. That's what tech does: removes the middleman (except when there's a man in the middle ;).
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I hate to say this, as much as I sympathize more with Netflix than a major studio, but shouldn't the studios eventually stream their movies themselves? Is the tech really that hard, why are they outsourcing it to Amazon and Netflix?
Like TV channels, we should just surf the studio websites until we find what we want (using Google, perhaps). That seems the inevitable future rather than one or two clearinghouses. That's what tech does: removes the middleman (except when there's a man in the middle ;).
Streaming can be hard, particularly if everyone is trying to watch at the same time. Witness what happened to HBOGo the night that they made the season finale of 'True Detective' available.
From what I can tell, the major studios do not want to be in the content delivery business. I don't see an 'inevitable future' of the major studios streaming their own content. I think branded portals to the studio content, outsourced to a small number of content delivery companies, is more likely.
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I disagree. The major studios have production facilities, access to capital for getting films made and know the business end of distribution, which are all things that a major film needs that the people "doing all the hard work" might not be able to provide. And it isn't like the studio always makes money. Look at what R.I.P.D. did last year. Studios have failed or have had to reorganize effectively because of the poor box office performance of a small number of films.
Note that studios don't do actual
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xmbc (Score:2)
onechannel
I don't use this. I've only heard about it somewhere.
Nothing Worth Watching! (Score:2)
The real problem is that there is very little on TV that's worth watching, no matter WHAT the delivery medium is. Dozens of formulaic "crime" dramas. Dozens of unfunny "situation comedies". Every show tries to copy everything else that was ever PREVIOUSLY successful, but the copy is never even half as good as the original.
NOTHING new on TV is worth watching. And I've already seen all the good reruns.
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Sad, isn't it? Especially since there's no lack of good writers, just a system that's not interested in them. Eventually we'll get a new system, one not dependent on a choke point that excludes everything worth watching. There's already fan-produced stuff that's mediocre, but that has to slip through the cracks of existing IP. We'll get Indie TV better than what we have now -- if only because the bar is so very low -- once a reasonable way to make a little money off of it is found and shown to work. It
Subscription and true HD... (Score:2)
I rarely watch movies these days, so Netflix and other subscription based services wouldn't work for me. I do like Amazon's Video on Demand and iTunes services, but not everything is rental (why buy if I am only watch it once?), available, and in true HD. Also, Amazon doesn't let me download HD videos to play in Amazon Unbox (Windows only and buggy) to play locally (frak streaming with unstable and slow Internet connections).
Because movies keep coming and going (Score:2)
Are the studio executives dumb? (Score:2)
Do they not realize that the best way to not only vastly reduce the amount of piracy going on but to increase their profits too is to make their content available for streaming either through pay-by-the-month or pay-per-show?
I for one have quite a few things I wish I could watch again (not necessarily own but watch once) but cant legally acquire (on DVD or via any internet service). Some of them are things I would probably be willing to pay for but the studios wont give me that option.
Its not just the big H
Satisfied, here. (Score:3)
I say fuck 'em. Until they get their act together and provide what is needed instead of supporting a business mdoel better suited for the 50s, I'll stick with USENET, torrents, and file sharing services to watch the broadcast shows I like.
When they decide they need the business, they'll come up with reasonable plans and I'll come back. Until then, I'll be happy with my own servers providing the content I want, from any source I want, when I want it.
Re:Um. WRONG. (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix is 100% satisfying.
Sure, if you are satisfied by most of the top 200 movies on IMDB not being available there...
Most academy award winners? Not present. ...
Most Oscar winners? Not present.
Most Sundance Film Festival Winners? Not present.
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The never-attainable struggle for perfection and certainty is the source of much of human suffering.
Netflix has plenty of shows - you can have a lot of fun watching them. It's a good value. Other shows can be had from other sources.
There are also mountains to climb, people to see, and hungry to feed.
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It's taken me some years, but I'm finally bored of Netflix. I just can't find anything else worth watching. My lady is more willing to plumb the depths than I am, but she finishes only about one movie in four, and the rate of watching TV shows is even poorer, though when she watches one episode she tends to watch the entire series. Whereas the list of TV shows I'll watch is basically restricted to cartoons, science fiction, and ow my balls (AKA MXC.) I've watched the cartoons I want to watch and the Anime i
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It's taken me some years, but I'm finally bored of Netflix.
I did the 30-day free trial of Netflix in Dec-Jan. I got bored with the choices available before the end of the free trial.
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How about those "new release" that are on the new release list for months and months?
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I guess I'll have to see some people or feed some hungry. Got a bum knee.
Shitty TV is great background for doing physical therapy. (5 shoulder exercises and 3 knee exercises) x 3 sets x 20 reps each x both sides = one episode of Helix.
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Anime on Netflix is streamed in both japanese subbed and english dubbed. Check your Chromecast/Roku settings (audio track, cc/subtitles). I abhor dubbed anime and I've got 0 complaints with Netflix.
Additionally, I've read that Viz Video is coming to Netflix this year (2014) bringing Ranma (the one anime I prefer dubbed) woot.
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[i'm assuming an apple tv/xbox/whatever has these settings, no clue]
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Anime on Netflix is streamed in both japanese subbed and english dubbed. Check your Chromecast/Roku settings (audio track, cc/subtitles)
I'm using a Wii most of the time. I don't know if that has anything to do with anything. The Netflix client for Android (my other STB) is shitty for use on a TV, which is sad. So I use the Wii. 480p is good enough for me. I only have 5Mbps anyway, so why bother fucking with HD? Can't do anything else on the connection at the same time.
Re:Um. WRONG. (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's one of the biggest problems with netflix and other streaming services... Your limited by your bandwidth, which is also likely to go down during peak times (ie when you want to watch), and heavy use streaming means you can't do anything else on the connection either because its too slow or because your activity would cause the stream to stall.
I want a service where i can download and watch later, i have limited peak time bandwidth usage and unlimited late at night, at night the network is less congested therefore faster and i'm generally asleep so i don't care if it makes the connection laggy, and downloads are not hampered by fluctuations in performance.
With a downloaded file i can take it offline to watch somewhere i have no or poor connectivity, once the file is downloaded i can watch it knowing there wont be any dropouts, i can download overnight in whatever quality i want , even a 1080p movie will be finished by the morning on a 5mbps connection.
Streaming is often utterly impractical at the times you most want to watch something, eg:
on a train/bus/coach/car - the motion makes 3g slower, tunnels make it drop out entirely as does travelling in/out of service areas...
mobile data is often expensive...
abroad - roaming data is even more expensive
wifi is not always available, and even when it is sometimes its unusably slow and you trying to stream only compounds the problem...
On the other hand, a usb stick full of stuff you downloaded the previous night works very well in all of these situations. I travel a lot, and frequently find myself sitting around bored waiting for something, while having poor or no internet connection.
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Top Gear can be torrented or sometimes watched on Streetfire if they don't fuck it up.
If you want to watch the latest Top Gear (or Fifth Gear), go here - http://www.finalgear.com/ [finalgear.com]
Re:Um. WRONG. (Score:5, Funny)
Dammit, I knew I'd been doing it wrong! Here I'd been climbing the hungry and feeding the mountains. That explains the restraining order.
Re:Um. WRONG. (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting, because, to me, most movies that win lots of those awards are either overdone romance dramas or center left political propaganda schlock. Talk about formulaic and dull. They make those teen vampire serial shows passed off as 'science' fiction seem tolerable....for a moment...at a distance. Hell, these people think 'gravity' is good science fiction, so their opinions count for exactly nothing to me.
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Interesting, because, to me, most movies that win lots of those awards [...]
Yeah. Whatever. The point stands. Make any list of 'good movies' you like using ANY criteria you want, and most of them won't be on netflix.
The only exception would be if your list was literally "good movies I found on netflix today"... and even that would fail after a few months due to netflix only having temporary rights to many of the movies in its library.
Hell, these people think 'gravity' is good science fiction, so their opin
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Sure, if you are satisfied by most of the top 200 movies on IMDB not being available there...
Welcome to living in Canada with the benefit of "Cancon" [wikipedia.org]dictating your movie viewing habits. I should add, it's just like living in any other country that isn't the US...isn't it so nice? Well anyway, netflix is perfectly fine and for someone who cut the cord and wants to watch something and doesn't really give a rats ass about "trendy award winner" it continues to be just fine. Then again, I can't get things like hulu, or amazon, or itunes(the viewing stuff) up here because of "viewership" rules anyway
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A few good ones surrounded by tons of grade B movies with descriptions that start with "Not to be confused with the recent mega hit..."
Re:Um. WRONG. (Score:5, Informative)
Most academy award winners? Not present.
Most Oscar winners? Not present.
Those are the same thing.
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>Most academy award winners? Not present. ...
>Most Oscar winners? Not present.
>Most Sundance Film Festival Winners? Not present.
And not a fuck was given. There's more than enough to watch. If a movie maker doesn't want me to see their previous movie, that's their own business. I'm not going out of my way to help them distribute their product to me.
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Everything was available everywhere. Napster delivered MP3s, which worked on every device, including the dirt-cheap Chinese players. Netflix works on devices blessed by Netflix. I have a few friends who work there (in the OpenConnect group) and they say that there are about 80 types of devices (all with special streaming requirements) that they have to support. The Napster equivalent would just let me download H.264 video files with no DRM. I could play them on any device, including my old WebOS tablet
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All true. These aren't present. We end up watching Hulu/Comcast most of the time, and every week or so rent or use "noncommercial distribution" for a prime movie or show. (Often, you can't even rent/buy a particular movie online, thus the noncommercial options)
Today, we watched "The day the Earth stood still"... a wickedly good movie, even if in black & white. Yeah, 100% satisfying...
Truly, I don't understand them making episodes otherwise streamed not available for viewing historically. Don't more eyeb
Three words (Score:2)
Apple TV
What about it?
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Apple TV
What about it?
It satisfies my streaming needs. 2 dozen channels, everything from breaking bad to game of thrones.
Re:Three words (Score:5, Insightful)
"2 dozen channels"
You must have missed the part of the article that laments the fact that "the future of digital TV and movies is destined to be fragmented across several services..."
If you have to hop between 2 dozen services to get to your content, whereas 'pirates' can get basically anything they want from one central location, that is where the media industry has failed.
Re:Three words (Score:5, Insightful)
The media industry has a cunning plan, you see. Rather than give the customer what they want, they'll sue anyone who tries to bypass the complex system their incompetence and greed has generated.
Always remember, no matter who wins or loses, lawyers win.
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Re:Um. WRONG. (Score:5, Interesting)
We WISH we had netflix. And our only pay-tv option Sky is not on-demand, stupidly expensive per month (even without the movie channels) AND complete shit. Netflix is a dream in comparison and it is 10-20x the price per month!
But do not worry folks, uto(rrent)pia is already upon us.
Here is my message to the movie/TV industry:
Until you get you act together and provide a decent, convenient service comparable to what the US has I will be getting them for free. And I wont feel at all guilty regardless of what any corporate shill says in the media or here on these forums - if you want to be anti-competitive then I simply will not play the game AT ALL.
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And even if you had netflix, you'd still pirate movies and tv shows. You'd just use a different excuse.
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I rent lots of movies, and "steal" only what isn't available locally at any price.
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When I was a child I thought as a child. Now that I'm grown I've moved past childish ways.
Don't ascribe to others your behavior. Some of us take pride in being self-sufficient consumers.
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So? I see no ethical problem time shifting content that has already been paid for. If you use the internet for that, so what?
The ethical issue arises if the content had not been paid for at all.
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Besides which if I have to do something illegal (VPN and what amounts to identity fraud) I might as well just pirate since it is all the same.
My money is here if they want it...but they apparently don't. I am not playing a rigged and unfair game if there is an alternative.
So you can take your shill and shove it where the sun don't shine. Your straw man holds no water.
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https://mediahint.com/ [mediahint.com]
you are welcome.
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I live in NZ.
We WISH we had netflix.
Use a US DNS service (not a proxy), I live in Australia and that's how I get Hulu even though it technically isn't available here.
Re: Um. WRONG. (Score:3)
A hybrid DNS/Proxy service can really come in handy. Theoretically you could set it up to route around through different regions for services like Netflix.
*cough* unblock dash *cough* dot com *cough*
Seems that Canadian Winter cold is getting the best of me.
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What you really need is a US Proxying service that proxies specific URLs.
You can get Netflix with a DNS Proxy service; that uses DNS to selectively proxy certain URLs to defeat the Geoblocking, but NOT proxy the content connections for Netflix.
Yes that's what I mean, while you could do it through a proxy the actual content is too large and that would be too costly so using one of the DNS services like proxyDNS is the way to go.
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Go buy yourself a Raspbery Pi, download the boot-image for Rasbmc, boot it up, go have a coffee and a sandwich.
When you get back -- you'll have all the TV and movies you could want -- for the cost of your monthly internet connection.
If Netflix was available here, I'd pay for it -- but since it's not (legally) available to NZers, I figure that the movie/TV producers don't want my money and use XBMC instead. I'm not going to force them to take my cash if they don't want it -- but they better not complain ab
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So you're violating their terms of service and effectively pirating the content anyway...
Re:Um. WRONG. (Score:5, Interesting)
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I realize you're on a tech forum, but given your last comment I feel compelled to ask if you realize the difference between "streaming" off a local harddrive and streaming over the internet. Of course one is going to seek quicker than the other!
It's also yet another reason why those of us who don't like online streaming.. don't like online streaming. And there are so many reasons why online streaming is a step in the wrong direction.
Technology has advanced far enough that these days caches should be massive and seeking should be instant. That the player even needs to talk to the server and rebuffer content when rewinding is a failure of the interface.
Re:Um. WRONG. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think Netflix is anywhere near 100% satisfying but it comes pretty close. It's basically a replacement for 30 or so channels on cable that are dominated by re-runs.
However, I think the idea that this has to be some sort of one stop option is bogus and stupid. There's no good reason that multiple services can't do the job. We already have multiple channels in the old model.
Netflix + Amazon(PPV) together is a pretty complete solution.
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Netflix is 100% satisfying. WTF back country bullshit throttled cable internet service are you using?
To view cable for me is at least $30 a month, Netflix is $8. I get the local and FOX (The Simpsons) over the air at no cost,
"They just aren’t good enough." there is a bit of truth there. But I'm ok with what's on Netflix just not at a 100% level.
Re:Um. RIGHT... (Score:5, Interesting)
Netflix is 100% satisfying. WTF back country bullshit throttled cable internet service are you using?
Netflix is utter crap if you want to watch new movies. It's the reason why I dumped Netflix a year ago. Amazon and Redbox both get new movies much faster and you can stream them. I'll grant you that Netflix does a good job at adding to their impressive old movie collection and they tend to add TV series fairly quickly. They may meet your needs, but there are many of us left wanting.
A combination of Redbox, Amazon Prime, Comcast, and NHL Game Center Live does it for me...
It's still streaming (Score:2)
It doesn't matter to the original story whether someone uses Netflix or combination of streaming services, it's still streaming. Both of you are happy with your selection. I'm happy with mine, I use Netflix and Apple TV. So based on this empirical study of 3 people we can say that 3 out of 3 are happy with movie streaming. The author of the article has failed.
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Netflix is 100% satisfying. WTF back country bullshit throttled cable internet service are you using?
Comcast
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Because it doesn't make the right people enough money for them to set that up.
Notice, this isn't about making money. Businesses can make money doing what you have asked for.
This is about making enough money. Greed.
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What is missing seems to be the bandwidth via telco and ISP monopolies and cartels around the world.
If you don't pay for expensive dedicated networking
Re:Physical Stores (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont think this is really the problem. I'm on a mid range ADSL2 connection and Netflix streams fine for me, as does youtube and most silverlight based sites (Silverlight was a misconcieved technology that nobody wanted, but to its credit, its video streaming worked exceptionally well).
The problem is straight up the fact that some of what I want to watch is on Netflix, some of it is on hula and yet more is just straight up not available.
Unless I use Pirate bay.
If the industry wants people to stop downloading unauthorized copies, maaaaybe they could consideri doing like them music industry did and fixing this. I havent downloaded an unauthorized mp3 in years because iTunes and spotify just work.
Re:Physical Stores (Score:4, Insightful)
I can walk into a physical store 2 miles from my house, drop 5 bucks for a movie, and if I bring it back within 24 hrs, I get 4 bucks back. /movie to stream any video I want whenever I want?
Why can't I just pay $1
Well if the movie studios had their way, you wouldn't be able to rent movies cheaply on disc either. They have no interest in customer satisfaction, convenience, or affordability.
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A lot of that those because the customers are sheep. Netflix is an amazing catalog and amazing back catalogue, sure there's some pretty bad movies on there but there are a lot of good ones of frankly are every bit as satisfying as Hollywood's AAA titles. You just have to A) be a willing to seek them out and B) accept that you can't talk about the water cooler cause probably nobody else seen them.
The real problem is consumers of been sold on the idea they can't enjoy film that did not cost few hundred mil
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You can't pay $1 / movie to stream any movie whenever you want because that's not a sustainable revenue model.
Financially successful movies typically demand big budgets, and these same financially successful movies typically make the bulk of their return during the initial cinema run. This is followed by the home-theatre / pay-per-view release which aims to reach both diehard fans and untapped markets that value it enough to actually pay for it. Once that's been worn out it'll head for a second theatre rele
Re:Business as usual. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would anyone want to stream something outside of sports?
From my own experience the quality of streamed services available to me, frankly, suck. They are either low quality, embedded in some kind of stupid player, or system resource hungry. Why would I want that when I could queue something up on a torrent, get a high quality rip that is encoded in a way that my raspberry can play it happily and it sits nicely into the lovely media centre interface I'm running?
I pay my money every year to get access to the motogp streams from motogp.com Every race I have to stuff around plugging my laptop into my tv and then making sure ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE is touching the internet. That way I can get their 720 stream and usually it doesn't have too many buffering pauses in it. If my wife decides to surf the internet on her phone at the same time then bam, buffering. It sucks. But it is the only option to watch the races realtime outside of a foxtel connection which I would never use for anything else.
The next Jammie Thomas (Score:2)
Why would anyone want to stream something outside of sports?
Because they're already paying for a forced package deal that includes both sports and other programming. It's called cable.
Why would I want that when I could queue something up on a torrent
Lawful services don't run the risk of making their users the next Jammie Thomas.
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I think you missed what I meant about sports. Sports is the only thing, that I can think of anyway, where you really want to watch it while it's happening. I know that if I know the result of a match I don't really care about watching a replay. Also, even though I know this isn't the case, psychologically when you are watching it live you can feel like you can influence the result if you scream at the tv.
You are absolutely correct about the Jammie Thomas. But Jammie is an aberration. Laws obviously dif
Re: (Score:2)
Why would anyone want to stream something outside of sports?
Because someone plans on watching something once. There are exceptions, such as a single-digit-year-old child's favorite animated film, but as far as I can tell, the majority of adults watch the majority of movies once. And because something is not a new release and therefore not available for rental from the local Redbox machine.
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ok so just delete it after watching. its gonna consume the same amount of data anyway. and who knows, maybe after the first watch you might wanna keep it for another watch. also, rewind and forward sucks hard on streaming.
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We have two kids & a big dog. Netflix is handy for kid-stuff, but I haven't made a dent in it. Take tonight. Bathed the kids, read stories, kissed 'em good night then walked the dog. Now it's 9:30. I'll watch a little news, then hit the hay for my 6 AM start.
Get back to me when I'm retired and the problem's been solved.
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