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Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

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Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#221
post #2

I can understand that the media companies don't want to cooperate with Netflix by denying them access to their IP but it's sad that they haven't been able to launch a real alternative to Netflix during all these years.

They're hoping that you'll buy the physical media. That's been the plan with Redbox - force a 28-90 day delay on new releases so customers will rush right out and just buy it on DVD. reality is that people usually just wait.

The studios don't really want to cooperate. They want complete control over how you watch their product.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know; I have to keep bringing it up because people keep pretending they're owed entertainment. This entitled generation is just disappointing.

The reason the comparison is objectionable is because 'theft' is not the same as 'failing to pay a fee'. Theft implies a non-duplicatable object has passed from the possession of one entity to the possession of another thus depriving the first entity of any use or advantage from it. While we might disagree on the moral shading of copyright infringement can we agree that piracy and theft are different things?

JoeAltmaier didn't actually say, "piracy and shoplifting are both examples of theft". It was more like, "piracy and shoplifting are examples of taking something valuable to which you are not entitled simply because it's convenient".

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with à la carte offerings. The failure is charging $10/month for every service.

iTunes has à la carte television with a small lead time. It's had it for years. I guess what people want is unsustainably cheap à la carte offerings.

Yup.

I have Netflix and iTunes. I nearly always end up using iTunes. It's more expensive but iTunes UK has a great selection and I only pay when I use it. Also it streams to my Apple TV. For me the additional cost is worth the control and selection.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#224

In the end, the licence owners will lose. Spotify makes it useless to download music illegally because it's so much easier and pleasant to use spotify. If they don't want to play fair game with Netflix, people will just keep / start again downloading the movies they want to watch, because it will be easier.

>Spotify makes it useless to download music illegally because it's so much easier and pleasant to use spotify.

Spotify has to pay for the content they're streaming. As of now, they're losing money with that model. You might like it as a customer, but content owners and creators don't seem to, and they hold the cards.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#225
post #28

It sucks that Netflix is pushing their own content as a solution. Don't get me wrong, some of their own content is great, but I don't want to subscribe to 10 different streaming services that all have their own original content, I want to subscribe to one. Netflix--and others, like Amazon Prime--are becoming less and less worthwhile, and piracy is becoming more and more convenient again.

Last weekend my wife and I wanted to watch the movie Goat. It was pretty recently in theaters, so we didn't expect it to be on Netflix. We searched HBO Now, Hulu, Starz, and all of the other video streaming services that we have (and pay money for!). We found two options - rent it on Google Play Movies, or rent it through Amazon Prime. Now, we wanted to Chromecast it, and Amazon (to the best of my knowledge) does not…

Well, if you want to keep using a Google service, you could open Google.com and search for the mkv you want. Use intitle:index.of to get directory listings. Tons of stuff on Google.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#227
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two issues here, the fragmentation of the services, and poorly implemented services. I have really really tried to use Google Play for video because it seems to work on the broadest array of devices, but the service itself is a second rate experience. Too many clicks, laggy unresponsive UI, silly JS driven pages that require reloading in order to start working again... I too really want to do things the way…

I don't know why Google doesn't make any effort to tell users this, but: you can access all of your Google Play video through YouTube. Just search YouTube for the thing you bought, and you should find the full-length legal video marked as "purchased" that you can watch with YouTube's interface, casting and all.

We rented a movie on Google Play and this was literally the only way we could watch it. It didn't even show up in our library on Google play. I have no idea but I was just lucky to have thought to check YouTube as well.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#228
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devils Advocate: The alternative of "not consuming" digital products is less valuable to creators than "consuming for free." Allow me to reference a very famous Bill Gates quote on Chinese piracy of software: "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." There are more ways to monetize…

I don't know. I think there is a difference between applications and platforms like Adobe Software and Windows which often get pirated but at times hugely cost prohibitive to new entrants (e.g. students, young people) vs pirating movies/shows. I'm persistently left unconvinced by moral arguments on show/movie piracy, especially in an age where there's no shortage of new content being created, be it on YouTube, your l…

Regardless of whether there's a moral argument or not at the individual level, at an aggregate there's plenty of evidence to suggest that piracy will be widespread so long as the legal channels to obtain the content are more cumbersome.

There's a clear correlation between ease of access and reduced piracy in music and games. TV and movies are in a funny place right now where in some ways the situation is arguably worse than it was 10 years ago - back then you could be reasonably assured that you could find whatever you wanted at Blockbuster and it would work in your DVD player. Nowadays finding which providers have the rights to the content you want to watch, and whether they can be watched on your proprietary devices can be a nightmare.

Meanwhile, the piracy route for the most part works completely seamlessly. Using Popcorn Time for me is a better experience than the legal route - that's indicative of major problems.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two issues here, the fragmentation of the services, and poorly implemented services. I have really really tried to use Google Play for video because it seems to work on the broadest array of devices, but the service itself is a second rate experience. Too many clicks, laggy unresponsive UI, silly JS driven pages that require reloading in order to start working again... I too really want to do things the way…

Another sub-aspect of the poor implementation is oppressive DRM and player restrictions. Netflix and Prime are finally acceptable on Linux thanks to Pipelight but that solution's not for everyone. If you want a single settop box, you might run PI with XBMC/Kodi but you can't get DRM'ed things on there. So you need a Roku or AppleTV for your DRM, a chromecast for things coming from a PC, and you still need a Kodi for…

There's a lot of fragmentation, but things are getting better. You can do all that with a FireTV stick for $40. It runs DRM apps, has a Kodi fork MrMC in the store (or you can sideload Kodi), Miracast for general screen casting, apps for other casting protocols, a YouTube app for Google content.

Against Balkanization, Fan.TV and other guide apps combine all your streaming sources and antenna TV into one. And everything can be controlled from your phone.

There's still room for improvement, but we have it pretty good. The biggest problem is figuring out what hardware and software you need with all the options out there. We're just spoiled for choice.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#230
post #108

I always appreciate that Hulu has its Criterion collection section. And I very recently signed up for Seeso for $4 a month because I was craving some Monty Python's Flying Circus. I don't plan on keeping it long term, maybe just a month, to get it out of my system. And then I still end up digging through shitty cheap roku channels occasionally to find stuff. Mostly just schlock, but I saw, for example, niche titles l…

Hulu is about to lose the Criterion Collection license. Turner Classic Movies picked up the license for a new service called Filmstruck that's launching (in the US) next week. https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/4252-filmstruck-laun...

Oh great. Just what the market has been wanting... yet another streaming service.

Sigh.

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