4 ms·

The competitive landscape for what is turning out to be the next evolution of in-home video content delivery is just making me realize that the content is not w

by brk 5y ago

The competitive landscape for what is turning out to be the next evolution of in-home video content delivery is just making me realize that the content is not worth the hassle. I'm not going to replace a $100/mo CATV subscription with 10 (or even 5) $10/mo individual subscriptions, where I have to constantly remember which service provides a particular show. I'm not going to have multiple dongles and devices to watch content. I am absolutely not going to rely on smart TV apps to provide a consistent or complete user experience. I am not going to pay for a service and still be subjected to advertisements. Somebody ping me when there is actually a logical option for in-home video content delivery to my TV. Until then, I'll either leave it turned off or use traditional options.

wincy 5y ago
I just use a VPN, flexget, PLEX, and a torrent client. Automatically downloads new episodes at the resolution I want for the shows I want. I can watch at my leisure and get no ads. I hate advertisements. I also don’t watch my shows these days, it almost all feels like indoctrination at this point.
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
  Similar approach, but PLEX + Usenet plumbing (Sonarr/Radarr/NZBGet/friends). I pay for ESPN+ because it is a convenient way to get some live sports content I like, and the quality of the service is really strong. Other networks make it harder, enforce blackouts, have terrible players that spin my fans up – and for that I use IPTV.
mywittyname 5y ago
I do a round-robin with friends/family where we each pay for a preferred service and share the accounts with everyone in the pool. Every service I've used has been extremely accommodating of this and allows for multiple profiles. If that's not an option, cancelling/pausing subscriptions should work fine. Once you've watched everything on NF, cancel/pause that and get a HBO Max or something.
- brk 5y ago
  To some degree that is a valid approach but the management overhead is simply not worth it to me. I don’t want to deal with having to ‘manage’ subscriptions and such on a month to month or recurring basis.
yoyohello13 5y ago
Sounds like there is room for a service that aggregates all your streaming services into a single portal. They could even include services you don't want into a 'bundle' for 'free'. Then they could work with ISPs to bundle their content aggregation service with internet for one convenient price. Then they could make an appliance called a 'cable' box so home users can stream all these 'channels' to any device they want. And now we are back to the 1990s.
- supernovae 5y ago
  Xbox tried this... the Xbox search that spanned all the app enabled services was freaking awesome. BUT.. the networks killed it and the feature never lived much into the X1 and doesn't exist anywhere at all anymore.
- brk 5y ago
  LOL, it is almost painful to admit that the current systems may already be somewhat close to optimized in a number of ways.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > Sounds like there is room for a service that aggregates all your streaming services into a single portal. Such as Apple App Store? You can search for the media you want to watch in the TV app, it shows up with how much it is, and you click to pay and then watch. I do not understand any aspect of why someone would want to go back to dealing with their not on demand monopoly cable tv provider and cable boxes. Even if you did want that, seems easier to just sign up for YouTube tv or sling and watch via the app than deal with a cable/satellite tv company.
ARandumGuy 5y ago
> I'm not going to replace a $100/mo CATV subscription > I am not going to pay for a service and still be subjected to advertisements. I have some bad news for you regarding advertisements on cable...
vel0city 5y ago
Eh, there are several pros to the streaming media landscape at least for my use cases. I get that it gets stupid expensive if you're really trying to get access to every possible show on every possible streaming platform all the time, but honestly to me I don't get the need to be able to do that. If I've missed some series on some other streaming platform, its not the end of the world to me. In my household we really only subscribe to two, maybe three streaming services all at ~$10/mo/ea. The library near us has tons of movies available for streaming with just a library card, and a decent selection of DVDs (been trying to convince them to upgrade to BDs). Each service has more content than I could bother watching in a lifetime. The few times we want to watch something outside of that we'll just rent from a streaming service or if we really care about the media buy it on BD/DVD. So, cost-wise its considerably better. All of those services really work on just about any device you can buy. Smart TV's have them, Roku's have them, Apple TV's have them, Nvidia Shield's have them, you can watch them on Chromecast, watch them on a laptop, watch them on a tablet, watch them on a phone, whatever. Practically any streaming device you can buy anywhere from $10-200 will play all of those streaming services, so its not like I'm juggling multiple different inputs for some screen. An old Chromecast in the kitchen, a Roku in the living room, my desktop in the office, a tablet in the sitting room, my phone on the bus or train or at a picnic table on lunch break at work. This is a far cry from having to rent specific crappy power-hungry hardware at $15+/mo for each screen, $100+/mo long term contracts for service to be locked to those boxes, and then only really be able to watch it at home. Hopefully all your recordings are set and you haven't overscheduled your dual or quad tuner cable box making you miss something. Good luck catching a series from the beginning without a time machine. The only thing I really miss from this setup is seeing NHL games, which is now stupid expensive behind AT&T TV. I used to stomache paying for Hulu Live TV when hockey was in season, but AT&T TV wants >$100/mo to get the package to watch that. I'll just go over to a friend's place or a sports bar to scratch that itch.
CountHackulus 5y ago
Same, Nebula/Curiosity Stream, plus YouTube and Crunchyroll (free tier) is more than enough to entertain me when I need it. I don't want to buy content by the "channel" and I'll do literally whatever I need to for it to stay that way.
1123581321 5y ago
If you just want to replace cable, why would you need so many services? Surely one or two of them has enough to watch. Probably more than you used to find in 30-100 channels, and on demand, too.
tomjen3 5y ago
I haven't brought one myself, but wouldn't an Apple Tv solve the consistent and complete user experience? Plus they are big enough that Google can't bully them like they can Roku. Heck they probably have search across all the services you subscribe to so you don't have to remember which services have what stuff.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  They do have a universal search but some of the big players like Netflix don't support it which meant that when I had an Apple TV I never really used it. The interface isn't that consistent either because app developers can pretty much do what they want so Netflix, YouTube etc. have the same UI they have other platforms for the most part which is different from Apple's. Of course Apple does the same thing and the Apple TV app on my FireTV works quite a bit differently from other apps UIwise.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It is pretty much only Netflix that does not want to play ball. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208083 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208083
    - Mindwipe 5y ago
      * In the US. It's much patchier elsewhere.
murph-almighty 5y ago
It's called piracy via a box set up in Eastern Europe and a Plex server.

by brk 5y ago

wincy 5y ago

I just use a VPN, flexget, PLEX, and a torrent client. Automatically downloads new episodes at the resolution I want for the shows I want. I can watch at my leisure and get no ads. I hate advertisements. I also don’t watch my shows these days, it almost all feels like indoctrination at this point.

35fbe7d3d5b9 5y ago
Similar approach, but PLEX + Usenet plumbing (Sonarr/Radarr/NZBGet/friends). I pay for ESPN+ because it is a convenient way to get some live sports content I like, and the quality of the service is really strong. Other networks make it harder, enforce blackouts, have terrible players that spin my fans up – and for that I use IPTV.

mywittyname 5y ago

I do a round-robin with friends/family where we each pay for a preferred service and share the accounts with everyone in the pool. Every service I've used has been extremely accommodating of this and allows for multiple profiles. If that's not an option, cancelling/pausing subscriptions should work fine. Once you've watched everything on NF, cancel/pause that and get a HBO Max or something.

brk 5y ago
To some degree that is a valid approach but the management overhead is simply not worth it to me. I don’t want to deal with having to ‘manage’ subscriptions and such on a month to month or recurring basis.

yoyohello13 5y ago

Sounds like there is room for a service that aggregates all your streaming services into a single portal. They could even include services you don't want into a 'bundle' for 'free'. Then they could work with ISPs to bundle their content aggregation service with internet for one convenient price. Then they could make an appliance called a 'cable' box so home users can stream all these 'channels' to any device they want. And now we are back to the 1990s.

supernovae 5y ago
Xbox tried this... the Xbox search that spanned all the app enabled services was freaking awesome. BUT.. the networks killed it and the feature never lived much into the X1 and doesn't exist anywhere at all anymore.
brk 5y ago
LOL, it is almost painful to admit that the current systems may already be somewhat close to optimized in a number of ways.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
> Sounds like there is room for a service that aggregates all your streaming services into a single portal. Such as Apple App Store? You can search for the media you want to watch in the TV app, it shows up with how much it is, and you click to pay and then watch. I do not understand any aspect of why someone would want to go back to dealing with their not on demand monopoly cable tv provider and cable boxes. Even if you did want that, seems easier to just sign up for YouTube tv or sling and watch via the app than deal with a cable/satellite tv company.

ARandumGuy 5y ago

> I'm not going to replace a $100/mo CATV subscription > I am not going to pay for a service and still be subjected to advertisements. I have some bad news for you regarding advertisements on cable...

vel0city 5y ago

Eh, there are several pros to the streaming media landscape at least for my use cases. I get that it gets stupid expensive if you're really trying to get access to every possible show on every possible streaming platform all the time, but honestly to me I don't get the need to be able to do that. If I've missed some series on some other streaming platform, its not the end of the world to me. In my household we really only subscribe to two, maybe three streaming services all at ~$10/mo/ea. The library near us has tons of movies available for streaming with just a library card, and a decent selection of DVDs (been trying to convince them to upgrade to BDs). Each service has more content than I could bother watching in a lifetime. The few times we want to watch something outside of that we'll just rent from a streaming service or if we really care about the media buy it on BD/DVD. So, cost-wise its considerably better. All of those services really work on just about any device you can buy. Smart TV's have them, Roku's have them, Apple TV's have them, Nvidia Shield's have them, you can watch them on Chromecast, watch them on a laptop, watch them on a tablet, watch them on a phone, whatever. Practically any streaming device you can buy anywhere from $10-200 will play all of those streaming services, so its not like I'm juggling multiple different inputs for some screen. An old Chromecast in the kitchen, a Roku in the living room, my desktop in the office, a tablet in the sitting room, my phone on the bus or train or at a picnic table on lunch break at work. This is a far cry from having to rent specific crappy power-hungry hardware at $15+/mo for each screen, $100+/mo long term contracts for service to be locked to those boxes, and then only really be able to watch it at home. Hopefully all your recordings are set and you haven't overscheduled your dual or quad tuner cable box making you miss something. Good luck catching a series from the beginning without a time machine. The only thing I really miss from this setup is seeing NHL games, which is now stupid expensive behind AT&T TV. I used to stomache paying for Hulu Live TV when hockey was in season, but AT&T TV wants >$100/mo to get the package to watch that. I'll just go over to a friend's place or a sports bar to scratch that itch.

CountHackulus 5y ago

Same, Nebula/Curiosity Stream, plus YouTube and Crunchyroll (free tier) is more than enough to entertain me when I need it. I don't want to buy content by the "channel" and I'll do literally whatever I need to for it to stay that way.

1123581321 5y ago

If you just want to replace cable, why would you need so many services? Surely one or two of them has enough to watch. Probably more than you used to find in 30-100 channels, and on demand, too.

tomjen3 5y ago

I haven't brought one myself, but wouldn't an Apple Tv solve the consistent and complete user experience? Plus they are big enough that Google can't bully them like they can Roku. Heck they probably have search across all the services you subscribe to so you don't have to remember which services have what stuff.

salamandersauce 5y ago
They do have a universal search but some of the big players like Netflix don't support it which meant that when I had an Apple TV I never really used it. The interface isn't that consistent either because app developers can pretty much do what they want so Netflix, YouTube etc. have the same UI they have other platforms for the most part which is different from Apple's. Of course Apple does the same thing and the Apple TV app on my FireTV works quite a bit differently from other apps UIwise.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  It is pretty much only Netflix that does not want to play ball. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208083 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208083
  - Mindwipe 5y ago
    * In the US. It's much patchier elsewhere.

murph-almighty 5y ago

It's called piracy via a box set up in Eastern Europe and a Plex server.