VOD : Streaming services news, offers and general chit chat

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Legendkiller2k

Difference is though with streaming you can sub to them on a monthly basis so can swap them around as you please, where with cable, sattilite etc you are locked in a long contract.

You can, just in the same way you can dabble in and out of public utilities like electricity, water, gas, railways etc.

If more people are creaming more profits out the end user is losing.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Itshim

Only have Netflix , not sure why I bother, hardly watched it for months, writers strike is not helping. Just thinking it's to much faff to cancel and then renew. The only thing I am really waiting for is" Wednesday"

The impact of the writers strike hasn’t hit yet. Are you really searching properly for the good material? There’s plenty on there.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

The impact of the writers strike hasn’t hit yet. Are you really searching properly for the good material? There’s plenty on there.

Would anyone even notice a writers strike in streaming land? Presumably old hat stuff, rebadged on an individual basis to those who haven’t seen it, would be suffice?

[Legendkiller2k]

Originally Posted by jfman

You can, just in the same way you can dabble in and out of public utilities like electricity, water, gas, railways etc.

If more people are creaming more profits out the end user is losing.

Eh?

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by jfman

Would anyone even notice a writers strike in streaming land? Presumably old hat stuff, rebadged on an individual basis to those who haven’t seen it, would be suffice?

Tend to watch Netflix original these days, signed up to get " once upon a time" as I said awaiting Wednesday, can't be bothered to watch for half an hour , only to say thanks but no thanks.

[TimeLord2018]

BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 (Paramount) join forces to launch 'Freely' in 2024.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/20...-streaming-age

[SnoopZ]

Freely? What a terrible name, it also sounds very very similar to Amazon's offering Freevee so maybe some legal complications in the future.

Originally Posted by TimeLord2018

BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 (Paramount) join forces to launch 'Freely' in 2024.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/20...-streaming-age

There were 3rd party tablet and phone apps doing this 10 years ago. Absolutely brilliant they were, until the rights holders threatened them and got them all closed down, only to replace them with nothing at all.

All I can really say about this is it’s about time. They don’t deserve a fanfare for doing next year what they could easily have done in 2012.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by Chris

There were 3rd party tablet and phone apps doing this 10 years ago. Absolutely brilliant they were, until the rights holders threatened them and got them all closed down, only to replace them with nothing at all.

All I can really say about this is it’s about time. They don’t deserve a fanfare for doing next year what they could easily have done in 2012.

TVCatchup was my go to

[ozsat]

It was only a couple of years ago the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 launched Britbox - where is that now in the UK?

Originally Posted by TimeLord2018

BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 (Paramount) join forces to launch 'Freely' in 2024.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/20...-streaming-age

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by ozsat

It was only a couple of years ago the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 launched Britbox - where is that now in the UK?

Thought I saw it offered on ITV X premium, but perhaps I am wrong, which is the norm

[ozsat]

Britbox stopped taking subs and directed people to ITVX. Some programmes on ITVX still marked as Britbox.

Originally Posted by Itshim

Thought I saw it offered on ITV X premium, but perhaps I am wrong, which is the norm

Originally Posted by ozsat

It was only a couple of years ago the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 launched Britbox - where is that now in the UK?

It went the same way every product goes when nobody really understands what it’s meant to be for. What was it: a video library for classic Doctor Who and 1970s sitcoms or a platform for new British productions? And given that every classic British show worth re-watching has already been watched to death over the past 20 years on various Satellite channels and/or Netflix, was there enough value in any of it to be worth paying for now? And why pay for new British content from (mostly) ITV when there’s a ton of free-to-view new British content across multiple channels already, thanks to the way broadcasting is structured in the UK?

The truth is, Apple TV+, Netflix, Disney+ and Prime TV all do rather well at British made original material. Heck, Disney’s making whole chunks of its Marvel and Star Wars universes in the UK and it’s not even relegating its British actors to token villain roles. The idea that we needed a distinctively British streaming service was always a bit odd.

Where we’re at right now with this is very similar to where we were with OnDigital 20 odd years ago. What was supposed to be the digital terrestrial replacement for traditional analogue broadcast flopped because the marketing majored on the stuff they wanted to sell you rather than on the fact that all the public service channels, plus a lot more, were on the service for free. ITV digital tried to take it on, made the same basic errors, and flopped again. Only when they streamlined it and branded it Freeview did the public get the message and the analogue switch-off could be planned for.

AFAIK Britbox didn’t even try to act as an aggregator for public service channels, which is absolutely should have done given the PSBs jointly owned it. That might have given it a chance at attracting users (tho someone tell me if it did do that, I didn’t use it). If broadcast over IP is to be a part of the future mix then the EPG we’re all used to needs to be replicated somehow, and like Freeview and Freesat before it, Freely might just do what earlier commercial efforts failed to do.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Chris

There were 3rd party tablet and phone apps doing this 10 years ago. Absolutely brilliant they were, until the rights holders threatened them and got them all closed down, only to replace them with nothing at all.

All I can really say about this is it’s about time. They don’t deserve a fanfare for doing next year what they could easily have done in 2012.

Our public service broadcasters did try - it was called Project Kangaroo, but Ofcom closed it down.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Our public service broadcasters did try - it was called Project Kangaroo, but Ofcom closed it down.

Because they tried to make it an everything burrito from day one, mixing broadcast and on-demand content in a way Ofcom believed would hamper the development of private sector efforts. TVCatchup and similar services simply rebroadcast free-to-air satellite channels as IP streams, which you could select from a simple EPG.