See, this is my biggest concern over the continuing fragmentation of the video medium. I can watch a show on ABC or one on CBS, and it's just a change of channel. Cable extends that seamlessly. Yeah, there are pay channels (which I eschew), but if I wanted to, a simple tweak of my cable package would make them seamlessly available, too.
But once streaming video and computer/video services get thrown into the mix life becomes complicated. I don't subscribe to Netflix. I really don't have a great desire to (my Amazon Prime membership and my Comcast cable subscription give me access to more streaming stuff than I can watch — with varying degrees of annoyance to get to/from. Adding one more service is just one more ( #firstworldproblem ) PitA thing I have to do to watch the things I want to watch.
Which will not for a single second keep me from watching a Jessica Jones, or probably a Luke Cage, or maybe a Daredevil or Iron Fist series. But I reserve the right to kvetch about it.
(h/t +Mark Means
Reshared post from +ComingSoon.net
Marvel and Netflix are teaming up on four live-action series ( "Daredevil," "Jessica Jones," "Iron Fist" and "Luke Cage") leading up to a "The Defenders" mini-series! Full story here – http://bit.ly/1a9TPOC
I have no cable, only Netflix. I love it!
It's not just Netflix. Out here, the Lakers signed a deal to place their games on a special Time Warner channel. For the first few weeks of the (abbreviated) 2012-2013 season, DirecTV subscribers couldn't get the channel. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/15/entertainment/la-et-ct-lakers-directv-20121115
Oh, I know it's not just Netflix — it's the general fragmentation of what you can see without subscribing to a bunch of different (and hardly seamless) services. Bleah.
Me, too, +James D. I can't imagine ever going back to cable with how awesome Netflix and Hulu are.
I get where you're coming from, +Dave Hill , but since I happen to subscribe to Netflix, I'm jazzed.
Now, if it were going to be on Amazon Prime, or Hulu Plus, I'd probably be kvetching, too.
I'm with +Mark Means on this one. Netflix FTW! I never use Amazon's streaming video service, and I won't pay for Hulu.
When we got out Kindle Fires, they came with a free month of Prime and we were all set to continue using their video service until we found out that we'd both have to pay the $79.00 to use it. If they would have had a way we could both watch and only pay once, we would have, probably, dropped Netflix. At least Netflix lets a household share viewing privileges.
I won't pay for Hulu Plus because you still have to sit through commercials and I think that's ridiculous on a pay per view service.
This is not cool!
+Mark Means We stream Prime through our BluRay, which only required a single account to be registered. Easy-peasy, aside from having to back out of the TV to a different HDMI channel and then select Prime from the BluRay's menu.
It's worth noting, +Dave Hill , that you have Chromecast already, so while netflix is still a thing you'd have to pay for, putting it up on your television screen is something you're already able to do, with the added benefit that it increases your chromecast's 'range', in terms of services provided.
Also, your wii can stream it to whatever machine it's on as well.
That said, I'm sanguine about this only because i have netflix already and can stream it to every machine in my house (I think my downstairs tv can do it natively, AND via the PS3 and Wii, both) — if this were Hulu Plus (which I can theoretically stream just as easily but am not paying for right now), I'd be whining as loud as anyone.
I use my HD Roku box, which gives a much nicer picture than my TV's Netflix service.
+Doyce Testerman Actually, my BluRay has Netflix access, too, with an account.
My actual, original point in all of this was disgruntlement over all these things being separate, both in cost modeling and in technological access. Perhaps it's just my incipient Ludditism, or just that everything here is so relatively new, but I don't want to have to choose amongst (or subscribe to) multiple video services to get everything I want to see. Also, I want access to them as easy as going from ABC to CNN to SyFy.
I also want a pony, and a plastic rocket, and those damned kids to get off my lawn.
Shake that cane like you mean it, +Dave Hill !! 🙂
I guess… I mean, yes, I see your point, but unless Netflix and Hulu become television channels, it'll never be totally unified, and if they ARE television channels, they're fundamentally not what they currently are, as a service.
I suppose I think of netflix/amazon/hulu/google play movies/youtube as different channels on my the entertainment section of my internet, the way you're talking about ABC/CBS.
I mean, yes, it would be nice if switching between them all were as easy as changing channels…
… except I don't watch ABC, or CBS, or SyFy, which says something about that model that's a bit to easy to parse into glib dismissal.
Well, it's kind of like HBO having some shows and Showtime others. I don't want to have to pay for multiple premium channels, but I have to if I want to see all the content. Netflix is essentially another channel, albeit with an additional step to access it. Market fragmentation has been increasing since pay TV was introduced.
We totally share a Prime account. It just means that the husbandperson knows my password for that account. I do most of the streaming, though, because his devices are all Android.
I agree, +Dave Hill, in as much as right now we're in a transitional period. I think +Doyce Testerman makes an excellent point (at least I think its his point) that as devices become more agnostic as to their input sources, then it will eventually become more a choice of which services to subscribe to — your box/TV/whatever will eventually just switch to the other signal and handle the authentication you've stored in it as you change its "channel."
I see it as eventually being more an extension of the current pay model, just with more choices than the current HBO vs Showtime or whatever.
Yes, it is further fragmentation and the choices to be made and that complicates things, certainly. And it has the potential to make home entertainment a more expensive monthly experience if one cannot cull some of the choices. And for society, it makes it even that much more difficult for significant numbers to share in an experience like whatever it was — something along the lines of 90% of the nation tuning in to see how Lucy's pregnancy turned out. But we've been drifting away from that shared culture for a long time.
Yeah, I know. And chances are, I suspect, in ten years time a lot of the inconvenience and labels will be much more transparent. You'll pick shows, movies, episodes from a single integrated GooglePlex menu (voice-sortable and tagged) and the Amazon / Comcast / Netflix / AT&T / Hulu / Universal / Disney / ChinaMedia logo next to each will tell you where your microtransaction is going (even as the little avatars of your friends offer you recommendations).
I look forward to it.
</sarcasm>
😉
How long before they stream directly to your cerebral cortex? (Or whatever brain part.)
The market for those who do not want any cable or satellite services but do have broadband is growing however so I think we are likely to see this particular aspect of fragmentation increasing as we go through a transition. Ultimately I suspect we will see the same process that occurred with music and film and now literature taking place with TV – though I suspect it will take much longer as there is much greater cultural inertia to shift.
Given the likely DRM, +Scott Randel, no way am I letting them anywhere near my brain.
And someday you'll be in an argument, shouting, "BUT YOU SAID… wait, hold on, I let my subscription to that memory lapse. Dangit! Fine. You win. …But I'm not paying to remember this, either!"
"No worries. Here's the URL for my memory of it."
You know, I hope they don't change the SHIELD costumes in the comics to match the ones on TV.
I'm still trying to figure out why they're using two variations on the SHIELD logo on the TV show.
Yeah, the regular one and a very stylized version. Detected a pattern yet?