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Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

arstechnica.com

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Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#121

Post by mikestew »

TylerE wrote: post #68
indigodaddy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started a siriusxm trial (never used before) on a new truck and the audio quality is so atrocious that I can’t bear to listen to it. Maybe for like sports talk it might be tolerable but definitely it’s so much worse than even radio (seems like 4x worse than terrestrial radio) for the audio quality that how can anyone pay for this service?

Because it existed for 15 years before data roaming existed.

No, it’s because the audio quality used to be good, before they tried to see how many channels they could ram in there. Must have been going on 20 years now since we first got XM. When Sirius and XM merged,that’s about the time I recall the quality going way down.

And good luck to OP in cancelling that trial. We bought a new car, too, and I didn’t even bother to activate satellite radio.

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#122

Post by javajosh »

Alupis wrote: post #100
javajosh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Reacher" is simply right-wing violence-porn. Its moral turpitude is only exceeded by the risible "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" that somehow wants me to like protagonists who kill and hurt strangers without any justification. I've loved everything Donald Glover was in, until now. Meanwhile, "Rings of Power" is left-wing girl-boss porn that utterly disrespects everything Tolkien made. Above all, Amazon's blatant anti-labor pra…

> "Reacher" is simply right-wing violence-porn. > Meanwhile, "Rings of Power" is left-wing girl-boss porn You are aware not everything needs to be political, right? Sometimes bad television is just bad television...

I think it's an accurate description that successfully conveys the manipulative, puerile, and harmful nature of these shows in a compact way. My description isn't political in the "right vs left" sense although I admit it may be political in the "extremism vs moderate" sense. Personally, I think that the information we consume cannot help but shape our world-view, so identifying how it shapes our world-view is valid criticism. Reacher and Galadriel are, in my view, icons of their respective flavors of extremism, and I think Amazon does poorly to produce such content.

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#123

Post by mdasen »

tpowell wrote: post #5

I’m letting my Prime lapse for the first time in well over a decade. I don’t watch Prime Video much, but this rubbed me the wrong way when they’re making money hand-over-fist on top of recent Prime increases.

> this rubbed me the wrong way when they’re making money hand-over-fist on top of recent Prime increases.

Are they? AWS is very profitable, but the e-commerce business isn't doing as well. In North America, their operating margin is 4.2% for the past 12 months. International operating margin is -2.0% so they're still losing money on their international retail business. Overall, their retail business net margin is probably around 1.8%.

They're making good money, but AWS is less than 5% of their revenue and accounts for 67% of their profits. The retail business does a ton of sales, but has very thin margins on those sales.

I definitely encourage people to do things like cancel Prime. Companies offer better deals when they know people will walk away. However, I wouldn't say that Amazon is making money hand-over-fist on their retail business. Their margins are pretty tight there.

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#124

Post by Alupis »

javajosh wrote: post #122
Alupis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Reacher" is simply right-wing violence-porn. > Meanwhile, "Rings of Power" is left-wing girl-boss porn You are aware not everything needs to be political, right? Sometimes bad television is just bad television...

I think it's an accurate description that successfully conveys the manipulative, puerile, and harmful nature of these shows in a compact way. My description isn't political in the "right vs left" sense although I admit it may be political in the "extremism vs moderate" sense. Personally, I think that the information we consume cannot help but shape our world-view, so identifying how it shapes our world-view is valid…

Have you actually watched Reacher? There is no politics in it at all. It's reminiscent of poorly written 80's action flicks, disguised as a noir mystery.

Again, sometimes bad television is simply bad television. Not everything needs political coloring.

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#125

Post by snird »

joshspankit wrote: post #110
commandlinefan wrote: post #23

It looks like these streaming services have been hemorrhaging cash for years now and they just can't hide it any more. They're going to have to take drastic steps to try to become profitable - remains to be seen whether customers will bite. OTOH, we don't have the infrastructure to go back to the days of DVD rentals.

Too bad they’re unwilling to seriously consider P2P distribution for streamed media. Would cut costs way down.

Isn't the content and licensing costs are the majority of their costs? Honestly asking, I never assumed infrastructure and bandwidth might be the majority

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#126

Post by nocommandline »

Someone1234 wrote: post #80
melvinram wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Ryan and Reacher are pretty good.

Reacher's first season was good. Second season turned into a bad action movie. Bad writing, little time spent on characters/development while adding six new characters we were given no reason to know or care about. It is legitimately too bad, they really had something with S1.

Reacher is based on the books. The ‘new’ characters were in the book (they were part of Reacher’s team and were being killed off).

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#127

Post by crazygringo »

wccrawford wrote: post #93
tootie wrote: post #62

I have genuinely no clue what Dolby Atmos is even for. I assume it's for some specific sound setup? And I also assume I don't have that.

Yeah, it adds speakers above you. It sounds dumb, but even crappy speakers really did make our sound more immersive. That said, we moved the TV to another room and decided against installing Atmos speakers there... So I guess it's not compelling enough to really care. A good 5.1 setup is enough.

Yeah, it's really not much meaningful benefit over 5.1.

If you want cool effects in a war movie of a plane flying by overhead, then awesome.

But in most television and movie scenes, the sound is coming from a circle around you on the ground.

Putting another 2 (or 4) speakers on the ceiling isn't usually going to make much of a difference. It's truly just diminishing returns.

For the war or action movies where it does, my advice is just to go see it in the theater.

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#128

Post by nocommandline »

javajosh wrote: post #78
melvinram wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Ryan and Reacher are pretty good.

"Reacher" is simply right-wing violence-porn. Its moral turpitude is only exceeded by the risible "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" that somehow wants me to like protagonists who kill and hurt strangers without any justification. I've loved everything Donald Glover was in, until now. Meanwhile, "Rings of Power" is left-wing girl-boss porn that utterly disrespects everything Tolkien made. Above all, Amazon's blatant anti-labor pra…

In the books, Reacher was violent when he needed to be. The author made him ‘huge/large’ and his size enabled his act of violence/ability to mete out justice to the bad guys. Reacher’s size in the books is why folks complained when Tom Cruise starred as Reacher in the movies

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#129

Post by Tallain »

basisword wrote: post #52
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respectfully disagree. Amazon became Amazon, because it really did some things well and forced some good standards ( 2 day shipping, almost zero friction when it came to purchases -- and returns ). It is not a horrible experience yet, but the direction is clear.

I think OP is referring specifically to their Prime Video product which is awful compared with every other streaming service both in terms of content available and UI/UX.

They do have one feature that I love and wish other services implemented: the x-ray (or whatever it's called), which lets you pause and it will show you info on the actors in this scene, trivia, etc.. This is great for when you see someone and you're like "wait I know that actor... what's their name again?" -- or if you're just a weird trivia junkie. It kind of reminded me of Pop-Up Video like that.

Re: Prime Video cuts Dolby Vision, Atmos support from ad tier–and didn't tell subs

#130

Post by kasey_junk »

Someone1234 wrote: post #80
melvinram wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Ryan and Reacher are pretty good.

Reacher's first season was good. Second season turned into a bad action movie. Bad writing, little time spent on characters/development while adding six new characters we were given no reason to know or care about. It is legitimately too bad, they really had something with S1.

That is very authentic to the books.
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