YouTube TV Adds a $20 Monthly Upgrade for 4K Support and Offline Viewing (techcrunch.com) 63
Today, YouTube TV announced a 4K Plus add-on package with offline downloads, 5.1 Dolby audio, and features that make it easier to watch live sports. From a report: YouTube TV is already one of the pricier streaming services out there -- at $64.99 per month, you might not save much money by choosing YouTube in lieu of your cable service. Hulu + Live TV is priced the same, but offers a Disney+ and ESPN+ add-on for a total of $72.99 per month. But if you want to kick your video quality (and your monthly bill) up a notch, you can now enable 4K streaming for an extra $19.99 per month, bringing your grand total to $84.98 monthly.
The 4K Plus add-on package will also allow subscribers to download shows from DVR to watch offline -- currently, that's not possible on the standard $64.99 per month package. Meanwhile, the 5.1 Dolby audio capabilities will be a free addition for all YouTube TV members -- in a blog post, the company says this has been one of users' "biggest requests." The sports upgrades also come at no additional cost -- one new feature will let viewers jump to key plays and specific highlight moments when watching a DVR recording or trying to catch up live.
The 4K Plus add-on package will also allow subscribers to download shows from DVR to watch offline -- currently, that's not possible on the standard $64.99 per month package. Meanwhile, the 5.1 Dolby audio capabilities will be a free addition for all YouTube TV members -- in a blog post, the company says this has been one of users' "biggest requests." The sports upgrades also come at no additional cost -- one new feature will let viewers jump to key plays and specific highlight moments when watching a DVR recording or trying to catch up live.
YouTube TV is now just cable (Score:2)
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Re: YouTube TV is now just cable (Score:1)
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I don't mind this, after all, if you wanted TV, cutting the cord was going to do the same thing in the end.
What I object to is the fact more and more studios are refusing to allow purchases or rentals of the content. I mean, I like to buy my TV on DVD box sets (preferably Blu-Ray), but those are becoming increasingly rare - lots of studios stopped releasing box sets - some still have DVDs (annoying if you were collecting the Blu-Ray).
But now, it seems a lot of them aren't doing the long term rental thing an
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Meanwhile, vinyl made a hell of a comeback. #logic
Sure, you can buy the record player. They just don't tell you the needle is pay-per-groove.
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Vinyl sucks, but it hosts so much nostalgia that marketers saw money signs. But it's honestly just marketing.
Why? Have you checked out the turntables they have out there? Not just the Crosley brand ones - but given those use the same mechanism as many more expensive units, well. That's right, there's only like a couple of turntable mechanisms out there, all made in Ch
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Matsushita (Panasonic) started making Technics 1200s... the only pair of turntables anyone should ever buy or have bought, really... again a few years ago. And a quick googling shows that the Mk 7 is indeed still made in Japan. Not that you'd need new Mk 7s though. You're definitely right in that those things are tanks and pretty much indestructible. Hell... you could get a '70s-vintage pair of Mk 2s; and they'd serve you just as well as a modern pair. The Mk 7s just buy you *another* 40 years of servi
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pay-per-groove.
Groove on YouTube for free [youtube.com]
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Streaming services are fast becoming more expensive than cable. Reason: Content. Content is the reason why your cable bill is high. That does not change when you switch to streaming. You can lower cost by eliminating content. That's all.
Sure looks like cable (Score:4, Informative)
Works and priced just like cable. Fuck that - the excessive fees is why I cut the cord. I guess they think they can fool the post-cable generation that hasn't seen a cable bill before, won't work for too long.
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Works and priced just like cable. Fuck that - the excessive fees is why I cut the cord. I guess they think they can fool the post-cable generation that hasn't seen a cable bill before, won't work for too long.
Yes it will.
You vastly underestimate mass ignorance. And a matching desire to not merely keep up with the Joneses, but beat the living shit out of them with narcissistic one-upmanship.
People will stream 4K from their phones and not even watch it, just to show they have 4K.
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They are still figuring out that their product isn't worth the price they want, including annual increases no matter what the economy as a whole is doing. In 5 years the top tier of YouTube TV will be in the $150 range (for on demand, 4K, whatever you'll pay extra for), mark my words.
I just don't want the cable experience, even if tis streamed. And frankly I don't want to give YouTube my money at all.
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Honestly, OTT seems like a bullshit industry term that centers around classifying streaming in way media companies can understand to apply the right fees. Netflix is just another Internet site, it happens to specialize in high quality video.
I don't want bundling no matter how its delivered. Again, part of the point of cutting the cord. Having to pay for streaming service individually (a la carte) means that I'm going to have fewer of them, if for no other reason than to keep the cost down. I don't want s
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Honestly, OTT seems like a bullshit industry term that centers around classifying streaming in way media companies can understand to apply the right fees. Netflix is just another Internet site, it happens to specialize in high quality video.
I don't want bundling no matter how its delivered. Again, part of the point of cutting the cord. Having to pay for streaming service individually (a la carte) means that I'm going to have fewer of them, if for no other reason than to keep the cost down. I don't want some overpriced package curated by a profiteer.
Netflix really isn’t a OTT service (no one cares how you feel about it, it is an industry term. Get over it). OTT generally refers to services like the article is talking about: linear TV packages of traditional cable TV channels delivered by a third party over the internet vs direct from a cable/sat provider. Netflix doesn’t do that.
Why not? (Score:2)
Harbor for Rogue Mariners... (Score:3)
No sports (Score:2)
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ATT can DIAF, though not soon enough for me
Google is odious in many ways but ATT is the goddamned devil
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People wanted ala carte. Unintended consequences? (Score:2)
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Except we didn't get a la carte channels. You still pay for a whole mess of shit you don't want because of the carriage fees and bundling that the content owners demand.
I don't give a fuck about HGTV, Food Network, Lifetime, Nickelodeon, etc., yet good luck finding a live streaming service that doesn't carry all of them just to get access to Discovery. You couldn't pay me to watch Fox News, yet I'm still paying Fox News. It's the exact same shit, just delivered over a public packet-switched network runni
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It doesn't work like that. They know full well that you only watch 15 channels, and to you, those 15 channels are worth $50. The other 85 channels are worth $0 or as near to that as makes no odds. If everyone were to pick the channels they wanted, they'd be paying the same amount as they are now. They'd find a way to make you pay the $50 you're already willing to p
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QVC pays to be on the system they do not change pe (Score:2)
QVC pays to be on the system they do not change per sub like ESPN that is like $10/mo sub now days.
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I buy just the services I want, so I don't pay more than what I did for just cable. That's the entire point of ala carte.
The hidden fees alone for cable cost more than a netflix subscription.
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One regulation... (Score:2)
Bad for Disney, as they barely have enough content to run a service as it is, but good for consumers.
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Youtube has killed themselves (Score:2, Interesting)
Youtube pulled their feed off of Roku, cutting off access to 50+ million viewers.
People nervous about cutting the cord eventually find the cnet.com channel guide ( https://www.cnet.com/news/hulu... [cnet.com] ) then pick through the list and find their choice.
After getting local TV channels working, they take the plunge with Roku, then realize they can combine their existing subscriptions into one clean and simple to navigate interface. With Roku, you discover their own channel adds movies, but there are about a dozen
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Re:Youtube has killed themselves (Score:5, Informative)
Except that everything you said is basically irrelevant. Every Roku user out there was not a YouTube TV subscriber, and every YouTube TV subscriber was not a Roku user. Sure, there was some YouTube TV subscribers using a Roku, but they can still watch their YouTube TV through the regular YouTube app. And then anyone with a Chromecast with Android TV, Nvidia Shield TV, AppleTV, Android phone, Android tablet, iPhone, iPad, or a web browser can still watch YouTube TV without ever hearing about one company's attempt to bigfoot the other in contract negotiations.
In the end, the only change is that there isn't a big icon on the home screen for YouTube TV on Roku, just a YouTube icon that gives you both services in one place. The horror!
Roku tried to play hardball, and they struck out because they didn't see the knuckleball where Google just combined the apps.
Paying for YouTube? (Score:2)
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YouTube != YouTube TV.
5.1 Dolby Needs an $20 4K fee? WTF? (Score:2)
Other cable gives you that with HD / basic service.
and $20 /mo for 4K dish, comcast, and directv don't have an 4K fee.
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5.1 Dolby Needs an $20 4K fee? WTF?
The summary is wrong. The article says the 5.1 Dolby audio capabilities will be a free addition for all YouTube TV members.
Although why it took them so long is a mystery, when 5.1 at home has been a thing for over 20 years, ever since DVDs came out.
Re: 5.1 Dolby Needs an $20 4K fee? WTF? (Score:1)
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Why it took so long? Bandwidth. Adding Dolby AC3 audio adds up to 6Mbps depending on the fidelity and compression. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand people streaming at any given point in time, and you end up with quite the chunk of bandwidth necessary.
Now I have a feeling they'll have it turned off by default, so only people with 5.1 or better setups will go looking for it, but I'm glad it's finally here because it's been sorely missing in my setup. Every single other source of content I have has
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Adding Dolby AC3 audio adds up to 6Mbps depending on the fidelity and compression.
Well first, AC3 maxes out at 640kbps. 6Mbps is "Dolby Digital Plus", which supports up to 15.1 audio channels, so I don't think you're going to see that coming from YouTube. Second, 384kbps AC3 is "good enough" for 5.1, just like the 128K MP3 that you usually get from YouTube for stereo is "good enough". There's nothing stopping them from down-sampling AC3 to 384K if they want.
But I just don't see the value of video (as opposed to computer displays) beyond 1080p. In fact, I'm actually fine with 480p most o
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Yep, my bad. 640kbps is correct. And multiplied by thousands of streams, it's still a shitload of bandwidth.
4k resolution is what makes those large format screens worth buying, because you don't get screen door effect from having pixels the size of finishing nail heads. It enables a large screen in a mid-size room without degrading the resolution you actually see.
That being said, I'm not throwing out my 1080p 55" until I have reason to, and 55" 1080p viewed at 10 feet has me not seeing individual pixels.
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It's Filling up anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
YouTube is filling up with ads anyway. Last night it got to the ridiculous stage. For a 15 minute item I got 2 long form ads at the start and short ?5? second ones every few minutes and then 2 long ones during the "credits" at the end. It is making the shorter videos not worthwhile any more.
I can see why so many of them mention Patreon and other ways!
Re:It's Filling up anyway (Score:4, Informative)
Newpipe [newpipe.net]
ublock origin [github.com]
Unintended consequences of Competition (Score:1)
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You're seeing correlation, but you have the cause wrong. The content providers periodically will renegotiate their carriage fees with distribution services - cable, streaming, etc. And they always want to raise prices when they do.
Thus all carriers have to raise prices as well, or eat the delta. Guess which one they are going to choose?
Re: Unintended consequences of Competition (Score:1)
5.1 (Score:2)
>"YouTube TV announced [...] with offline downloads, 5.1 Dolby audio"
I wouldn't pay for ANY service that didn't include at least 5.1 surround sound. Tried Discovery+ a few weeks ago. Everything on it is stereo. Yet every program was mastered in 5.1 and every one of those programs is sent through cable TV is in 5.1. It was like being transported back to the 80's. Called customer service, complained bitterly, sent them an Email, and then canceled the service. HD video with low-quality audio is like h
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High fidelity 5.1 costs bandwidth. An AC3 stream can be up to 6Mbps just by itself without a frame of video attached. This is why 5.1 sound always defaults to off on literally every video app, and why it lags behind non-public video networks that planned for that kind of bandwidth when they did their frequency allocations.
And unless you want to play games with latency or quality you can't really switch out the codecs, because your viewing device needs to be able to transcode back to Dolby AC3 or DTS so th
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An AC3 stream can be up to 6Mbps just by itself
I replied to this another post of yours, but that is incorrect. AC3 goes up to 640k, but gives passable 5.1 at 384k. It's only "Dolby Digital Plus" that goes to 6Mbit, but it supports up to 15.1 channels of audio, which I don't think you will be seeing from YouTube any time soon.
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You are correct. 640kbps is the right figure. However, when multiplied by tens of thousands of users, the effect is the same - just at a different magnitude.
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>"High fidelity 5.1 costs bandwidth. An AC3 stream can be up to 6Mbps just by itself without a frame of video attached"
Trust me, the 5.1 (AC3) they are sending over CATV is nowhere near 6Mb/s. ATSC and cable use UP to 448kbit/s, which is completely adequate. A reasonable quality 5.1 isn't much larger than stereo when compared to what is being using in the 1080p video.
>"because your viewing device needs to be able to transcode back to Dolby AC3 or DTS so that you have proper passthrough support"
Every
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The 0.5% of the world who cares about watching Discovery in 5.1 enough to cancel doesn't show up on their RADAR.
I remember when getting HD cost extra. At some point it was costing them more to also send SD on broadcast so they stopped offering it.
The same will happen for 4K and 5.1 or Atmos or whatever. For now the price of bandwidth is still too high.
A Redbox bluray is still the best value in bitrate.
Offline? How about Buffering First (Score:2)
I know they want to preserve traffic and not buffer an entire video in an age where kids (my niece included) just change videos every 5-10 seconds, but can they not detect I'm 7 minutes into a 50 minute v
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Once a week I have to drive through a rural area where I lose internet connection for 2-3 minutes.
Wait, you use YouTube while driving? I mean, okay, just maybe it's the back screen in a minivan, but even then, where are you taking your family that you "have to" drive through a rural area once a week?