Cordkillers 84 – Adequate TV

Cordkillers / August 17th, 2015

The FCC hands cable companies a weapon, Comcast wants to unseat YouTube, why you shouldn’t buy that Android box.

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CordKillers: 84 – Adequate TV
Recorded: August 17, 2015
Guest: Hammond Chamberlain

Intro Video

  •  

Primary Target

  • The FCC could soon give more power to cable companies. Here’s how. 
  • Upgrading media rules
    – The FCC is considering two rule changes governing how cable and broadcast networks can behave when negotiating retransmission fees in the US
    – 1. Lift a ban on rebroadcasting blacked out shows from another city’s TV station.
    “In this item, the Commission takes its thumb off the scales and leaves the scope of such exclusivity to be decided by the parties.”
    – 2. Undertake a “robust examination” of what it means to negotiate in good faith. This could make broadcasters less likely to risk blackouts.
    “The goal of the proposed rulemaking is to ensure that these negotiations are conducted fairly and in a way that protects consumers.”
    –In layman’s terms:
    – 1. Let cable companies have another option when fighting a blackout if they can convince a neighboring market’s station to let them have their content instead of the more local station. So in Austin if CBS in Austin is blacking out it’s channel a cable company coul try to convince a Houtson or San Antonio station to let it have that programming instead.”
    – 2. Basically the FCC currently has a hands off approach to interfering with negotiations unless something extreme happens, which has benefited the broadcasters who have the content. Hard to say what they mean here for sure but they definitely are trying to scare broadcasters into being more favorable in negoations with cable companies

Signal Intelligence

  • Comcast to partner with buzzfeed
    – Business Inisder has a source that is telling it more about Comcast’s new video platform we’ve heard rumored
    – Called “Watchable” but that name could change
    – Allegedly partnering with Vox (which it owns a stake in), Buzzfeed (which it is purchasing a stake in) AwesomenessTV, Refinery29, and The Onion, news sites like Mic and Vice, as well as legacy brands like NBC Sports —Full list still being determined.
    – Deals are non-exclusive
    – Positioned as a rival to Verizon’s forthcoming service
    – Come first to X1 cable boxes then to iOS and Android
    – Wants to be digital video advertising leader
    – While Comcast still has the predominance of video viewing in the home it wants to become the tastemaker for digital video

Gear Up

  • Let’s clear up this whole Android TV box mess
  • You see a lot of this crap
    – We constantly get emails from people asking “Have you seen this XXX box that prmisies loads of free video for the price of a cheap piece of hardware?”
    – Many companies are throwing open source Android on a cheap processor with HDMI and preinstalling something like Kodi on it and maybe a few other apps and promising “access to free TV and movies.”
    – Most use older ARM processors (Often Cortex A9) and GPUs that are affordable but still handle 1080p
    – Generally include 1GB or 2 of RAM and 8 GB of storage., mostly just for buffering and apps
    – They try to differentiate themselves with different remotes and cables. Remotes often don’t work well
    – You’re just as well off buying an Ouya, Nexus Player or even FireTV and rooting them. Or you can connect your phone with a cable.
    – Really you should just buy a Roku or Apple TV. 

Front Lines

Under Surveillance

Dispatches from the Front

Hi Tom, Brian, and Bryce,

I am preparing to leave the parents house finally!! I will not be getting cable so i was wondering which over-the-air antennas y’all think is the best and which OTA DVR that does not have a monthly fee is the best?

Thanks so much for the show!

– Lauren from Dallas

– Wineguard Flatwave supposedly has better range than the Mohu Leaf, Channelmaster

 

 

 

 

Hi Brian,

Just listened to this week’s Spoilering Time and was hoping for some clarification.

I always assumed that the red star ratings on Netflix were part of their “magical” algorithms and represent what they think you would rate something.

So in the case of “Hot girls wanted,” Netflix thinks that Brian will give it a 2 star rating after watching it. This of course being based on your viewing habits and what you have rated in the past that might be similar.
Therefore, critical reviews have no effect.

My confusion came when you stated the rating there was based on other Netflix users. Is this the actual case? Have I been giving Netflix too much credit with their ability to make recommendations based on my tastes? Am I gonna have change my discovery habits? Does Tom know? Is this really diet Dr. Pepper? Please help.

Your boss,
– Byron

 

 

 

 

I had a thought about a consequence of cord killing that maybe you haven’t talked about. Made y’all a little video:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57192/cord_cutting_complicates_money.mov

If .mov doesn’t work for you let me know,

– Allison

 

 

Tom & Brian,
Do you think this is the last time US presidential election campaigns that will operate in a traditional way? In 2020, with the assumption of massive cord cutting, campaign ads can’t run like they do now given limited ad space on hulu, netflix or cbs.com. How do you think that it will change if at all?

– David

 

 

 

I will never be able to convince my wife to cut the cord if I can’t reassure her that it actually works. I only have a couple digital movies, but two out of the last three times I tried to watch one I was unsuccessful because of DRM authentication.
One was on a wifi tablet while on a car trip, and Disney Movies Anywhere decided it needed to authenticate. No movie for you!!
Today, I wanted to listen to the Lego Movie while driving, but Flixter decided that it didn’t agree with my phone about what time of day it is. No movie for you!
These were both locally downloaded copies of movies I “own”.
Wtf.

Thanks for the show.

– Ander

 

Links

patreon.com/cordkillers
2015 Winter Movie Draft

It’s Spoilerin’ Time 83

Cordkillers / August 12th, 2015

Movie Draft Update, Star Wars Rebels, Sneaky Pete (Pilot) Rick & Morty (203), True Detective (208), The Shield (701), Hot Girls Wanted

00:33 – Movie Draft Update

07:10 – Feedback

10:30 – Star Wars Rebels

14:54 – Sneaky Pete (Pilot)

19:33 – Rick & Morty (203)

24:34 – True Detective (208)

29:05 – The Shield (701)

33:34 – Hot Girls Wanted

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Cordkillers 83 – The Last Stage of Denial

Cordkillers / August 10th, 2015

Is the pay TV mountain about to crumble, why MLB paying NHL is revolutionary for cord-cutters, and Xbox One gets a DVR.

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CordKillers: 83 – The Last Stage of Denial
Recorded: August 10, 2015
Guest: None

Intro Video

Primary Target

  • Chart Shows Pay TV Subscribers Shrinking
  • Cord-Cutting Weighs on Pay TV
  • Sanford C. Bernstein report confirms TV networks are increasing ad stuffing
  • Cablevision stems subscriber loss at a cost
  • No cord-cutting landslide yet according to Cablevision CEO
    –     1. If you want more Interent choices Pay TV has to see you as worth pursuing
    – 2. To see you as worth pursuing the traditional Pay TV subscriber business has to be seen as no longer 100% secure
    – Last week investors sold off big media companies erasing $50 billion in value
    – A chart from MoffettNathanson shows the decline of subscriber growth in pay TV dramatically. No positive growth since Q3 2012
    – PAY TV companies can no longer count on steadily rising subscriber fees
    – For June through mid-July, the top 30 cable networks were down more than 10% in viewers in prime time and 20% among adults 18-49 compared with the same period a year ago (although ad loads have risen as much as 10% yoy)
    – Networks (Disney, Turner, Discovery) all denying this will affect them and projecting no problems in subscriber fee growth. Sound familiar?
    – Content producers (CBS, Warner Bros. Disney) have MORE outlets paying them to make shows with the rise of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu so they’re prefeectly happy

Signal Intelligence

  • MLBAM gets NHL deal
    -MLBAM will PAY the NHL $100 million for a six-year deal with rights to digital subscription products and cable TV property
    – First time MLBAM pays to run a service. Will sell ads against games.
    – Pending board approval this week, will engage bankers at Evercore and Goldman Sachs to market MLBAM to investors with the intention of spinning out by end of year under name BAM Tech 

Gear Up

Front Lines

  • Netflix’s newest original series is a dystopian thriller in Brazil
    -Netflix ordered a new series called 3% Produced by Brazilian studio Boutique Filmes and directed by Cesar Charlone (City of God). Everyone has one chance to jump from poverty to decadence but only 3% of applicants succeed. It’s Netflix’s first entirely Brazilian series.
  • Ultra HD Blu-ray will have 4K discs here in time for the holidays
    –The Blu-ray Disc Association announced it will start licensing Ultra HD Blu-ray technology in time for the 2015 holiday season. The standard is 4K with support for 3840 x 2160 video as well as HDR and HFR and a ‘digital bridge’ feature to allow digital copies to be stored on authorized drives. 
  • HBO NOW Adds Support For Google’s Chromecast
    -HBO Now added support for Chromecast to its Android and iOS devices. The Travel Channel, Food Newtwork and Pokemon TV apps also added Chromecast support. 
  • Sky News livestream of Republican debate shut down by Fox News copyright claim
    –Fox News held and broadcast debates among selected Republican US Presidential candidates last week. Fox News streamed the debate online but only if you logged in with your cable credentials. Sky News which is a UK network owned by the same company that owns Fox News, was streaming the debate worldwide without requiring a login. At least they were until a content ID claim appeared against Sky News’s stream originating from Fox News blocking it. Sky News started a new stream at a new URL and that one stayed up.
  • Samsung kills Boxee’s secret tablet remote project, lays off staff
    -RIP Boxee. Samsung, which bought Boxee two years ago, canceled the group’s next generation remote control project and has laid off much of the team. The project called PX, for perfect experience, would have been a guide to all programming available on a tablet-like device.
  • PlayStation’s streaming TV service rolls out to Dallas and Miami
    –And two quick notes. The PlayStation Vue TV service is now available in the Dallas and Miami areas and Netflix will launch in Japan September 2nd.

Under Surveillance

Dispatches from the Front

Hey Tom and Bryan! My 7 year old daughter is obsessed with YouTube. I trust her well enough to watch videos on my YouTube account because the YouTube kids seems to be geared for too young of an audience for her. … My question is, why does my 7 year old see Budwiser and other adult themed ads in front of these videos? Is it because YouTube assumes I am watching the video because I am logged in? This seems like of short cited of YouTube with all their data they should be able to recognize that those videos are geared for kids and should only show kid appropriate ads. I wish Google would supply more customization for letting children use YouTube other than “kids” which seems for very young children, or all out using your adult account with adult ads.

– Kyle from Jacksonville

 

 

 

Hello Tom, Brian and Bryce –

Its been great to listen to the talk about whether or not to buy physical media or invest in digital media and some of the comments from other cordkillers.

Last year my brother made some terrible, stupid life choices and had to tighten his budget. One of the first bills to go was his internet and TV. Since he had heavily invested in digital content like Steam games and TV/Movies from Amazon, all of that was now of no use to him. …Yes, he could have downloaded the Amazon files and saved them or put Steam in offline mode, but that would only work for so long.

Watching this happen has made me stick with physical media in all aspects. You never know what’s going to happen in your life and I want to be sure that if I make some dumb choices I’m not stuck watching the only a single channel that comes in on my antenna.

Thanks for the great show!

– Dominic

 

 

Quick money saving tip if you pay for Showtime and/or HBO through Apple. We buy $100 gift cards at Costco or Sam’s Club for $80 on sale. Load those up into iTunes Store and save 20%. Over a year if you subscribe to both you’d save about $60. Enough to buy some other shows or support Cordkillers on Patreon!

– Rob
 

 

Links

patreon.com/cordkillers

2015 Winter Movie Draft

Cordkillers 82 – S-M-R-T SMART!

Cordkillers / August 3rd, 2015

HBO gets smart about Game of Thrones, Comcast com-blocks Sling TV, and why the Xbox won’t be your cable box.

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CordKillers: Ep. 82 – S-M-R-T SMART!
Recorded: August 3, 2015
Guest: Iyaz Akhtar

 

Intro Video 

Primary Target

  • HBO is selling ‘Game of Thrones’ S5 downloads earlier than usual
    -Season 5 of GoT available for download before DVD/Blu-ray, August 31 (preorder AMZN, Vudu, Itunes, Google Play for $39)
    – Includes extras
    – Discs don’t come until March 15
    – Been on sale in Australia since it finished airing
     
  • HBO says ‘Game of Thrones’ will be at least EIGHT seasons
    – HBO programming president Michael Lombardo told Television Critics Association “Seven-seasons-and-out has never been the [internal] conversation. The question is: How much beyond seven are we going to do? Obviously we’re shooting six now, hopefully discussing seven. They [Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are] feel like there’s two more years after six. I would always love for them to change their minds, but that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

Signal Intelligence

  • Comcast’s NBC refuses to air commercials for Sling TV
    – Sling bought ads on all major network sin 8 cities.
    – Comcast-owned NBC affiliates rejected the ads (including in New York and LA)
    – Sling CEO Roger Lynch wrote: “Comcast has a demonstrated history of shutting down ideas it doesn’t like or understand, predictably to its benefit and at the expense of consumers.”
    – POTENTIAL POINTS
    – Is seeing ads for Sling really a consumer benefit?
    – Should Comcast be required to run the ads? Would it be different if it was DirecTV?
    – What’s the real reason? Don’t forget Comcast licenses some of its networks to Sling TV

Gear Up

  • Xbox chief doesn’t see ‘as much value’ in TV cable box features
    – Phil Spencer speaking with the Verge about Xbox
    -“We’ve been thinking a lot about over-the-top and over-the-air conent and the aggregation of all your content in this un-bundled world”
    – On cable box: “I’m not sure we have as much value to add there…”
    – “I think there are natural features that you could see where an Xbox could do a good job helping, especially in a world where you have video sources from all over the place.”
    – “We see what people do on the box and we know making advances in the entertainment space is important. You’ll hear more from us soon actually about that.”
    – Microsoft has a Gamescom announcement at 10 AM Eastern Tuesday. 

Front Lines

Under Surveillance

Dispatches from the Fronts
Hey Tom and Brian,

I was just having a quick look on eBay to see if anyone was selling an Amazon Fire Stick for cheap, but found a load of sellers listing a modified Fire Stick loaded with Kodi and plugins like iVue that enable people to stream premium channels for free. They’re selling them at around £25 profit.. some have sold over 500 units (a tidy £12,500 profit!).

Isn’t this illegal – i.e. selling it like that, not using it when you’ve bought one?

I’m all for killing the cord, and don’t mind if people want to side load this stuff themselves, but blatantly selling them like this for that price & in such quantities feels wrong to me.

What do you guys think?

–Matt 

Hey crew I just setup my Xbox One to do remote play from outside my home network using https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/3a1rwv/instructions_for_streaming_xbox_one_from_anywhere/

This got me to thinking this just made Xbox one a great sling box replacement if you run your TV through Xbox one like you Tom. Only thing a bit annoying is having an Xbox controller around to navigate the Xbox one interface remotely.

– Jack

Hello Tom and Brian

I just wanted to add my two cents into the discussion you had about JT question -“Is there room for the movie collector in the cordcutting world?”

Not all movies are available digitally yet

Two, Not all services have a full catalog.

Three, access to quality. Not everything is available in true HD (Stefano from Italy wrote in with the same concern about image abnd audio quality)

Four, there is a sense of control. The sense that you have easy access to your media when the internet is down or that pay streaming service that may or may not be there for the next 5 to 10 years. The sense of security that you don’t have your credit card number on services that got hacked.

– David form Riverside, CA

Hey guys, I love the show. I just want to let you know about a really good documentary that I found on Netflix called “Lost Soul: the Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau”. The documentary explores how the director had been fired and replaced in the middle of production, the script was rewritten on the set and it’s two leads didn’t get along with each other. Did you know that Brando didn’t even bother reading the script at all? His lines were fed to him through an earpiece. Val Kilmer didn’t get along with anybody on the set. There were even long periods where the extras and staff were coked up and having sex with each other because there was nothing else to do, seeing as how both leads refused to leave their trailers.

I was gobsmacked when I watched this, thinking that these were all professional people being well paid to make a movie, where the two lead actors and the director apparently didn’t give a damn.

Best regards,
– Isaac in Madison

I did it I cut the cord with Dish Network, they at first offered me $30 off a month, then in a last ditch my current services (which are pretty low) for $33 a month for a year. But I could not be swayed I think Cable and Sat are aging technologies, I use Hulu and Netflix and Plex for everything else and am perfectly happy. Thanks guys for keeping up the good work

– Dave

 

Links
patreon.com/cordkillers
2015 Winter Movie Draft

 

It’s Spoilerin’ Time 81

Cordkillers / July 29th, 2015

Movie Draft Update, BoJack Horseman S1, Mr. Robot (103-104), True Detective (206), Rick & Morty (201), The Shield (608)

00:53 – Movie Draft Update
04:19 – Feedback 
12:34 – BoJack Horseman S1
16:59 – Mr. Robot (103-104)
20:35 – True Detective (206)
28:50 – Rick & Morty (201)
34:50 – The Shield (608)

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Cordkillers 80 – Sit or Get Off the Pot, Hulu

Cordkillers / July 20th, 2015

Hulu may contemplate an ad-free tier, Judge gives Internet TV hope, Slingbox giveth and taketh away.

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CordKillers: Ep. 80 – Sit or Get Off the Pot, Hulu
Recorded: July 20, 2015
Guest: Andrew Mayne , Eklund

Intro Video 

Primary Target

  • U.S. judge says Internet streaming service should be treated like cable
    – US District Judge George Wu in LA ruled FilmOn X entitled to compulsory license for streaming broadcast TV network
    – (Compulsory license allows small cost carriage of must carry sytations. Stations who opt for retrans consent no longer    must be carried but have to negotiate in “good faith” for retrans costs)
    – An immediate appeal to 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals was allowed
    – Injunction against FilmON left standing
    – Feb. 22, 2011 – District Judge Naomi Buchwald granted an injunction, shutting down most of the broadcast stations carried by Ivi
    – Same right Aereo was denied in Manhattan Federal Court October 2014
    – FCC launched comment period Dec. 18, 2014 on reclassifying OITT as MPVD
  • Password Sharing: Are Netflix, HBO Missing $500 Million by Not Cracking Down?
    – A report from research firm Parks Associates estimates services like HBO Go will lose up to $500 million worldwide to people who share login information. 6% of US broadband households use a service paid for by someone outside the house. Services like HBO and Netflix responded to the survey with a collective “yeah we know.”

Signal Intelligence

Gear Up

Front Lines

Under Surveillance

Dispatches from the Front

Hey Tom and Brian. I am still a few weeks behind so I don’t know if you have mentioned this or not yet.

The people of sideclick have re launched their product. They are only $13,000 away form their $80,000 goal, and they have 27 days left at the time of writing this.

Thanks,

– Savo in silly Schenectady NY. 

 

 

Guys,
Please understand that live TV is essential to a sports fan! I know you two are not. With, basketball, hockey, soccer, golf and football, the major broadcasters like NBC, ABC, CBS & ESPN, make billions, not to mention billions more for teams and players. Then add in endorsements,etc. You are happily ignoring a huge segment of your own potential market.

Please get someone on your podcast who is tech savvy and is a sports lover.
 

– Don

 

 

Hey guys, it’s your boss here. Last week you asked for an “anti-Plex opinion” … I am not that “anti-Plex opinion”, but I’m going to share my insights, anyway. 🙂

In my opinion, Plex is really good at one thing: managing libraries of locally-stored, non-DRM’d content. …

What Plex does not do is Live TV or PVR functionality, or any streaming service or web site. Yes, there are “Plex Channels” that will give you content from the web, but in my experience they are very glitchy and rarely work, probably because they’re almost all scraping web content, making them very prone to breaking. When they do work, figuring out what content is actually available on the channel is worse than figuring out what’s available on Free Hulu, and the experience will make Brian’s Grandmother a very sad panda!

TL;DR – If you have a large library of local media, Plex is awesome. For everything else, Plex is pain.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and for making my favorite podcast every week! Keep up the good work!

– Stealth Dave

 

Links

patreon.com/cordkillers
2015 Winter Movie Draft