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HBO No Go
- falicon 14y agoIt's got the button, but not the feature. Gotta love it! ;-)
- jonknee 14y agoNo, it has the button to play audio through Air Play. It's a different icon for video.
- sudonim 14y agoRoku has the HBO Go app on it, but will probably fail you too. Subscribers log in to HBO Go with their username and password from their cable subscription, not something they get from HBO. Time Warner Cable blocks using the Roku with HBO Go. When you try to authenticate the device, they slap you on the wrist and say no. You can however, airplay from the HBO website in Mountain Lion, but I find things get a little out of sync.
- sabat 14y agoComcast isn't participating in this, so no HBO on Roku for Comcast subscribers.
- koenigdavidmj 14y agoSo Comcast and Time Warner, quite possibly the two largest cable companies in the US, both ban Roku users from using HBO Go. Who can use it then?
- mikeryan 14y agoTime Warner can, and pretty much all next largest operators after Comcast Cox, Charter, Insight, BrightHouse, ATT, Verizon. Comcast works on Xbox, not sure why not the Roku yet.
- rhizome 14y agoDSL users, which is why the cable commercials (around here) always take pains to say "slow DSL" (both words, always) in their commercials. It's not because DSL is slower (it really isn't, in the wild), but because it's a true competitive threat. Aside from the slight speed differential, cable companies are a (willingly) captured industry, so you will see industry-driven content restrictions like these from them that you don't see on DSL.
- ricardobeat 14y agoWhy do american regulatory agencies put up with this crap? One provider shouldn't interfere with another (much less block it).
- rhizome 14y agoThe regulatory agencies are staffed almost entirely with people who used to work at the networks. They're in on it.
- sudonim 14y agoWhoops - as of May 2012, TWC no longer blocks the Roku on HBO Go. Last time I tried was in April I think.
- monatron 14y agoI can imagine being a developer on this product would be insanity. They probably implemented the Airplay feature, showed it to their bosses and for whatever reason the higher-ups had their reasons for nixing the second screen... Then they thought -- Ok, so we can't do video but perhaps people would want to airplay the audio to their fancy pants audio setup in their homes, better than nothing, right? Wrong. I hope the big media companies get their acts together. They only get to screw up a finite number of times before someone comes and blows them out of the water
- ConstantineXVI 14y agoAFAIK; AirPlay is essentially "free" with the standard video player in iOS. It takes more effort to remove it than put it in.
- smackfu 14y agoWell, I think it's a config switch, so it takes very little effort to add it or remove it.
- tomjen3 14y agoWhich is something Apple shouldn't have done - with all the crap they make devs go through, fully working airplay should be a required feature with all the video players.
- jonknee 14y agoI don't think they use the standard video player though. It may have changed recently, but I noticed that the controls were jaggy on the Retina iPad. They might be doing some weird encoding of the video to prevent piracy and thus use a custom player designed to look the same.
- freehunter 14y agoI've actually done this before on my tablet. The speakers built in are pretty poor quality but my home speakers are nice, so I plugged in the headphone jack. I didn't want to bother moving the video from my tablet to my HTPC, but at least I got good sound.
- BklynJay 14y agoNot a week goes by where I don't hear from someone who wants to watch HBO GO on their Apple TV or output from their iPad to the tv. The idea that the consumer has the right to view their legally paid-content where they want and how they want is slowly but surely becoming a reality. It's just a matter of time before HBO caves. Frustrating in the interim though.
- grabeh 14y agoThere may be alternative services which do not look to place any restrictions on where content can be viewed, which will place pressure on HBO, however, as long as a particular provider produces unique desirable content that they are comfortable monetising in specific ways, whatever restrictions that provider wants to place on viewing will remain. It may not make much sense in the example, but the idea still applies. When you buy content from that provider, you agree to their terms and their methods of distribution. As such, there will never be a right to view content wherever you wish, unless the particular provider distributes in such a manner.
- chris_wot 14y agoBy "alternative services" I assume you are referring to BitTorrent? :-)
- ricardobeat 14y agoNetFlix is one.
- twoodfin 14y agoDo you still get the video on the iPad? If so, this feature makes some sense. If you've got AirPlay speakers, they'd be a great substitute for the crummy built-in ones. Clearly HBO is walking a fine line here: The cable companies that partially subsidize them in order to lure subscribers don't want you walking over to your (non-subscriber) friend's house and throwing "Game of Thrones" up on the big screen via Apple TV. The whole "let me pay for it!" debate has been well-covered elsewhere: In short, HBO probably couldn't make a living charging individual subscribers for content, especially on a per-show basis. How could they produce new material without the guarantee of N-million monthly subscribers? And cable/fiber/satellite companies who help promote their service?
- Argorak 14y agoAirplay has an audible delay that is hard to compensate over 2 devices, so the feature makes no sense at all.
- furyg3 14y agoMaybe I don't understand what you're saying, but iOS corrects for the audio delay of AirPlay audio streaming. I don't have an AppleTV, but I do have an AirPortExpress. Streaming video to iOS with audio on my home stereo works great, with the video on the device synced with the AirPlay audio.
- Arelius 14y agoYeah, I have no idea what he is talking about, I have two AirPort Expresses, and an AppleTV, and AirPlay is the only wireless audio protocol I've yet found that actually gets the audio sync right, every time.
- count 14y agoI use AirPlay from my MacPro over wifi to a Klipsch Gallery G-17. With iTunes, it 'just works'. With AirPlay as the default 'Output' sound for the whole OS (new in Mt. Lion I think), it definitely has sync/delay issues. The delay is nearly 2 seconds for something (like hitting 'vol up' on the keyboard).
- w1ntermute 14y agoIt's amazing what people will put up with. I built a media center PC running Windows 7 using a guide like this[0]. It was the best decision I made. I just torrent content on my desktop, access it over the network share on my HTPC, and everything's good to go. You can get a 10' UI using XBMC if you want, and you can access the full versions of YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, (and HBO Go, I presume) etc. - no restrictions. No transcoding, no syncing - if it works on your PC, it works on an HTPC. 0: http://lifehacker.com/5936546/how-i-built-the-media-center-of-my-dreams-for-under-500 http://lifehacker.com/5936546/how-i-built-the-media-center-o...
- ricardobeat 14y agoYes, because downloading torrents + network share is just the same as streaming + airplay. This guy already has a cable set top box plus an Apple TV that can stream from HBO and network sharing. Airplay is another matter, you can't mirror/stream from your mobile to your HTPC.
- w1ntermute 14y ago> Yes, because downloading torrents + network share is just the same as streaming + airplay. No, it's much better. It's free and completely automatic. Set up an RSS feed for your favorite shows and tell XBMC to monitor the download directories. It's a truly breathtaking experience. > This guy already has a cable set top box plus an Apple TV that can stream from HBO and network sharing. Compared to a full-blown HTPC, an Apple TV (or any other device without a full OS) is very limited in its functionality. > you can't mirror/stream from your mobile to your HTPC. Oh really? This article would beg to disagree: http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-mirror-your-ios-or-android-device-to-your-pc-mac-for-the-ultimate-big-screen-gaming-experience/ http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-mirror-your-ios-or-android-...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- malyk 14y agoIt's also illegal and some of us actually believe you should pay for other peoples creative work.
- parfe 14y agoI have a Galaxy S3. I bought an MHL -> HDMI adapter, hooked up to my tv and started up HBO Go for a test run. On Android they don't even bother with an audio only implementation. The app simply crashes. Until this article I assumed the developer sucked. Now I'm not so sure the crashing is a bug.
- kingnothing 14y agoAmazon Instant Video suffers from the same problem.
- twoodfin 14y agoThe difference with Amazon Instant Video is that it's trivial to find a plain-old TV-connected device that supports it. My year old Blu-ray player handles it just fine. It's not that different from NetFlix in that regard, except I suppose it's not available for Apple TV yet. The only device designed to put HBO Go on your TV screen is, I believe, the XBox 360 when connected to particular cable networks.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoThe iTunes screenshots don't show the AirPlay icon: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hbo-go/id429775439?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hbo-go/id429775439?mt=8 The conspiracy theorist in me wanted to believe they left audio in there just to advertise AirPlay support.
- sofuture 14y agoIt's amazing that people are surprised at all when a combination of proprietary media-playback system don't work as desired. No snark intended, I've just not ever had a good experience dealing with a single proprietary playback mechanism.
- rmc 14y agoHere here. This is exactly what 'Freedom 0' is.
- gizzlon 14y agoNot even stand-alone players? My first one ever, a mid-range blue-ray player works fine. Other than that, I agree. Btw, the open source players (vlc, mplayer etc.) have been the best software players out there for the last decade.
- eddieroger 14y agoCalling it broken is a relative statement. On a technical level, they had to do something to prevent mirroring from functioning as the article wants. So, they implement AirPlay, but audio only. But, I'd argue this works exactly as HBO wants it to, so it's not broken, it just doesn't do what you want it to. HBO's business model isn't terribly friendly to watching their programming on a TV unless it comes via cable or one of their heavily licensed, and generally stationary, partner products. You are a lot less likely to take a Roku or Xbox to a friends' house to watch Game of Thrones, but you always have your iPhone. Of course you could have them over and this falls apart, but you could do that with their cable feed as well. They're trying to slow the bleeding since they can't stop it.
- Domenic_S 14y ago> But, I'd argue this works exactly as HBO wants it to, so it's not broken, it just doesn't do what you want it to. You're nitpicking. It's broken in the colloquial sense -- the app makes an implicit promise and then delivers only partway. That it was built to spec is immaterial; if the spec is "broken" (anti-user, antipattern, etc) it doesn't matter if you build exactly to spec... it's still broken.
- eddieroger 14y agoNo I'm not, and I think you are. Just because it doesn't do what you want doesn't make it broken. That's like buying a car, but being upset it can't drive distances with a flat tire. It's not supposed to do that, so other than a faulty tire, the car isn't broken. And the spec isn't either - they aren't being anti-user, because they don't have to release the app at all. I can come up with a dozen business cases for audio only (the iPad/iPhone speakers being mono only for one, being a crappy speaker for two), but they are interests to protect. This app is a compromise that you don't have to use, not meant to replace the television experience, but be an additional screen for occasional viewing.
- Domenic_S 14y agoWhat are you, project manager for HBO GO? Just because it doesn't do what you want doesn't make it broken. Promising functionality with an Airplay button and delivering partially is the failure. If you can't see that then I pray you never write specs.
- ricardobeat 14y agoShouldn't the App Store approval process reject an app that does this? It must be violating some ux guideline.
- Zelphyr 14y agoIts tactics like this that are the reason I'm cutting the cord when my DirecTV contract is up in November. HBO has great content. Some of the best available in fact. But I refuse to give them a dime while they institute policies that actively diminish my viewing experience.
- mortenjorck 14y agoThis isn't just HBO Go, or even just third-party apps – first-party video playback on iOS will, depending on hidden flags from iTunes store purchases, arbitrarily disable video over AirPlay. A friend and I found this out the hard way one afternoon when we decided to rent Ridley Scott's Alien, in anticipation of seeing Prometheus. He pulled up the store on his iPhone, found the movie, selected Rent: HD, and signed on to my wi-fi network, my Apple TV appearing on his iPhone without a hiccup. So far, pure Apple seamlessness – until he selected the AirPlay output. The audio played back over my speakers, but the video remained on the 3.5" screen. Thinking resourcefully, I suggested he try AirPlay mirroring. This, at last, gave us the "fuck you, consumer" from the studio in explicit form: a message appeared on his phone saying the AirPlay display couldn't be trusted. We both resolved never to use the iTunes store for movies again.
- rmc 14y agoPirate it. You get a higher quality product.
- jhenkens 14y agoThis is why I don't get Hollywood and all of the cable providers. It isn't like pirating software, where it is usually an inferior product due to updates and the like. Instead, pirating video (movies and TV) is truly the best form of the product you can get. Music finally went the right way after a handful of years full of DRM - we can only hope the same will happen with video.
- rmc 14y agoSometimes pirated software off better. Some games might have DRM and require an always on internet connection to authenticate so you can play. Pirated games might have no such limitations.
- mortenjorck 14y agoIronically, we just ended up not watching it that weekend, and as a consequence, we never ended up going out to see Prometheus while it was in theaters. Not out of spite or anything, just that watching the two movies in sequence had been our plan, and the plan had been broken. So the studio lost two sales resulting from a vain attempt to restrict one.
- revscat 14y agoOP seems like exactly the kind of customer that the cable industry would want to bend over backwards to make happy, not unnecessarily hamstring. He has all the devices and subscriptions he ostensibly needs, and appears to be a Good Cable Citizen. The fact that HBO feels it necessary to restrict him in this way smacks of hubris.
- js2 14y agoThe reason for this is that iOS allows an app to opt-out of video AirPlay, but not opt-out of AirPlay audio [1]. HBO has opted out of video AirPlay most likely to satisfy its cable provider partners who provide the vast majority of its income[2]. 1. http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/AirPlayGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/AudioVi... 2. http://dcurt.is/hbo-forbes-journalism http://dcurt.is/hbo-forbes-journalism
- fredwilson 14y agoaha. thanks for that explanation. makes total sense to me now. but they really shouldn't include the button if they haven't fully implemented the feature
- FixThisPOS 14y ago"Satisfy" meaning "pander to their stupidity instead of forcing them to think things through." Software patents. This shit. Every avenue of consumer product delivery is now pervaded by crippling stupidity. Remember NBC's lies about its Olympics streaming: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/08/nbcs-olympic-lie.html http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2012/08/nbcs-olympic-lie.html
- mikeryan 14y agoThis restriction likely comes from the studios which provide the content (these deals usually contain DRM restrictions on how the content can be distributed), not the cable operators.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoLikely comes from cable companies as well, they don't want you watching television except through their boxes (hence cableCARD never taking off).
- mikeryan 14y agothey don't want you watching television except through their boxes This is entirely untrue. Most cable companies have apps which allow you to stream content via iPad or even Xbox apps. The whole HBO Go thing is part of a cable wide initiative called TV Everywhere which is entirely about letting you watch your TV content on alternative devices as long as you have a cable subscription. Streaming content is actually a win for the cable operators because it offloads a lot of work from their cable infrastructure. They're actually fine with you streaming content via their network's services as long as you're paying your cable bill.
- pwthornton 14y agoI've written about the issues with HBO Go extensively. It's a terrible app that has a lot of promise, but it's really hampered by old-media ways of thinking about content distribution. The app is intended to be a second, third of fourth screen in your house, nothing more. That's not what the name implies, nor does that fit the reality of how many people consume content today. You can't cache/download shows to use on the go, meaning that your streaming ability requires a connection and a good one at that: http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/14/game-of-thrones-looks-terrible-streaming-over-hotel-wifi/ http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/14/game-of-thrones-loo... Why is HBO Go not a to-go service? http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go-not-a-to-go-service/ http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go-not-a... Here is a podcast discussing the issues with HBO Go: http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/22/episode-38-to-go-or-not-to-go/ http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/22/episode-38-to-go-or... Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that HBO Go is a needless usability mess.
- fredwilson 14y agogreat stuff. i think as a standalone app, its is very well done. but as you say, the potential is so much greater and they have punted on almost all of that.
- kin 14y agoIt's a streaming service, no streaming service offers to-go. Is there Netflix To-GO? No. But, I can connect to my hotel's wi-fi and stream their ENTIRE catalog of television shows. To me, that's even better than their TV experience on my STB.
- jonaphin 14y agoAfter many trials and tribulations (Apple TV + Airplay, Roku 2, PS3) the ONLY decent (read working) option was XBox 360 + XBox Live Gold + Comcast XFinity* + HBO Go App. It does feel like I lost my soul signing packs with so many devils, but at long last, I have an HD HBO Go app running the way it ought to. * Not all cable companies have a deal with HBO for HBO Go
- fredwilson 14y agowow. you really went through hell. respect!
- rhizome 14y agoYou are their ideal customer, and I wouldn't doubt that that network of requirements was mapped out in advance. "If all goes well, these X companies will get signups from HBO Go customers."
- daveman 14y agoIt's particularly annoying that this prohibition is in place even though there are still other ways-- albeit less convenient ones-- to get the video streaming to your TV. For example, you can use a thunderbolt-to-hdmi connector (or VGA) from your laptop, and probably a 30pin-to-hdmi from your iPad (although I've never tried the latter). So it's possible to still get the content to your TV, in a much less user-friendly (i.e. tethered) way. I know not everyone has these connectors, but since the ability is there, you'd hope they would just be gracious and allow for the better experience.
- iopuy 14y agoOkay listen to this. HBO GO is only available to people with certian cable companies. I live in an apartment complex so i cannot changes who provides my cable. My younger sister has HBO GO app on xbox live and direct tv. I have knology, a non support cable provider while direct tv is. She gave me her direct tv credentials and i put them into mh 360 and it worked no problem, all it does is show a direct tv logo in the app itself.
- MBCook 14y agoApartment complex exclusivity was re-affirmed as illegal a few years ago [1]. Of course if there is only one choice in the area, that's perfectly legal. Does HBO Go work well on those device? I watched an episode of Newsroom using the HBO Go website, and it was a terrible experience. Ignoring the "sign into your cable company" thing, the video quality wasn't that great despite using tons of bandwidth. It stuttered but looked OK. On the other hand Netflix movies look much better and use less bandwidth. It's like they're still using the old Flash codec instead of MP4. [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-uph...
- iopuy 14y agoI have both Netflix and HBO Go on xbox 360 apps and the quality is identical to my naked eye.
- britta 14y agoIf you happen to have a jailbroken iPad 3rd generation, iPad 2, or iPhone 4S, you can install UnrestrictPremium to work around this limitation: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/08/09/unrestrictpremium/ http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/08/09/unrestrictpremium/