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#Post#: 16535--------------------------------------------------
Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Mac Date: February 2, 2013, 3:47 pm
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The way we watch TV is changing before our eyes.
My wife doesn't even care if we watch the Superbowl tomorrow...
for the commercials. They will all be available and ready to
watch... like now
HTML http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferrooney/2013/02/01/watch-all-the-2013-super-bowl-commercials-and-vote-for-your-fave/
[quote][glow=red,2,300][size=14pt]House of Cards - Five reasons
to binge watch[/glow]
The future of television may have arrived today in the form of
Netflix's heavily hyped original series House of Cards, a
13-episode political thriller set inside the halls of power in
the nation's capital. It's not just the prestigious names (Kevin
Spacey and Robin Wright are in front of the camera, while
directors like David Fincher, Carl Franklin, James Foley and...
um, Joel Schumacher are behind it) that are associated with this
remake of a popular British series that makes it such a notable
production -- it's also the way Netflix is choosing to put it
out into the world. Instead of going network-style with one
episode per week, the streaming service is releasing all 13
hour-long installments of Season 1 in bulk, allowing viewers to
decide if they want to consume the whole thing in one day, one
week or one month. It's the ultimate test of the relatively new
practice of "binge-watching" television, an experiment Netflix
will try again in April when it unveils an entire new season of
Arrested Development in one fell swoop. Will it work? We'll have
to wait and see. In the meantime, we watched the first episode
of House of Cards and here are five reasons why you'll probably
want to binge-watch this series.
It's Insanely Timely
The pilot (can you still use that word in non-traditional
episodic TV?) picks up just as a new president -- Garrett Walker
(Michael Gill) -- has been elected and is preparing to be sworn
into office, not unlike the election and subsequent inauguration
we just experienced. (Although, obviously, in the real world, we
re-elected the same guy instead of picking a new one.) Not only
that, but the catalyst that sets the story in motion involves
the President's choice of replacement for the outgoing Secretary
of State... again, something we've just watched happen in the
real District of Columbia. Walker had privately promised to pick
Congressional Majority Whip Francis Underwood (Spacey) for the
position, especially after the Congressman was so instrumental
in getting him elected. But now that he's actually sitting in
the Oval Office, the new POTUS pulls a bait and switch,
informing him (in a cowardly move, through a third party) that
he'll be remaining in the House after all. As you can imagine,
this gets Underwood all hot under the collar and, well, let's
just say he's not taking the slight lying down. We're just
imagining what real-world incoming Secretary John Kerry would
have done if President Obama had decided to pass him over for
the job. Probably not all that much, actually...
The Premise is Built for Juicy Twists and Turns
After being informed of his fate, Underwood wastes little time
in fighting back. Good thing for him that he's got a willing
ally at home: his ambitious, strong-as-steel wife Claire
(Wright), who wants Francis to have the job even more than he
wants it. Late that night, the two of them come to an agreement:
they're going to start playing a long game of revenge, a game
that will involve scheming into the wee small hours and next to
no sleep. From here on in, they're freelance political
mercenaries, out to screw over anyone if it gets them ahead. The
first order of business is to derail Walker's big initiative,
education reform, a goal he's on the path to achieving by the
end of the hour with the help of frustrated journalist Zoe
Barnes (Kate Mara), who is equally willing to put morality aside
in the interest of career advancement. And it's clear that a lot
more intrigue will be coming down the pike as well, since
everyone in this version of D.C. has an angle, not to mention a
few skeletons in the closets. As viewers who have already
mainlined The Wire and Breaking Bad know, shows with
labyrinthine plots and dozens of characters are almost always
more fun when consumed in the fewest amount of sittings -- the
better to experience every twist right away, not to mention not
having to constantly ask, "Wait, who is that guy again?"
Kevin Spacey's Great... but Robin Wright is Even Better
It's been a long while since Spacey has delivered a performance
that's worth a damn (on film at least -- we can't speak to his
extensive stage credits in recent years), but from the opening
scenes of House of Cards, he's absolutely dialed into this role,
tartly delivering every devious, conniving line of dialogue in a
loose Southern drawl. He's so much fun to watch, he even makes
one our least favorite devices -- characters breaking the fourth
wall and talking directly into the camera -- palatable. But as
good as Spacey is, the real star of the show is Wright, playing
a version of Hillary Clinton by way of Lady Macbeth, or to go
with a more recent evil queen, Cersei Lannister. (Let's just say
that Princess Buttercup could have learned a thing or two from
Claire.) Frank may be the one in Congress, but she's clearly the
one in charge and we can't wait to see how she uses that power
for good evil as the series progresses. (For the record, Mara
isn't bad either. It's about time that Rooney's sister won back
some attention.)
The Dialogue is Pretty Good Sorkin-Lite
A political drama about intrigue in Washington D.C. and Aaron
Sorkin's name is nowhere to be found in the credits? Weird. But
the writing team has clearly boned up on their Sorkin because
the dialogue in House of Cards has some of the same snap and
fondness for grand metaphors. There's no substitute for the real
thing, of course, but the following first episode lines are good
examples of the B-level Sorkinisms that the Cards crew has come
up with.
- "Do I like him? No. Do I believe in him? That's beside the
point."
- "The nature of promises is that they remain immune to changing
circumstances."
- "I love that woman. I love her more than sharks love blood."
- "Right now, I don't need imagination. I need copy."
- "I almost pity him. He didn't choose to be put on my platter.
When I carve him up and toss him to the dogs, only then will he
confront that brutal, inescapable truth, 'My God, all I ever
amounted to was chitlins."
- "Oh Brian, you're so sweet... really. But if I was going to
**** you, you'd know."
- "Nobody's a boy scout, not even boy scouts."
Because Why Wait?
And here's the real reason why the Netflix model may prove so
successful. Thanks to DVRs, HBO Go, On Demand channels, Hulu and
other means of time-shifting TV, many viewers (particularly
those in advertisers' target demographic) have grown accustomed
to watching as much of a show as they want, when they want. If
you sample the first episode of House of Cards and like what you
see, it's just so convenient to let another episode play...
followed by another, and then another and then one more for good
measure. So go ahead: drink up House of Cards. After all, the
faster you get through this series, the faster you can get back
to binging on Downton Abbey or whatever other show you're trying
to catch up on.[/size][/quote]
#Post#: 16538--------------------------------------------------
Re: What Are You Watching? (DVD's & Blu-ray's)
By: Mac Date: February 2, 2013, 4:03 pm
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[glow=red,2,300]The Economics of Netflix's $100 Million New
Show[/glow]
[quote] With Netflix's foray into original, high quality
programming today, the streaming TV network wants to turn into
the HBO of Internet TV, but can the network afford it? Putting
together a big production with famous actors like House of Cards
costs a lot of money—$100 million for two 13 episode seasons, to
be exact—and Netflix CEO Reid Hastings says he plans on making
five new shows like that per year, he told GQ's Nancy Hass. How
can that make economic sense for a company makes all of its
money off $7.99 per month subscription fees? Netflix doesn't run
any ads, nor does it benefit from a relationship with a big
media conglomerate like HBO and its parent company Time Warner.
But while $100 million sounds jaw-dropping, a little math shows
that, if the shows are good — a big if, admittedly — spending
that kind of money could be good business for the company.
Breaking Even Won't Be That Hard: With Netflix spending a
reported $100 million to produce two 13-episode seasons of House
of Cards, they need 520,834 people to sign up for a $7.99
subscription for two years to break even. To do that five times
every year, then, the streaming TV site would have to sign up
more 2.6 million subscribers than they would have. That sounds
daunting, but at the moment, Netflix has 33.3 million
subscribers, so this is an increase of less than 10 percent on
their current customer base. Of course, looking at Netflix's
past growth, that represents pretty reasonable growth for the
company that saw 65 percent growth from 20 million to over 33
million world-wide streaming customers. Much of that growth,
however, comes from new overseas markets. But, even in the U.S.,
from one year ago, Netflix saw about 13 percent streaming viewer
growth jumping from 24 million to 27 million.
That's Actually a Bit Better than HBO Does: HBO gets about $7
per month per subscriber from its 30 million or so fans,
according to an analyst at SNL Kagain. Although the charge for
HBO on your cable bill is something like $15, HBO splits the fee
50-50 or so with your cable company, according to The Economist.
That puts it pretty close to Netflix. Those revenues also pay
for some of the most expensive TV on cable: True Blood came in
at around $5 million per episode. The debut of Boardwalk Empire
cost $20 million alone. Then again, HBO is a prosperous outpost
in a huge media empire, which helps with marketing and
infrastructure costs. Netflix is all on its own. It has built
its own infrastructure to stream things to consumers, so it
doesn't need cable companies, but then again, it doesn't have
those cable providers working on commission to sign up HBO
subscribers.
But Is It More Lucrative Than Paying Other Content Makers?
Probably. Up until now, Netflix's strategy has involved paying
content makers and distributors, like Disney and Epix, for
streaming rights to their movies and TV shows. It turns out,
however, the company is overpaying on a lot of those deals. As
you can see in this chart Seeking Alpha's Cris Frangold shows,
these deals cost Netflix billions:
HTML http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/upload/2013/02/01/rendered/3f91fae4e795fb4038e65c1637a030fd_623x399.jpg
The real problem for Netflix is that their subscription revenue
is not growing as fast as their content costs. Michael Pachter,
an analyst with Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg News' Cliff
Edwards. "Netflix will continue to generate negative cash flow
going forward, driven by the company’s ever-increasing streaming
commitments," he said, a sentiment also reflected in this chart
from Ferngold:
HTML http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/upload/2013/02/01/2381951_13596583921097_rId5_thumb.jpg
Basically, subscriptions haven't kept up with high costs for
content, like this $200 million one with Epix to lease
Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM hits.
Part of that has to do with the rising cost of content. The
going rate for digital rights has increased because the owners
of said TV and movie shows know they have leverage over Netflix.
For example, back in 2008, Netflix convinced Starz to make a
deal for $30 million a year. When it came back to the table in
2011, $300 million wasn't enough for the network. Netflix now
pays $100s of millions to Disney and Epix and has deals with
individual channels, paying AMC $1 million for exclusive
streaming rights for each episode Mad Men, a show viewers can
watch on cable television, if they want.
And that brings us to the other reason Netflix hasn't been able
to draw enough subscribes...
Exclusive Content Is King: Like HBO, Netflix is moving away from
buying content because it would rather draw addicts, who have
just one just-for-Netflix show that prevents them from
canceling. (To start that addiction, the first episode of House
of Cards is available to non-subscribers.) With the HBO model
it only takes one really good show to hook one new subscriber.
The idea is that at least 520,834 someones will start paying $8
per month because they want to watch House of Cards, because it
is that good. HBO already plays a similar game: all of it shows
don't have to be monster successes (Girls doesn't draw that many
viewers) but they do need to have an answer pop into their
customer's head whenever they look at their bill and ask
themselves "Why am I still paying $15 a month for HBO?" As of
right now, Netflix has a lot of overlap with traditional cable
and other streaming services, and they need more answers to "Why
am I still paying $8 a month for Netflix?" They've tried to
create some of that exclusivity, paying a premium $1 million per
episode to be the exclusive streaming home of Mad Men. Others
are playing that game, too: Amazon today invested an undisclosed
amount to make a similar deal for Downtown Abbey. But, in
reality, those deals are for re-runs: the people who will sign
up for Netflix to watch Mad Men are the ones who missed the boat
the first time around and want to catch up. Even better is
something truly original. It might cost a little more money per
show—Mad Men only costs $1 million to the nearly $4 million for
House of Cards—but the pay-off, if the program brings in a ton
of people to just Netflix, will be worth it.
It Also Has Other Potential Revenue Opportunities: So, if House
of Cards turns out to be the type of thing people will subscribe
to Netflix just to watch, it also means Netflix created
something of value to others. In some bizarro world it could
turn around and sell syndication rights to networks and
overseas.
Can Netflix Afford the Gamble? That's Unclear. Unlike HBO,
Netflix doesn't have a big rich cable company owner with lots of
cash on hand. In fact, the company is scrambling for money to
pay for its current investments, according to last quarter's
earnings report even though it did report a surprise profit.
Basically, House of Cards has to bring in subscribers, it has to
be decent enough to get people to pay. Some early reviews
suggest that's the case. The Los Angeles Times called the show
"deliciously spiteful." We'll defer to resident Atlantic Wire TV
expert Richard Lawson for the final verdict. Even if the critics
like it, though, the results of this business scheme will be
hard to dicipher at first, since no Nielsen for Netflix exists.
We'll be watching those subscriber numbers, though. [/quote]
#Post#: 16548--------------------------------------------------
Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Chiprocks1 Date: February 2, 2013, 4:36 pm
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Post all your News about any sites that you use for Streaming
Content here. It doesn't have to be just the Big 3 that you need
to stick with. As the technology improves, there will be plenty
more sites popping up to offer the same type of content. Post
away.....
#Post#: 26364--------------------------------------------------
Re: Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Mac Date: February 20, 2014, 10:32 am
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[glow=red,2,300]Netflix Introduces New 'Browse Endlessly'
Plan[/glow]
[IMG]
HTML http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i266/Chiprocks1/Smilies/0%20All%20Smilies/RollingOnTheFloor.gif[/img]
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Bm2WUYBxU
#Post#: 26528--------------------------------------------------
Re: Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Mac Date: February 25, 2014, 12:11 pm
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Take THAT Amazon Prime
[glow=red,2,300]Netflix Drone To Home [/glow]
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucz3JpvDQjk
#Post#: 26544--------------------------------------------------
Re: Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Mac Date: February 26, 2014, 11:46 am
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[glow=red,2,300]Marvel To Film Netflix Series In NYC[/glow]
Is an 'Avengers' crossover far behind?
[quote]Marvel, in a joint press conference with New York
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced today that their Netflix
series — starting with "Daredevil," and continuing with "Luke
Cage," "Jessica Jones" and "Iron Fist" before ending with a
"Defenders" team-up event — will all film on the streets of New
York City for the next few years.
Not a ton is known as of yet about the four series. "Cabin in
the Woods" director Drew Goddard is taking the writing and
directing reins on at least the pilot of "Daredevil." And
"Twilight" writer Melissa Rosenberg, who has been working on
"Jessica Jones" in various forms for Marvel for years will
finally get the chance to bring her vision to fruition. But
otherwise, that's all we knew... Until now.
Why is this location-based announcement exciting? Because Marvel
Comics, and the characters being adapted for Netflix in
particular, all got their start on the streets of New York.
Unlike Marvel's DC Comics counterparts, Marvel set their
superheroes in a simulacrum of the real world... And no location
is more populated by their heroes than NYC.
Granted, many TV shows set in New York don't film in NYC,
instead choosing to get selected exterior shots in the city
while sticking to a soundstage in Los Angeles, or Vancouver for
the majority of shooting. With these five series shooting in the
city proper, not only will they have the authentic feel fans
have been asking for but they'll also create a multitude of jobs
for NYC residents. Specifically, according to Cuomo, $200
million in revenue and 400 full-time jobs over the next three
years.
And that adds a timeline for the series. We know that
"Daredevil" is first out of the gate, launching in Fall 2015.
But assuming we start filming in 2015, that means we won't
necessarily see a rapid rollout of the series one after the
other, but rather sometime in the span of 2015-2018.
Interestingly, that falls right around the same time that most
pundits expect Marvel will drop "Avengers 3" in movie theaters,
either 2018 or 2019; though the threequel doesn't have an
announced date as of yet.
Still, that does bring up another reason for fans of Marvel
movies to get excited about this announcement, and that reason
is "Avengers." Though we don't expect that Tony Stark will be
popping by and chatting with Daredevil on a regular basis,
"Avengers" was based in New York, and that means these Netflix
shows are all part of the tapestry of the rapidly expanding
Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Meaning: Robert Downey Jr. might not stop in, but our heroes
could still visit Stark Tower, or glimpse Iron Man flying over
the skyline. And if our timing is right, could the Defenders
show up in a sure-to-be-climactic "Avengers 3?"
Regardless, we'll know more about Marvel's Netflix plans soon,
as filming will begin in New York City next year.[/quote]
#Post#: 29553--------------------------------------------------
Re: Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Mac Date: July 11, 2014, 9:35 am
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I'm gonna try this out for awhile. It's got to be better than
just redundantly browsing 'everything'
[glow=red,2,300]A Better Queue
HTML http://abetterqueue.com/
- Netflix[/glow]
[quote]Netflix is a fantastic service that has and will continue
to change the home entertainment landscape. But despite how
disruptive the service have been — and this is one of those rare
cases where “disruptive” is being used to describe a company
that actually disrupted something — it can still be
infuriatingly difficult to find good content amid all of the
stale movies and TV shows in Netflix’s library.
A new website called “A Better Queue
HTML http://abetterqueue.com/”
is dedicated to helping Netflix
subscribers create exactly what its name describes: A better
Netflix queue full of the best movies the company has to offer.
The free service allows users to set a minimum Rotten Tomatoes
rating, a minimum number of reviews and a timeframe, and then
one or more genres can be chosen. A subsequent search will cut
through the fluff and pull up only the best Netflix has to
offer.
The service is currently a bit slow because it is getting
hammered by Reddit traffic, but the site’s developer says he’s
working on addressing the issue.
[/quote]
#Post#: 29554--------------------------------------------------
Re: Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Chiprocks1 Date: July 11, 2014, 9:51 am
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I hope it's what you're looking for and it works out for you.
Anything to weed out garbage is a good thing.
#Post#: 29557--------------------------------------------------
Re: Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Mac Date: July 11, 2014, 11:11 am
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I just tried it a few times
and...
... well, hmmmm... it's displaying about 30 movies over and over
and over. Hope it's just a filter glitch.
#Post#: 29588--------------------------------------------------
Re: Netflix, Hulu & Amazon Prime Streaming News
By: Neumatic Date: July 13, 2014, 1:28 pm
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This sucks: All of South Park's previous seasons moving to Hulu
Plus
HTML http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/hulu-streaming-south-park-all-seasons-under-exclusive-pact-1201261659/.
I don't really find myself wanting to watch old South Parks that
often, but I liked having the option. And I quite liked the
SouthParkStudios interface, far more than Hulu's stupid site. I
guess I'll be running through the archives intermittently to
find old classics to rewatch while i still can.
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