ETPC

ETPC

@ETPC

video games

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video games | anarcho-communism | depression | blm | acab | trans rights are human rights | he/him/they/them | like 30 or 40 | movies | Senior Social Media Lead/QA for Mighty Foot Productions | runs @dnf2001rp

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ETPC
@ETPC
micolithe
@micolithe
vogon
@vogon

thoughts on netflix's new "basic with ads" tier

original tweet below the fold

  • very funny to sell a 720p TV service with ads at $7 a month when every city has five towers just blasting a 720p or 1080i TV service with ads into the air for free
  • the remaining selling points here are:
    • time-shifting: you used to get this for free with a TiVo, a computer with a TV tuner card, or even just a VCR and a stack of blank tapes
    • watching on a mobile device: this is something that's only not possible with terrestrial TV because terrestrial TV was losing its relevance by the time smartphones existed
      • you could build a cell phone with a TV tuner chip in it; one-chip tuners cost $1.24 each in reel quantities
      • if anyone cared, you could design a standard to tunnel broadcast TV over LTE data the same way voice is now
    • Exclusive Content

netflix has finally succeeded in reinventing Basically Just Premium Cable TV in the slowest, most roundabout way possible

micolithe
@micolithe

Hot tip from someone that's been fed up with the streaming ecosystem for YEARS: if you have Plex Pass (and they offer lifetime ones still), that unlocks the ability to get an HD Antenna and Tuner and hook it up to your plex server which would then give you over the air TV on your mobile devices.

I plan to do this at some point. I don't have the links for the stuff I have planned to purchase for this on hand right now but if I remember when I get home from work I'll gladly edit them in here. Links for: Tuner (just needs to be on your network, not necessarily directly wired to your plex box) ; Antenna both items together come out to ~$150 USD before sales tax as of Nov 4th, 2022.

Plex requires a bit of technical know-how to configure, so this is not a solution for everyone, BUT, the good news, is that it is a solution and if you wanna go down that rabbit hole Plex is pretty common so stuff is relatively well documented.

micolithe
@micolithe

also, real quck, some search terms from someone who is more or less not using streaming anymore that may be useful to someone who is trying to do the same:

Soulseek, Usenet, Sabnzbd, Radarr, Sonarr, Torrentleech, qbittorrent, Plex, Kodi

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in reply to @vogon's post:

jkap
@jkap

on time shifting and mobile devices: using a tv tuner card isn’t a thing, but getting a cheap box that you plug into your antenna and an ethernet cable accomplishes basically the same thing. there’s also a ton of options for picking up that stream from outside your house (plex has it as a built-in, but there’s plenty of other options). i have a setup like this and i love it.

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vulgartooth
@vulgartooth

There seems to be an implication of having two 720p tiers that a lot of people only watch stuff on their phones (so being capped at 720p doesn't matter nearly as much). I would love to see their metrics on that since I almost never watch anything on my phone that's more substantial than a 2min Youtube video..

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polymath
@polymath

fwiw, here on Normal Island basically all the terrestrial tv stations have their own streaming services anyway. i mean they're all so bad (except iplayer) that i have before now waited for a show to come on netflix before watching it, but they do exist, and the difference will go way down if netflix also has ads

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gsora
@gsora

watching on a mobile device: this is something that's only not possible with terrestrial TV

I once used https://tvheadend.org/ with a TV tuner, an old thinkpad and a (very) crappy VDSL connection to build my own private terrestrial TV streaming service! It's doable but as usual, requires hands-on system administration experience.

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