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The golden age of streaming TV is over

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51–60 of 83 posts

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#51

Anyone knows of a service in Europe similar to what Netflix was doing originally, sending DVDs per post? It would be nice to have access to a big catalogue without pirating, and I don't mind waiting 2/3 days.

Cinema paradiso is still around. Or musicmagpie, which I find to be more streamlined than eBay, but still the same concept; second hand purchase and then sell when you're done. Paradiso lets you have a limited number at one time, auto sending when you've shipped current media back.

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#52
post #20
post #3

The big takeaway (for me) from this article is that streaming services are actively removing shows from their archives to save on residual payments. So it's not just about a slowdown in new shows coming out, but also the loss of access to existing shows. For example HBO Max has entirely removed Westworld, a show that's not that old and just completed it's 4th and final season this year. So the whole idea of "I'll wat…

This may not work for everyone, but I’m quite happy again with dvds so I can watch what I want when I like.

> Assuming you're talking about blu ray rather than dvd here too because my TV supports 4k HDR, and the last dvd player I owned was 480p.

My DVD player requires a separate input on the TV, controller, and wall socket. The player needs to be physically accessible too, and you need to store physical discs.

Changing DVDs is significantly more involved than changing a movie on Netflix, and finding something that you know you have on DVD Vs on Netflix required someone else to have correctly put the disk away.

Lastly, those things are just noisy as hell.

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#53
post #34
post #3

The big takeaway (for me) from this article is that streaming services are actively removing shows from their archives to save on residual payments. So it's not just about a slowdown in new shows coming out, but also the loss of access to existing shows. For example HBO Max has entirely removed Westworld, a show that's not that old and just completed it's 4th and final season this year. So the whole idea of "I'll wat…

>That or this will just send everyone back to piracy. I understand you're using "everyone" in a rhetorical sense but just to level-set about the real difficulties of piracy for non-techie viewers: - downloading videos via bittorrent or visiting dubious warez websites of illegal videos with the risks of javascript popup malware - downloaded videos (e.g. .mkv files) not easily playable on smartphones, tablets, or TVs t…

It's easy enough to run an HDMI cable from the laptop to the TV. Over Thanksgiving, I mentioned something about piracy and all of my twenty-something non-computer-literate nieces quickly mentioned their favorite pirate sites. I don't pirate often, but now I know who to ask if I ever need to.

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#54

I’ve returned to physical media. When I want to watch a movie I buy a DVD from eBay for a few bucks. Same with music. No one can take it away, it’s cheap and convenient enough… I’m happy to wait a couple of day for delivery.

No one can take it so long as you can actually play the media. I own a large music collection and I’ve used various optical formats for data backup for decades now. It is becoming more of a challenge, build your own computer and some cases don’t even have places to put that Blu-ray reader/burner. You can buy a couple extra devices and just keep them stored but in 10 years SATA connectors might be phasing out.

There are real market pressures working against physical media. Live digital copies are easier, faster, more flexible.

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#55

I look forward to paying for value myself, instead of taking it from future subscribers. The more money the streaming companies charge, the more they can spend on bigger productions. Imagine the level of content you could produce if every subscriber paid $50?

I think Hollywood's decades long risk aversion and reliance on their 'formula' for success (big budget bling and actor's with audience draw) has skewed focus away from investing in creative writers/story tellors with vision. IMHO creative writers worth their salt don't tend to chase fame or their name in lights. Big budget mentality has lost sight of this and the reason most modern shows lack compelling story telling.

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#56
post #33

Things I can think of that have changed since streaming started that are making streaming less attractive. 1. weekly releases of shows (episodes) instead of the whole thing 2. creep of advertising, including 'watch this rubbish trailer before we play your choice' 3. studios pulling their series/movies from netflix and trying to launch their own The last one really annoys me. In the UK there is, last time I looked, ap…

> It's as if the movie studios haven't learnt from Spotify/Apple Music/Napster etc. One service with all the things.

They have learned from those services - none of those make any money.

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#57
post #3

The big takeaway (for me) from this article is that streaming services are actively removing shows from their archives to save on residual payments. So it's not just about a slowdown in new shows coming out, but also the loss of access to existing shows. For example HBO Max has entirely removed Westworld, a show that's not that old and just completed it's 4th and final season this year. So the whole idea of "I'll wat…

Can/Should writers, actors, etc unions contractually obligate availability? Seems shitty for HBO to drop content just to avoid having to pay residuals.

Could they ask?

Sure.

Will they?

No. Given the obvious counter from a studio is "sure, but we won't pay any residuals on that given we can't commit to a blank cheque for seventy years. And you'll have to be liable for the music rights."

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#58
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When somebody these days mentions DVD, you can count Blu-ray as well.

Which is stupid. I'm not paying a premium price for a deliberately crappified version of a film.

What’s ‘crapified’ about Blu-Ray? I’ve watched Blu-ray at (small) theater scale, and it held up remarkably well.

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#59

To really understand the golden age of streaming TV, you have to know about the Netflix/Starz deal [1] In ~2008 Netflix delivered DVDs by post, and the only people getting their video online were pirates and anime fans. So when Netflix approached Starz to license streaming rights nobody else wanted them, and Netflix got a great price for loads of content like recent Hollywood movies. Allowing them to offer a huge cat…

What I don't understand is how Netflix is still able to give access to Hollywood movies (new releases), but only by DVD.

10 years later, why can't Netflix or a competitor work out a deal to do the same thing but streaming instead of DVD?

For example, a plan that let's you stream one new release per week.

Re: The golden age of streaming TV is over

#60
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That or this will just send everyone back to piracy. I understand you're using "everyone" in a rhetorical sense but just to level-set about the real difficulties of piracy for non-techie viewers: - downloading videos via bittorrent or visiting dubious warez websites of illegal videos with the risks of javascript popup malware - downloaded videos (e.g. .mkv files) not easily playable on smartphones, tablets, or TVs t…

I would normally agree or even be the one making that point. But interestingly, and this hasn't of course always been the case, it's currently the non techies in my circle that are downloading pirated content and buying cheap android ip tv boxes. The techies don't want hassle and risk and just pay for streaming, they're busy enough with myriad geeky hobbies. The non techies are blissfully unaware of any risk and just…

The person who showed me the home media server is a SAHM (stay at home mom) with 0 tech background. She streams the her library to all her devices. Set up was trivial.
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