To Subscribe Or Not To Subscribe, That Is The Question: Paid Streaming Services

[shapeshifter]

10 hours ago, Miss Anne Thrope said:

Maybe it's picking up my IP address (? I dunno, semi-Luddite here), so I mayl try it from a work computer this weekend. 

I used a different browser (in addition to different email and credit card).
A different browser also works if I want to see someone else's Wordle stats without clearing all my cookies.

But, yeah, your work computer should work if you've never logged into Hulu from there and if you're not using Chrome browser with all you passwords imported/shared.

Or, if that fails, maybe you have a coworker who is also a good friend and you could use their computer?

Edited November 25, 2023 by shapeshifter
there not their

[oliviabenson]

https://www.britbox.com/us/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid-social&utm_campaign=BritBox_BritBox_Paid-Social_Facebook_US_TOF_Prospecting_Conversion_Brand_Black-Friday-23&dclid=CMWxw8er4IIDFYkKaAgdK40ECQ

[Miss Anne Thrope]

Miss Anne Thrope's Hulu Saga Update:  Thank you all for your counsel and assistance.  I signed up for the Hulu deal at work today -- it took about 30 seconds and I'm good to go.  Still can't get past the landing screen on my home computer, but no longer care.  

Again, thank you all for your suggestions.  I don't know why signing up did or didn't work in all the different scenarios, I'm just happy to be in! 

[oliviabenson]

I was hoping discovery plus would be cheap but nope. Hbo owns discovery yet missing a lot of shows! Or ID channel subscription only. That’s my favorite channel.

[badhaggis]

53 minutes ago, oliviabenson said:

I was hoping discovery plus would be cheap but nope. Hbo owns discovery yet missing a lot of shows! Or ID channel subscription only. That’s my favorite channel.

Me too!

[Bastet]

Well, I almost forgot to sign up for Hulu, but I just remembered today is the last day and got it done.  I'll dig deeper, of course, but from my initial perusal of its offerings I can indeed just keep this subscription for a couple of months as it doesn't have a ton I'm clamoring to see.  But I am glad to be able to see the things on my list for so cheap.

I don't like that its search option is apparently only for titles, not people; whenever I get a new streaming service, the first thing I do is search for my favorite actors to see what shows/films they're in are available in case there's anything I haven't seen.

And, dear gods, its Documentaries section is littered with reality TV crap.  I clicked on some of the worst - Kardashians, dating shit, exploiting people with mental illness or other medical conditions as freakshows to gawk at - and selected "Don't you dare recommend this shit to me" (or, you know, "Dislike").

[SoMuchTV]

One thing I will say for Hulu (and Netflix) - I've rotated through various streamers (Peacock, Paramount+, Max, Apple, Disney), and Hulu and Netflix seem to be the only ones I've used that don't make you jump through hoops (or make it downright impossible) to watch the credits at the end of a show.  Oh actually Prime is okay too.  The others may give you a 2-second window to push the right button and maybe they'll let you keep watching the credits.  But the "right button" is different for each of them.

[EtheltoTillie]

Hey they’re eliminating Showtime Anytime in a couple of weeks. Very annoying. I have always had cable subscriptions to HBO/Max and Showtime, so I would just get the streaming versions for no extra charge by logging in with cable provider.  (I have a cable package that includes these channels for what I have considered a reasonable amount.)  Now it looks like Showtime is eliminating this streaming option, so it will not be as easy to use the on-demand features. I think they want you to pay extra for a Paramount+ version that includes Showtime, which I will not do!  

Edited December 1, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[shapeshifter]

On my Roku TV, right before I clicked away from the home screen to my OTA app, I saw an add for Paramount+ for $1.99.
[googles]
Apparently today is the last day:

Quote

Today's your last chance to get the Paramount+ Black Friday streaming deal: Subscribe for $2 per month today…67% off through Dec. 3. 2023 (11:59 p.m. PT). 

https://www.cbsnews.com/essentials/paramount-plus-black-friday-streaming-deal/

[possibilities]

Instacart members can now get Peacock streaming free. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/nbcus-peacock-gets-bundled-into-instacarts-subscription-plans-for-no-extra-charge/ar-AA1kJ8Ky

[ABay]

Well...I went into Instacart and got a pop up saying to click it for the offer but then Peacock wouldn't let me do anything like add premium, just took me to my Peacock account and asked for $$. Maybe I missed something.

 

[CrazyInAlabama]

I get my Spectrum TV via a Spectrum app on either my laptop, or my Roku TVs, and on my phone.   I kept getting the log in screen.   Spectrum's solution was to reboot my modem, and that fixed it for a couple of days.   

 I have found out that when you first turn on the TV, click on the Spectrum listing under the apps listing, not the top Spectrum icon.    And if you are watching more than one TV, that you have to sign in on the second one.     

I hate having to log in when nothing is wrong with my log in, or my TVs.    

I only went with the Spectrum TV/app because I figured out how much it would cost to get streaming with all of the channels I like, plus local channels.  That would cost more than getting the Spectrum TV app, with the Entertainment view to get the channels I like.   

I figured all of this out before seeing the price increases that a lot of the streaming services are talking about.  

Edited December 9, 2023 by CrazyInAlabama

[GHScorpiosRule]

On 12/3/2023 at 9:41 AM, shapeshifter said:

On my Roku TV, right before I clicked away from the home screen to my OTA app, I saw an add for Paramount+ for $1.99.
[googles]
Apparently today is the last day:

https://www.cbsnews.com/essentials/paramount-plus-black-friday-streaming-deal/

This price was for the plan with ads. It’s $3.96 ad-free.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Yay! Inadvertently, I cancelled my Britbox via Amazon, because I thought the "main" Britbox had all episodes of Archie. But no, the last two episodes will be dropping next Thursday (Unlike Netflix, it didn't drop all the episodes). So after signing up for the 7 day free trial with the main service, I cancelled it, and the one via Amazon asked me to stay with a price drop to $3.99 through April. So of course I accepted that offer!

[AheadofStraight]

Prime Video will now have ads

We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month* that you can sign up for here.

[IntrovertRed]

This pisses me off, so much more than any others. I can't remember a time that I didn't pay for Prime, but I only use Amazon these days for shopping (though not as much as prior years) and rarely do I get packages within two days anyway.  But now I have to pay extra to not pay for ads, when most of these companies, but especially Amazon, have made a shitt ton of money the past year.  Well, I'm done. I've been slowly cutting back on my streaming services anyhow. 

I remember the days when streaming used to be a bargain, but now with all the individual prices, I don't feel the savings anymore. Maybe I'll go back to Slingtv and cancel Netflix and Hulu. The problem is that my kids and I all have a different streaming service that we like. Could be worse problems, I know.

[Kel Varnsen]

21 hours ago, IntrovertRed said:

This pisses me off, so much more than any others. I can't remember a time that I didn't pay for Prime, but I only use Amazon these days for shopping (though not as much as prior years) and rarely do I get packages within two days anyway.  But now I have to pay extra to not pay for ads, when most of these companies, but especially Amazon, have made a shitt ton of money the past year.  Well, I'm done. I've been slowly cutting back on my streaming services anyhow. 

The weird thing about prime doing ads is that it is supposed to be a different business model than all th other streaming services. Like Netflix needs to make money off its subscriptions to pay their expenses and make a profit. But with Amazon, the whole point of it is to get people to sign up for Prime so they will buy more stuff from Amazon (I read something once that the average prime member spends like 4 times as much at amazon.com as the average non-prime member). So all the benefits are supposed to drive that.

As for Prime video I would just have a better recommendation system. I don't need you to recommend The Terminator or The Big Lebowski to me since I already told you I like those movies.

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The weird thing about prime doing ads is that it is supposed to be a different business model than all th other streaming services. Like Netflix needs to make money off its subscriptions to pay their expenses and make a profit. But with Amazon, the whole point of it is to get people to sign up for Prime so they will buy more stuff from Amazon (I read something once that the average prime member spends like 4 times as much at amazon.com as the average non-prime member). So all the benefits are supposed to drive that.

I think that changed, somewhat, once they decided to significantly ramp up their production of original content. Last year they spent over $16 billion on original content. 

[DearEvette]

21 hours ago, IntrovertRed said:

This pisses me off, so much more than any others. I can't remember a time that I didn't pay for Prime, but I only use Amazon these days for shopping (though not as much as prior years) and rarely do I get packages within two days anyway.  But now I have to pay extra to not pay for ads, when most of these companies, but especially Amazon, have made a shitt ton of money the past year.  Well, I'm done. I've been slowly cutting back on my streaming services anyhow. 

I remember the days when streaming used to be a bargain, but now with all the individual prices, I don't feel the savings anymore. Maybe I'll go back to Slingtv and cancel Netflix and Hulu. The problem is that my kids and I all have a different streaming service that we like. Could be worse problems, I know.

Same. I have been a Amazon Prime member almost since the program began.  I shopped at Amazon so much in the early days that the free 2 day shipping was a godsend. And they started piling on the benefits: free books, prime video etc.

But I take less and less advantage of these things.  When they announced this I took stock of how much I use the benefits. I  calculated and  the 139.00 annual cost is was an actual loss for me for the last two-three years.  I don't even use the fire stick anymore, we switched to a Roku.  I think I've only taken advantage of the The First Reads program i .. maybe 6 times over the last two years.  They curate the same types of books every month and sometimes from same authors.   It's Just not worth it.  More of a money grab from a company that does not need it.  So I cancelled yesterday.  It felt great, tbh.

As of now I am keeping Hulu and Netflix.  Oh and I have Peacock until October.  That was a ridiculously deep discount ($29.00 for the year) I could not pass up. Oh... and Paramount because, hilariously they keep giving it to me for free.  I went to cancel it again and they gave me two more months for free.  I don't think I've paid for Paramount since March.

[JustHereForFood]

Oh well. There isn't really a lot on Amazon Prime for me, so I only get it when there is something I want to watch, unlike Netflix or Disney+ which I have all the time. I just got hooked on Masters of Sex, so I will probably just finish that and then cancel it until there is a new season of LOTR.

[Bastet]

I found an alphabetical list of all the content on Hulu, and there was more I want to watch than I found during my initial search, so I'm glad I signed up for the dirt cheap Black Friday offer.  But, my gods, the ads.  They're not excessive (especially for something that aired on network TV in the first place, as it's an equivalent amount of ad time to how I watched it back in the day), nor are they awkwardly placed, but they are so repetitive!  It's a big division of a big company; they can't attract a greater variety of advertisers?  And whoever slots the commercials in absolutely sucks at their job; with some shows, they frequently cut off the beginning of the scene that follows the ad break.

As for Prime now charging even more for ad-free, I haven't yet asked my friend (through whose account I watch things on Prime) if she's going to upgrade.  I don't particularly care, since I don't use it very often other than for Thursday Night Football games (and I'm still disgruntled every week that I have to use a goddamn streaming service for those games), but she makes a lot of money and spends every dime she makes, so she'll probably do it.

[Affogato]

I tried watching a movie on Tubi that I was going to rent on Prime. The cuts were awful, but it was “the third man” and not filmed for commercial breaks. After that I’m not looking to Tubi for high class editing. 
 

i have Hulu with ads and I find it less intrusive. I think the repetition of the ads helps dull the impact. 
 

 

[possibilities]

I will have to look for that alphabetical list for Hulu. I was already regretting taking the dirt cheap sub because I couldn't find a single thing I wanted to see. But maybe there are things if I could get a less chaotic list.

 

[Bastet]

3 hours ago, possibilities said:

I will have to look for that alphabetical list for Hulu.

I looked at a couple, and, going back through my history, am almost positive this is the one I used.  If accurate, I recommend it; something on the list had just been added to Hulu mere days before I checked, so it seems to be updated regularly. 

I still didn't wind up with a long watch list, but before I was able to access a full, alphabetical display of what's available I only had three or four things I wanted to watch, so it was helpful.  I also put some movies and shows on my list that I have on DVD/Blu-Ray so am not going to watch them with ads on Hulu, so I could "like" them and hopefully improve the recommendations algorithm, which started out suggesting a bunch of apparently popular stuff I wouldn't watch if you paid me.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Bastet

[possibilities]

I highly recommend Reservation Dogs. I kept my previous Hulu w/o ads sub for longer than I wanted to, just to watch that show. Worth every penny and then some. 

It's no longer in production, but I assume they still have it to watch.

[Anela]

On 12/28/2023 at 6:10 PM, IntrovertRed said:

This pisses me off, so much more than any others. I can't remember a time that I didn't pay for Prime, but I only use Amazon these days for shopping (though not as much as prior years) and rarely do I get packages within two days anyway.  But now I have to pay extra to not pay for ads, when most of these companies, but especially Amazon, have made a shitt ton of money the past year.  Well, I'm done. I've been slowly cutting back on my streaming services anyhow. 

I remember the days when streaming used to be a bargain, but now with all the individual prices, I don't feel the savings anymore. Maybe I'll go back to Slingtv and cancel Netflix and Hulu. The problem is that my kids and I all have a different streaming service that we like. Could be worse problems, I know.

I'm annoyed, too. I don't watch much there, but I still have the rest of Good Omens, to watch, and a few other things. I kept Prime, because I get my special toothpaste on there (although I can now buy something similar at Fresh Thyme, I'm trying it out), and I get the free kindle book, once a month - which I still have to do, this month. We do order things on there, but we need to get the amazon card paid down. :/ 

I also use the free twitch prime sub, for someone on twitch. But I'm tired of them trying to get more money out of us - especially when money is even tighter for a lot of people, including us. I don't qualify for their grocery delivery, because I'm not close enough to the Whole Foods - we're about twenty-five minutes away, I think. 

Edited January 1 by Anela

[Raja]

First Amazon ruined their music player cancelling everybody's playlist and trying to force random streaming on us with a secondary subscription and now ads on Prime. Practically everything I watched was already on Freevee.  It is just a matter how much free shipping is worth with the occasional movie or TV series that pops up

[Zella]

I've decided to still keep my Prime membership (mainly for shipping--I rarely watch stuff on there now), though I may reevaluate that in the future. I did cancel my Hulu and Netflix subscriptions, though. I rarely use either of them and mainly just kept subscribing on the off-chance I wanted to watch something and that never happened, and that $25.59 a month adds up (to $307.08 a year). I was forced to do so much math today, but it did help confirm that I needed to do this. LOL. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

I'll keep prime for the free shipping, and if I ever want to watch Freevee. 

 However, I read that Judge Judy's new show Judy Justice, is in talks to go into  syndication by this fall on regular channels.  By then she'll have completed 400 shows. 

I evaluated the cost, for You Tube, Hulu + (to get my local channels), and Philo plus the extra add-on I would need to watch Reelz, plus anything else I might want to add. It was cheaper to get Spectrum TV with the Select package, plus the Entertainment view package.   I have a Roku TV, so don't need a cable or Roku box of any kind, so the entire cost for my TV, internet, and phone is less than streaming multiple channels would cost me.   I really think in my case, I would end up adding other streaming services, so I am content with Spectrum, at least for now.    

One issue is to record anything I would either have to get a cloud service through Spectrum, or get a Roku box that includes recording.    I have a work around for now, if something is on a regular network channel I can usually get it free on the On Demand watching on my laptop.      

Edited January 3 by CrazyInAlabama

[ABay]

The interfaces on the Britbox and Acorn Roku apps are clunky compared to Amazon, and it's nice to have all subscriptions work the same way. But I'm nonetheless very unhappy with Amazon adding more ads--they already stick them at the start of everything of their own.

[Bastet]

5 minutes ago, ABay said:

But I'm nonetheless very unhappy with Amazon adding more ads--they already stick them at the start of everything of their own.

At least they give the option to skip it, but, yeah, that has always rubbed me the wrong way; ad-free means ad-free, not "well, we only put one at the top for our own content".  I think another one does the same thing, maybe Paramount+?

Going back to my feedback a month into my Hulu experiment -- I am peeved by the lack of a "skip intro" option.  Especially when I'm binge watching old sitcoms, I do not want to hear the damn theme song over and over, even if I like it.  It's annoying to have to FF (and let up on the button at just the right time) rather than being able to click.

On 12/31/2023 at 11:22 AM, possibilities said:

I highly recommend Reservation Dogs.

Yes, that's on my list, as it has been praised by several indigenous people I know (they all had their quibbles, of course, but on the whole appreciated the step forward in representation).

[peachmangosteen]

38 minutes ago, Bastet said:

At least they give the option to skip it, but, yeah, that has always rubbed me the wrong way; ad-free means ad-free, not "well, we only put one at the top for our own content".  I think another one does the same thing, maybe Paramount+?

Yes, Paramount+ does it and it's always really annoyed me.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 12/31/2023 at 1:22 PM, possibilities said:

I highly recommend Reservation Dogs. I kept my previous Hulu w/o ads sub for longer than I wanted to, just to watch that show. Worth every penny and then some. 

It's no longer in production, but I assume they still have it to watch.

The definitely do.  I watched all three seasons over the last few weeks.  Highly highly recommended.

I took advantage of the Black Friday Hulu and Max deals.  (Thanks, y'all, for the alerts!)  I watched all of Res Dogs, and then a couple of days ago watched all of Season 2 of The Gilded Age on Max.  Yesterday I watched Season 2 of Somebody Somewhere, and I'm now watching Seasons 2 and 3 of The Other Two, all on Max.  I'm currently favoring Max because the deal lasts for six months, while Hulu is for a year.  (But Reservation Dogs was #1 priority.)

I'm totally new to streaming.  I've never had enough internet to stream anything, but now I do.  But I don't really like it.  I like these shows (obviously), but it's like everything else on the internet these days, where we're kept just a little off kilter.  Every time I go looking around the offerings I find something different that I somehow missed the  previous time.  And I hate the "you might also like" because yes, I'm interested, but I got there by clicking on "you might also like" from a different show, and I want to exhaust that list before going to another.

I never know quite where I am when I'm looking around Hulu or Max or whatever, and I'm sure that's not an accident.

My life wouldn't be unalterably changed by not seeing anything I'm watching on streaming, and the daily annoyance with how it works is real.  I'll never pay full fare for any streaming.  I actually used to pay for HBO (on DirecTV) when Curb Your Enthusiasm was showing, but don't need to do that any more because I can wait for a cheap special offer and watch everything then.

And this is coming from someone who actually likes appointment TV.  Streaming has somehow ruined that for me.

19 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

I'll keep prime for the free shipping, and if I ever want to watch Freevee. 

Far be it from me to explain how any of this works, but I have Freevee on my Roku, without Prime.  It has ads--maybe the Prime version doesn't?

And speaking of Prime, today is my last day of a one-week trial and I saw that Shin Godzilla is on Prime.  Okay, I'd watch that again.  But when I found it on Prime, it's "rent or buy."  So it's on Prime but not included with Prime. 

This is the kind of shit I hate. 

About the ads on Hulu and others--I run pretty much everything through a standalone DVR, so I can skip commercials.  But it's not a HD DVR, so for The Gilded Age, I watched it live in HD because it looked so much better.  But for most of the crap I watch, it doesn't really matter and I don't think I can go back to commercials ever again, and I'll gladly sacrifice some picture quality to gain some sanity.

One thing Hulu did when I first got it last November was have ad blocks in 30-second increments, so I could hit the "30 second" button on my DVR remote however many times and zip exactly past them.  Heaven!  Now they've started putting in some non-30-second-increment commercials.  Bastards! 

Well, except they DO put the counter up in the corner, so I can tell how many times I need to hit my 30-second-skip button.  That's actually very helpful, so I grudgingly express thanks to Hulu for that.

[peachmangosteen]

Wow, I had no idea you could skip the ads like that. How are you even getting Hulu/Max through your DVR? What DVR do you have?

[Kitty Redstone]

On 1/1/2024 at 2:51 PM, CrazyInAlabama said:

I'll keep prime for the free shipping, and if I ever want to watch Freevee.

You can download the Freevee app through your Roku and still watch without being a Prime member. There are ads, though, and some weird breaks and cuts. I've been watching the Murder, She Wrote live channel for the last couple of weeks and have enjoyed seeing snippets of show that the Hallmark channel edits out for their airings.

[peachmangosteen]

There are ads for Freevee programs even if you watch them on Prime Video anyway.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 12/29/2023 at 4:19 PM, Dani said:

I think that changed, somewhat, once they decided to significantly ramp up their production of original content. Last year they spent over $16 billion on original content. 

If they are trying to make money off the membership/subscription price itself (rather than using it to get people to buy stuff) then I am surprised they didn't make like an ad supported subscription for just Prime video. Then make it so for a bit more you can get full prime with all the benefits and no ads.

Because it is all just disposable income. So if I were to spend money on the ad free version odds are I would just buy less stuff from Amazon.

Right now I won't be paying. I don't watch too many amazon originals. And if I wanted to watch a classic movie or something I might just check to see if Tubi has it out of spite.

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

If they are trying to make money off the membership/subscription price itself (rather than using it to get people to buy stuff) then I am surprised they didn't make like an ad supported subscription for just Prime video. Then make it so for a bit more you can get full prime with all the benefits and no ads.

Because it is all just disposable income. So if I were to spend money on the ad free version odds are I would just buy less stuff from Amazon.

Right now I won't be paying. I don't watch too many amazon originals. And if I wanted to watch a classic movie or something I might just check to see if Tubi has it out of spite.

Isn't that precisely what Amazon Prime membership is. And they're about to add surcharges to get  videos without advertising breaks.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

If they are trying to make money off the membership/subscription price itself (rather than using it to get people to buy stuff) then I am surprised they didn't make like an ad supported subscription for just Prime video. Then make it so for a bit more you can get full prime with all the benefits and no ads.

They couldn’t do that without the price increase. Prime video alone is $8.99 so they did not have much room to add a lower priced tier. 

It’s not a thing where they are trying to make money off the membership or increase Amazon sales. The streaming projects they are choosing are designed to do both. They are heavily focused on book and video game adaptations in the hopes of creating buzz and acclaim while driving sales of the related media. 

The entertainment business as a whole is trying to capitalize on booktok. 

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, Dani said:

The couldn’t do that without the price increase. Prime video alone is $8.99 so they did not have much room to add a lower priced tier. 

Are there places where you can just get prime video? I live in Canada and you can get an Amazon Prime membership which comes with video, the basic music streaming, free shipping and photo storage. It's $99 per year. You can't just sign up for the video only membership. 

In Canada you can sign up for Amazon music unlimited which is actually cheaper if you are a prime member. 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Are there places where you can just get prime video?

Yes. 

19 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

I live in Canada and you can get an Amazon Prime membership which comes with video, the basic music streaming, free shipping and photo storage. It's $99 per year. You can't just sign up for the video only membership. 

In the US, an Amazon Prime subscription is $139 a year or $14.99 a month. 

[DearEvette]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Are there places where you can just get prime video? I live in Canada and you can get an Amazon Prime membership which comes with video, the basic music streaming, free shipping and photo storage. It's $99 per year. You can't just sign up for the video only membership. 

Is that $99.00 Canadian?  Dude, that makes me even more glad I cancelled.  With tax my Prime is 150.00 a year.

I did a look back and AZ prime was 79.00 from 2005 - 2014.  They introduced Prime video in 2011.  Their first foray into competing with the likes of Netflix to offer streaming content.

Then it went up from 79.00 to 99.00 in 2014.  Which... no surprise was the first year they offered their own original content.

From then on it has gone up 20.00 every four years.  2018 it went to 119.  and then in 2022 it went up to 139. 

I know you can get just the Prime video all by itself without being a member of Prime.  Also some phone carriers offer it as a standalone perk as a part of the contract.

[Hanahope]

Paramount Plus is so frustrating.  A year or so ago, I was doing a normal monthly subscription with ads, and all of a sudden videos would not play.  I finally learned that the ad blocker my husband had installed through our WiFi was interfering with PP’s ads , even though there was no problem for months.  Hubby did not want to remove it.  Some other streaming services still played ads anyway, but PP would not play videos at all.  so I cancelled.

a few months later, I resigned up with PP, this time paying extra for the ad free service on PP.  everything worked fine.  Then 9 months later, videos won’t play again.  PP says that even though I pay for ad-free, their software still did not work with ad blocking (even though it did work for 9 months).  
 

so I had to cancel again. They offered me 2 free months but what use is that if the videos won’t play.  

 I then found a 2 month $1.99 deal on PP through Amazon Prime, so I signed up and everything plays just fine.  I have it for another 6 weeks so binging as much as I can before I cancel again, since I don’t want to pay $13 a month.

its a shame, I like a lot of their shows, but for whatever reason their platform won’t work directly with our system.  I’ll just do a month through Amazon every 6 months or so(hopefully with another deal) and binge everything. 

Edited January 4 by Hanahope

[possibilities]

If your hubs won't negotiate, isn't there a way to turn it off for your particular device? I don't use an ad blocker, but I know that some of them allow that. Maybe your hubs would agree to use one that works that way, so you can watch the shows you want. Seems only fair. 

[Hanahope]

I have no idea if there is a way to do that for my iPad.  I think it’s somehow part of the WiFi router set up he did.  I just don’t understand why PP (direct) is the only streaming service that has this issue, even if I pay for no ads.  

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Hanahope said:

PP says that even though I pay for ad-free, their software still did not work with ad blocking (even though it did work for 9 months).  

That’s the nature of how streamers try to counteract ad blockers and vpns. Once they identify the ad blocker it’s a universal block and not just when the ads are actively being blocked. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:27 PM, peachmangosteen said:

Wow, I had no idea you could skip the ads like that. How are you even getting Hulu/Max through your DVR? What DVR do you have?

It's a standalone Magnavox DVR that's pretty much just like a VCR, but it records to a hard drive and not to tapes.  And it caches six hours of whatever is being fed into it, unlike a VCR.  But like a VCR, I have to do everything manually on it, like set timers, tell it the source (Roku vs. over-the-air, for example), etc. 

Mr. Outlier, an electrical engineer (which I think is the minimum qualifications necessary to figure out how to just watch fucking TV these days), set this up.  To watch The Gilded Age, I did it regular--an HDMI cable goes from the Roku box to the TV.  So I got it in all its glory (considering I have kind of a crappy TV, though).

But he made a second path from the Roku box to the TV, into which he inserted the DVR, using a converter that makes the signal into whatever old-fashioned coax cables use.  The picture quality of anything that goes through the DVR is therefore vastly worse than HD, but it's fine for TV shows.  In fact, standard definition is what I had before, hanging on to my standard definition DirecTV receiver until it died and they were forcing an HD receiver on me, but my satellite dish doesn't work with HD (I'm in an RV). 

So I'm used to crappy images, although WHY WHY WHY do shows, especially TV shows intended to be shown not on giant movie theater screens, INSIST on having major plot points in fucking text messages that can be impossible to read?  Even in HD, I struggle.  Do you WANT people to understand or even be able to enjoy your damn show or not??

Also, unrelated, but I hate hate hate the way the streaming companies interrupt the credits by autoplaying the next episode.  I watch Family Affair on Roku (I think, and they do that but there's an option to click something to stay on the credits.

But the other day I watched the final episode of The Other Two on Max (which I pay for), and a few seconds into the credits that image went into a little box in the upper left corner, and the rest of the screen was full of other things they were desperate for me to click on.  But there was more SHOW during the credits--two more scenes.  And I use captions and they don't appear if the image is in the little box.  So there was a teeny little image in the corner, with dialogue I was struggling to understand.

Of course I wasn't watching it live, so I thought maybe I could have clicked on something to get the credits back, and I tried like five different times watching the end live (a struggle in itself, since once it goes up into the little corner Max doesn't let you rewind, so multiple times I had to load that episode, FF to near the end, and let it play, fail to prevent the image from going up in the corner, and trying the whole process again (and again) because maybe I was missing where it says how to do it).  But nope, there was no way for me to see the credits of the show I was watching, just because they're so damn desperate for us to click on something else, anything else.  Anything as long as we don't disengage. 

This is the sort of manipulation that just crawls all over me, and it's why I'll pay $1.99/month for Max for six months to catch up on stuff I've wanted to see, but pay full fare, never mind open-ended full fare?  Not a chance in hell. 

[SoMuchTV]

4 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

But the other day I watched the final episode of The Other Two on Max (which I pay for), and a few seconds into the credits that image went into a little box in the upper left corner, and the rest of the screen was full of other things they were desperate for me to click on.  But there was more SHOW during the credits--two more scenes.  And I use captions and they don't appear if the image is in the little box.  So there was a teeny little image in the corner, with dialogue I was struggling to understand.

I share the struggle!  I've been watching a lot of Max lately, and I think the trick is to "up" to the box so it's highlighted, then "select".  All within about 2 seconds. (That's with my smart tv remote - I assume Roku has equivalent functions.)

A couple other streamers are bad about that too (Paramount+ and Peacock, if I'm remembering), and fighting your way to the credits is different on all of them.

(By the way, I think I have the same DVR, but all I use it for is OTA recording.  I actually have 3 similar models that got used a lot, but since I switched from cable to YouTubeTV with its unlimited "DVR", I only use them for OTA shows that I want to be able to watch at 1.3 speed.)

[StatisticalOutlier]

32 minutes ago, SoMuchTV said:

I share the struggle!  I've been watching a lot of Max lately, and I think the trick is to "up" to the box so it's highlighted, then "select".  All within about 2 seconds. (That's with my smart tv remote - I assume Roku has equivalent functions.)

I'm caching up The White Lotus right now, but when I get a chance, I'll go back to that episode of The Other Two and see if your suggestion works.

However, another annoyance--it's hard for me to tell what's highlighted on the screen.  I invariably click "watch S2 Ep3" when I mean to go down further to all the episodes and pick one from there.  And when there are a bunch of shows in boxes, it's really hard for me to tell which one is highlighted, and if you hit "right" on the remote and whatever is on the end of the row is highlighted, nothing happens--it doesn't go down to the first one in the next row, for example.  All I see is nothing happening while I hit "right" over and over.

Quote

I only use them for OTA shows that I want to be able to watch at 1.3 speed.)

Aah, 1.3 speed.  My best friend ever.  Since I have to use captions even on regular speed, 1.3 works great for me.

I record Mary Tyler Moore over the air every afternoon if I'm in area that has the Catchy Comedy channel.  That way I have several episodes available to watch on 1.3 in about 15 minutes, while whatever I'm intending to watch caches up enough that I can skip commercials.

One of my favorite shows ever is The Kids Are Alright, set before people had TVs with remote controls.  There was a fantastic scene where they had one of the younger boys standing next to the TV and they would command him "change" "change" to turn the channel dial.  I'm not sure what we have now is better.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

So I'm used to crappy images, although WHY WHY WHY do shows, especially TV shows intended to be shown not on giant movie theater screens, INSIST on having major plot points in fucking text messages that can be impossible to read?  Even in HD, I struggle.  Do you WANT people to understand or even be able to enjoy your damn show or not??

I complain about this every time it happens in something I'm watching.  Even with glasses, I usually cannot see those fucking things unless I get close to the TV.  And when I'm watching something in bed, I'm not going to get up to do that.

2 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Also, unrelated, but I hate hate hate the way the streaming companies interrupt the credits by autoplaying the next episode. 

That drives me nuts, too, as does the fact they seem to all have different ways of opting to watch the credits instead, and I'm not going to memorize which procedure goes with which service, so I wind up fumbling around a lot.