But Is It on Netflix? - Streaming Video Service Thread: Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube TV, AT+T Watch, Philo, Playstation Vue, HBO Max, HBO Now, Facebook Live and many more

A thread to discuss the ongoing balkanization of streaming, cord-cutting, new options, lament and laud the coming and going of new competitors and so on.

Sound off with your obsessive subscriptions!

I'm using Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Mubi, Criterion, HBO Max, Showtime; might very well find myself doing Apple+ if I upgrade my phone/ipad at some point but can't imagine getting Disney.

thanking u for having a long enough subcription list to make my own look reasonable

subscription, yikes

Here's the projected pile of noteworthy streaming channels purported to have unique programming to choose from in 2020... surely this will need to contract at some point in the near future?

Netflix
Hulu
Amazon Prime
Apple TV+
Disney+
NBC Peacock
YouTube TV
AT+T Watch
HBO Max
HBO Now
Showtime
Starz
Facebook Live
CBS Interactive
Discovery/BBC
Criterion
Mubi
Shudder
Acorn
Crunchyroll
DC Universe
Kanopy
AMC Premiere
Pluto

I have netflix. That is all.

Plus a space to talk about delivery services! Roku, Playstation Vue and the like.

Give thanks and praise to PLEX, which is free, has virtually no ads and mostly just magically works.

We use a Roku and currently pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and we have HBO Go since we currently have it in our cable package. We've been considering ditching cable completely, but when we talk to our provider (Xfinity) they want so much $$ for our internet service alone without a bundle that it still doesn't make sense. Since my wife works from home as a consultant and does a lot of video editing, we need a dependable connection. They really still push the bundles so dropping the cable alone doesn't seem to be the cost savings we hope for.

I know for sure we'll add Disney+ and I'm pushing for the Criterion one too, unsuccessfully thus far.

I am curious, how much of a difference is it just for internet, vs internet+cable where you are?

i cord cut earlier this year with the Hulu/No Ads cable package and i have not missed cable at all. I think it's $60 for that package and another $65 for high speed internet.
Supplementing occasionally with tt0rre3ntz helps keep FOMO at bay.

I have Hulu and Amazon Prime. I had a Showtime add-on through Hulu while Billions was airing, but dropped it after that; I had HBO for a while through Amazon to watch Insecure and Big Little Lies, but dropped that too.

If a show is on a particular streaming platform, it'll often be available for rent/purchase through Amazon, so if it looks really good I'll do that sometimes. I barely ever watch movies anymore - maybe one a month, so none of the movie-oriented services are at all appealing. And since there are no kids in my house, I don't have to worry about Disney, Marvel, etc.

xp I'd be curious to hear more about Plex's video features, I have a server installed but only use it for music.

Currently we've got Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Shudder ... at some point I want to shut down my Uverse TV service and switch to Hulu or YouTube or some other way to stream live sports and Turner Classic Movies.

I'm not sure offhand, my wife is the biggest push for cutting the cord in our house and she's been the one talking to them directly. Iirc, we pay around $140 for both right now, but I think she said they'd still want nearly $100 for just internet.

i pay for netflix (though i should really stop, i watch almost nothing on it), hulu (through spotify which is practically like not paying for it), shudder (the greatest), and criterion. i've never had cable as an adult

Hulu's live TV option is ridiculously expensive, to me.

I should add that I also have a digital antenna that pulls in network TV and some other channels like ION (lots of cop-show reruns) and Grit (old Western shows).

yeah, I haven't had cable for a very, very long time (15 years?) and I was wondering how much of a difference it is these days to not have them bundled.

I recently saw a meme about how all these subscription services with unique programming is basically reinventing into a more tedious cable tv.

Yep. Thanks capitalism for taking an legitimately game-changing technology and just turning it back into the old overpriced thing we all hated 20 years ago.

Remember back in the 1990s when they kept promising truly ala carte cable packages? "Only pay for the channels you actually watch!". Well it's here now, finally, except you have to pay $9.99 to $12.99 for each of the channels.

2019 US pricing chart for now and future reference:

Netflix (standard plan, 2 HD screens) - $13 monthly
Hulu - $6 a month
Hulu/No Ads - $12 a month
Hulu/No Ads/Cable/enhanced cloud DVR - $61 a month <- recommend this for cord cutters as it is pretty solid for sports
Amazon Prime - $13 a month, $120 a year; comes with amazon's other stuff
Apple TV+ - $5 a month; free with purchase of new apple hardware
Disney+ - $7 a month or $70 a year; pre-order starts today
NBC Peacock - As yet unannounced
YouTube TV - $50 a month cable package
YouTube Premium - $12 a month
AT+T Watch - $15 a month cable package, free if you're on their network
HBO Max -Currently reported at $15 a month, presumably will offer a package deal with HBO Now
HBO Now - $15 a month
Showtime - $11 a month
Starz - $9 a month
Facebook Watch - Free at the moment
CBS Interactive - $6 a month
Discovery/BBC - As yet unanounced
Criterion - $11 per month, $99 per year
Mubi - $11 pre month
Fandor - $10 per month, $99 per year
Shudder - $5 per month, $48 per year
Acorn - $6 per month, $60 per year
Crunchyroll - Free option or $7 per moth with hi-def and better programming
DC Universe - $8 a month or $75 per year
AMC Premiere - $5 a month
Pluto - Currently Free
Crackle - Currently Free
Kanopy - Currently Free

On the sports tip:
NFL Sunday Ticket is $74 a month or $294 a year
NBA League Pass is $120 a year for one team or $200 to $250 a year for all teams
NHL Season Pass is $140 a year
MLB Season pass is $25 a month via Amazon, $90 a year for one team or $120 for all teams

We currently pay for Netflix (incl. dvds!), get Hulu through a friend's account, and HBO Go through a family account that was supposedly canceled but still magically works! All through PS4. Have never rented/bought a digital show or movie a la carte.

if you were to buy all the above with hulu as a basic cable delivery option, that plus hi-speed internet would run you around $275 a month for television.

I highly recommend just downloading PLEX as it's free. Basically, if you have any kind of smart tv option, you can stream whatever you download directly to your television.

That netflix standard plan for me is $8usd a month but it's another country's pay structure I guess.

yeah there's a "standard definition" single screen plan for $8

No, this is for 2 screens HD.

I just looked up the basic one screen it's about 6.50 USD.

torrent everything, $0

a given.

well ya gotta pay for internet and hard drives! plus not everybody is ethically down with / has the technical expertise / willingness to take the time to learn how to join better groups / etc

although do people really torrent tv shows and movies that much anymore when you can find a free stream of almost anything?

for me it's most helpful when the tv show in question just isn't commercially available in my region

Worth noting that YouTube Premium also includes YouTube Music (and formerly Google Play Music).

a recent streaming experience with hulu, trying to start an episode in the middle:

click episode, cannot seek to middle, 90 seconds of commercials
seek to middle, 90 seconds of commercials
accidentally clicked on another episode while trying to close the app on my fone, 90 seconds of commercials starts
click original episode again, 90 seconds of commercials
close hulu, torrent entire season of show, cancel hulu

i won't front: all video streaming services are flawed in a dozen ways that piracy frankly is not.

My friends who are subletting my place have like 6 subscriptions and when I stay there I have to leave the room when they are trying to find something to watch (which always ends up taking a minimum of 20 minutes). A lot of the user interfaces are completely horrid.

wish the cinema was cheaper

xp -- ha - i have netflix, amazon, hbo (through amazon), britbox, acorn (which i should cancel because it's pretty much the same as britbox -- i had acorn first), and MhZ --

omg the user interfaces -- yeah some are really bad -- some are not awful, but are crap when it comes to subtitle options

i watch stuff via roku -- my roku is about 6 yrs old at this point and seems to be "dying" -- is this just standard planned obsolescence?

among the most frustrating things is that depending on your device, the interface and remote controls are totally different! You can't even play Criterion on an Amazon Fire and you can't play Mubi on a Playstation. Prime is easy to explore on a Fire but nearly impossible on a Roku. Everything's fucked!

I do Netflix and will do Disney+. More often than not, if I want to see a movie badly enough I buy a physical copy or, if that isn't an option, just watch that shit on YouTube or whatever. I watched a shitty, washed-out '30s movie on Internet Archive this weekend because it appears to have never been released via any legit home video format. Does that count as a streaming service?

youtube and archive.org certainly remain the people's netflix if netflix isn't already the people's netflix

I still pay for cable (and the Criterion Channel) but need to talk to people who get TCM through other services.

i'm dumping cable as soon as we get fiber internet installed at the end of the month, and signed up for Hulu Live. This looks like it'll save me about $80 a month for basically the same channels and faster internet than the shitty Comcast service I have. Still have netflix, amazon prime, and hbo through hulu. I'll pick up disney as well.

oh yeah, and we use the latest generation Apple TVs. I had a Roku that was a few years old and yes, it crapped out. The apps developed by the providers become too resource intensive for the devices.

"That netflix standard plan for me is $8usd a month but it's another country's pay structure I guess." how is this possible?

i use vrv sometimes for anime and amazon until my last ill-advised prime resub runs out next year, and that's it.

Moving to the Los Angeles area with its video stores and cinemas means not having to really care about any of this shit and it rocks.

We cut the cable 2-3 years ago and had Vue for about a year until a price hike, then Sling. The current fight between Fox and Dish/Sling has cramped my baseball watching, so I'm going to drop all channel-package delivery in the next few weeks and not worry about it until the next season of Better Call Saul starts. Dropping Sling and not renewing MLB.tv next season will free up more than enough $$ for Disney, which my wife wants to get. Otherwise, we have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, CBS (for my wife) and Criterion (for me). Our donation to our PBS affiliate is just big enough to give us access to everything on the PBS channel.

When Filmstruck shut down, Fandor offered subscribers a special deal -- I think it was $25 for a year? Anyway, I got that but probably won't renew it.

Netflix & Prime, but in Australia we can also access iView and SBS On Demand, which are half-decent public broadcaster options.

I signed up for Youtube TV so I could talk my mom into ditching her cable bill (you can share accounts with 2-3 people) and it's been the best cable replacement I've experienced. No buffering, standard TV Guide style menu, good enough channel selection. I'm so used to going straight to Netflix or Prime I rarely think of opening the app unless I want to watch sports, though.

Netflix and mlb.tv are free w/ my cell phone, I keep forgetting to cancel HBO Now, keep Prime out of habit, pay for the Criterion Channel so I can feel guilty when I'm too numb at the end of the day to watch something with subtitles and just turn on a CW sci-fi show on Netflix instead.

I have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime. I watch all of these via roku as well as a fair amount of free YouTube and Twitch. I also use roku to play music via Spotify, as the TV plugs straight into my stereo.

The quality of film selections on Netflix seems to have really plummeted lately. Amazon has the best selections of those three.

I'm strongly considering Disney+ because I'm a sucker and want to watch the Star Wars shows.

akm xpost. I set up my netflix in Chile so the fees are 4,990; 5,990; and 8,990clp for the 3 tiers. There is currency fluctuation of course but it's been in the $8 range at least for the last year (I just checked) regardless if I am using it in the US or Europe.

These Emmy noms are weird. Why is Fargo under "Limited or Anthology Series or Movie" and not just standard Drama?

Why is the drama section feeling so lacking in noms? I know Ive watched twice as many TV series as that this past year. Did anyone give a fuck about the Morning Show this year, seriously?

i watched a double feature on Peacock of Abigail (little girl ballerina vampire) and M3gan Unrated (little girl killer robot doll). both pretty fun. M3gan was better though and had some funny moments. Abigail had the dead guy from Euphoria on it. his last role i think and he could barely speak a sentence coherently. he was like Biden on Fentanyl. M3gan had Ronny Chieng in it but he didn't get to be super-funny.

These Emmy noms are weird. Why is Fargo under "Limited or Anthology Series or Movie" and not just standard Drama?

Because it's an anthology series, with a new cast each season.

So Homicide is coming to Peacock in August. Missed it during the 90s. Looking forward to checking it out.

yaaaaaay <3

i have complete Homicide on DVD but i'm lazy so would probably watch it streaming! haven't seen it in years but loved it so much back in the olden times.

Fair warning: They've re-cropped it to 16 x 9 so young people won't be frightened and confused by the square image.

booo

COWARDS

I was just planning to pull out my DVDs and start a rewatch so this is very timely.

Also Kyle Secor is currently writing a whole series of essays about Homicide on Substack and also doing some interviews with ppl from the show. It all looks promising enough that I may actually have to pay for it.

i was going to do a mega Homicide/Wire DVD watch but god only knows when i would ever get it together to do it. i've never actually watched any of the extra DVD stuff.

oh so cyrus and i finished The 100 and god help me i miss it. wish they had done a spinoff. i do like the last season a lot. its insane. i remember reading that they had to rush to finish the last season before the whole covid shutdown. such a satisfying ending. i can't say that about too many 7-season shows.

now i have to get back to watching The Expanse with Maria. we have about a season & a half left.

also, all three of us are watching Master Chef: Generations (4 teams of boomers/x/millennials/z) after it airs on Hulu and we started the last season of The Amazing Race for old time's sake. now with scarier climate change, i worry more about someone actually dying during the amazing race! the first two episodes in Mexico looked friggin' brutal.

now i have to get back to watching The Expanse with Maria. we have about a season & a half left.

OMG have you gotten to Amos escaping Earth yet?!?! best TV episode of the decade.

no, but i loved the episode in the woods after the prison stuff. that was weirdly one of my fave episodes of the show. weird because it was so not in space. i'll be honest i am not a big fan of the terrorist and the kid. i like the main dudes but i'll be honest the women are the reason i keep watching. naomi is #1. without her and drummer and draper i doubt i would have watched this long.

I’m watching that season now. The Marco storyline feels like a big step backward.

he's kind of a dud. so is the kid.

It's kind of like what if Star Trek featured Khan chewing up the scenery on every single episode.

yeah Marco's kid sucks, Clarissa rules

Marco and the kid are hateful but that's ok, it largely pays off. There's a fantastic Naomi episode involving that storyline.

Clarissa is vv underrated imo, her storyline with Amos is excellent stuff.

Fair warning: They've re-cropped it to 16 x 9 so young people won't be frightened and confused by the square image.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, July 22, 2024 9:09 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This might not be much of an issue? Enough movie people were involved in the production it'd be surprising if they weren't already thinking about future-proofing and it wasn't shot protected for widescreen.

Netflix just added this new movie called Neon Highway that looks like Crazy Heart, but with Beau Bridges instead of Jeff.

Also marveling at the oddly generic names given to the Netflix originals: The Beautiful Game; A Fortunate Man; The Life Ahead; Red Notice; Thunder Force (and also featured non-originals like The Long Game and Land of Bad).

LAND OF BAD lol

I'm actually planning on watching LAND OF BAD. Two Hemsworth brothers and Russell Crowe in a war movie? Come on, that's gotta be at least 60% tolerable.

FWIW, on closer inspection, both Thunder Notice and Red Force were Covid-era studio pick-ups.

you know as much as it is also on brand for me to watch Land Of Bad i might actually put on my fancypants and watch the two wim wenders movies on hulu. Perfect Days and The Salt of the Earth. they look cool.

but i will totally watch Land of Bad too.

Watched the first episode of Fool Me Once thinking it was going to be a spy action show. Incredibly bad Lifetime movie-esque drama.

Shame on them!

I was not familiar with the works of Harlan Coben but I guess he writes airport novels and is not a genteel southern lawyer with a dark past.

Harlan Coben is weirdly huge in France. There are french movie adaptations of Harlan Coben airport novels.

he is the jerry lewis of suspense writers.

I read a bunch of his books years ago for some reason. There are way too many twists. It’s ridiculous. The adaptations I’ve seen had toned it down a bit.

i started Lady In The Lake on Apple+ (Natalie Portman, Moses Ingram, Brett Gelman)

Based on a Laura Lippman novel that I havent read but love some of her other books

First ep is good but it has an odd dreamy vibe & does a lot of establishing while not a lot seems to really ~happen~ … i will def keep watching

Bailed out of Sierra Madre No Trespassing midway through episode three. It's clearly modeling itself on Succecion, but all the scheming and plans-within-plans play out in tedious monotone suspense. It's an expensive HBO show so it looks great, but it could afford to be trashier?

Harlan Coben wrote the novel upon which the film TELL NO ONE was based. I had no idea that was the case until recently. And now everywhere I look there's a limited series on Netflix with his name above the title, like he's the new Agatha Christie. They all either star Toni Collette or James Nesbitt.

To be fair, Agatha Christie was a shit writer too.

Coben’s not that bad you guys

Agatha's not that bad you guys

Fun fact: Harlan Coben was David Foster Wallace's college roommate.

I love all the British Harlan Coben tv show adaptations, always great acting. And I love all the twists!

The Nickelback doc on Netflix was pretty good, although there were some weird holes: Mike had a massive stroke at one point, but all there are practically no details about it, no mention of how long his recovery took or how long he was out of the band. Ryan has aged like extremely fine wine and also seems like a standup guy. Also surprised that despite their mega fame, Ryan and Mike are still married to the women they were with before they got big.

Abigail is no M3gan

you are right. its not streamlined enough like m3gan either. m3gan moves swiftly. its made well. abigail herself was pretty good though. and whoever that wannabe lizzy caplan was was okay. dan stevens was annoying though.

that kid in the woods scene of m3gan made me laugh.

I watched the pilot of Scavenger's Reign and had some fucked up dreams last night.

Yeah I liked the Brit Corben shows as well, "The Stranger' and "Stay Close" especially. I wanted to watch "Shelter" but the bf decided it was yoof TV drek and wouldnt countenance it after the first episode haha.

...wait, I have seen "Fool me Once" as well now I look it up. LOL. He's everywhere like white bread yeesh.

We decided Corben's The Stranger was drek about halfway through but by that point we were too invested to stop

this was amazing. watch it in the dark on a big t.v. with no interruptions. very immersive. intense. saw it on Hulu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OivMlWXtWpY