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.

i'm watching a nic cage apocalypse monkey wolf gremlin movie on hulu

Can you be more specific?

Arcadian?

I was joking, I assume that's what he was talking about. But if you told me Nic Cage had multiple apocalypse monkey wolf gremlin movies streaming on Hulu, I'd believe it.

it wasn't great. bad cgi is bad.

the long arm coming through the window bit was sort of unintentionally funny

haha, yeah, that was kinda cool in a weird way.

reading that epic mole trilogy now makes me wish someone would do the dystopian thing completely underground (since everyone is going to have to live underground anyway in 50 years...) and have aliens/mutants/whatever fighting the humans for burrow space. you wouldn't need a ton of money and you could mix live-action with cgi in a compelling way and caving is always scary a la the descent (one of my fave movies of the 21st century for sure).
i tried to watch that third Shhhh...Be Really Quiet All The Time movie with Lupita and its impossible for me to watch because there isn't one second of that movie that makes it look like humans and aliens are in the same space together. and that is something that movies managed to do quite well for, oh, a hundred years or so.

(also watching Mad God the other night for the third time made me love the netherworld all over again...one of my fave 21st century movies now for sure...)

third Shhhh...Be Really Quiet All The Time movie with Lupita

Ironically, the director of "Pig"!

#oneworldonethread

i did not like Pig at all.

speaking of bringing everything together, this was my 2021 review of Pig:

"Kinda like a really dumb Nomadland for Chuck Palahniuk fanboys. I mean, that restaurant industry underground fight club where the waitstaff gets to beat hobos to death is one of the more ridiculous things I've seen in a long time and I've seen Nic Cage movies from the last decade. This wouldn't even make a top 20 dumbest Nic Cage films of the last decade list though. Not even the one where he fights the animatronic animal ghost robots would. That's how dumb his latter-day movies are. The only thing missing from this movie was the end of the world. Maybe they ran out of money. I liked the pig though. I gave this film an extra 1/2 star for the pig."

i want someone to make a movie out of that 2018 book that i read called The Maw. supernatural deep caving adventure novel. i liked that a lot and it was kinda written to be a movie someday a la Chrichton. but not in an obnoxious way. it was written in a compelling way. or maybe i just really like caves.

appetizer round for S11E8 of Chopped:

Injera

Hearts Of Palm

Mache

Rabbit Escabeche

beats me! i don't even know if i've ever had hearts of palm? maybe on a salad somewhere.

ok idg what this thread does or doesnt cover anymore but i saw it mentioned itt a few times - Rebel Ridge was fucking great and I heart Jeremy Saulnier for making reliably good yet violent movies
Fuckin A, that was a good watch. He kinda pulled his punch with the end though but otherwise cool as hell

yeah, the 2nd half kinda wimped out a little. i was expecting more fireworks. a kindler, gentler Jack Reacher is what i thought at the time.

lol i said to mr veg they should totally team up for the next season of jack reacher! love that whole genre of “pissed off dude fights a whole town”

Night Agent S2 is about as dumb as the Jack Ryan series where Venezuela was going to get nukes and bomb 'Murrica but not having Jim From The Office keeps it on the right side of 'too annoying to watch.'

the only thing that jim from the office should be allowed to act in is a live-action version of the Zits comic.

https://images.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/comics-zits.jpg?d=780x500

i started a rolling media thread for 2025. you guys don't have to use it if you don't want to! i just wanted a place to hang and not disgruntle anyone with movie posts here or whatever. i think i have all my bases covered. its for all things streaming.

2025 Rolling Streaming Media Thread

Wait, so what is the difference between this thread and the other thread? Is the other thread just stuff Scott has seen? That's cool if it is, just want to know where to post.

As far as I’m concerned the other thread is the new “what are you watching on your television”

That thread is this one without the rules

new one is a "yr doing it wrong"-free zone IIRC

N*tf**x gets censored when I type it on here

the new thread is so that scott can post about movies & chopped reruns & no one will tap the sign <<3

The final episode of Mr and Mrs Smith was so self-indulgent and awful that it made me retrospectively resent the rest of the season, which I had just about been enjoying up till then.

― trishyb, 09 March 2024 23:18 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Christ its absolutely fuckin awful.

and the action scenes were as bad as anything i might ever have seen from a production company with a budget

xPosted on gay movies of arty qualities, but hey, it’s on Netflix and i recommend it:

I watched ‘Hyacint’ (aka ‘Operation Hyacinth’) this evening. Stars absolute smokeshow Tomasz Zięntek as a cop in Warsaw in the 80s, investigating a murder of a rich gay guy, turns out to be a wild conspiracy, then he falls for his twink informant, and everything goes nuts. Honestly a good film! I didn’t know much about state repression of homosexuality in Poland, only that it existed… and since I lived there for nearly half a year, and had some rather wild sexual experiences too, it seems I should do some research.

It’s not really arty, per se— more a conspiracy/police procedural that also has the added layer of repressive anti-gay laws in a fading Soviet Republic. beautifully shot, tho, and the acting is superb.

I'm watching the ILM doc (everyone in thread does a double take - no, it's industrial light & magic) on disney, pretty entertaining even if it's 95% male and 100% white. I'm insanely jealous of the fun they had, and the creativity they got to exercise, in their day job. The first two episodes are entirely on Star Wars, there's fun bits I haven't seen before (R2D2 falling over on set - ok it's funnier when you see it), lots of storyboards and model work, and it's good to see Lucas talking with enthusiasm about it all, you almost start to like him again - then he completely blows it at the end of ep 2.

Mulaney's show is really kind of a disaster at this point, if netflix wants to keep it going later this year, retooling it would be a good idea. Way too much reliance on audience phone calls. I get that it's trying to not adhere to the standard late night format, but that format works for a reason.

i still get thrown off by his new chin every time i see him

The audience phone calls are so tedious. I’ve still yet to finish any of the episodes

the main problem with the calls is that every single one someone can't hear well and the timing gets all thrown off. I felt bad for the widow in this week's who started to go on a little too long and Pete Davidson was making "hang up" motions with his hand.

Contrary opinion: I'm finding the show to be really funny! The clunkiness is part of the charm, i think

The calls do kinda kill the momentum, I agree, though I feel like the whole weird, semi-unpredictable, oft-unsatisfying interaction is kind of the point, like putting the professional non-celebrity on the couch

I'm guessing he felt bad about cutting off that caller on the 2nd episode, boy that was a rough unending story

(Also how great was that Crimson Tide thing with the rabbi)

I felt bad for the widow in this week's who started to go on a little too long and Pete Davidson was making "hang up" motions with his hand.

Yeah, for me the problem isn't the calls, it's that the comedians don't want to deal with civilians at all, and Mulaney can't decide whether he wants to take an interest in the calls and the expert opinions or appear cool in front of his pals.

Chris Gethard had (has?) a podcast called Beautiful/Anonymous, random caller talks to him for exactly one hour and then the phone call goes off automatically. It was good.

xpost Yeah, that's my problem with "funny people" rather than scripted comedy shows--the comedians trying to one-up each other and coming off as egotistic morons.

Like Pete Davidson seems like someone I'd never want to watch in anything, unless it was written by someone with talent.

Yeah, for me the problem isn't the calls, it's that the comedians don't want to deal with civilians at all, and Mulaney can't decide whether he wants to take an interest in the calls and the expert opinions or appear cool in front of his pals.

Hell or High Water - improved as it spent less time hitting you over the head with 2008 crash references, if only they could have cut out the aren't we buddies racism too

Watched Your Name Engraved Herein, a film about two boys in Christian military school in Taiwan at the end of martial law. They're in love, of course, but only one can really admit it. Lovely if, yknow, typical of this sort of film.

We really enjoyed the first Episode of the studio which is on Apple TV so no one will ever see it. We both loved how much it leant stylistic on Robert Altman’s the player, to the extent that Seth Rogan seems to be wearing Tim Robbins suit from the poster in most of the episode but wearing it like someone who is trying so hard to be Tim Robbins’s character, but also failing miserably at it.

Well done and lots of genuine laughs.

The ending making Martin Scorsese double over in tears of rage and misery and getting thrown out by Charlize Theron was a great payoff and a really deft use of a celebrity cameo.

Yeah i loved the first episode too! I like the choice to style it in a late 60’s style but be set in modern-day, it just kind of adds an extra aesthetic layer of enjoyment esp w locations like the Lloyd Wright bldg, OHara’s house, Rogen’s car, etc

xp also the Bryan Cranston character is literally named Griffin Mill

i had a hard time getting into the Studio. Will attempt again when in a different mindset.

i have this thing where i have always liked Seth Rogen, and i feel a weird sense of trust when he’s running shit. i just like him, i like his taste in stuff. idk. Like that Pickle movie he did? so lovely!

We have a new streaming media thread at 2025 Rolling Streaming Media Thread and this one has 8300 posts. Any objections to my locking this one?

nope!

please do!

OK!
that internet address again is 2025 Rolling Streaming Media Thread