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"However, executives at Starz apparently concluded that they would lose even more money by giving consumers a reason to subscribe to Netflix instead of the cabl

"However, executives at Starz apparently concluded that they would lose even more money by giving consumers a reason to subscribe to Netflix instead of the cable channel." I don't think they get it. The landscape has changed and I'm not going back. I don't have cable. I don't have satelite. I don't have an antenna for broadcast TV. I have the Internet serving content to my TV via my Xbox, and I use it to watch Netflix. If your content isn't available on Netflix. I'm not consuming your content. Period. I'm done bending over backwards. I'm done with schedules. I'm done with managing the space on my DVR. I'm done keeping up with new episodes and seasons. I'm done with movie theaters full of loud other people who aren't me, and the litany of other issues that have been discussed to death from overpriced tickets, to concessions, to 3D projector woes and content. I'm done with physical media getting scratched. Hell, I'm even done with sketchy torrent sites, and different scene groups fighting over who gets to release what, and a billion codecs and formats. I'm done with it. I'm done. So frankly, good bye and good riddance to Starz. Go climb this hill and die upon it. I never liked the fact that their schizophrenic content releases would appear during a timed window, only to disappear from my list later before I actually got a chance to watch it. I grew to avoid movies labeled with the Starz logo, and my heart would sink when a feature would open with one, because I knew the experience was fleeting and I wouldn't be able to enjoy the content later. So I'm done with that too.

deleted 15y ago
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joshontheweb 15y ago
agreed, why waste my time and money waiting on their schedules to watch movies. Im not necessarily a netflix loyalist, but Im definitely not going back to cable.
MatthewB 15y ago
I'm in the same boat as you. I cut the cord about 5 months ago and haven't looked back. I have Netflix and Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV. I know I am missing out on a lot of great content and it pisses me off...until I get my bill, which is a fraction of what I was paying before. Also, the convenience of my current setup is unmatchable. The thing is, like you said, the technology has changed. I want shows on my current setup. I am willing to pay more for more content. One thing I thought was very interesting is Apple removing TV show rentals. I never purchase movies or TV shows. I like to rent them, watch them once and I usually don't want to watch them again. If I do, I will rent it again. Why can't content providers understand this? Netflix and Hulu need to start creating their own content, which I know they are both working towards. One semi-related note: AMC is ending Breaking Bad next season because of Madmen sucking up the budget - Netflix and Hulu: go buy that show! I would gladly pay for a show-specific season pass just to watch Breaking Bad.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  Not to get off-topic, but why did you buy an Apple TV instead of a Roku (or do you have both)?
  - wbienek 15y ago
    Everyone makies mistakes.
  - swilliams 15y ago
    I have both. The UI on the Apple TV is better (but not leaps and bounds better), and the Netflix quality seems to be just a little better in HD. Both are connected to HDMI. Of course, the Roku also does Hulu and Pandora, and I have a second one upstairs on the non-SD tv. From what I've gathered the Apple TV 2 doesn't play nice on SD.
    - jmellicker 15y ago
      We have Roku 2 and Apple TV, the UI on Apple TV is better, esp. Netflix. Roku 2 is 1080p, Apple TV is 720p, but our LCDTV does such a good job upsampling 720p you can't really tell. Roku 2 has access to a lot more content, but the experience of surfing channels is kind of fragmented. The included Angry Birds game and motion remote rock tho!
  - simplezeal 15y ago
    I have both. Roku has high wife acceptance factor, but apple tv has two killer features - YouTube and AirPlay.
    - watmough 15y ago
      YouTube is available on Roku, and works excellently. I have all the users that upload old Formula 1, so I can watch old races whenever I want. Democracy Now also has it's own Roku channel, as do many many other things like Ted that you might not have thought of. It's worth spending some time on Google searching this stuff out. I'd say I spend more time watching YouTube, NetFlix and HULU+ on the Roku than any other consumption mechanism. Local news on OTA HD follows behind. One slightly sad note, I only have the base Roku, and it's quite slow (maybe buffering), so my 2 year old is now utterly tolerant of loading bars, and will watch the loading bar, since she knows that content will follow. Her absolutely favorite thing on TV, though she doesn't watch much (seriously), is the mime segment on Nihongo Quick Lesson, NHK's little Japanese-lessons show that runs about 2:15pm, right after her lunch. I guess really, it's not much different to me as a kid waiting for the TV to warm up and show a picture...
technoslut 15y ago
I wish I could be like you but there is not enough good content even though I may only be interested 10-15 shows and most are on pay channels. I still enjoy the theater as it's still the best way to watch a movie. My childish dream: Apple, Google, and MS combine efforts to create their own production companies with content available on all platforms. Hire away all the talent and we return to 70's style filmmaking and TV shows where the studios had less control. The big three have always treated this part of this business as break-even so the prices will be cheaper.
- Steko 15y ago
  I don't see the current tv/film ecosystem getting broken until there's a widely available toolset that enables rapid creation of high quality animation by casual users. At that point YouTube will swamp Hollywood. 1. Take any crappy MMO going down the tubes. 2. Hack in a frontend for Kinect and a higher quality text to speech ala Xtranormal 3. Release it as Blizzard Fantasy Studio and Profit.
Steko 15y ago
I don't think you get it. Starz isn't turning it's back on the internet, Starz realizes the internet is where it's financial future lies and so it wants more money from the internet. And it's betting that it can take Netflix for more then Netflix wants to pony up today. And maybe Netflix will pay a higher price to keep that content or maybe they can get by without it (see my link to Reed Hastings' comments). But even so this pattern is going to repeat over and over with every other media deal Netflix has as internet tv mainstreams and cash rich Amazon, Apple and friends bid up the price of net based content deals.
- Lukeas14 15y ago
  If this is their plan I think they're smart to simply want more money from Netflix now that viewership has increased. However, this wasn't the impression I got from the Starz executive's quote. What I got was that they felt their internet streaming deal with Netflix was cannibalizing their cable business model. I agree with the original comment's guess that most of the people who cut the chord are not going back, defeating their plan to get these customers to subscribe to their cable channel.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    I'm sure they have actual data that strongly points to Netflix cutting into their margins. They could have asked for more money, but that would probably mean longer agreements, pushing them out to 2015 or 2016, by which time I'm sure they'll want to have a more direct customer relationship. Only a small fraction of Netflix subscribers are cord cutters. They will undoubtedly see a benefit (short term) of this move. Long term internet TV is going to be a lot like cable TV is today. There won't be aggregator services. Starz will have it's own "app" on all of these boxes that you subscribe to outside of Netflix. NBC will probably have their own as well. CBS will be one of the last holdouts, their audience is old enough that the internet is having a softer affect. Us early adopters have had it really good for the last few years, surely you didn't think it was going to continue? Surely you didn't think you'd be getting a large and continually growing catalog of movies (many of which are fairly recent) for only $8 a month forever? Like it or not but businesses like Starz hold all of the cards.
w1ntermute 15y ago
> Hell, I'm even done with sketchy torrent sites, and different scene groups fighting over who gets to release what, and a billion codecs and formats. I'm not sure what sites you're using, but if you use a scene-only torrent tracker, the only releases you'll see are XviD for SD and x264 for HD, which never give me any problems. And one of the fundamental purposes of the scene is to eliminate duplicates - one valid release per movie/TV show episode. If you want to spend your time reading scene notices and follow along with the endless pissing contests between the different release groups, that's fine. But if you just want to consume the content, like I do, it's pretty hard to find a better all-encompassing, no-bullshit source than the scene. With my 20 mbit connection, I can have an HD TV show ready to go in <10 mins and a movie in <30.
- Cyranix 15y ago
  I haven't torrented anything in probably two or three years (only used it for non-US releases and before I had significant income), but I've never needed to fuss with codecs/formats after using the Combined Community Codec Pack. I had no idea there was any drama about who provided what content in that scene, but I suppose that's one more reason to welcome legitimate online video sources.
  - w1ntermute 15y ago
    > I had no idea there was any drama about who provided what content in that scene It's called The Scene[0], and yes, there are humongous drama queens in some of the biggest release groups. > but I suppose that's one more reason to welcome legitimate online video sources. Not really, since, as I said above, it has no effect on the end consumers of said media. 0: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Warez_scene https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Warez_scene
eegilbert 15y ago
I've been internet-only for over 3 years now. No cable. I have an antenna for live sports. There is still so much room in this space, and Netflix is more vulnerable than they look. No matter what set-top box you buy (e.g, Roku, Apple TV) or software you use (e.g., Boxee, Clicker), something important is left out. Please, somebody, make something solid.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Can't happen legally until copyright law is modified. The media companies are deeply involved in shenanigans like this, used as mechanisms to attempt to restrain consumers within the bonds of "traditional" formats like CDs and cable. If you want to set up Boxee to plug in to your favorite trackers, you can have this right now, but no one can offer it out of the box because the content owners don't want them to do it, and our law allows the content owner to dictate that.
  - w1ntermute 15y ago
    > Can't happen legally until copyright law is modified. Then someone had better make an illegal application that does all this in a very attractive & easy-to-use way, because that seems to be the only way to get the companies off their asses and in action.
    - cookiecaper 15y ago
      As I noted, there are plugins that make this very smooth from XBMC/Boxee. The chilling effects of copyright litigation prevent any real polish going into an out-of-the-box product, at least in America. Maybe another group of Swedes with the fortitude of The Pirate Bay's founders will crop up some time and take this on.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
"I don't think they get it. The landscape has changed and I'm not going back." You think? I do wonder about the economics though. $300M vs what? People with content aren't married to a distribution partner, and they certainly aren't married to one who can't deliver eyeballs. So come the next NAB show in Vegas it will be an interesting discussion Netflix has with its potential partners. The next HUGE disruption will be the first team to put together a streaming 24hr news channel. Think about it, something like Google+ for news, where you get notified when there is actually new information about a news story you are following, and you can go back and see that story. Or you open the 'portal' and it shows you the top 5 news stories being covered in each segment, then as you watch them they drop off to be replaced by stories lower in the list, only to re-appear if they have new data. I can't wait, but nobody has done a Ted Turner yet. Hard to kick off since it violates a lot of current practices in the news business, but it will come. It is really a historic time, this realignment which allows 'pure' information businesses. As folks who know me are aware I find economics of information to be pretty cool.
- Florin_Andrei 15y ago
  Currently, news in video format suck big time. I prefer text format (including web sites) a million times over, and the reasons are many: I can absorb the news at my own speed (which might be faster, or slower, or on repeat, etc), I don't get hypnotized by messages addressed to my reptilian brain (such as bright colors, the newsperson's gestures and tone and facial expression, glitzy sounds, etc), and so on. But maybe this will change in the future. For now, text mode is much less biased.
  - ChuckMcM 15y ago
    That's a fair point, one wonders if all the flash and crawls and such give folks seizures. The concept would work well for audio as well though, and then listening to it as a sort of dynamic podcast while driving might be more useful than waiting for an hour of half hour point to arrive. If they could do that and give me traffic updates for the road on which my phone was telling them I was on? That would totally rock for me too. While I feel for the guy who's stalled on the Bay Bridge if that means they don't have time to mention that 101S is about to become a parking lot, then I'm screwed. If I could have someone who I could say "what's new?" and have them tell me, knowing what they have already told me, so that I could actually just get what was new. I'd really really appreciate that and leave my car radio in aux-in mode 24/7 :-)
spooneybarger 15y ago
As soon as I can get any NFL game via the internet, I'm done with any sat/cable service. I have directv for NFL sunday ticket which comes with the rest of their service so I have everything else. When the NFL gets their act together and I can get nfl.tv the way I can get mlb.tv, I'm gone from directv and just getting everything via the net.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  You can get Sunday Ticket on the PS3 now.
  - enjo 15y ago
    I think you have to be unable to access DirecTV via satellite.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      Hmm, I'm not sure. The press release[1] can certainly be read that way "do not currently have access", but I haven't seen any of the blogs talk about that aspect. [1]http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/08/17/directv-and-playstation-bring-nfl-sunday-ticket-to-ps3/ http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/08/17/directv-and-playst...
  - spooneybarger 15y ago
    w/o paying directv for everything else?
bennesvig 15y ago
I have cable TV that's included with my association fee and I watch about an hour a week. I'd much rather watch video on my iPad or Netflix Instant.
rmc 15y ago
I'm even done with sketchy torrent sites, and different scene groups fighting over who gets to release what, and a billion codecs and formats. What torrent sites have you ben using? I use tvtorrents, demonoid and thepiratebay, and they are great. "Billion codecs"?! my media player (totem on linux) can play them all, I don't know what codecs they are in. I never notice anything about groups fighting, there's always a file there, sometimes more than one. Doesn't matter to me if there's > 1 file. "Sketchy sites" might apply if you're using windows, which is insecure, but I use Linux and it's fine. IME torrent sites are some of the best (and often only) ways to get lots of music, tv and film.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  GStreamer is definitely the lower rung in Linux media playback. If you haven't tried them yet, consider using mplayer2 or at least VLC instead of totem.
  - rmc 15y ago
    GStreamer has worked well for me. VLC and mplayer also are able to handle all formats that are thrown at it. What media players can't play every single format?
jonnathanson 15y ago
"I don't think they get it." Oh, I think they do get it. This will start happening soon with all the content providers. They saw how Apple monopolized the music business, and now they want to avoid the same fate with Netflix. This is basically a bunch of posturing in order to bend Netflix over a table during contract negotiations with the major networks and channels. Having worked in Hollywood before, I would not be surprised whatsoever if the heads of all the networks got together one week in a boardroom, hashed out their Netflix bargaining strategy, and agreed on a tactical plan. Hell, the industry is so consolidated that the same two or three people basically run every network out there. They might be annoying. They might not give a good goddamn what's best for the consumer. But they're not stupid. (Or at least not as stupid as the music industry execs were). That said, I wish they'd invest more money, time, and effort into building or supporting Netflix competitors, rather than stifling the Netflix business model altogether. I could live with a world in which I had to pick between Netflix and a handful of others like it. But I would probably tear my hair out in a world with just a content-crippled Netflix and no viable substitutes.
l0c0b0x 15y ago
Same here, haven't had any type of 'cable/tv/sattelite' experience for about 8 years, and I'm not surprised a lot of people are also in these same boat.
libraryatnight 15y ago
I came here to basically say this. I'm not going back to cable. Between Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc there's no reason for me to revert to overpriced cable packages.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

joshontheweb 15y ago

agreed, why waste my time and money waiting on their schedules to watch movies. Im not necessarily a netflix loyalist, but Im definitely not going back to cable.

MatthewB 15y ago

I'm in the same boat as you. I cut the cord about 5 months ago and haven't looked back. I have Netflix and Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV. I know I am missing out on a lot of great content and it pisses me off...until I get my bill, which is a fraction of what I was paying before. Also, the convenience of my current setup is unmatchable. The thing is, like you said, the technology has changed. I want shows on my current setup. I am willing to pay more for more content. One thing I thought was very interesting is Apple removing TV show rentals. I never purchase movies or TV shows. I like to rent them, watch them once and I usually don't want to watch them again. If I do, I will rent it again. Why can't content providers understand this? Netflix and Hulu need to start creating their own content, which I know they are both working towards. One semi-related note: AMC is ending Breaking Bad next season because of Madmen sucking up the budget - Netflix and Hulu: go buy that show! I would gladly pay for a show-specific season pass just to watch Breaking Bad.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Not to get off-topic, but why did you buy an Apple TV instead of a Roku (or do you have both)?
- wbienek 15y ago
  Everyone makies mistakes.
- swilliams 15y ago
  I have both. The UI on the Apple TV is better (but not leaps and bounds better), and the Netflix quality seems to be just a little better in HD. Both are connected to HDMI. Of course, the Roku also does Hulu and Pandora, and I have a second one upstairs on the non-SD tv. From what I've gathered the Apple TV 2 doesn't play nice on SD.
  - jmellicker 15y ago
    We have Roku 2 and Apple TV, the UI on Apple TV is better, esp. Netflix. Roku 2 is 1080p, Apple TV is 720p, but our LCDTV does such a good job upsampling 720p you can't really tell. Roku 2 has access to a lot more content, but the experience of surfing channels is kind of fragmented. The included Angry Birds game and motion remote rock tho!
- simplezeal 15y ago
  I have both. Roku has high wife acceptance factor, but apple tv has two killer features - YouTube and AirPlay.
  - watmough 15y ago
    YouTube is available on Roku, and works excellently. I have all the users that upload old Formula 1, so I can watch old races whenever I want. Democracy Now also has it's own Roku channel, as do many many other things like Ted that you might not have thought of. It's worth spending some time on Google searching this stuff out. I'd say I spend more time watching YouTube, NetFlix and HULU+ on the Roku than any other consumption mechanism. Local news on OTA HD follows behind. One slightly sad note, I only have the base Roku, and it's quite slow (maybe buffering), so my 2 year old is now utterly tolerant of loading bars, and will watch the loading bar, since she knows that content will follow. Her absolutely favorite thing on TV, though she doesn't watch much (seriously), is the mime segment on Nihongo Quick Lesson, NHK's little Japanese-lessons show that runs about 2:15pm, right after her lunch. I guess really, it's not much different to me as a kid waiting for the TV to warm up and show a picture...

technoslut 15y ago

I wish I could be like you but there is not enough good content even though I may only be interested 10-15 shows and most are on pay channels. I still enjoy the theater as it's still the best way to watch a movie. My childish dream: Apple, Google, and MS combine efforts to create their own production companies with content available on all platforms. Hire away all the talent and we return to 70's style filmmaking and TV shows where the studios had less control. The big three have always treated this part of this business as break-even so the prices will be cheaper.

Steko 15y ago
I don't see the current tv/film ecosystem getting broken until there's a widely available toolset that enables rapid creation of high quality animation by casual users. At that point YouTube will swamp Hollywood. 1. Take any crappy MMO going down the tubes. 2. Hack in a frontend for Kinect and a higher quality text to speech ala Xtranormal 3. Release it as Blizzard Fantasy Studio and Profit.

Steko 15y ago

I don't think you get it. Starz isn't turning it's back on the internet, Starz realizes the internet is where it's financial future lies and so it wants more money from the internet. And it's betting that it can take Netflix for more then Netflix wants to pony up today. And maybe Netflix will pay a higher price to keep that content or maybe they can get by without it (see my link to Reed Hastings' comments). But even so this pattern is going to repeat over and over with every other media deal Netflix has as internet tv mainstreams and cash rich Amazon, Apple and friends bid up the price of net based content deals.

Lukeas14 15y ago
If this is their plan I think they're smart to simply want more money from Netflix now that viewership has increased. However, this wasn't the impression I got from the Starz executive's quote. What I got was that they felt their internet streaming deal with Netflix was cannibalizing their cable business model. I agree with the original comment's guess that most of the people who cut the chord are not going back, defeating their plan to get these customers to subscribe to their cable channel.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  I'm sure they have actual data that strongly points to Netflix cutting into their margins. They could have asked for more money, but that would probably mean longer agreements, pushing them out to 2015 or 2016, by which time I'm sure they'll want to have a more direct customer relationship. Only a small fraction of Netflix subscribers are cord cutters. They will undoubtedly see a benefit (short term) of this move. Long term internet TV is going to be a lot like cable TV is today. There won't be aggregator services. Starz will have it's own "app" on all of these boxes that you subscribe to outside of Netflix. NBC will probably have their own as well. CBS will be one of the last holdouts, their audience is old enough that the internet is having a softer affect. Us early adopters have had it really good for the last few years, surely you didn't think it was going to continue? Surely you didn't think you'd be getting a large and continually growing catalog of movies (many of which are fairly recent) for only $8 a month forever? Like it or not but businesses like Starz hold all of the cards.

w1ntermute 15y ago

> Hell, I'm even done with sketchy torrent sites, and different scene groups fighting over who gets to release what, and a billion codecs and formats. I'm not sure what sites you're using, but if you use a scene-only torrent tracker, the only releases you'll see are XviD for SD and x264 for HD, which never give me any problems. And one of the fundamental purposes of the scene is to eliminate duplicates - one valid release per movie/TV show episode. If you want to spend your time reading scene notices and follow along with the endless pissing contests between the different release groups, that's fine. But if you just want to consume the content, like I do, it's pretty hard to find a better all-encompassing, no-bullshit source than the scene. With my 20 mbit connection, I can have an HD TV show ready to go in <10 mins and a movie in <30.

Cyranix 15y ago
I haven't torrented anything in probably two or three years (only used it for non-US releases and before I had significant income), but I've never needed to fuss with codecs/formats after using the Combined Community Codec Pack. I had no idea there was any drama about who provided what content in that scene, but I suppose that's one more reason to welcome legitimate online video sources.
- w1ntermute 15y ago
  > I had no idea there was any drama about who provided what content in that scene It's called The Scene[0], and yes, there are humongous drama queens in some of the biggest release groups. > but I suppose that's one more reason to welcome legitimate online video sources. Not really, since, as I said above, it has no effect on the end consumers of said media. 0: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Warez_scene https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Warez_scene

eegilbert 15y ago

I've been internet-only for over 3 years now. No cable. I have an antenna for live sports. There is still so much room in this space, and Netflix is more vulnerable than they look. No matter what set-top box you buy (e.g, Roku, Apple TV) or software you use (e.g., Boxee, Clicker), something important is left out. Please, somebody, make something solid.

cookiecaper 15y ago
Can't happen legally until copyright law is modified. The media companies are deeply involved in shenanigans like this, used as mechanisms to attempt to restrain consumers within the bonds of "traditional" formats like CDs and cable. If you want to set up Boxee to plug in to your favorite trackers, you can have this right now, but no one can offer it out of the box because the content owners don't want them to do it, and our law allows the content owner to dictate that.
- w1ntermute 15y ago
  > Can't happen legally until copyright law is modified. Then someone had better make an illegal application that does all this in a very attractive & easy-to-use way, because that seems to be the only way to get the companies off their asses and in action.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    As I noted, there are plugins that make this very smooth from XBMC/Boxee. The chilling effects of copyright litigation prevent any real polish going into an out-of-the-box product, at least in America. Maybe another group of Swedes with the fortitude of The Pirate Bay's founders will crop up some time and take this on.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

"I don't think they get it. The landscape has changed and I'm not going back." You think? I do wonder about the economics though. $300M vs what? People with content aren't married to a distribution partner, and they certainly aren't married to one who can't deliver eyeballs. So come the next NAB show in Vegas it will be an interesting discussion Netflix has with its potential partners. The next HUGE disruption will be the first team to put together a streaming 24hr news channel. Think about it, something like Google+ for news, where you get notified when there is actually new information about a news story you are following, and you can go back and see that story. Or you open the 'portal' and it shows you the top 5 news stories being covered in each segment, then as you watch them they drop off to be replaced by stories lower in the list, only to re-appear if they have new data. I can't wait, but nobody has done a Ted Turner yet. Hard to kick off since it violates a lot of current practices in the news business, but it will come. It is really a historic time, this realignment which allows 'pure' information businesses. As folks who know me are aware I find economics of information to be pretty cool.

Florin_Andrei 15y ago
Currently, news in video format suck big time. I prefer text format (including web sites) a million times over, and the reasons are many: I can absorb the news at my own speed (which might be faster, or slower, or on repeat, etc), I don't get hypnotized by messages addressed to my reptilian brain (such as bright colors, the newsperson's gestures and tone and facial expression, glitzy sounds, etc), and so on. But maybe this will change in the future. For now, text mode is much less biased.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  That's a fair point, one wonders if all the flash and crawls and such give folks seizures. The concept would work well for audio as well though, and then listening to it as a sort of dynamic podcast while driving might be more useful than waiting for an hour of half hour point to arrive. If they could do that and give me traffic updates for the road on which my phone was telling them I was on? That would totally rock for me too. While I feel for the guy who's stalled on the Bay Bridge if that means they don't have time to mention that 101S is about to become a parking lot, then I'm screwed. If I could have someone who I could say "what's new?" and have them tell me, knowing what they have already told me, so that I could actually just get what was new. I'd really really appreciate that and leave my car radio in aux-in mode 24/7 :-)

spooneybarger 15y ago

As soon as I can get any NFL game via the internet, I'm done with any sat/cable service. I have directv for NFL sunday ticket which comes with the rest of their service so I have everything else. When the NFL gets their act together and I can get nfl.tv the way I can get mlb.tv, I'm gone from directv and just getting everything via the net.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
You can get Sunday Ticket on the PS3 now.
- enjo 15y ago
  I think you have to be unable to access DirecTV via satellite.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Hmm, I'm not sure. The press release[1] can certainly be read that way "do not currently have access", but I haven't seen any of the blogs talk about that aspect. [1]http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/08/17/directv-and-playstation-bring-nfl-sunday-ticket-to-ps3/ http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/08/17/directv-and-playst...
- spooneybarger 15y ago
  w/o paying directv for everything else?

bennesvig 15y ago

I have cable TV that's included with my association fee and I watch about an hour a week. I'd much rather watch video on my iPad or Netflix Instant.

rmc 15y ago

I'm even done with sketchy torrent sites, and different scene groups fighting over who gets to release what, and a billion codecs and formats. What torrent sites have you ben using? I use tvtorrents, demonoid and thepiratebay, and they are great. "Billion codecs"?! my media player (totem on linux) can play them all, I don't know what codecs they are in. I never notice anything about groups fighting, there's always a file there, sometimes more than one. Doesn't matter to me if there's > 1 file. "Sketchy sites" might apply if you're using windows, which is insecure, but I use Linux and it's fine. IME torrent sites are some of the best (and often only) ways to get lots of music, tv and film.

cookiecaper 15y ago
GStreamer is definitely the lower rung in Linux media playback. If you haven't tried them yet, consider using mplayer2 or at least VLC instead of totem.
- rmc 15y ago
  GStreamer has worked well for me. VLC and mplayer also are able to handle all formats that are thrown at it. What media players can't play every single format?

jonnathanson 15y ago

"I don't think they get it." Oh, I think they do get it. This will start happening soon with all the content providers. They saw how Apple monopolized the music business, and now they want to avoid the same fate with Netflix. This is basically a bunch of posturing in order to bend Netflix over a table during contract negotiations with the major networks and channels. Having worked in Hollywood before, I would not be surprised whatsoever if the heads of all the networks got together one week in a boardroom, hashed out their Netflix bargaining strategy, and agreed on a tactical plan. Hell, the industry is so consolidated that the same two or three people basically run every network out there. They might be annoying. They might not give a good goddamn what's best for the consumer. But they're not stupid. (Or at least not as stupid as the music industry execs were). That said, I wish they'd invest more money, time, and effort into building or supporting Netflix competitors, rather than stifling the Netflix business model altogether. I could live with a world in which I had to pick between Netflix and a handful of others like it. But I would probably tear my hair out in a world with just a content-crippled Netflix and no viable substitutes.

l0c0b0x 15y ago

Same here, haven't had any type of 'cable/tv/sattelite' experience for about 8 years, and I'm not surprised a lot of people are also in these same boat.

libraryatnight 15y ago

I came here to basically say this. I'm not going back to cable. Between Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc there's no reason for me to revert to overpriced cable packages.