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Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

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Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#31

Post by bamboozled »

mgleason_3 wrote: post #27

Cable is a stinking pile of sog stuff. 90% of the channels are garbage and the picture quality sucks. I recently put an old-fashioned $40 antenna in my attic. It pulls in 156 channels (I’m in OC, CA about 40mi from Mt Wilson and 80mi from San Diego). Compared with the 148 channels Spectrum provided (about 1/2 where duplicates) the quality is better on the few I watch intermittently (PBS, ABC, CBS...) The crazy thing…

The only thing is, once the streaming market has dominated, there is nothing stopping it to also turning into crap full of advertisements.

I remember when cable was cheap and as-free.

The transition looks good because it has too (to lure customers away from cable). My bet is that it’s only a matter of time till “personilized ads” are forced upon you.

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#32

Post by scarface74 »

ahupp wrote: post #28
mrich wrote: post #3

I do wonder how Netflix can stay competitive in this market. They already have lots of debt, new competitors coming up, stock price is quite high. It seems they need to produce or license new content, so people do not cancel. But licensing content gets harder as competitors start their own services.

85% of new spending at netflix is for original content. That's building a huge moat that will be hard for others to cross. I'd personally cancel our Hulu or HBO subscriptions before we touched Netflix.

That’s the problem. Any original content that Netflix funds it only has one way to recoup it - subscription sells.

Any money that Disney makes from Disney+ is just additional profit. It’s already recouped most of its costs through theatrical releases, commercial network tv, video on demand, etc.

Netflix also has to borrow money externally. The other companies getting into streaming have free cash flow to prop up streaming.

Even Apple can operate its streaming service at a loss and its just a rounding error.

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#33

Post by mgleason_3 »

guiomie wrote: post #30
mgleason_3 wrote: post #27

Cable is a stinking pile of sog stuff. 90% of the channels are garbage and the picture quality sucks. I recently put an old-fashioned $40 antenna in my attic. It pulls in 156 channels (I’m in OC, CA about 40mi from Mt Wilson and 80mi from San Diego). Compared with the 148 channels Spectrum provided (about 1/2 where duplicates) the quality is better on the few I watch intermittently (PBS, ABC, CBS...) The crazy thing…

156 stations with one antenna in one location, really?

I know right? It’s amazing how many side channels it stacked up. I’ll admit there’s a lot of garbage and languages I don’t speak - that I should delete..

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#34

Post by BadassFractal »

mgleason_3 wrote: post #27

Cable is a stinking pile of sog stuff. 90% of the channels are garbage and the picture quality sucks. I recently put an old-fashioned $40 antenna in my attic. It pulls in 156 channels (I’m in OC, CA about 40mi from Mt Wilson and 80mi from San Diego). Compared with the 148 channels Spectrum provided (about 1/2 where duplicates) the quality is better on the few I watch intermittently (PBS, ABC, CBS...) The crazy thing…

It's somewhat reminiscent of Uber/Lyft vs taxis, minus the sketchy business practices. The convenience and personalization of streamed content is so far superior to the previous solution.

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#35

Post by radicalbyte »

BubRoss wrote: post #18
mrich wrote: post #3

I do wonder how Netflix can stay competitive in this market. They already have lots of debt, new competitors coming up, stock price is quite high. It seems they need to produce or license new content, so people do not cancel. But licensing content gets harder as competitors start their own services.

Netflix takes in 1.4 Billion dollars every month. All the content they add stays and builds up value. If they want to branch out, they can start doing live events. https://www.statista.com/statistics/273883/netflixs-quarterl...

I'm shocked that they haven't started streaming women's football (soccer). It's growing like crazy and compared to the men's game it's extremely cheap.

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#36

Post by paavoova »

flexie wrote: post #2

The attitude towards streaming and the whole video on demand idea 10-15 years ago reminds me so much on the attitude towards electric vehicles today: - Quality is too low - speed is too slow - many people want to own their movie, not just rent it - people don’t want to watch movies on a computer - the large studios and cable companies will never allow it And within little more than a decade that all changed.

Quality is still an issue for streaming. Anyone who's ever compared a blu-ray to what Netflix offers knows it's night and day, especially for grainy old films. Netflix so-called "1080p" frequently has compression artifacts, and banding (most visible in dark shots). There's also disturbing aliasing (most visible in logos and on-screen fonts, causing jagged edges) which is more reminiscent of DVD-era MPEG-2 encoding than modern codecs. I'm constantly put off anytime I find a title on Netflix the minute I compare to it bluray screencaps (good resources are blu-ray.com or caps-a-holic) and notice the glaring contrast in quality.

And this is only for the titles Netflix offers in HD: there are many, probably due to licensing issues, which are offered only in SD resolution (which can be confirmed during playback vie the web player debugger). Netflix originals, while seemingly having the most consistent quality, still suffer from poor encoding issues I've noticed, which makes me think most of all that this is aggressive bandwidth management if even their own titles aren't given a proper encoding treatment.

And then for 4k playback on PC, it's required you have not only a compatible browser or app (4k playback in Firefox will not work), but also a recent CPU that supports hardware DRM - just awful. The future of streaming is bleak if you ask me, albeit convenient for the average consumer. And I guess that's the real demographic.

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#37

Post by chx »

ubercore wrote: post #7
chx wrote: post #6

I always said the university made some sort of mistake when they gave me a math teachers masters and, let's face it, that was decades ago. But still. This article has an inconsistency that doesn't require any particularly high level of math understanding. > world’s entertainment market — encompassing both theatrical and home releases — grew to a new high in 2018: $96.8 billion repeat: > consumers spent $96.8 billion…

The $96.8 billion is just talking about movies, and the cable subscription total is just for sub fees.

Nope.

> on entertainment around the world. The international theatrical box office grew to $41.1 billion (spending in the US and Canada grew to $11.9 billion), while home entertainment hit $55.7 billion internationally.

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#38

Post by tyingq »

mgleason_3 wrote: post #27

Cable is a stinking pile of sog stuff. 90% of the channels are garbage and the picture quality sucks. I recently put an old-fashioned $40 antenna in my attic. It pulls in 156 channels (I’m in OC, CA about 40mi from Mt Wilson and 80mi from San Diego). Compared with the 148 channels Spectrum provided (about 1/2 where duplicates) the quality is better on the few I watch intermittently (PBS, ABC, CBS...) The crazy thing…

It's hard to use it after using Netflix or similar...the amount of commercials is just over the top. Even skipping them with DVR/FF is highly irritating.

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#39

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

ams6110 wrote: post #10
flexie wrote: post #2

The attitude towards streaming and the whole video on demand idea 10-15 years ago reminds me so much on the attitude towards electric vehicles today: - Quality is too low - speed is too slow - many people want to own their movie, not just rent it - people don’t want to watch movies on a computer - the large studios and cable companies will never allow it And within little more than a decade that all changed.

Doesn't mean people were wrong 15 years ago. At the time most of those things were real issues. Especially speed.

As Real "buffering ..." Networks found to their chagrin.

Re: Streaming video has surpassed cable subscriptions worldwide

#40

Post by ukyrgf »

mgleason_3 wrote: post #27

Cable is a stinking pile of sog stuff. 90% of the channels are garbage and the picture quality sucks. I recently put an old-fashioned $40 antenna in my attic. It pulls in 156 channels (I’m in OC, CA about 40mi from Mt Wilson and 80mi from San Diego). Compared with the 148 channels Spectrum provided (about 1/2 where duplicates) the quality is better on the few I watch intermittently (PBS, ABC, CBS...) The crazy thing…

Is this even really a comparison? You only watch broadcast channels, and now that you set up an antenna to receive those broadcasts, you're able to get broadcast channels. This has nothing to do with cable TV, premium networks, streaming platforms, etc.
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