Originally Posted by BWillie:
If every single network had the stand alone streaming option - I'd be all about it.
I can't think of a network that doesn't have a streaming app for most, if not all, platforms.
I can access every app/channel included in my Direct TV package but of course, I'm a "subscriber", so all I need to do is login to those apps (Disney, FX, FXX, etc.). CBS All Access being the lone "pay wall".
Also, keep in mind that Universal, Disney and Warner Brothers (including TBS, TNT, TruTV, etc.) are all pulling content from Netflix and Amazon so TV series like Friends, The Office, Parks & Rec, et al, will only be available to stream from their respective "Parent" companies. There's a rumor that the NBC/Universal app will be free of charge but if that happens, it most likely won't be ad-free.
But as I mentioned earlier, I think it will be at least a decade, if ever, when bundles are offered in a cafeteria style purchase.
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud:
It's actually heading the other direction, with Universal's new streaming platform set for sometime in 2021 and HBO Max, which is set for Spring 2020.
The only major studio without a streaming platform is Sony.
There are rumors that AT&T will include HBO Max for free to its customers (including Direct TV) but that hasn't been set in stone.
I think it's going to be quite a while before we see any "Bundled Bundles".
Honestly, there is little reason to subscribe to all of them at once. They are all month to month, so just subscribe to one until you run out of things to watch cancel it, and move on to the next one.
I've been pretty disapointed with most of Netflix's new stuff, so canceled them. Now have the Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ bundle.
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud:
I can't think of a network that doesn't have a streaming app for most, if not all, platforms.
I can access every app/channel included in my Direct TV package but of course, I'm a "subscriber", so all I need to do is login to those apps (Disney, FX, FXX, etc.). CBS All Access being the lone "pay wall".
Also, keep in mind that Universal, Disney and Warner Brothers (including TBS, TNT, TruTV, etc.) are all pulling content from Netflix and Amazon so TV series like Friends, The Office, Parks & Rec, et al, will only be available to stream from their respective "Parent" companies. There's a rumor that the NBC/Universal app will be free of charge but if that happens, it most likely won't be ad-free.
But as I mentioned earlier, I think it will be at least a decade, if ever, when bundles are offered in a cafeteria style purchase.
It's gonna get messy.
This is our capitalistic system. We think in the long run that individuals and corporations greed will be better for us. It's hard to argue against that system. Look around us, we are the biggest economy ever.
Every entertainment entity wants to keep all their content to themselves and not share the profits with Netflix, HBO, Comcast etc. Let the consumer decide approach.
If Dane's prediction of a decade before we get another consolation or shift in the paradigm on how we receive content. I think tech will decide that for the market before these other content and consumer demands force consolidation.
I come at this from a tech prospective. Automation, Big Data and AI will have matured into the main stream within 5 years. EVERYTHING will change including how we get our entertainment content. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
This is our capitalistic system. We think in the long run that individuals and corporations greed will be better for us. It's hard to argue against that system. Look around us, we are the biggest economy ever.
Every entertainment entity wants to keep all their content to themselves and not share the profits with Netflix, HBO, Comcast etc. Let the consumer decide approach.
If Dane's prediction of a decade before we get another consolation or shift in the paradigm on how we receive content. I think tech will decide that for the market before these other content and consumer demands force consolidation.
I come at this from a tech prospective. Automation, Big Data and AI will have matured into the main stream within 5 years. EVERYTHING will change including how we get our entertainment content.
I think in the interim this could go a couple of ways, people are finally realizing cutting the cord isn't cheap and is more fragmented and maybe more expensive than cable so they may start going back to cable.
Or all this fragmentation will lead to piracy being back in vogue. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
Every entertainment entity wants to keep all their content to themselves and not share the profits with Netflix, HBO, Comcast etc. Let the consumer decide approach.
If Dane's prediction of a decade before we get another consolation or shift in the paradigm on how we receive content. I think tech will decide that for the market before these other content and consumer demands force consolidation.
The Film & TV business isn't like the Music Business, which is regulated by Congress. Spotify, Pandora and other streaming entities exist because of a loophole in the law, which allows Compulsory Licences.
No such laws exist for Movies and TV Series. The owners of said IP decide when and where their product exists and is available through Direct Contractual Licensing. Even if an aggregate startup like a Spotify were to be created by software engineers, what motivation would IP owners have to license their products to said Startup and how could that startup afford the licensing fees without a customer base, which is already served by the IP owners directly?
At that point, the Startup is basically Netflix in its infancy and we already know how that story ends.
Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
I come at this from a tech prospective. Automation, Big Data and AI will have matured into the main stream within 5 years. EVERYTHING will change including how we get our entertainment content.
I don't think it will change from the consumer viewpoint. HBO, Universal, Disney/Fox and Warner Brothers won't suddenly decide to license their content to another Streamer due to advances in technology.
What we're all witnessing is what should have happened with the music industry in 1997: These same Mega IP Holders should have created a streaming platform at that point in time but instead, all of the Fat Cats sat around and waited for someone else to innovate (i.e., Apple). The Music Industry rejoiced when Apple launched iTunes and thought the battle was over (they were, of course, wrong). They learned their lesson but instead of creating Spotify, they now own more than 70% of the streamer.
Now, I won't discount the possibility of a streaming app like Movies Anywhere (Disney-owned), which is an aggregate app that allows digital copies of films and TV series purchased from various retail and online merchants to exist in one simple library (all of the studios have agreed to allow their IP to be shared in this app, save Paramount). That said, I don't really see the viability in that type of product due to the fact that a Roku or similar device essentially does that already: All of the apps exist in one curated screen so from that perspective, there's no reason for such an app to exist.
The bottom line is that the Content Creators have let others, like Amazon and Netflix do their work for them. Advances in technology won't make them suddenly reverse course and re-license to Amazon and Netflix again. And keep in mind, the extra revenue from their own Streamer vs. licensing to Amazon and/or Netflix will go towards new content, furthering their IP supremacy.
If there's anything that's going to change with the Big Four pulling back their content, it's Netflix. They're already operating with a massive amount of debt service and losing Lucasfilm, Marvel, Warner's owned shows like Friends, Uni's Parks & Rec, et al, will make Netflix vulnerable to a corporate takeover. [Reply]
Originally Posted by :
Disney+ has added Resume and Restart options. This allows Disney+ users to pick up wherever they left off in a show or movie, rather than losing their place if the app is closed and started up again later, or to restart from the beginning. The update also added an Add to Watchlist feature, making it easier to find content on the homepage.
This update isn’t on all devices yet. Resume, Restart, and Add to Watchlist aren’t available on the Disney+ website, for example, but Roku users have started to see the new buttons. If you aren’t seeing the new features, you’ll likely be getting an update soon.
Originally Posted by Fish:
Navigation is getting an update.
I wish ESPN+ would get an update.
YTTV is better. You can start an in progress game from the start without going live. You get thumbnails as you move the slider bar. And there is a 15 second jump forward or back button.
On the desktop browser version of ESPN+ it isn't practical to use the slider bar to back up a few seconds to watch your own replay. [Reply]
If there's anything that's going to change with the Big Four pulling back their content, it's Netflix. They're already operating with a massive amount of debt service and losing Lucasfilm, Marvel, Warner's owned shows like Friends, Uni's Parks & Rec, et al, will make Netflix vulnerable to a corporate takeover.
What do you think of the consolidation of all the various studios into what is currently the Big Four? Good/bad/indifferent? [Reply]
Originally Posted by lawrenceRaider:
What do you think of the consolidation of all the various studios into what is currently the Big Four? Good/bad/indifferent?
It's an interesting time in the entertainment business and in discussions with people in nearly every aspect of the industry, it's a bit scary.
You've got old school directors like Scorsese and Coppola slamming "Comic Book Films" as not being "Cinema", there are streaming wars and studio consolidations that will change how business is done (and unfortunately, will also dictate wages, which are going down all over town) and there's technology available (e.g, LED systems on set doubling for Blue & Green Screens) which in theory, should benefit the directors, cinematographers, gaffers and actors but in some ways is doing the opposite.
The Justice Department has been asked, by the studios of course, to reverse what are known as the "Paramount Consent Decrees", which is a Supreme Court decision in 1948 that regulated how movie studios distribute films. That law prevented the Studios like Disney, Warners, Paramount, et al, from owning movie theaters. The ruling made it illegal for the studios engage in "block booking" and circuit dealing (the lone exception being the Disney owned El Capitan Theater, which also doubles as Jimmy Kimmel's studio).
The studios have already begun dealing direct with the customer through streaming, with more to follow (NBC's Peacock and WB's HBO Max are on deck, both of which debut next year). Allowing these same studios to own and operate movie theater chains would be yet another step in the direction of the type of monopolization that ruled Hollywood from the turn of the 20th Century, which was not a good era for 95% of the "talent" in terms of wages, profit participation, etc.
That system was essentially in place for more than half a century and it wasn't until George Lucas, who couldn't find financing or a studio for the original Star Wars movie, took things into his own hands and self-financed, created ILM and Skywalker Sound, kept all of the merchandising and set his own Distribution Rates, that the industry began to change.
I may or may not have talked about the "Race to the Bottom", something that began around 2014 and has become rather egregious in the past two years, but it's become rampant. What that means is that people are so willing to "establish" themselves that they'll work for next to nothing and in many cases "For Free", just to get a gig. Sure, the music isn't composed or produced as well as in the past, commercials look "cheap" because they hired underqualified gaffers (the people that set the "lighting" on sets for each scene), cinematog's and directors because budgets have become so restricted due to these massive takeovers and "budgetary restructuring". The problem with people that engage in that practice is that they've set their own rate, "Cheap or Free", while the rest of us, in some cases, take less work so that we don't "Under Value" our work.
I was talking to a close friend this whose company parent company was purchased 2 years ago but just recently, was acquired by Private Equity Groupy that's buying up studio space from Hollywood to Manhattan Beach to Long Beach, who have zero experience in the entertainment business, and just look at the business as an equitible asset. Netflix has a massive amount of debt yet there's a new 13 story building that's nearly finished which sits across the street from their existing building on Sunset, with another campus set to open next year that's about a mile west and just south of Sunset on Cahuenga & Delongpre. Netflix is notorious for underpaying animators, composers and others in the business while never revealing, to anyone outside of a few in the company, how many times each series or film is streamed, which makes it clearly impossible to pay everyone according to union and guild rates, let alone, us composers.
My apologies for the verbosity so in a word, I would say "Bad". [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud:
It's an interesting time in the entertainment business and in discussions with people in nearly every aspect of the industry, it's a bit scary.
You've got old school directors like Scorsese and Coppola slamming "Comic Book Films" as not being "Cinema", there are streaming wars and studio consolidations that will change how business is done (and unfortunately, will also dictate wages, which are going down all over town) and there's technology available (e.g, LED systems on set doubling for Blue & Green Screens) which in theory, should benefit the directors, cinematographers, gaffers and actors but in some ways is doing the opposite.
The Justice Department has been asked, by the studios of course, to reverse what are known as the "Paramount Consent Decrees", which is a Supreme Court decision in 1948 that regulated how movie studios distribute films. That law prevented the Studios like Disney, Warners, Paramount, et al, from owning movie theaters. The ruling made it illegal for the studios engage in "block booking" and circuit dealing (the lone exception being the Disney owned El Capitan Theater, which also doubles as Jimmy Kimmel's studio).
The studios have already begun dealing direct with the customer through streaming, with more to follow (NBC's Peacock and WB's HBO Max are on deck, both of which debut next year). Allowing these same studios to own and operate movie theater chains would be yet another step in the direction of the type of monopolization that ruled Hollywood from the turn of the 20th Century, which was not a good era for 95% of the "talent" in terms of wages, profit participation, etc.
That system was essentially in place for more than half a century and it wasn't until George Lucas, who couldn't find financing or a studio for the original Star Wars movie, took things into his own hands and self-financed, created ILM and Skywalker Sound, kept all of the merchandising and set his own Distribution Rates, that the industry began to change.
I may or may not have talked about the "Race to the Bottom", something that began around 2014 and has become rather egregious in the past two years, but it's become rampant. What that means is that people are so willing to "establish" themselves that they'll work for next to nothing and in many cases "For Free", just to get a gig. Sure, the music isn't composed or produced as well as in the past, commercials look "cheap" because they hired underqualified gaffers (the people that set the "lighting" on sets for each scene), cinematog's and directors because budgets have become so restricted due to these massive takeovers and "budgetary restructuring". The problem with people that engage in that practice is that they've set their own rate, "Cheap or Free", while the rest of us, in some cases, take less work so that we don't "Under Value" our work.
I was talking to a close friend this whose company parent company was purchased 2 years ago but just recently, was acquired by Private Equity Groupy that's buying up studio space from Hollywood to Manhattan Beach to Long Beach, who have zero experience in the entertainment business, and just look at the business as an equitible asset. Netflix has a massive amount of debt yet there's a new 13 story building that's nearly finished which sits across the street from their existing building on Sunset, with another campus set to open next year that's about a mile west and just south of Sunset on Cahuenga & Delongpre. Netflix is notorious for underpaying animators, composers and others in the business while never revealing, to anyone outside of a few in the company, how many times each series or film is streamed, which makes it clearly impossible to pay everyone according to union and guild rates, let alone, us composers.
My apologies for the verbosity so in a word, I would say "Bad".
Interesting. I love streaming, but we outside the entertainment industry never really think much about how it has affected the average layman worker inside it. That sucks.
Sometimes i feel like with all these streaming content options, there is too much content. Its over saturated which leads to the 'race to the bottom' which you mentioned.
Lots of great content out there, but a ton of bad content too. Its just filler. [Reply]
