What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

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Da5id
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Da5id »

dukeblue219 wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 10:05 am
rixer wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 9:39 am. The reception somehow even looks better over the air than through Comcast..
It should. OTA is a much higher bandwidth signal, often in 1080P. Cable companies heavily compress their video and provide at 1080i at best.
While OTA is good, I rather dislike OTA unless one has a DVR. I have an older TiVo with lifetime sub. I can record 2 OTA stations at once, and don't have to sit through commercials. My patience is not very high for commercials these days, as I've gotten used to commercial free streaming services. I also don't want to have to watch a show at a specific time or day. So IMO a DVR is very helpful if you go the OTA route.

OTA quality also can be flaky. I have an HD antenna in my attic, but still can get an annoying level of video artifacts on a few of my channels.

I'm not very hung up on 4K quality. I have a 4K TV, but HD is plenty good for my viewing distance and TV size. There is some 4K content on streaming for those who care.
vshun
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by vshun »

In the order of most used to least:
1. Netflix ($18 for HDR resolution)
2. Youtube Premium
3. HBO Max
4. ESPN+ (for hockey season), on rotation
5. Amazon (kids student account, half price for Prime, would not pay full price)
Rotate: Hulu, Disney Plus, right now there is nothing to watch for us so they are off
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runner26
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by runner26 »

Glad I noticed this thread, my free year of Apple TV+ due to I-pod purchase was about to expire and I just went to my TMobil 55+ account and was able to extend it for an additional free year. :beer
I get Netflix free from a family member subscription.
Once a year I get a free 1 month Amazon Prime subscription and catch up.
My paid Spectrum subscription gives me HBO Max.
Use free Tubi and Pluto on occasion.
adestefan
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by adestefan »

YouTube TV
MLB TV
PBS Passport
Disney+

The Disney+ gets used the least, but my wife enjoys it when she has free time. I liked my free subscription of AppleTV+ but I don’t watch enough TV to keep it.
muffins14
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by muffins14 »

Netflix all year as the content is quite diverse, including good international content.

sometimes Hulu if there’s something specific that we want for a couple weeks
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Bungo
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Bungo »

TomatoTomahto wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 12:51 pm +1
We order these through our Amazon account, which gets us a 5% discount. Additionally, when we first signed up some years ago, the streaming was more reliable and higher picture quality through Amazon than purchasing BritBox directly but that might well have changed.
I used to do the same thing, for the same reason; when BritBox was relatively new, the streaming (for me, at least) was unreliable, with a lot of stuttering and pausing while it refilled its buffer.

I'm happy to report that the direct BritBox service is a lot better now. I've been using it for several years and haven't seen any stuttering or pausing. I have not compared the picture quality with the Amazon version in recent years, but the direct stream looks good to me now, with the usual caveat that if there's high traffic it may sometimes downshift to poorer quality/higher compression. But this can and does happen with any streaming service, and I don't notice it happening any more often with Britbox than with the others.

The BritBox app's user interface isn't anything to write home about (I'm using Roku but assume it's similar elsewhere). But then again I don't much care for Amazon's UI either.
Bungo
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Bungo »

bertilak wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 10:30 am I've never been to Britain but do think their TV is much better than US TV. Or perhaps it's just that their back catalog has more stuff we haven't seen yet. Also, I've grown tired of car chases and explosions (US TV).
Agree 100%. My wife and I watch BritBox and Acorn more than any other service. It helps if you like detective/mystery shows; the British apparently love them as there's an incredibly large number to choose from, many of which are of very high quality.

One thing I have noticed in a few of the more recent ones is that the British seem to be growing more fond of pointless car (or foot) chases. But nowhere near as over the top as in American shows. And still relatively few explosions.

My only real complaint, and it's a minor one, is that it's not uncommon for a British show to feature an "American" character (usually in a supporting role, and often there's no obvious reason why he/she needs to be American), but almost invariably they don't use an American actor and the accent is appallingly wrong. Maybe it's revenge for all the terrible accents American actors have inflicted on the rest of the English-speaking world. :) Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond, anyone?
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bertilak
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by bertilak »

Bungo wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 9:10 pm My only real complaint, and it's a minor one, is that it's not uncommon for a British show to feature an "American" character (usually in a supporting role, and often there's no obvious reason why he/she needs to be American), but almost invariably they don't use an American actor and the accent is appallingly wrong. Maybe it's revenge for all the terrible accents American actors have inflicted on the rest of the English-speaking world. :) Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond, anyone?
They seem to use Americans as comic relief but the perceived humor is usually due their own silly stereotypes. It's like the only American "culture" they are familiar with is old reruns of Dallas. In this sense they are actually laughing at themselves! At least the have a good sense of humor, but there is a LOT more to laugh at in today's America.
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catdude
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by catdude »

Sling and ESPN+. I'm a sports nut... especially hockey. IMHO, ESPN+ is a steal if you're a hockey fan. For $6.99 a month you'll get about 1000 out-of-market games this season. Meanwhile via Sling I get games on ESPN flagship, TNT, and NHL network. About the only games I can't see are those involving the new Seattle franchise (I'm considered to be in their home market). BTW, I have no affiliation with ESPN, other than being a viewer...
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beyou
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by beyou »

Prime member for many reasons, watch some shows.
Main source for on demand access to movies, and have watched some of their series. cost ? $10 or less of you value other Prime features.

Disney bundle purchased on hulu.
Used to have hulu live but they dropped my favorite sports channel so I downgraded to on demand, later added disney. Family loves Star Wars, some marvel, started for Hamilton with intention of only keeping a 1 year free trial of Disney but family found more to enjoy. Can unbundle if I want but at $20/mo for the noads version nice addition.

netflix at $18/mo for 4 users and 4k

Apple tv. had free year trial but now sharing with family $5/mo cost. Some good shows recently. Worth the low cost and ease of supported family share.

Personally consider this a $43/mo spend as I would have Prime anyway. That and 38/mo for cable internet is far less than I used to spend on cable tv. Only thing lacking is live sports. Used to pay for locast and hulu live but no more. Would sign up for things like mlb tv if they didn’t blackout local games. For now they will get no revenue from me, if they insist on cable tv. I like flexibility of adding/removing with click of a mouse. Have added/removed hbo, showtime etc as desired, why can’t i do that with MLB etc ?
2Scoops
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by 2Scoops »

Here’s ours:

Hulu Live for regular tv watching
Netflix
Prime (already a prime member)

Then, we will occasionally add others as content comes out that we want to watch. I subscribe for the month and cancel immediately so I don’t forget and get charged for an extra month. Those over the years have included:

Apple TV
Paramount
HBO
Showtime
Disney +
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TomatoTomahto
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by TomatoTomahto »

Bungo wrote: Sun Oct 17, 2021 9:10 pm One thing I have noticed in a few of the more recent ones is that the British seem to be growing more fond of pointless car (or foot) chases. But nowhere near as over the top as in American shows. And still relatively few explosions.

My only real complaint, and it's a minor one, is that it's not uncommon for a British show to feature an "American" character (usually in a supporting role, and often there's no obvious reason why he/she needs to be American), but almost invariably they don't use an American actor and the accent is appallingly wrong. Maybe it's revenge for all the terrible accents American actors have inflicted on the rest of the English-speaking world. Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond, anyone?
Yes. Btw, I have to assume that British police know to cover the back doors when trying to apprehend a miscreant, but you wouldn’t know it from watching TV shows, where the criminal runs out the back door and very often gets away after a foot race (or sometimes gets hit by a fast moving vehicle). :shock:

Another issue with foreign TV is the limited number of actors. One is accustomed to the wide range of American actors, but I think I know the major Dutch, French, Israeli actors, and at my advanced age I have trouble keeping them separate and distinct in their roles. So, watching a Dutch show, I see a character and think, “wait, wut, isn’t he married to her? She can’t be his sister?” having remembered the actors’ roles from a different casting.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s accent was bad, but Michael C Hall (Dexter made me laugh so hard that tears came from my eyes in Safe. Apparently, reviewers were more generous, categorizing it as a legit accent, but one stripped of class and locale specifics, so as to be a “generic” British accent. Anyway, I continued watching and forgot about it eventually.

A very positive factor for me watching foreign TV is my discovery of hitherto undiscovered language talent. I spoke German as a youth (single digit in age). When I started streaming, I discovered a surprising amount of German, but also Dutch and Yiddish, were understandable and I relied less and less on the subtitles. TV dialog is easy, suitable for the language skills of very young people (which is why so many people learned languages from watching TV) and it was interesting that I could follow TV German 60+ years after speaking it) even though technical/scientific/formal German is beyond me. With German, English, and slang from NYC, Yiddish and Dutch are easier than I would have thought.
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Tubes
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Tubes »

We're rotating. Netflix is about to come off our rotation with a replacement of Hulu/ESPN+/Disney.

You can see our current costs below. Of interest is I got most of these on yearly introductions. Hulu was black Friday special. We'll replace that with the bundle. Also of interest is my Tablo cost which includes some amortization of upfront costs on equipment and lifetime guide. In a year and half, it will all be "free." This provides local antenna TV in a DVR format. I got Curiosity Stream on a yearly special. I don't like it. I won't renew.

I should also mention we probably watch more free Pluto than anything else. Pluto does have a high ad load. I found the ad load from D+ and Hulu to be less onerous.

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Ramjet
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Ramjet »

Netflix, Prime Video, HBO MAX. Got rid of Hulu after a terrible experience with them. Someone that worked there stole our account and information and added services. They argued about reimbursing us lol.
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Ramjet »

Tubes wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:11 am We're rotating. Netflix is about to come off our rotation with a replacement of Hulu/ESPN+/Disney.

You can see our current costs below. Of interest is I got most of these on yearly introductions. Hulu was black Friday special. We'll replace that with the bundle. Also of interest is my Tablo cost which includes some amortization of upfront costs on equipment and lifetime guide. In a year and half, it will all be "free." This provides local antenna TV in a DVR format. I got Curiosity Stream on a yearly special. I don't like it. I won't renew.

I should also mention we probably watch more free Pluto than anything else. Pluto does have a high ad load. I found the ad load from D+ and Hulu to be less onerous.

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Never thought of rotating. Good idea!
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Tubes
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Tubes »

Ramjet wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:27 am Never thought of rotating. Good idea!
I can't take credit. It was mentioned earlier in this thread, and I learned of the technique here or on the early retirement board last year.
AlohaBill
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by AlohaBill »

Does anyone here subscribe to hoopla? Is it good for movies and tv shows?
roamingzebra
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by roamingzebra »

TomatoTomahto wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:00 am Another issue with foreign TV is the limited number of actors. One is accustomed to the wide range of American actors, but I think I know the major Dutch, French, Israeli actors, and at my advanced age I have trouble keeping them separate and distinct in their roles. So, watching a Dutch show, I see a character and think, “wait, wut, isn’t he married to her? She can’t be his sister?” having remembered the actors’ roles from a different casting.
As a newcomer to foreign TV, I fortunately have yet to run into that problem. Especially with British TV, there is just enough actors that I can follow them from show to show as a deliberate strategy on figuring out what to watch next. It's mostly female actors though -- Olivia Coleman, Keeley Hawes, Nicola Walker, etc. For some reason, I rarely see male actor repeats. Though I did get a laugh out of seeing "Queen Elizabeth" and "Prince Philip" -- Olivia Coleman and Tobias Menzies respectively -- confront each other as opponents in an illegal weapons trafficking plot in "The Night Manager".
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Matahari
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Matahari »

AlohaBill wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:09 am Does anyone here subscribe to hoopla? Is it good for movies and tv shows?
I've posted about Hoopla and Kanopy, but it was probably on another thread.

Both are available free through one's library. Kanopy has many titles, including documentaries on "obscure" topics and a rich catalog of international cinema and classic films. It also offers new releases, but obviously not the ones available through Netflix et al. Kanopy is metered by month, although Kanopy Kids is unlimited (I don't have a young child but have recommended it to parents).

I believe Hoopla is limited to your library's collection, but I'm not sure. It is also metered. I have managed to find the odd thing thru Hoopla. Hoopla also allows one to stream music and audio books (limited again by what is offered at your library).

The only way to know what is offered is by signing up and looking through the collections.

I use both to look for the occasional unusual media that I might be looking for. For example, I found "A French Village" on Hoopla for a friend who could not find later seasons of that series available for streaming and she used my account.
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Matahari
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Matahari »

roamingzebra wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:49 am
TomatoTomahto wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:00 am Another issue with foreign TV is the limited number of actors. One is accustomed to the wide range of American actors, but I think I know the major Dutch, French, Israeli actors, and at my advanced age I have trouble keeping them separate and distinct in their roles. So, watching a Dutch show, I see a character and think, “wait, wut, isn’t he married to her? She can’t be his sister?” having remembered the actors’ roles from a different casting.
As a newcomer to foreign TV, I fortunately have yet to run into that problem. Especially with British TV, there is just enough actors that I can follow them from show to show as a deliberate strategy on figuring out what to watch next. It's mostly female actors though -- Olivia Coleman, Keeley Hawes, Nicola Walker, etc. For some reason, I rarely see male actor repeats. Though I did get a laugh out of seeing "Queen Elizabeth" and "Prince Philip" -- Olivia Coleman and Tobias Menzies respectively -- confront each other as opponents in an illegal weapons trafficking plot in "The Night Manager".
I do roughly the same! Keeley Hawes and Nicola Walker "came from" (Spooks) MI-5 (which I watched in real time) don't you know?! :happy

And they do repeat often, unless plucked to do movies such as in the case of Olivia Coleman. Nicola Walker is in so many series that I have a bit of a hard time separating her roles from "her."
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Matahari
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by Matahari »

About Hoopla: it appears to have its own catalog, rather than your access being dependent on your library's collection. For instance, there is a "Just added to Hoopla" category.
livelovelaugh00
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by livelovelaugh00 »

We need live tv in the background. It leaves us very limited choices. Two years ago this time we cut the cord and switched to hulu live. It got more expensive now.
This morning we switched to sling tv blue and added a couple of channels for $5 each.
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AnnetteLouisan
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Re: What streaming services do you use and what’s your strategy for using them?

Post by AnnetteLouisan »

UpperNwGuy wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 8:19 pm I don't use streaming services.
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