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

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.

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

netflix has totally shifted their focus to original programming, only 1/10th of which is worth watching. but it's still so cheap I keep it.

we have netflix, hulu, amazon prime, and recently became members of our local pbs station to access content on the pbs app. I am constantly advocating to my partner that we pause one or all of them, bc we only ever use them to watch one show at a time and will often go months without opening the others. She doesnt want to be burdened with the annoyance of stopping and re-starting multiple subscriptions throughout the year as shows come and go, which is a reasonable thing to find annoying. For movies I almost entirely watch DVDs from netflix.

I'm constantly astonished at how shitty the movie offerings on all of these are, and yet somehow still seem to get worse every year. Was just flipping through hulu yesterday bc I forgot they had movies and the 'classics' tab included Poltergeist II, Mr Mom, and like 25 public domain westerns.

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

yes, I do this all the time for TV shows and movies. Wouldn't know where to look for free streams, and besides I value the picture quality and curated content of the big private torrent sites.

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

This is all too real. Lots of the time if theres a TV show I like that is available on DVD i'll just buy the DVDs, which most of the time can be found used for <$10 on amazon or ebay, specifically to avoid experiences like this.

I mostly just use streaming services for TV shows. WRT movies, it's consistently baffling to me that streaming services should ever pose any real threat to physical media sales. The selection has always been spotty and terrible. The notion of just throwing up my hands and being all 'hey, if it's images moving on a screen, I'll watch whatever (dopey giggle)!' is so loathsome. I'm highly-selective when it comes to the garbage I view, thankuverymuch.

Finished Lady Parts 2 and I straight up LOVE it. There's also a delightful Bear reference.

Stoked for Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, coming to Apple TV probably 2025, and optimistic the diverse IMDB cast will do it justice. Looking forward to seeing Murderbot, Mensah, and Ratthi brought to life, plus later characters like ART. Curious how the writers and Skarsgard will transfer the book character’s internal monologues. First person narration? Deadpool fourth wall breaks? Subtitles?

this reminds me that i need to read the murderbot books. i finally bought them all last year. every time i went to a store one would be missing and i wanted to catch them all.

i finally finished How To Have Sex on Mubi. that movie was sad. the direction was good. Molly Manning Walker. do not know her.

watched Gasoline Rainbow on Mubi and it was like the opposite experience as far as coming of age movies go. and it almost gives me hope for american movies! very heartwarming but in an honest way. documentary-style. i have to admit it was refreshing that it didn't go dark. it stayed in the light. watch it with your kids! way better than Nomadland too. a thousand times better.

The Murderbot books were fantastic. I liked apple tv’s adaptation of silo so maybe they’ll do a good job with murderbot - hope the humor translate to the screen

If you’ve never seen it and don’t have HBO: Chewing Gum is now on Hulu!!!!

I don’t watch a lot of comedy but this is one of the funniest shows ever. tbh I binged this during my heavy weed-using era but even so, I def laugh more while high but this show had me absolutely cackling nonstop.

and in the UK at least Scavengers Reign is finally legit available on Netflix. hard recommend as per various posters upthread.

Watching a Spanish crime show called Hasta el Cielo which I did not realize until I started was a sequel to a movie; Netflix offered me the series but not the movie. Anyway, the first two episodes basically fill you in on everything you need to know from the movie ("Oh, I'm so sad since [character] died"; "Oh, I can't believe [character] betrayed us to the Chinese - we'll get her ass!") so I'm just rolling along.

i'm still watching Bosch. finished Season 4. my least fave season so far. got sick of the black guardian thing and the protestors and did not care for that sad alkie cop on the run. here's to season 5.

gonna watch Monkey Man on Peacock tonight.

finished first ep of Scavengers Reign, oh hell yeah.

Haha, welcome.

And spread the word as if it does well there'll be a second season

Has anyone watched Under Paris?

Seems to be generating a bit of a buzz but I'm wondering if it's actually any good?

Looks terrible but a refreshing French flavor of terrible, so I'm going to watch it.

Under Paris special effects are about Sharknado level ... pretty dumb, but I did like the way they ended it

We watched first ep of Presumed Innocent series from. Apple+ w Jake Gyllenhaal

not bad, scratches my itch for mild pulpy summer thriller

obv not as good as the original but it’s fine for what it is

funniest thing is the show’s explanation for Jake being Roadhouse-ripped is “he swims a lot”

You folks weren't kidding about Tubi... I spent an evening of enjoyably bored downtime scrolling through their impressive collection of classic/"cult" movies, and sampling bits & pieces of a few.

Andrew Mccarthy's Brats documentary is ... interesting if you want too see someone basically going through therapy onscreen, though 1/4 of the way through you are going to want to strangle hiim

lol otm — i enjoyed it though mostly

Has anyone watched Under Paris?

You just kind of have to roll with it. It gets better as it goes along, and there was one scene that I found genuinely scary. Being trampled by a crowd in a small space is already a nightmare of mine. Add in the possibility of being drowned and/or eaten by sharks...

Monkey Man is on Peacock, if you want an Indian flavored Wick. I'm not a Wick fan so I found it kind of tedious.

i’m excited to see it!
(known Wick fan)

its not really like Wick. we watched it last night. its cool to watch. i liked the look of it. it reminded me of a hong kong or japan action/revenge movie. the Wick movies just remind me of Hollywood and watch commercials and school shootings. Monkey Man has a much cooler look.

it’s very explicitly anti modi and there is a great set of “training” scenes set in an intersex hijra community and making extensive use of a tabla. revenge movie is definitely right. it’s very single minded.

intersex and trans in fact i think. anyway slightly to scott’s point, it’s revenge ultraviolence with a progressive political background.

Wick is just shorthand for cool stunts - I gleaned from the trailer that there’s way more to it than that obv

wick movies I like mainly because they are stylistically really cool. yeah they do look like watch commercials I guess.

Monkey Man is absolutely great, and yeah the anti-Modiness lands even better after the recent election.

Yeah I want to back up the progressive bonafides but I think I've just aged out of pure action films, especially ones that lean hard on the violence.

The elevator scene was amazing

Andrew Mccarthy's Brats documentary is ... interesting if you want too see someone basically going through therapy onscreen

Yeah as a big Huges fan and 80s kid, I wanted to love this, but I just couldn't. It felt very indulgent, tbrh. Rob Lowe came off really centred and happy, and seemed like a really nice person. Demi was cynical but knowing about the therapy angle. But Mccarthy was this bundle of anxiety and repetition that started to feel really heavy and weird by the end. His interview with the author that coined the phrase felt off to me - like, Mccarthy's face was giving up this real anger he didn't know where to put, one he came to understand the guy had meant no malice!

one = once, my fingers are frozen and I'm typing like crud.

I’m watching Ripley and need to give a shout to whoever handled the sound design on that show. It’s really incredible and just as deliberate as the all the beautiful cinematography. There are numerous scenes where I’d expect music to fill in all the gaps, but they just let the sound of scene happen. And this is especially played to the hilt for almost the entire last half of the third episode. It’s really epic. If you have a good set of speakers at home I highly advise watching/listening to that episode. When the guy with the mop comes along toward the end it’s practically a jump scare because they’ve done such a good job training your ears to lean in.

xxpost yeah I realized afterwards that McCarthy is barely even mentioned in the article, but i think the unstated upshot is he’s angry on behalf of all of them, i guess? idk

but Blum doesn’t come off great either. imo he had some jealous axe to grind against all these handsome privileged stars & figured he’d take them down a peg or two. He does a lot of out of pocket shit-talking that feels very “fuck these clowns, I’m smarter than all of them” and it would have been good to see a longer conversation about that imo.

Oh yeah he came across as quite a dick.

To add more to support to Monkey Man, its really good, partcularly as a genre stew of the kung fu revenge thriller, and the modern stuff re: Modi is interesting too. Well worth it imo

Oh BTW to add one last thing re Brats: I noticed that Anthony Michael Hall's name and face did NOT come up at all even in passing. That seemed weird?

they showed him in clips from 16 candles and the Breakfast Club but to my mind, neither he nor RDJ were really 'brat pack' actors.

i think the other somewhat sad thing is that...andrew mccarthy was not a very good actor. it's possible this label hurt his career to a point (though pretty in pink came out after that article), but there's a reason why Rob Lowe, Demi Moore and Emilio Estevez kept working.

yeah there’s a lot of iirc Brats not covered at all.

AMH is one of the core 8 brat packers, according to Wikipedia

Also, it seems like McCarthy has worked regularly, at as much as Estevez

Breakin' On The One is a fun doc on Hulu. early 80s nyc breakers. you'd think people might be a little burnt out on the burnishing of the early hip hop legend (kinda how i feel about the endless nyc hardcore or nyc disco/club worship) but the footage is so damn cool that its always fun to watch. lots of background on rocksteady crew and dynamic rockers.
i used to watch the ny breakers in NYC in the early 80s when i was a kid. catch them in washington square park. i miss grimy 70s and 80s new york. it was nuts. i never even knew what to look at. there was something amazing to see in every direction.
its crazy how early breaking and graffiti became some sort of international museum piece. from the very beginning. so much footage and documentation! lots of early scenes didn't get that kind of coverage. helps to be in new york.

its short though! kinda wouldn't have minded more. there is stuff at the end about the breakdance fever that swept the world and i would have liked more of it. prince charles saying "dig that crazy rhythm" is a treat. i need to sample that.

los espookys fans need to be watching fantasmas, julio torres’s new show. just so good

Yeah it’s a real treat!