Cable monopolies, French cinema crackdown, and the Netflix that says “ni!” All this and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Scott Johnson ( twitter.com/scottjohnson )
The Summer Movie Draft happened! Watch the draft as it happened over at Night Attack’s feed ( http://nightattack.tv/episode/213 ). Visit http://draft.diamondclub.tv for up-to-the-minute stats.
The definition of an border conflict, a new season of Deadwood, and preemptive draft reactions!
00:30 – The Summer Movie Draft is coming up! We’re looking at drafting on March 20th on Night Attack ( http://nightattack.tv ). Visit draft.diamondclub.tv for up-to-the-minute stats and join the game at http://draft.diamondclub.tv/form
03:35 – Counterpart (108)
24:25 – Triage – A Deadwood revival?
27:17 – Deadwood (112)
Infinity War final trailer, news on Netflix, and a Channel Master review. All this and more on Cordkillers!
The Summer Movie Draft is coming up! We’re looking at drafting on March 20th on Night Attack ( http://nightattack.tv ). Visit draft.diamondclub.tv for up-to-the-minute stats and join the game at http://draft.diamondclub.tv/form
CordKillers: Ep. 212 – This Week In Whoops
Recorded: March 19 2018
Guest: None
Intro Video
Primary Target
How to Watch
What to Watch
What We’re Watching
Front Lines
Dispatches from the Front
Hey Tom, Brian, & Bryce!
Love the show but have never written in before, but, as one of your bosses, I figured I would show you something I found interesting. I am an on-again-off-again cord-cutter, but for the last year and a half, we have been making use of DirecTV Satellite service (previously, we had a Tivo Romio OTA and Sling TV). We ended up switching to DirecTV because we we already had Uverse Internet as the fastest option in our area and AT&T was our wireless provider as well. Switching to DirecTV allowed us to have free HBO “for life” and unlimited data on our phones “for life” with very little increase in overall price.
We have been happy, even though we often forget to DVR stuff and watch it on our Roku authenticated through whatever network app we need with our DirecTV credentials. I say all this because we only recently got a second TV and needed service there. I called and basically said, “I need another receiver for a new TV and don’t want to pay more.”
DirecTV rep was like, “Yeah. You have an old receiver. Take our new Genie 2 and Genie 2 Mini for free. Is your TV 4K?”
“Uhh… yeah…”
“Okay great. 4K is included.”
A tech came out the very next day installed both new receivers for $0. No monthly increase in cost. No fees of any kind. But add another 2 years onto the contract (I am okay with that).
But here is the kicker! Less than a week later I get THIS email (screen shot) offering to downgrade my package for me and save me $12/mo. After looking at it, it looks likes the differential is actually just ESPN channels. Since we only care about college football, and that’s not on for the next 5 months, I said, “OKAY” and now I am paying even LESS!
It seems like they are REALLY desperate to keep customers happy… and I am surprised to say, it is totally working for me.
Thanks again for the show!
– Evan
Hey Killers,
I’ve been comparing the TV quality of our upstairs 40″ (or so) Insignia Roku TV and our 55″ Sharp Stupid Smart TV, which we have hooked up to a Roku Express +. Turns out, the Roku TV’s quality is really good, and sometimes I can’t tell the difference between Sling TV and OTA if it’s streaming at the highest quality. It’s a different story for the 55″, however. I blame the Express +, because I’ve noticed that even with apps like Amazon Prime Video, when compared with our PS3, which is also connected to the 55″, the PS3 seems to have the better quality.
Love your show! Keep up the good work.
– Amar
Hi Tom & Brian,
On last week’s show, while discussing the perennially dropping cable subscribers, Tom asked about what Spectrum might be doing in regards to streaming. I’m a Spectrum internet-only customer, and I just got the attached mailer in my mailbox for a $22/month streaming service! The service appears to allow users to pick 10 channels they want from a list of around 50, which interestingly enough includes most of the sports networks.
This looks really compelling on the surface, but the fine print is worrying. It mentions credits on your monthly bill, as well as “taxes, fees, and surcharges.” And knowing Spectrum, I doubt this will be as easy to change or cancel online as something like Sling TV.
What do you think? A bold new entry to streaming, or another boring me-too service?
– Colin
P.S. if you’ve got questions and want me to call Spectrum on a fact finding mission, send them my way!
Hi Tom and Brian!
Love the show, been listening since the Framerate days. I was giving some thought to the many iterations of Amazon’s video service, and realized that no one has done a proper write-up of its many brand changes. So I wrote an article: The Forgotten History of Amazon Video, posted on Medium and my personal site, MadDogMovies.com. Thought you might enjoy it. https://medium.com/@mikeboas/the-forgotten-history-of-amazon-video-c030cba8cf29
– Mike
Tom said Fox was targeting reducing their ad load BY two miinutes an hour by 2020 but the story he was quoting says that Fox will reduce their ad load TO two minutes an hour by 2020. Thanks for catching that Steve!
From the Motherboard and WSJ articles we linked to in last week’s show notes:
“The two minutes per hour is a real target for Fox, and also our challenge for the industry,” Fox executive Ed Davis told the Wall Street Journal. “Creating a sustainable model for ad-supported storytelling will require us all to move.”
– Steven
Internal/external conflict and a season finale of Deadwood!
01:01 – The Summer Movie Draft is coming up! We’re looking at drafting on March 20th on Night Attack ( http://nightattack.tv ). More info soon!
02:11 – Counterpart (108)
12:13 – Deadwood (112)
Apple’s just biding their time, fewer ads are the future, and a Luke Cage release date! All this and more on Cordkillers!
The Summer Movie Draft is coming up! We’re looking at drafting on March 20th on Night Attack ( http://nightattack.tv ). More info soon!
A date for the Summer Movie Draft and a slight change of pace for Counterpart.
00:44 – The Summer Movie Draft is coming up! We’re looking at drafting on March 20th on Night Attack ( http://nightattack.tv ). More info soon!
03:20 – Counterpart (107)
13:29 – Deadwood (111)
MoviePass flexes its muscles, Apple buys potential, and War Games is back in a new way. With special guest Daniel O’Brien.
The Summer Movie Draft is coming up! We’re looking at drafting on March 20th on Night Attack. More info soon!
CordKillers: Ep. 210 – Brian’s Fence Fort
Recorded: March 5 2018
Guest: Daniel O’Brien
Intro Video
Primary Target
How to Watch
What to Watch
What We’re Watching
Front Lines
Dispatches from the Front
Hello Cordkillers
After the recent news of movie pass not allowing certain movies in certain areas to be used with there service I cancelled it. No matter how much I disliked people using there service without seeing movies I found this far worse.
Now with happier news for the first time since I canceled Directv I didn’t have to sit in the kitchen to watch the Oscars. I used YouTube tv. I really enjoyed the interface.
– Kevin
Dear Tom & Brian,
First, I want to say that I support Brian’s right to be completely, totally, 100% WRONG about Black Panther. (That movie was awesome!)
The question of whether or not people actually save money by cutting the cord or just gain freedom & flexibility seems to come up rather frequently. I recently crunched the numbers and I thought I’d share.
Before cutting the cord, I had Dish Network for both internet & “cable.” It started out as a pretty good deal, but after they’d jacked the rates up several times, well, let me put it this way: I decided to cancel my Dish when they started running commercials about how DirecTV customers average $77/month, and I was paying $115/month!
My internet bill went from $60/month to $35/month for the exact same service
I added Sling @ $25/month
I added PBS Passport @ $7/month because I wanted to support them, even though I could get PBS OTA
So, I’m paying $25/month less for internet, and the two services I added to replace cable/satellite total $32/month. I’m saving $108/month! And, I can easily pause or cancel services whenever I want. I’ve actually cancelled Sling for now (between seasons of the shows I really want to watch), and I plan to switch to Philo as it offers all of the channels I want ($16/month).
Yes, I did buy a Roku, and I already had Netflix & Amazon Prime subscriptions, which I didn’t count in my totals, but they add up to a lot less than $108/month.
Thanks, guys! I couldn’t have done it without you!
Sincerely,
– Uli Dig
P.S. I used some of the money I saved to support some of my favorite podcasts. I’m the boss of you now!
Hey Guys…
Thanks for all the entertainment.
Just dropping a note on how I budget some of my TV Viewing
I use the Gift Cards for Hulu, Netflix, iTunes and prepay an year ahead.
That way I can budget for all my streaming viewing and never have to
Worry about how much I am spending on my Cord Cutting fees.
Hopefully this might help others to budget as well.
One of your many bosses
– Blair
Hi. I thought this worth sharing that I am now a paying customer of YouTube TV.I relied on the DVR feature to record the 90th Oscar’s apparently not many bothered to watch.Picture quality was good and I was happy YouTube was smart enough to extend the recording time without any input from me that allowed me to see the whole event.I thought for sure it would stop at the 3hr mark and I’d have to Google the best picture winner.But it worked great.
I was happy to see Shape of Water win best picture.And I’m glad I drove over 45 miles one way to see it in a theater before the Oscar’s to know it is a great film.
Have a great episode tonight.
– David
The Expanse is now in UHD on Amazon Prime Video. Might be better to wait than watch on syfy.
– Jommel
Annihilation: good movie or poor take on a book? Plus, a death on Counterpart.
01:16 – Annihilation
22:13 – Counterpart (106)
31:19 – Deadwood (110)
Reboots galore, Legion’s coming back, and a Fox News superfan channel. With special guest Anthony Lemos ( ritualmisery.com )
CordKillers: Ep. 209 – Watch Something Prescient
Recorded: February 26 2018
Guest: Anthony Lemos
Intro Video
Primary Target
How to Watch
What to Watch
What We’re Watching
Front Lines
Dispatches from the Front
Hi Brian and Tom,
I live in a region where Netflix carries a fair bit of periodically released content. Sometimes there is a delay of only a day after broadcast in the home market (Star Trek Discovery on CBS All Access), sometimes a week (Black Lightning on The CW) and in the case of David Letterman’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” on Netflix, an entire month.
I used to use “My List” to remind me when such shows were available but the notification algorithm has gotten to the point where it lets me know when a new episode is available, without ever having to manually tag a show as something I’d be interested in watching again.
My notifications are generally a mix of returning shows and new shows I might like. Even if I get 3 notifications for the week, they never feel ‘spammy’.
I suspect the system works well for me because of my usage patterns (Netflix is used several times a week.) Your mileage may vary 😉
Thanks,
– Graham
B&T
Something very strange happened to me in the night on Feb 23. I was watching Netflix with my fiance and between episodes it signed me out and asked for my credit card info to resubscribe… I knew this must have been a mistake or a glitch on my ps4 so I tried to load Netflix on a few other devises. All the same. None of my credit card info has changed and the card is active.
After resubscibing with the same card it logged in just fine, but I think I was given new options for tiers… A $15 ultra HD 4 logins at once and a $10(I think) for us and 2 logins at once.
I’m curious if anyone else has had the same thing happen, I googled it but didn’t find anything.
– Gaspare
Hi Brian and Tom
I have not yet finished watching the first season of Star Trek Discovery but I have discovered how I will be watching it and wanted to share in case other were waiting for the whole season to become available.
…
The … thing that turned me off to CBS All Access was the complete lack of Dolby 5.1 or any other kind of surround sound. This is a huge let down!…
Last night I was browsing for shows on Amazon Prime Video on my Shield TV and noticed they were advertising an addon CBS All Access subscription. I clicked on the .. page and they had a 5.1 icon listed with each episode. I thought it might be a mistake, but thought I might as well try …. and was offered a week long free trial, turned on an episode of Discovery and was happy to see my receiver switch over to DD+ 5.1 audio!
Now we have a week of commercial free CBS All Access at no cost if we cancel before the first bill. More than enough time to watch all episodes of Star Trek Discovery and we get to enjoy it with 5.1 surround sound in our home theater!
If other listeners have been waiting for the season to be complete before signing up for CBS AA, I recommend going through Amazon Prime Video if they have it. Watch the whole season for free if you watch it in less than a week.
Thanks for the show!
(I’m a few episodes behind on CordKillers, sorry if you guys already talked about this)
Hey Killers,
My Dad got Sling TV Blue a little less than a year ago, and I realized that the streaming video quality from Sling TV is probably the worst that I’ve seen out of online video streaming. Of course, OTA is going to have higher quality than streaming video, but it hit me last night when my Dad was watching college basketball on FS1. I walked by and was struck by how good the video quality was. The frame rate was really good, the color was vibrant, and it didn’t seem to have as much noise as usual. I casually said to him “Hey, that looks really good for Sling TV.” However, he replied “Sling TV? No, this is Fox Sports Go.” I had not expected such a noticeable difference between Fox Sports Go and Sling TV.
You guys have tested probably all of the live streaming services; what has your experience been with the other services’ video quality when compared to cable, OTA, and TV Anywhere apps?
Sincerely in Christ,
– Amar
Black Panther: incredible or just okay? Actually, opinions are all valid!! Plus, new Counterpart and the next Deadwood.
01:42 – Black Panther
12:04 – Counterpart (105)
22:02 – Deadwood (109)