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 was on the fence about starting Black Doves, then I was off the fence, then I switched again to wanting to give it a shot, and now all this talk of nonsense makes me not want to see it again. I think I have a general low tolerance for nonsense, unless it's funny, and (importantly) funny on purpose. Oh well.

Black Doves is funny on purpose. Mom Wick and a possibly autistic assassin?

Ok, funny on purpose has me interested again, lol. Didn't really dig the first two seasons of Slow Horses, which I think was sometimes trying to be funny on purpose, but imo wasn't particularly funny, though was for sure full of nonsense, and was worried this would be akin.

Yeah, Black Doves is absolutely funny-on-purpose. If there's one thing about it that disappointed me it was that I feel like Andrew Koji is kind of wasted in it — yes, he's very handsome, but as anyone who's watched Warrior knows, he can also kick all kinds of ass, so not giving him a single fight scene (to say anything else would be a giant spoiler) feels like a miscalculation.

i still need to get back to The Agency. i still have only watched that first episode. and i was going to watch black doves. i blame s.w.a.t. i can really go on some dumb t.v. tangents. and i still haven't finished the coroner...

I’d be down for a spinoff about the two Irish hitwomen.

Black Doves Extended Cinematic Universe

Oh my god the last episode

I can’t remember the last time I’ve both enjoyed a show and wanted to slap it because it was so dumb

SAME

do we need a Black Doves thread?

The Irish hitwomen* were indeed fun.
*trigger men!

ok black doves theead here

Bend It Like Paddington: “Black Doves” (Netflix)

This isn't terribly important but Eleanor the dark-hared "trigger man" is Welsh rather than Irish. I mean, it might be important to her.

i binged the rest of “Say Nothing” yesterday. So good - really impressive imo. Def need to go back & read the book now.

However… i really need to call attention to the actor playing the older, 90’s era Gerry Adams for doing what is basically a Sean Connery accent. LMAO
it was v funny to me
i kept wanted him to say SUCK ON IT, TREBEC. SUCK IT LONG, SUCK IT HARD

so Teacup is pretty batshit, but I get a sinking feeling I know where it's all headed, we've got our good alien and our bad alien chasing the good one, cycle/rinse/repeat

i tried the first ep of No Good Deed & it just seemed kind of annoying & dumb. Good cast tho.

also Denis Leary looks weird now

i started watching No Good Deed on Netflix because i like lisa kudrow and ray romano and then i stopped 22 minutes and 56 seconds into it. i think its more for you guys.

― scott seward, Friday, December 13, 2024 12:03 AM (five days ago)

Maybe it isn't for you guys!

i agree about the cast though. it should have been good.

yeah i just have NO patience anymore for that thing where every dialogue exchange is someone explaining their own character to someone else ~they already know~

I watched the Netflix movie Carry On, hoping for something good-stupid or enjoyably bad-stupid, but unfortunately it was just three stars-middling-stupid. Shame - Egerton and Bateman are decent and I really enjoyed the director’s Liam Neeson movies, but this one racks up too many bad choices, not the least of which is the hero being a total useless snake but still getting treated like he’s the second coming of John McClane. And it doesn’t have the balls to stay with its (very good) small-scale setup.

Of all the franchises to do a gritty reboot of!

Yes it’s the origin story for Charles Hawtrey but I’m not sure if it’s canon or reboot.

Such a weirdly prosaic title. They might as well have called it “Speedy Boarding”.

My wife started "Shrinking" without me, enjoyed the first two episodes and suggested she catch me up and we watch the third together. And it was lame, like a sitcom pilot without a laugh track, where the writing is not sharp and the cast just hasn't found the right tone or balance or chemistry yet. Just broad, bad jokes and that familiar stale rhythm, plus for some reason Jason Segal's character delivered every line slightly out of breath, like he had just gotten back from a jog. My wife apologized and said the first two episodes were a lot better. I, too, had heard the show gets better (I think?), but boy ...

We did finish "The Penguin," though. Pretty (imo unnecessarily) bleak ending, but the show as a whole was surprisingly solid.

it gets better and then it gets worse. we gave up a few episodes into the second season when characters started making really annoying and dumb decisions.

I don’t mind Shrinking. I think it’s mostly evolved into an ensemble hangout show, which was a good move. I’m hoping they reach appropriate closure to the main plot/premise this season so it can feel a little looser and low-stakes in the third season.

I love it, but I'm a (trainee) therapist so it's sort of fun. I get that it's dopey, corny and smug, but I'm a sucker for that hangout, say your punchline and go away again, Bill Lawrence vibe.

I mostly liked it until a few moves this season like the neighbor selling her share in the food truck to the father, and the daughter kissing the neighbor's son.

Ha yes, that is when we bailed as well

I bailed halfway through One Hundred Years Of Solitude, but my wife made it all the way to the end. They lost me when they re-cast the lead couple in episode three; I hated the older versions of them. For a while in episode two many years were passing but the actors looked exactly the same as they had at the beginning, no old-age makeup or anything, and I thought that was a really cool choice and would have liked it if they'd done it for the entire show, very magical realism. But then they suddenly switched — "They're old now! Here are the new actors, who don't look anything like the previous actors!" — and it turned me against the show. Plus, the first 8 episodes were just the first half, and no release date for the second half has been announced.

definitely steer clear of My Brilliant Friend if changing actors and stretching a book over multiple seasons is a dealbreaker

I liked that show a lot. And the actress who played the older Lila looked so much like the younger one it was some kind of weird miracle. But in this case, the male lead gave the impression of being about a foot shorter than his younger self. It was like starting out with a young Jimmy Smits (sorry, can't think of a young Latin actor by name at the moment, but you get the idea), replacing him with Luis Guzman and saying, "Nope! Same guy!"

re: my brilliant friend, the young/adult Lila casting is oscar-worthy, the other casting? I dunno. All the men seemed to be 20 years older than the the women in their older versions. The villain brothers seemed like odd choices casting-wise as well.

I know it was supposed to be due to hard living, but yes, various men who were meant to be 40 looked much closer to 60. Plus it was weird to put in new actors for most of the characters, but then just age up the parents with cheap makeup. Despite all that, I enjoyed it a lot.

I thought the last season was excellent, if distressing at some of the characters' choices, and the casting was good if not perfect. It was jarring at first, but I got used to it.

When I was a young teen I saw The Linguini Incident. I remember absolutely nothing about it except that I loved it and I’ve been looking for it online for years and years, and it’s FINALLY available on Tubi. I’m gonna watch it and probably be very disappointed. Will report back.

I loved that film, but also haven't seen it for years. Bowie as inept-ish thief.

my brilliant friend, the young/adult Lila casting is oscar-worthy

all of the women/girls who played Lila are amazing and weirdly all of them absolutely look like the same person, it's extraordinary.

Xp it could never live up to a decades-long love of something not even half remembered. It was still funny though and I loved the sets.

It’s also on Criterion now! Believe it said something about a Director’s Cut.

I’m planning on watching if only for Old Weird New York nostalgia.

There’s a recut version of the Hateful Eight on Netflix that makes it four one hour episodes. I haven’t liked any Tarantinos post-Death Proof because he got too much power and no one can tell him Django should have been 1:45, but maybe his overstuffed era would work episodically.

However… i really need to call attention to the actor playing the older, 90’s era Gerry Adams for doing what is basically a Sean Connery accent. LMAO
it was v funny to me
i kept wanted him to say SUCK ON IT, TREBEC. SUCK IT LONG, SUCK IT HARD

He reminded me so so much of Rickman as Eamon De Valera in Michael Collins, and the show seemed to portray him as a similar type of selfish, aloof traitor, that I felt this must have been intentional. A few friends said the same unprompted also.

That felt very untrue as he's clearly a very charismatic man. You don't manage to bring the IRA to a peace process without having political charm and an aura about you, and having met him once he exudes that.

But perhaps the show was portraying him a certain way to make a point.

I do think it entered slightly weird territory in the way it quite openly seemed to suggest the peace process was somehow a selling out.

Perhaps it was taking the angle of class in that view also which is interesting, but still felt a little off in that it seems difficult to argue it's not a good thing people weren't murdering each other every day.

Xps yeah it was the director's cut I saw tonigh!

I kind of liked the long 4 episode Hateful Eight better than the theatrical version, but it is still far from perfect.

xxpost to LG - apparently the book takes a rather dim view of Adams. I have just started reading it so i’m curious to find out more on that angle

Dropped Netflix and Max-through-Amazon and signed up for the Hulu/Max/Disney triple bundle ($30/month). Time to watch Shogun and eight million hours of superhero shit!

xxpost to LG - apparently the book takes a rather dim view of Adams. I have just started reading it so i’m curious to find out more on that angle

my feeling after I read it was that there is a lie at the center of his life and past, and everyone knows it, but he can never admit it and the peace process would never have happened if he did. and this lie is unbelievably corrosive in all sorts of ways, but it also was sort of essential? and on a personal level it sometimes results in evil behaviour towards all sorts of people, but again, it was maybe necessary for peace? idk, I find it absolutely fascinating, how can a person live his life?

this book is a really interesting companion to say nothing imo, kinda went under the radar but is absolutely horrific and Adams comes out way, way worse imo: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/rough-beast-9781804540107/

adding that to the list — thx for the recommendation

and yeah -i havent read much into the book but he seems like a deeply, pathologically(?) compartmentalized person which maybe you have to be

this should probably go on a NYT thread but this weird thing at the end of this profile of Anh Sung-jae who became a star chef in Korea and then a star on t.v. with Culinary Class Wars on Netflix...is just weird. and cringy. and its sad because it was pretty interesting before that. but now the weird reporter thing is all i can think about.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/culinary-class-wars-netflix-anh-sung-jae.html

My apologies did not sway him. After explaining that I still planned to proceed with an article and wanted to check a few details, he said: “Write whatever you want, I am not interested. Do not message anymore.”

I understood. I let things drag on when he wasn’t as big of a deal, and I was coming back now that he was the star of a hit show.