Streaming services

[RyCanadian]

How many streaming services do you have? There seems to be so many coming out these days. For me I find I will only ever have Netflix, Disney plus and Amazon Prime. I think those 3 will also always be the most popular ones.

 

[bèlla]

Philo, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu for general entertainment. Marquee, The Great Courses, Masterclass, Creativelive, Craftsy, and Creativebug for specialized offerings.

Yours in His Service,

~bella

 

[Gidgx]

Amazon Prime, Netflix and Disney plus, Tubitv, Plextv and Pluto.tv and YouTube premium.

Forgot Hoopla too.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

I got Netflix and Amazon prime. I have done my best to contain things since I don't want to have multiple subscriptions, even though I like a lot of things on other channels. I use to use my Netflix DVD subscription to watch HBO and other channel shows when they come out on DVD etc. My drive went out and dropped that, but at some point I will replace it and try to binge watch some of the new shows like Mandalorian, Lovecraft country and Doom Patrol.

 

[returntosender]

I got nuthin

 

[Isaiah 2:22]

Just Amazon Prime. Used to have Netflix, but after the latest debacle I cancelled my subscription. I don't have cable TV either, so Prime and the library and Youtube are my only sources of screen entertainment.

 

[returntosender]

Just Amazon Prime. Used to have Netflix, but after the latest debacle I cancelled my subscription. I don't have cable TV either, so Prime and the library and Youtube are my only sources of screen entertainment.

So if you have a digital TV all you need now is an antenna. I get approx. 80 stations with antenna TV. If your tv isn't digital then you get a converter and an antenna If you go that way don't buy one that you see advertised on TV, its a scam.

 

[Sophrosyne]

So if you have a digital TV all you need now is an antenna. I get approx. 80 stations with antenna TV. If your tv isn't digital then you get a converter and an antenna If you go that way don't buy one that you see advertised on TV, its a scam.

I have been watching OTA broadcast TV exclusively since I dropped cable in 2002 and never looked back as I supplemented it with buying used movies on DVD spending the same or less as I would have paid for cable tv.
I think we have about 60-80 channels but in reality about 1/3 of them are entertaining, about 15-20%% are doubled up and also mostly infomercial or shopping channels and a few of them have the aspect ratio and other tags improperly set so they are stretched or squished normally on my TV set. Most channels are 480i resolution with the anchor channels 720P or 1080i and these secondary channels often are compressed even more making them blurry on top of it all. With the new digital TV standard (since about 2006 I think) the technology allows for better tv but weak reception makes it unwatchable at times where the old standard you would have more and more snow and shadows now the signal just stutters and stops or is out totally when it goes past a certain threshold and a weak signal can have wind and traffic issues on reception. I once had a firetruck outside block my reception on a channel and 20mph made a station unwatchable as it froze in and out and along with the picture going the sound goes simultaneously out too. Expect of 80 channels to get about 20-35 channels of garbage if you don't care for shopping and infomercials and duplicate channels and stale tv series that may be incomplete as these secondary content channels don't want to pay a lot for content. As much as I want to hope OTA broadcast TV will survive I think that the next generation tuner tech coming out may be too late to save it and I think a newer tech may come about combining cell tower internet and streaming free TV content to totally replace broadcast towers entirely one day.
As I've recently (last year) got a new smart tv and was able to upgrade my internet to fast enough to stream things I still don't pay for tv but it has a lot of free content in the apps on it and about 80% of the stuff I get OTA I can either watch on a "channel" (Live TV) or on Demand and almost none of the content I get below 720p resolution which looks good on most things but rarely is there 1080p stuff which is a little better.
IMO if you already have fast internet (5mbps or greater ) and a smart tv then there is a lot of content that compares equally with most of OTA stuff and a lot better often than it. There is a lot of gripes about streaming TV that I have:
1)Commercials
2)Interface
3)Customizability
4)Limited content guides (2 hours or so ahead)
5)Overwhelming content

1)Commercials are a mess on streaming platforms you have to get used to how one app/platform manages them vs another and yet another and it differs on Live TV vs On Demand content. You can have commercials that are randomly too loud with a too soft program and you can have the same commercial(s) repeated over and over several times in a row and they can have very few spread out and not use program designed breaks to insert them more often. On streaming it has even more problems in that some apps you cannot pause the stream to go do something like a bathroom break or get a snack or answer the door or talk on the phone you have to wait for the commercials to be over then it can be paused and if you pause too long you may have to start over in some apps etc.
2)Interfaces vary sometimes a little sometimes a lot and going in and out of dozens of apps a few you can't get out of them by hitting back until you get a prompt to exit (Y/N) you have to get back to the main menu and go down to the exit option or hit the tv apps program and reload it again. Some streaming you can jump 15 seconds some you can fast forward but unlike the old VHS tapes you can't see where you are when you speed up and at times the stream gets stuck and you have to pause/play a half dozen times or skip ahead and come back or even exit and restart it. You have to get used to hitting the ok button and back and arrow keys on your remote a lot to figure out how to get to different levels and when streaming how to get out of a stream and choose another one. I've fumbled for hours trying to get the hang of some apps and when I don't use that app for a week I have to relearn it and I still at times fumble around as there isn't direct keys for direct access in menus you do a huge amount of scrolling and moving around. I think that for what they are many apps do well what they have available in the smart tv remotes you get. I bought a second remote for my TV that is an older model tv not like the one I got with it that has extra keys that have helped as it has a EXIT button on it which is missing on the newer remote go figure.
3)Limited content guides. Some apps/platforms only have 2 hours ahead on content and no internet service that can clue you on what is coming in the afternoon or the next day on that channel. This can be irritating but one thing good about streaming is you aren't stuck with "Live" TV totally often you can access the same content "On Demand" and binge watch the same show when the channel changes shows after awhile. Basically streaming On Demand all but eliminates the need for guides I think but finding the shows can be a task as apps like Pluto TV etc and Xumo and Tubi and others have "channels" of other services in their content and sometimes you can watch the Live TV stuff on demand sometimes you have to search for them and searching can be easy or difficult to first learn how to do.
4)Customization etc. When you have a huge amount of info to sort through it gobbles up a lot of time when you have to constantly scroll past screen upon screen of stuff you never want to watch. There are a few apps that "help" in that they have "last watched" and/or favorites but aside from that you have to scroll and pop back and forth till you either get to exactly where you know you are going or stumble around till you do find things. I'm new to smart tv apps and do see that there is some drifting towards customization but unlike OTA TV where you can hide/delete channels from being scanned through and seen that option is not available at all on the free apps I've wandered through without signing up for them perhaps.
5)Overwhelming content is a good thing at first but after you spend hours and hours and see some of the same things on channels and on demand on half a dozen places and have over a dozen apps that you look through unless you have a good memory and spend a lot of time you can literally spend more time "window shopping" for something to watch than watching something at times. Some apps have better info about movies and stuff while others have sometimes rather vague info on them and none of the ones I've looked at have any user ratings whatsoever on anything I often go to IMDB and search to see if something that looks good.... actually is worth spending 90 minutes of my time with. Having to resort to typing in stuff. It would be nice to have a smart search engine that you can customize as to what apps it will query or not and have genres and categories and what is new and top rated and so on.

Even though streaming has been around for a long time they are still improving it and I think that it will evolve to replace OTA TV which will possibly end up OTA streaming TV that one day instead of getting content from UHF/VHF broadcast towers locally will get content from cell phone towers directly using 5G greater and instead of TV stations paying for towers and maintenance fees they will pay a fee to have their content streamed and share in the advertising income. There is the Next Generation ATSC 3.0 standard arriving on TV sets now but probably won't be widespread for another 5-10 years if streaming doesn't hamstring it totally as it is sort of a hybrid TV that allows streaming to supplement programs OTA which IMO doesn't really encourage OTA only folks to invest in it but it is possible 10 years from now current digital TV sets will be unable to get anything as they have abandoned analog TV and can abandon ATSC1.0 TV we now have for it. It may be that there is again a move to remove OTA tuners from tv sets entirely but I believe that if they do that they should consider a public framework of cell phone tower type streaming tv system to replace it that must stream all local station content live and On demand if agreed to.

What does concern me a little is people have this term "cut the cord" but in reality they are just cutting one cord and attaching a wireless "cord" as instead of paying cable or satellite tv companies they are paying streaming service providers who IMO will just replace the pay TV ones and ramp up their fees similarly over time. It is the free tv streaming that is what will doom OTA TV, not (pay) streaming TV overall as broadcast networks all offer free streaming for their content they can cripple local stations incomes especially if their content is also on demand instead of watching local OTA channels to get their programs they go to ABC online and stream them and unless they actually want to watch the news or are on the channel OTA they may never watch the local station. The sad thing is local stations tend to be less biased about news that is entirely local so if something happens locally getting it over a broadcast station may get a less "flavored" picture of it all and that could vanish in the future especially if OTA TV becomes a political thing with the head of the FCC being changed to someone with political agenda. I would like to see smart TVs have more apps, would be neat to see ALL local stations and their subchannels offered on a streaming platform in the future with customization that approaches the OTA TV interface/experience.
I think the future of TV can become politically charged even more as "correctness" invades the powers behind these apps/flatforms/TV manufacturers etc we could see our freedom to watch things we want to see dim and more and more "correct" programs invading everywhere.
BTW the advice about the antenna is a good one as many antennas are good enough for local channels within 5-10 miles and if that close you could even stick a piece of wire in the antenna hole about 3 feet long and get a lot of free channels. Amplified antennas are typically either barely better or not better at all and not worth the extra expense. If you are far away (20 miles or more) from broadcast towers you may need to research online and get a $50-$100 antenna as 2 and 4 bay antennas can be a big difference vs throwaway antennas sold in stores no larger than a laptop. I've personally made an antenna that cost me nothing but for those without junk sitting around you could make one for as cheap as $10 that would outperform a $50 hyped one in the stores.
TVfool.com I think is a site that could point out where your broadcast stations are topographically.

 

[Isaiah 2:22]

So if you have a digital TV all you need now is an antenna. I get approx. 80 stations with antenna TV. If your tv isn't digital then you get a converter and an antenna If you go that way don't buy one that you see advertised on TV, its a scam.

I would love to do this, but I'm not very technically gifted and my house is rented. The landlord said he doesn't want me putting up an antenna/dish outside. Legally I could anyways, but I don't want to upset him.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I would love to do this, but I'm not very technically gifted and my house is rented. The landlord said he doesn't want me putting up an antenna/dish outside. Legally I could anyways, but I don't want to upset him.

You don't have to have an outdoors antenna to get good reception and you can, if you have room, put one up indoors. A lot depends on where the stations are from you if they are all in the same direction a beam type antenna is good I have stations in all directions and use a homemade 4 bay antenna.

 

[returntosender]

I would love to do this, but I'm not very technically gifted and my house is rented. The landlord said he doesn't want me putting up an antenna/dish outside. Legally I could anyways, but I don't want to upset him.

Unless you live in the boonies an inside antenna should work perfect. That's all I have on my TV's. Its simple to hook it up. I can walk you through it if you attach a dvd , etc to it otherwise you just hook the coaxil cable into the back of the tv and wa la. Most Antennas have a coaxil cable hooked to them, if not they are only a couple of dollars. Spend 20 to 30 on a good antenna, anyone that sells tv's have them.
Soph is right, only maybe 20 channels have any real programming worth watching but it is free once you get an antenna. And it doesn't change your set up so you can always go back to pay if you decide to without any problems.

 

[returntosender]

I have been watching OTA broadcast TV exclusively since I dropped cable in 2002 and never looked back as I supplemented it with buying used movies on DVD spending the same or less as I would have paid for cable tv.
I think we have about 60-80 channels but in reality about 1/3 of them are entertaining, about 15-20%% are doubled up and also mostly infomercial or shopping channels and a few of them have the aspect ratio and other tags improperly set so they are stretched or squished normally on my TV set. Most channels are 480i resolution with the anchor channels 720P or 1080i and these secondary channels often are compressed even more making them blurry on top of it all. With the new digital TV standard (since about 2006 I think) the technology allows for better tv but weak reception makes it unwatchable at times where the old standard you would have more and more snow and shadows now the signal just stutters and stops or is out totally when it goes past a certain threshold and a weak signal can have wind and traffic issues on reception. I once had a firetruck outside block my reception on a channel and 20mph made a station unwatchable as it froze in and out and along with the picture going the sound goes simultaneously out too. Expect of 80 channels to get about 20-35 channels of garbage if you don't care for shopping and infomercials and duplicate channels and stale tv series that may be incomplete as these secondary content channels don't want to pay a lot for content. As much as I want to hope OTA broadcast TV will survive I think that the next generation tuner tech coming out may be too late to save it and I think a newer tech may come about combining cell tower internet and streaming free TV content to totally replace broadcast towers entirely one day.
As I've recently (last year) got a new smart tv and was able to upgrade my internet to fast enough to stream things I still don't pay for tv but it has a lot of free content in the apps on it and about 80% of the stuff I get OTA I can either watch on a "channel" (Live TV) or on Demand and almost none of the content I get below 720p resolution which looks good on most things but rarely is there 1080p stuff which is a little better.
IMO if you already have fast internet (5mbps or greater ) and a smart tv then there is a lot of content that compares equally with most of OTA stuff and a lot better often than it. There is a lot of gripes about streaming TV that I have:
1)Commercials
2)Interface
3)Customizability
4)Limited content guides (2 hours or so ahead)
5)Overwhelming content

1)Commercials are a mess on streaming platforms you have to get used to how one app/platform manages them vs another and yet another and it differs on Live TV vs On Demand content. You can have commercials that are randomly too loud with a too soft program and you can have the same commercial(s) repeated over and over several times in a row and they can have very few spread out and not use program designed breaks to insert them more often. On streaming it has even more problems in that some apps you cannot pause the stream to go do something like a bathroom break or get a snack or answer the door or talk on the phone you have to wait for the commercials to be over then it can be paused and if you pause too long you may have to start over in some apps etc.
2)Interfaces vary sometimes a little sometimes a lot and going in and out of dozens of apps a few you can't get out of them by hitting back until you get a prompt to exit (Y/N) you have to get back to the main menu and go down to the exit option or hit the tv apps program and reload it again. Some streaming you can jump 15 seconds some you can fast forward but unlike the old VHS tapes you can't see where you are when you speed up and at times the stream gets stuck and you have to pause/play a half dozen times or skip ahead and come back or even exit and restart it. You have to get used to hitting the ok button and back and arrow keys on your remote a lot to figure out how to get to different levels and when streaming how to get out of a stream and choose another one. I've fumbled for hours trying to get the hang of some apps and when I don't use that app for a week I have to relearn it and I still at times fumble around as there isn't direct keys for direct access in menus you do a huge amount of scrolling and moving around. I think that for what they are many apps do well what they have available in the smart tv remotes you get. I bought a second remote for my TV that is an older model tv not like the one I got with it that has extra keys that have helped as it has a EXIT button on it which is missing on the newer remote go figure.
3)Limited content guides. Some apps/platforms only have 2 hours ahead on content and no internet service that can clue you on what is coming in the afternoon or the next day on that channel. This can be irritating but one thing good about streaming is you aren't stuck with "Live" TV totally often you can access the same content "On Demand" and binge watch the same show when the channel changes shows after awhile. Basically streaming On Demand all but eliminates the need for guides I think but finding the shows can be a task as apps like Pluto TV etc and Xumo and Tubi and others have "channels" of other services in their content and sometimes you can watch the Live TV stuff on demand sometimes you have to search for them and searching can be easy or difficult to first learn how to do.
4)Customization etc. When you have a huge amount of info to sort through it gobbles up a lot of time when you have to constantly scroll past screen upon screen of stuff you never want to watch. There are a few apps that "help" in that they have "last watched" and/or favorites but aside from that you have to scroll and pop back and forth till you either get to exactly where you know you are going or stumble around till you do find things. I'm new to smart tv apps and do see that there is some drifting towards customization but unlike OTA TV where you can hide/delete channels from being scanned through and seen that option is not available at all on the free apps I've wandered through without signing up for them perhaps.
5)Overwhelming content is a good thing at first but after you spend hours and hours and see some of the same things on channels and on demand on half a dozen places and have over a dozen apps that you look through unless you have a good memory and spend a lot of time you can literally spend more time "window shopping" for something to watch than watching something at times. Some apps have better info about movies and stuff while others have sometimes rather vague info on them and none of the ones I've looked at have any user ratings whatsoever on anything I often go to IMDB and search to see if something that looks good.... actually is worth spending 90 minutes of my time with. Having to resort to typing in stuff. It would be nice to have a smart search engine that you can customize as to what apps it will query or not and have genres and categories and what is new and top rated and so on.

Even though streaming has been around for a long time they are still improving it and I think that it will evolve to replace OTA TV which will possibly end up OTA streaming TV that one day instead of getting content from UHF/VHF broadcast towers locally will get content from cell phone towers directly using 5G greater and instead of TV stations paying for towers and maintenance fees they will pay a fee to have their content streamed and share in the advertising income. There is the Next Generation ATSC 3.0 standard arriving on TV sets now but probably won't be widespread for another 5-10 years if streaming doesn't hamstring it totally as it is sort of a hybrid TV that allows streaming to supplement programs OTA which IMO doesn't really encourage OTA only folks to invest in it but it is possible 10 years from now current digital TV sets will be unable to get anything as they have abandoned analog TV and can abandon ATSC1.0 TV we now have for it. It may be that there is again a move to remove OTA tuners from tv sets entirely but I believe that if they do that they should consider a public framework of cell phone tower type streaming tv system to replace it that must stream all local station content live and On demand if agreed to.

What does concern me a little is people have this term "cut the cord" but in reality they are just cutting one cord and attaching a wireless "cord" as instead of paying cable or satellite tv companies they are paying streaming service providers who IMO will just replace the pay TV ones and ramp up their fees similarly over time. It is the free tv streaming that is what will doom OTA TV, not (pay) streaming TV overall as broadcast networks all offer free streaming for their content they can cripple local stations incomes especially if their content is also on demand instead of watching local OTA channels to get their programs they go to ABC online and stream them and unless they actually want to watch the news or are on the channel OTA they may never watch the local station. The sad thing is local stations tend to be less biased about news that is entirely local so if something happens locally getting it over a broadcast station may get a less "flavored" picture of it all and that could vanish in the future especially if OTA TV becomes a political thing with the head of the FCC being changed to someone with political agenda. I would like to see smart TVs have more apps, would be neat to see ALL local stations and their subchannels offered on a streaming platform in the future with customization that approaches the OTA TV interface/experience.
I think the future of TV can become politically charged even more as "correctness" invades the powers behind these apps/flatforms/TV manufacturers etc we could see our freedom to watch things we want to see dim and more and more "correct" programs invading everywhere.
BTW the advice about the antenna is a good one as many antennas are good enough for local channels within 5-10 miles and if that close you could even stick a piece of wire in the antenna hole about 3 feet long and get a lot of free channels. Amplified antennas are typically either barely better or not better at all and not worth the extra expense. If you are far away (20 miles or more) from broadcast towers you may need to research online and get a $50-$100 antenna as 2 and 4 bay antennas can be a big difference vs throwaway antennas sold in stores no larger than a laptop. I've personally made an antenna that cost me nothing but for those without junk sitting around you could make one for as cheap as $10 that would outperform a $50 hyped one in the stores.
TVfool.com I think is a site that could point out where your broadcast stations are topographically.

Show off, You are funny with all of that, lol. Gone are the days of analog. Must have been a conspiracy. It was so much better.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Show off, You are funny with all of that, lol. Gone are the days of analog. Must have been a conspiracy. It was so much better.

Actually analog isn't as good once you do get a good signal on a station it is far superior it is that you need a batter antenna to get that good enough signal that is the problem. As for the showoff bit, I'm a geek when it comes to electronics of some sorts I learn all I can about it when I need to buy new stuff to replace obsolete and worn out items.

 

[returntosender]

Actually analog isn't as good once you do get a good signal on a station it is far superior it is that you need a batter antenna to get that good enough signal that is the problem. As for the showoff bit, I'm a geek when it comes to electronics of some sorts I learn all I can about it when I need to buy new stuff to replace obsolete and worn out items.

With analog I never had to adjust the antenna but with digital it is an on going adjustment with a newer tv that has bad reception. I still would prefer analog.

 

[Sophrosyne]

With analog I never had to adjust the antenna but with digital it is an on going adjustment with a newer tv that has bad reception. I still would prefer analog.

You just need a better antenna that is the problem with digital. One thing that we aren't told is that they actually lowered power output of stations going to digital transmission and some were forced to change frequencies which made some easier to receive and others harder. Some stations changed frequencies then the FCC decided to repack the frequencies tighter and move stations a second time. I had to rescan several times over the years as stations vanished on me.

 

[Isaiah 2:22]

Thanks for the advice, guys! I will definitely look into it.

 

[DragonFox91]

I don't have any. I have Cable & like it. Deal w/ it.