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

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

#131

Post by jeffbee »

Alupis wrote: post #124
javajosh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Ex-military strongman solves our problems through murder" is an inherently political framework for a story. It is as politically tainted as the old show "24", where any and all ethical frameworks were shredded on the altar of the ticking bomb scenario.

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

#132

Post by joshspankit »

callalex wrote: post #119
joshspankit wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My residential wired home internet in Silicon Valley has an unreasonable data cap that I hit every month, so I would not be able to use a service that also requires upload. (Which is very intentionally anticompetitive because they will happily sell you access to their streaming service that doesn’t count towards the cap).

They would have to make allowances for people with data caps yes

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

#133

Post by joshspankit »

snird wrote: post #125
joshspankit wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It depends on the service. For Disney and Paramount+ they already own the IP and the costs then would be storage + bandwidth + metadata/transcoding servers + engineer time. Of those, the bulk would be bandwidth.

Similar for content that’s owned by the platform. Netflix, Apple, and others invested in to original programming and in those cases there’s again no need to license.

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

#134

Post by hnburnsy »

Animats wrote: post #20

"I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."

Altering the deal was the ads, removing Dolby is altering it further. A year from now the ad load will increase, altering it even further. All consumer prayers go unanswered.

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

#135

Post by woobar »

recursive wrote: post #66
woobar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is a lot of people with bigger TVs are getting soundbars. They are easy to setup and doesn't require wires. I won't switch from 5.1 setup but if I ever move I would give it a try. Built-in speakers I've used in hotels/airbnbs are not great.

Soundbar marketing has a lot of snake oil about bouncing soundwaves around a room to simulate 13 discrete speakers or something. I've got no science, but I do have some serious doubt whether the bouncing stuff works at all. In my imagination, soundbars are basically stereo, or maybe 2.1

I was skeptical for a while. But I have a friend who is used to a 5.1 setup and moved to a much smaller apartment. He has switched to a soundbar with Atmos and says it is on par. The fact that he "downloads" Dolby Atmos versions of movies even when they are available for streaming added some weight to his opinion. I still did not compare myself so would not go to fight over this.

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

#136

Post by TheJoeMan »

crazygringo wrote: post #92

Having less features on a cheaper tier is entirely normal. Should Amazon have been more up-front about it? I guess. But most people don't even care. If you have the money and space for a full Atmos-enabled surround-sound setup at home and/or true mega-bright HDR screen and regularly watch Prime Video, you're probably already paying the extra $3/mo. for no ads anyways. It's not like any of those features matter if you…

Prime Subscription is annual, not monthly. So they’ve substantially changed the product in the middle of a contract term.

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

#137

Post by jrnichols »

mikestew wrote: post #121
TylerE wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

it seems like they gave a bunch of satellite bandwidth to the stupid Howard Stern channels and cut back on the music ones. at least some of them.

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

#138

Post by TylerE »

mikestew wrote: post #121
TylerE wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was never good. Maximum bittate per channel was something like 48kbps.

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

#139

Post by selcuka »

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.

> OTOH, we don't have the infrastructure to go back to the days of DVD rentals.

We already have streaming rentals. I believe while monthly subscription models are not profitable, pay per view still makes money.

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

#140

Post by selcuka »

crazygringo wrote: post #92

Having less features on a cheaper tier is entirely normal. Should Amazon have been more up-front about it? I guess. But most people don't even care. If you have the money and space for a full Atmos-enabled surround-sound setup at home and/or true mega-bright HDR screen and regularly watch Prime Video, you're probably already paying the extra $3/mo. for no ads anyways. It's not like any of those features matter if you…

> Having less features on a cheaper tier is entirely normal.

Oh, definitely. Removing features from your existing subscription, on the other hand, is not normal.

I guess we will have to get used to live with skimpflation [1], but it's not "normal".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation#Skimpflation_or_...

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