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Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

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Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#91

Post by hotnfresh »

ivraatiems wrote: post #20

Who here actually has and uses a 4K device? I still haven't gone higher than 1440p, and even on that, I don't mind if my content is 1080p. I rarely even notice. (I also hate >60 FPS, for what it's worth.)

I have a big-ass 4k projector screen. The space I have it in is a little cramped, so the front row has the viewer’s eyeballs only about 5’ from it.

Truly? The difference between a really good 1080p source and a 4k source isn’t that large. I kinda worried when I got it that it’d ruin 1080p for me and I’d start running out of disk space from all the 4k, but no, not at all. I go 4k for special movies where I care about that little extra bit of quality, but really, it’s not like good 1080p looks obviously pixelated or anything. It’s totally fine. Still feels like being at the movies. 720p’s dodgy, especially from the front row, but even that’s not as awful as I expected it to be. Though you can definitely tell.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#92

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

owenpalmer wrote: post #70
mathieuh wrote: post #9

Baffles me why all these streaming companies are shooting themselves in the foot. For about 18 months there was a golden age where it was easier to pay for things than to pirate. Now we’re in a situation where it’s even /harder/ than it’s ever been. People will pay for media if it’s easy and a good experience. The barrier to piracy is non-existent these days and you actually get a far better experience.

I've often pondered the idea of a pirating site that lets you donate to specific individuals/teams of the production. For example, if you particularly liked the movie's animation but hated the writing, your donation would be sent to the animators. Basically a cinema meritocracy.

Same. I was thinking about this in terms of rewarding music artists.

We could have invented PayPal!

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#93

Post by [deleted] »

owenpalmer wrote: post #70
mathieuh wrote: post #9

Baffles me why all these streaming companies are shooting themselves in the foot. For about 18 months there was a golden age where it was easier to pay for things than to pirate. Now we’re in a situation where it’s even /harder/ than it’s ever been. People will pay for media if it’s easy and a good experience. The barrier to piracy is non-existent these days and you actually get a far better experience.

I've often pondered the idea of a pirating site that lets you donate to specific individuals/teams of the production. For example, if you particularly liked the movie's animation but hated the writing, your donation would be sent to the animators. Basically a cinema meritocracy.

[deleted]

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#94

Post by deckar01 »

fbdab103 wrote: post #69
deckar01 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dolby Atmos/Vision standards also provide HDR, dynamic brightness, and surround sound. People spend thousands of dollars on home theater setups to meet those standards. Max has almost completely stopped producing cinematic content, so I can’t imagine the upsell making much sense.

If you are spending thousands of dollars on a home theater, surely streaming was a no go from the start? Blueray is the only available option which has a chance of delivering the optimal experience.

Blu-ray is not raw, it is just HEVC with a higher bitrate. Most content encoded at a high profile level is not even going to hit the bitrate limit of a good streaming service + connection. Other than pausing during an action scene to take a still, I can’t perceive the difference.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#95

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

asutekku wrote: post #30
ivraatiems wrote: post #20

Who here actually has and uses a 4K device? I still haven't gone higher than 1440p, and even on that, I don't mind if my content is 1080p. I rarely even notice. (I also hate >60 FPS, for what it's worth.)

Most modern tvs are 4k these days and 1080p vs 4k is very visible in these

Not at the shitty bitrates we're getting in the USA.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#96

Post by ShadowBanThis01 »

boppo1 wrote: post #53
strangesmells02 wrote: post #14

Does anyone care about 4k? Ive been using either 720 or 1080p for years and never had an issue

I had a 30" sony wega from 2001. I didn't care about 4k. It finally died and now I have a 65" sony Xsomething. Now I care about 4k. On a good TV, 4k really is impressive.

From what source? Nothing streaming at typical cable bitrates is worthy of being called "UHD," let alone "4K."

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#97

Post by mrbadguy »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #33
BlackjackCF wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine being the person who took a rock solid brand like HBO and flushed it down the toilet…

There was another really good New Yorker piece recently about Howard Schultz (the Starbucks CEO responsible for elevating the company into the juggernaut chain it is today) and his insistence on rolling out these Oleato drinks that are literally just coffee with olive oil drizzled in. Granted, I don't think Oleato is enough to kill Starbucks, but my takeaway of the whole thing was that sometimes these C-suite guys en…

Oleato? Is that pronounced like “Aviato”?

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#99

Post by jakobson14 »

mdasen wrote: post #51
mathieuh wrote: post #9

Baffles me why all these streaming companies are shooting themselves in the foot. For about 18 months there was a golden age where it was easier to pay for things than to pirate. Now we’re in a situation where it’s even /harder/ than it’s ever been. People will pay for media if it’s easy and a good experience. The barrier to piracy is non-existent these days and you actually get a far better experience.

It's not that baffling. For a time, they were trying to grow their subscriber base and luring them in with low prices. Now that they have their subscriber base, they want to get back to the revenue they were getting before. Realistically, entertainment companies weren't going to accept lower revenue than they previously had for their product. As the industry transitions from physical media and cable TV to streaming,…

Used to pay 20 years ago, during an era of cable TV monopolies and resultant sky-high pricing.

Re: Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

#100

Post by schleck8 »

BlackjackCF wrote: post #28
spondylosaurus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For HBO/Max's foot-shooting specifically, David Zaslav is why. https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/can-...

Imagine being the person who took a rock solid brand like HBO and flushed it down the toilet…

Afaik they were or are planning to add a bunch of low quality content to Max from Discovery or something like that and didn't want to destroy HBO's reputation. Not sure though
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