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HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

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Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#81

Post by geebee »

bkeroack wrote: post #36
daigoba66 wrote: post #32

Now this just needs to happen with other TV networks. For example, I'd love to pay AMC Networks[0], A&E Networks[1], or NBC Universal[2] a nominal monthly fee to access their catalogs on-demand. While it's true that these networks stream some of their current shows online, the players and streaming experience is usually very terrible. That's how I want to the future to be: everything is like Netflix or HBO-sans-cable…

The aggregate of all these fees (plus Netflix, Amazon, etc) will likely approach or exceed the cost of a typical cable subscription.

I have sonic net, and I pay (a little handwaving here) for amazon prime, netflix, and hulu plus. So monthly, that's $42 (sonic) + ($99/12) (amazon) + $9 (netflix) + $8 (huluplus) =~ $67 a month. I also have a digital antenna. I'd be locked out of espn (sonic net and no cable), except that I have an .edu domain so they allow that through for most programming. It's a mish mash but it kind of works.

There's plenty of wiggle room here for HBO, and because it's more a la carte, I could easily drop a couple of things there once I have HBO.

Not sure what they'd charge for standalone HBO yet, but I think it could be as much as $50 a month and I'd still come out ahead (especially if I dropped something). I got rid of comcast a while ago. As I recall, if you get the minimum level of cable service required for HBO plus specific surcharge for HBO and your internet service through them, I think it's was over $120 a year… I know I'm being vague, but that's largely because comcast doesn't really want to make it easy to figure out what things cost, though, and you can play various games (threaten to quit and get a deal that they hope you won't notice when it expires)… but they weasel right back and get you on all kinds of little things, though, so you have to pay close attention to your bill.

Also, every now and then comcast will tell you to return something like a cable box, and then claim you haven't returned it, and send you a letter threatening your credit history if you don't pay for not returning it even though you have, and then ask you why you're quitting. So you have to factor in that extra cost too.

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#82

Post by Istof »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #65
Istof wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4. Works on any device that probably means no DRM

Because DRM never gets cracked on day one anyways. And because DRM totally stops you from using a screen recorder to save the content in a DRM-free format. Maybe with something like video games it can net a few extra days of sales before torrents go online, but ripping music and video is so simple. In that case, DRM is just a joke that makes the executives and lawyers happy, wastes money and time developing, and can…

he was talking about a legal source that works everywhere... I know that DRM doesn't stop piracy, it only inconveniences law-abiding customers (inconvenience is probably too light of a word).

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#83

Post by riffraff »

dwild wrote: post #28
uptown wrote: post #3

Seems like they're finally embracing the philosophy to fighting piracy from Kim Dotcom: How to stop piracy: 1. Create great content 2. Make it easy to buy 3. Same day global release 4. Works on any device 5. Fair price

Pirates will only move to new arguments, that's all. Before theses arguments became mainstream, my friends simply said that they didn't care, now they use theses arguments, it's not accessible, it's not a "fair price" (hard to be fair when free exist). I still remember when Breaking Bad came on Netflix, I was so happy to believe that now I won't be the only one I know that use Netflix! I was wrong to believe in their…

You don't think there is a group of people who will, when confronted with the choice of hunting down a torrent every time or paying $10 a month to watch GoT/True Blood/Last Week Tonight/etc, could decide to pay?

Especially considering outside of the US where the choice is: pirate it or don't watch it.

It seems silly to just leave those money on the floor, even if 90% of the people will still pirate content.

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#84

Post by georgemcbay »

smeyer wrote: post #80
georgemcbay wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay them for access to everything, but they know what you are watching -- this is quite unlike typical broadcast/cable where only some very small subset (historically "Nielsen Families") are tracked.

This is not accurate. There are a couple of competitors to Nielsen, but more importantly, most cable providers these days track what everyone is watching. They may not do a ton with that data (depends on the company), but it's not like they don't have the data.

It still isn't quite the same for a number of reasons, including:

1) the broadcaster is a step removed from the cable operator (though with all the mergers in the content/delivery space, they might be part of the same parent company). If Netflix develops a new show like House of Cards, they know exactly how many people watched it for how long, etc.

A cable company might track what station their customers are watching but unless they are reporting that back to the broadcaster it won't change programming in the near-term. It may make the cable company make different decisions about their lineup but such decisions are often part of many-year contracts with forced bundling (eg. Disney saying you must carry all these stations if you want ESPN) so even if they do have data I doubt it has much impact.

2) The cable company can know what channel your settop box is tuned to, but a lot of people have setups where the cable box is essentially always on (and only the TV is switched off) and there is no reasonable way for the cable operator to know if anyone is actively watching or not without resorting to very imprecise heuristics like only counting it if the channel has recently been changed.

This is unlike Netflix, et al, which have less passive interfaces where you can be more reasonably sure that if the user started some content they are actually watching it and not streaming it to a TV set that is off.

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#85

Post by thret »

uptown wrote: post #3

Seems like they're finally embracing the philosophy to fighting piracy from Kim Dotcom: How to stop piracy: 1. Create great content 2. Make it easy to buy 3. Same day global release 4. Works on any device 5. Fair price

They should bring this to Australia FIRST. There's a reason we lead piracy world wide for HBO shows, and it isn't (just) because we're all descended from convicts.

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#86

Post by MichaelGG »

dwild wrote: post #28
uptown wrote: post #3

Seems like they're finally embracing the philosophy to fighting piracy from Kim Dotcom: How to stop piracy: 1. Create great content 2. Make it easy to buy 3. Same day global release 4. Works on any device 5. Fair price

Pirates will only move to new arguments, that's all. Before theses arguments became mainstream, my friends simply said that they didn't care, now they use theses arguments, it's not accessible, it's not a "fair price" (hard to be fair when free exist). I still remember when Breaking Bad came on Netflix, I was so happy to believe that now I won't be the only one I know that use Netflix! I was wrong to believe in their…

Torrents provide a superior service than Netflix. I regularly download shows even when they are on Netflix. Better control over sound, subtitles without Netflix's schizophrenic language restrictions, ability to fix audio/video (move the video frame, brightness, volume), etc.

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#87

Post by smeyer »

georgemcbay wrote: post #84
smeyer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not accurate. There are a couple of competitors to Nielsen, but more importantly, most cable providers these days track what everyone is watching. They may not do a ton with that data (depends on the company), but it's not like they don't have the data.

It still isn't quite the same for a number of reasons, including: 1) the broadcaster is a step removed from the cable operator (though with all the mergers in the content/delivery space, they might be part of the same parent company). If Netflix develops a new show like House of Cards, they know exactly how many people watched it for how long, etc. A cable company might track what station their customers are watching…

Good points. To follow up on them a bit:

1) There's obviously a lot more separation here, but it's worth noting that there is a lot of data out there available to broadcasters that doesn't come from Nielsen, such as broadcasters licensing data that comes initially from cable providers. The number of set top boxes here dwarfs the size of the Nielsen data set.

2) You can get more precise if you want. At a basic level, you can look at a lot more options than just changing the channel. You can also train models based on the overlap with something like Nielsen where you have more information about when they are watching. If you can match up comcast data to Nielsen data, you can build a model for active vs. inactive boxes on the comcast data.

3) To backtrack a bit, the fact that Nielsen is a "very small subset" as you said a couple of comments ago is relevant for some things but not others. For the broadcast network prime time shows, it's certainly a big enough sample to see which shows are popular among what demographics without having the level of detailed information that Netflix or cable operators have.

All in all, I agree with you that there is more separation and it is harder to use, but there's still a key distinction between Nielsen, which is in something like <~0.1% of homes and the other data sources which are many times larger. They don't all seek it out, but it's possible for broadcasters to acquire the sort of data necessary to answer questions about content popularity like Netflix can consider.

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#88

Post by MagerValp »

Erwin wrote: post #35
gnud wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, To access HBO GO℠, you must reside within the fifty states of the United States of America.

HBO Nordic covers all of Scandinavia (and has been around for more than a year). They started out with an expensive monthly and less expensive 6-month subscription but have now a uniform monthly price of around USD 14/month. It's usable from various devices and supported TVs (e.g. newer Samsung series). http://hbonordic.com/how-to-watch-hbo

Not sure about the other countries, but in Sweden it's $11/month (79 kr). Netflix is also 79 kr/month, and the (in practice) mandatory TV license which pays for (awesome!) public service is roughly twice as much at 173 kr/month. All have decent streaming services which covers the devices I care about.

There is very little reason to pirate TV in Sweden today, I think the only major shows you can't get are AMC's.

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#89

Post by untothebreach »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #69
untothebreach wrote: post #2

I ditched cable a while ago, but wasn't willing to give up watching some HBO shows, so I convinced myself that pirating them was 'ok,' since that was 'the only for me to get them.' I later realized that my attitude was hypocritical, that I just wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I stopped pirating their shows then, and have definitely missed some of them. So I am excited about this, and will subscribe as soon as…

I realized myself that copyrighted shows are supposed to enter the public domain eventually... meaning that HBO doesn't own them, it just (long term) leases them from the public. It also occurred to me that it, along with other big companies, were trying to bribe and cajole Congress into giving that property away forever, when it firmly belongs to the public. The public has decided to revoke their privilege. If Congr…

I don't really understand this attitude. HBO paid for the shows to be created, so how is it that the "public" owns it? Some members of the "public" pay HBO to watch the shows that HBO creates, but that doesn't mean that members of the public who don't pay for the shows have some kind of "right" to watch them.

Re: HBO is finally going to let you watch its shows without cable

#90

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

untothebreach wrote: post #89
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realized myself that copyrighted shows are supposed to enter the public domain eventually... meaning that HBO doesn't own them, it just (long term) leases them from the public. It also occurred to me that it, along with other big companies, were trying to bribe and cajole Congress into giving that property away forever, when it firmly belongs to the public. The public has decided to revoke their privilege. If Congr…

I don't really understand this attitude. HBO paid for the shows to be created, so how is it that the "public" owns it? Some members of the "public" pay HBO to watch the shows that HBO creates, but that doesn't mean that members of the public who don't pay for the shows have some kind of "right" to watch them.

> I don't really understand this attitude. HBO paid for the shows to be created

So?

It's real simple: copyright is not a fundamental human right. It is a privilege granted by the public to creators for specific purpose, and if the public feels that purpose is subverted, or even if they just are in a shitty mood, the privilege can and should be revoked.

I don't understand your attitude. You seem to equate "people not paying" with theft, which sounds like something a small child would come up with. HBO hasn't paid me squat... are they stealing from me?

>so how is it that the "public" owns it?

This too is simple. If I own land, and I lease it to you for 75 years (you pay up front), who owns it?

I do. You still do not own it. You can do (most) anything you want with the land, you can use it to make a profit by using that land... but at the end of 75 years, you still have to surrender that land back to me.

Copyright works like this. Have you never heard of the goddamned public domain? What do you think that was, exactly? The public owns the work. The copyright holder only has a temporary interest in the work. It's like you've never bothered to think about any of this. You just swallow all the bullshit anyone shovels into your gullet.

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