Cordkillers Ep. 8 – Comcast-Netflix explained with pie

Cordkillers / February 25th, 2014

We take some time to debunk a few things about the Comcast-Netflix deal, and raise a few real concerns about it, and use a pie metaphor that leaves everybody hungry. Plus Aereo suffers a loss, but the makers of the Mohu antenna have an interesting way to integrate live TV with Netflix, Hulu and pretty much everything on the Web.

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CordKillers: Ep. 8 – Comcast-Netflix explained with pie
Recorded: February 24 2014
Guest: Iyaz Akhtar

Intro Video: 

Primary Target

Secondary Target

  • Aereo loses copyright fight, gets banned in 6 states

  • Aereo launching in Austin

  • US District Judge Dale Kimball ruled that Aereo’s retransmission of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted programs “is indistinguishable a cable company and falls squarely within the language of the Transmit Clause.” He didn’t buy Aereo’s argument that its system of renting a tiny antenna to each customer allows it to avoid the “Transmit Clause” of the 1976 Copyright Act, which determines what kind of “transmissions” of copyrighted material must pay licensing fees. The Supreme Court argument over Aereo is scheduled for April 22. A decision will likely come by June.

Signal Intellegence

Gear Up

Under surveillance

Front Lines

On Our Radar

Thought you guys might like some info on the WWE Network since in launched today.
Sign up issues but that was expected. The archive of content is great but the action doesn’t look that good. It looks like you are watching on the “internet”. You generally don’t get that feel when watching movies or TV shows on Netflix or Hulu. Live sports just doesnt look right….
720p on a 65 inch TV just doesn’t look good.. 

On Screen

Dispatches from the Front

  • So, I’m new to your show, and actually new to podcasts in general. When I saw the title of your show listed in my current podcast app of choice (Pocket Cast for Android) I knew that I had to have you in my ear for the morning commute.
    I am a long-time cord-cutter; I streamed on a Roku 1– back in the day, son– when Roku had Netflix, Revision3, and that’s it . Today I favor my Chromecast. Any way:

    I currently work as an installer for a major national ISP/Cable//telephone company. (Let’s not get started on the subject of inner turmoil.) Y’all’s show plays over my Bluetooth ear-buds as I reluctantly wire up Americans to the sub-par internet infrastructure that I have to offer.

    So, on to my gripe.

    I would like to make your show an important part of my lineup. Except: .. ARE YOU GOING TO RUIN MY SHOWS FOR ME?!!

 

  • Guys, I’m so psyched and impressed by how quickly you stood up this show, and I’m proud to be a patron!

    The WiPNET that a listener wrote in about last week is a MoCA connector. These are great for slinging network signals over Coax to otherwise hard-to-reach places in your home—whether you’re a cordkiller or not. They’re WAY more reliable than powerline network carriers. MoCA never gained wide adoption but is baked into a surprising number of devices, including things like DVRs and even many service provider’s routers.

    I have Verizon FiOS, and my router already supports MoCA, so that means I can piggy-back network over the CoAX. That worked really well in the home I bought last year, which was completely devoid of Ethernet cable. If your router supports MoCA, you don’t really need a pair of these, just one as an endpoint to connect a computer or switch to your Coax. I get great throughput on my network, using my MoCA bridges on my work and home computers for everything—browsing, large file transfers, HD video streaming services, hangouts, and Skype. I even use it for my main podcasting connection for audio and video. Officially, I think it has a throughput of about 250 Mbps.

    Worth noting I’m also still using my Coax for cable service (don’t hate me). My point is that this doesn’t seem to in any way impede its ability to also carry network traffic.

    Richard

 

  • Can you talk a little about “dual” cord killers? I dropped cable and internet. For example, can you use plex without internet? Can you use areo without internet. Can you use simple.vt without internet. It seems my only option is: outdoor ota antenna ($150) with simple.tv ($250) with roku 3 ($100). It will take me awhile to break even with the upfront cost of $500.

    Thanx… Love the show.

    John

 

  • I have been faithfully listening to, and watching both the old, and new show over the past couple of years, and love where you guys are coming from. I wonder, after all this time, why I have never heard any discussion about any of the myriad of Android mini pc’s on the market. I have an MK808 which turns my TV into a 42 inch tablet. All apps from the Play Store are available. If you can watch it on a tablet, you can watch it on your TV. The size is small, and the price is cheap. No walled garden like the Roku, or Apple TV. If you want to play around, it is rooted. It runs Netflix beautifully, and I can only assume that Hulu, and Amazon, would run the same. If you want to go deeper then you can run XBMC. This device seems to me to be as close to being a perfect streaming device as is available right now. As tech savvy as you are I’m sure you must be aware of these devices, and yet you never bring them up. Why?

    Chris

Links

www.patreon.com/cordkillers
G+ Doghouse system Cordkillers Box

Cordkillers Ep. 7 – Who Throttles the Throttlers?

Cordkillers / February 18th, 2014

Why Comcast’s merger with Time Warner Cable might not be a bad thing. And then right into what’s slowing down Netflix, which shows why consolidation surely isn’t helping. Also all ‘y’all have connected TVs these days. 

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CordKillers: Ep. 7 – Who Throttles the Throttlers?
Recorded: February 17 2014
Guest:  Deric A. Hughes

Intro Video: 

Primary Target

Secondary Target

  • Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months
  • Netflix Says Verizon Isn’t Slowing Down Its Streams
  • Netflix slow on Verizon or Comcast? A VPN might speed up that video
  • Comcast and Verizon’s Netflix speed dropped 4 straight months. Charter dropped too.
    -Cox, Cablesvision and Google Fiber improved
    – Netflix demands go up, do Comcast and Verizon add peering interconnects?
    – VZ and Comcast not part of “Open Connect” where Netflix houses servers in ISP to improve service.
    –  Ars Technica: “Verizon’s broadband Internet access services deliver a pristine user experience to our customers at any time of day on every day of the week.
    – J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth, who says he has been talking to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells, and they told him they don’t think cable and telco companies are hampering the company’s video streams.
    – Using VPN or third-party DNS may improve Netflix service
    – Sand vine Cofounder Don Bowman. If a VPN consistently behaves better, it’s proof that there is something along the path that doesn’t have enough capacity.”

Signals Intelligence

Gear Up

  • 3 out of 5 broadband households now have a connected TV
  • Americans Are Hungry for Digital Content
  • 63 percent of all U.S. broadband households now have a TV connected to the internet, according to a new report from the Diffusion Group (SmartTV or TV with a Roku-type device) (last year 53%)
    – Nielsen – now own four digital devices, on average, and spend roughly 60 hours per week consuming content across multiple screens.
    – HDTVs, the most popular digital devices, are now present in 83 percent of American households, up from 67 percent in 2011. In addition, 80 percent of homes have a PC with Internet and 65 percent have at least one smartphone, up from 79 percent and 44 percent, respectively.
    – A near-majority of U.S. households also now own digital video recorders (49 percent) and gaming consoles (46 percent).

Under surveillance

Front Lines

On Screen

Dispatches from the Front

  •  I found this while working on another project today and thought it would be an interesting tool for all of the cord killers out there. It lets you use your existing coax for all sorts of other things. I think MSRP is about 60 bux, but you need a pair of them to get started.

    http://wi3inc.com/Products/WiPNET.aspx 

 

 

  • Hi guys! Love your show! Glad you found a way to continue onward! Now to an omission that’s been bugging me for some time. You guys have discussed the wonders of streaming via Chromecast and Airplay as separate choices for the chord cutter, however I found a way to do both on one piece of hardware. I have a Vizio Co-Star running an app called “AirTight”. The Co-Star has recently been updated to support Chromecast-like streaming (casting?) and AirTight provides old-style AirPlay connectivity (no mirroring). So for under $100 you can have both without having to switch inputs! Plus, the Co-Star has lots of other capabilities (Netflix, MGO, VUDU, and WEB SURFING!) Anyhow, I love my Co-Star and thought I should at least mention it as an alternative.

    Alex K.

 

  • Monster post. feel free to pick the most relevant bits and let me know if there’s a forum or something i should post to or follow up on. this is fun and exhausting to think about alone!

    Got any advice for Baratunde?

 

Baratunde Thurston

 

Links

www.patreon.com/cordkillers

Cordkillers Ep. 6 – Get off your apps!

Cordkillers / February 11th, 2014

Lamarr Wilson joins us to talk about HBO and Netflix’s size debate and whether the Olympics are anti-cordkillers.

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CordKillers: Ep. 6 Get off your apps!
Recorded: February 10 2014
Guest: Lamarr Wilson

Intro Video: 

Primary Target

Secondary Target

Signal Intellegence

Gear Up

Under Surveillance

Front Lines

On Our Radar

On Screen

Dispatches from the Front

  • Big thanks to Jay in Toledo who’s sent us great feedback from the TV side of things and hooked us up with an interview with Jerry Anderson at his station in Toledo! You rock Jay!!

     

  •  Check out one of my fave web series, the very funny @SubmissionsOnly. http://www.afollowspot.com/2014/02/its-date-submissions-only-comes-back.html

    Lisa Glassberg

     

  • I honestly don’t believe I did this https://soundcloud.com/sebgonz/cordkillers

    @sebgonz

     

  • Message: On the cordcutting decision… I set my directv account on vacation mode (six months) just to try cordcutting. After setting up a windows media center system I can now kill the directv account with confidence as I’ll be ready to counter any argument with the Directv retention department. Great Show!

George
 

  •  I’m proud to say after a long time watching another show about cord cutting and moving to Cord Killers after it was cancelled about a month ago, that I have taken the plunge and cancelled DirecTV.

I cancelled my service on the day of the Big Game, and was able to watch the death of the Broncos just fine with my brand-spanking new Leaf antenna. Go figure.

I had been wanting to cut the cord for a while. Holding me back was my local NHL team, and wrestling. The WWE Network announcement was a game changer for me. A complete no-brainer purchase for me, not just for the PPVs. The weekly shows would be made available on it immediately after they air, and I don’t normally watch Monday Night Raw until Tuesday anyway. I was suddenly only being held back by arbitrary blackout decisions enforced by a regional sports channel. Right as I began seriously considering the feasibility of cord cutting my first year of DirecTV passed and my bill increased by $40 a month. It was a sign.

I put together a spreadsheet showing what my costs would be and I would be saving over $1000 a year. That included a way to watch the Carolina Hurricanes on NHL GameCenter Live. The decision was made. I got the usual retention offers, but their best effort wouldn’t even save me $500 a year.

What was really interesting to me was that I didn’t get any real fight after mentioning the WWE Network. I was expecting to have to explain the crazy notion that I don’t have to spend $55 on a pay-per-view ($65 for WrestleMania). Instead I got sad understanding from the other end of the line.

Charles in Raleigh, NC

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmPuGnaNHdHd5VDZCTFgxYk9WMTFrNDYwV1hVbEE&usp=sharing

 

  • Hey guys, after episode 5 I finally decided to get rid of my cable with Verizon. They offered to charge me $94 for internet and basic cable but I turned them down. I went from paying $213, which also included home phone service I stopped using to $106 a month for a 75/35mbps connection. Thanks guys, keep up the work.

    Mike

     

  • I’m a long-time listener of yours from the TWiT days, and have happily followed you to the new cordkillers show, to which I donate through Patreon.I just listened to the most recent episode, and there’s something that bothers me as a listener. When comparing devices to use to cord cut, consistently, there is misinformation pushed about the AppleTV and airplay. As is often the case, the impression is given that AirPlay only supports mirroring mode, in which essentially the app takes over the screen, and is mirrored to the television, rendering the device (tablet/phone) un-useful for any other purpose. This is always contrasted against the Chromecast, which does not dominate the device after the video is slung from the device (android/ios) to the Chromecast. This is NOT the case at all. Mirroring is but one AirPlay mode. Almost all apps though support the second mode, where, just like the Chromecast, the video is targeted to the AppleTV, but then the device is free for other work. Often, I sling a Netflix, YouTube, DailyMotion, etc, etc, etc video to the AppleTV using a button that looks just like the Chromecast button, then continue on to read my email, play a game, etc. It absolutely does NOT dominate the device. Every app doesn’t support it, but most apps do. I think by continuously misrepresenting the capabilities of the AppleTV, which supported this years in advance of the Chromecast, you are spreading misinformation. I say this as a person who owns Android and Apple devices, and has both an AppleTV and a Chromecast. I just tire of the misinformation out there.

Bob

Links