I mean they already owned Hulu (they spent quite a bit of money buying out Comcast’s share in it) and you can already watch Hulu stuff on Disney+. Probably a good thing considering the Hulu app is...
I mean they already owned Hulu (they spent quite a bit of money buying out Comcast’s share in it) and you can already watch Hulu stuff on Disney+.
Probably a good thing considering the Hulu app is outdated and clunky, the Disney+ app is much smoother in comparison
This is just merging catalogs. It is actually nice to not have to poke through several different apps to find a show to watch. What actually bothers me is that I do have to poke through several...
This is just merging catalogs. It is actually nice to not have to poke through several different apps to find a show to watch.
What actually bothers me is that I do have to poke through several streaming interfaces/front-ends to access different catalogs. The AV/video design and the content production are two competencies that have very little* to do with each other. I wish I could just pipe any content catalog through any front-end to watch so actual AV nerds and interface designers can do the UI and not hold good shows hostage behind a shitty, glitchy app.
*Netflix occasionally tries to do some experimental stuff that does actually merge work on the interface with producing the content, like Babadook, but it’s not really anything impressive that couldn’t be done 100 different ways such as, for instance, through video game development.
It's interesting(?) that they will still sell subs to Hulu and Disney+ separately, even with the integrated app. I can imagine Disney+ with a Hulu add on, but it seems weird to have Hulu in the...
It's interesting(?) that they will still sell subs to Hulu and Disney+ separately, even with the integrated app. I can imagine Disney+ with a Hulu add on, but it seems weird to have Hulu in the Disney+ app without access to Disney+.
That makes sense to me actually as a centralized app to everything but you’d have to pay separately for different baskets of shows. It’s basically just reinventing an on-demand version of cable TV...
That makes sense to me actually as a centralized app to everything but you’d have to pay separately for different baskets of shows. It’s basically just reinventing an on-demand version of cable TV bundles. Though I think what they’d actually need to do eventually is have distinct baskets of interests rather than a bunch of individual shows with each side of the bundle. But at that point we’re just reinventing cable TV channels. Everything old is new again!
You can also get an HBO Max subscription for watching movies through YouTube, which is handy because YouTube still supports original Chromecasts. Maybe that sort of thing will become more common?
You can also get an HBO Max subscription for watching movies through YouTube, which is handy because YouTube still supports original Chromecasts.
There’s been times when I’ve subscribed to a streaming service through Apple TV “channels” rather than directly for precisely this reason: it puts that service’s content into a standardized...
There’s been times when I’ve subscribed to a streaming service through Apple TV “channels” rather than directly for precisely this reason: it puts that service’s content into a standardized first-party content catalogue and plays the media through an unmodified system player UI. It’s wonderful.
I wish that every streaming service offered this option because it’s so much better than having to jump between several different apps with varying quality.
Yeah it’s a good idea Apple had, it’s just a shame every app seems to behave differently when you click into it. Also Apple TV needs to have individual and “family” profiles where it...
Yeah it’s a good idea Apple had, it’s just a shame every app seems to behave differently when you click into it.
Also Apple TV needs to have individual and “family” profiles where it differentiates what’s your personal watchlist from whatever is your watchlist for your whole family. Apple’s approach to account management in general still just assumed every device is primarily used by one and only one person. They never quite seem to have figured out how to manage devices that are communal by default. As it is all its recommendation functions and even “keep watching” functions are useless to me because the feed is cluttered up with my wife and kids’ stuff.
That sounds more like the linked activity feature, where third party streaming apps that’ve opted in share the shows you’re watching with the TV app, in which case yeah the inconsistent behavior...
Yeah it’s a good idea Apple had, it’s just a shame every app seems to behave differently when you click into it.
That sounds more like the linked activity feature, where third party streaming apps that’ve opted in share the shows you’re watching with the TV app, in which case yeah the inconsistent behavior is annoying (and Netflix’s refusal to get on board at all is frustrating).
Channels are separate. You don’t even need the third party app installed to access the content with those, all browsing and playback is handled entirely within the TV app, and as such behavior is identical between channels.
Re: account management, tvOS should just copy the way it works on macOS where each user account lives in its own entirely isolated bubble. That’s the only system that makes any sense.
The MacOS one works where profiles really are distinct, but with a family device like a HomePod or a TV people genuinely use them differently. I’ve noticed that based on whether I access YouTube...
The MacOS one works where profiles really are distinct, but with a family device like a HomePod or a TV people genuinely use them differently.
I’ve noticed that based on whether I access YouTube from the AppleTV vs. from my iPad the recommendation feed is completely different. On the AppleTV it recommends me a lot more sports/eSports content as well as family/kid friendly things and more general interest content. On my personal devices it’s much more specifically dialed in on stuff that I watch when I’m by myself like dense video essays and history things. YouTube seems to recognize that my use varies based on the device I’m using and has backed into a recognition that the TV viewing is more for family oriented content.
I hate when I have to go from Max, where the volume needs to be at 35 to hear the dialogue, to something like Peacock which will blow out your eardrums once you pass 12 or 13. One of these days...
I hate when I have to go from Max, where the volume needs to be at 35 to hear the dialogue, to something like Peacock which will blow out your eardrums once you pass 12 or 13. One of these days it's gonna kill my cat.
Most streaming services' TV apps are hot garbage too. When I was watching Tokyo Vice on HBO Max, half the time it would start slightly cropped for no explicable reason...which would fully crop out...
Most streaming services' TV apps are hot garbage too.
When I was watching Tokyo Vice on HBO Max, half the time it would start slightly cropped for no explicable reason...which would fully crop out the subtitles on a show that's largely in Japanese. It seemed like maybe it had something to do with the aspect ratio of the ads not matching the more cinematic format of the show, but who knows. It's unacceptably bad to fail at its one job.
HiDive is an anime streaming service, and it can't comprehend that the TV closed captioning system is not an ideal way to render subtitles, nor do I want to configure it through the weird TV menu system. It's fine on the web or on an iPad, but it's ridiculously bad on a TV. It also refuses to keep track of watched episodes in any show I start, but permanently thinks I'm watching a show I never have. CrunchyRoll is a vastly superior experience with a lot more polish...but they don't have licenses for everything.
When I first signed up for Paramount+ for a few months to run three a few Star Trek shows, for the first day it would only serve an ad and then error out instead of starting the show. I also paid for an "ad free" experience and discovered that their definition of "ad free" meant several minutes of advertisements for Paramount shows and movies before each episode.
Netflix has historically been the best. They were a video tech company that also got into making shows, so their player worked smoothly and they were the absolute best for language track and subtitle flexibility. Metadata in general. Some shows would also have fancy subtitles that would be centered on the character speaking.
FWIW the Apple TV HiDive app is fine, mostly. Only weird thing it does is display a “are you sure you want to leave” dialog when you back out to the home screen, otherwise it’s about as good as...
FWIW the Apple TV HiDive app is fine, mostly. Only weird thing it does is display a “are you sure you want to leave” dialog when you back out to the home screen, otherwise it’s about as good as Crunchyroll’s is. So there’s definitely variations between TV platforms for streaming apps.
Canada (and presumably other locales that had Disney+ but not Hulu) already had all Hulu content in Disney+ anyways E: by this, I specifically mean things like FX/FXX and Hulu Originals. I'd...
Canada (and presumably other locales that had Disney+ but not Hulu) already had all Hulu content in Disney+ anyways
E: by this, I specifically mean things like FX/FXX and Hulu Originals. I'd assume there's other content that Hulu just currently has the rights to in the US alone and may be on Netflix or whatever other service elsewhere.
Yeah, I believe this delay had to do with eights. The Us may be one of the last places where Hulu is. I’ll just be glad to not see commercials anymore.
Yeah, I believe this delay had to do with eights. The Us may be one of the last places where Hulu is. I’ll just be glad to not see commercials anymore.
Man, the mouse really won't be satisfied until it owns the galaxy, will it?
I mean they already owned Hulu (they spent quite a bit of money buying out Comcast’s share in it) and you can already watch Hulu stuff on Disney+.
Probably a good thing considering the Hulu app is outdated and clunky, the Disney+ app is much smoother in comparison
This is just merging catalogs. It is actually nice to not have to poke through several different apps to find a show to watch.
What actually bothers me is that I do have to poke through several streaming interfaces/front-ends to access different catalogs. The AV/video design and the content production are two competencies that have very little* to do with each other. I wish I could just pipe any content catalog through any front-end to watch so actual AV nerds and interface designers can do the UI and not hold good shows hostage behind a shitty, glitchy app.
*Netflix occasionally tries to do some experimental stuff that does actually merge work on the interface with producing the content, like Babadook, but it’s not really anything impressive that couldn’t be done 100 different ways such as, for instance, through video game development.
It's interesting(?) that they will still sell subs to Hulu and Disney+ separately, even with the integrated app. I can imagine Disney+ with a Hulu add on, but it seems weird to have Hulu in the Disney+ app without access to Disney+.
That makes sense to me actually as a centralized app to everything but you’d have to pay separately for different baskets of shows. It’s basically just reinventing an on-demand version of cable TV bundles. Though I think what they’d actually need to do eventually is have distinct baskets of interests rather than a bunch of individual shows with each side of the bundle. But at that point we’re just reinventing cable TV channels. Everything old is new again!
You can also get an HBO Max subscription for watching movies through YouTube, which is handy because YouTube still supports original Chromecasts.
Maybe that sort of thing will become more common?
There’s been times when I’ve subscribed to a streaming service through Apple TV “channels” rather than directly for precisely this reason: it puts that service’s content into a standardized first-party content catalogue and plays the media through an unmodified system player UI. It’s wonderful.
I wish that every streaming service offered this option because it’s so much better than having to jump between several different apps with varying quality.
Yeah it’s a good idea Apple had, it’s just a shame every app seems to behave differently when you click into it.
Also Apple TV needs to have individual and “family” profiles where it differentiates what’s your personal watchlist from whatever is your watchlist for your whole family. Apple’s approach to account management in general still just assumed every device is primarily used by one and only one person. They never quite seem to have figured out how to manage devices that are communal by default. As it is all its recommendation functions and even “keep watching” functions are useless to me because the feed is cluttered up with my wife and kids’ stuff.
That sounds more like the linked activity feature, where third party streaming apps that’ve opted in share the shows you’re watching with the TV app, in which case yeah the inconsistent behavior is annoying (and Netflix’s refusal to get on board at all is frustrating).
Channels are separate. You don’t even need the third party app installed to access the content with those, all browsing and playback is handled entirely within the TV app, and as such behavior is identical between channels.
Re: account management, tvOS should just copy the way it works on macOS where each user account lives in its own entirely isolated bubble. That’s the only system that makes any sense.
The MacOS one works where profiles really are distinct, but with a family device like a HomePod or a TV people genuinely use them differently.
I’ve noticed that based on whether I access YouTube from the AppleTV vs. from my iPad the recommendation feed is completely different. On the AppleTV it recommends me a lot more sports/eSports content as well as family/kid friendly things and more general interest content. On my personal devices it’s much more specifically dialed in on stuff that I watch when I’m by myself like dense video essays and history things. YouTube seems to recognize that my use varies based on the device I’m using and has backed into a recognition that the TV viewing is more for family oriented content.
I hate when I have to go from Max, where the volume needs to be at 35 to hear the dialogue, to something like Peacock which will blow out your eardrums once you pass 12 or 13. One of these days it's gonna kill my cat.
Most streaming services' TV apps are hot garbage too.
When I was watching Tokyo Vice on HBO Max, half the time it would start slightly cropped for no explicable reason...which would fully crop out the subtitles on a show that's largely in Japanese. It seemed like maybe it had something to do with the aspect ratio of the ads not matching the more cinematic format of the show, but who knows. It's unacceptably bad to fail at its one job.
HiDive is an anime streaming service, and it can't comprehend that the TV closed captioning system is not an ideal way to render subtitles, nor do I want to configure it through the weird TV menu system. It's fine on the web or on an iPad, but it's ridiculously bad on a TV. It also refuses to keep track of watched episodes in any show I start, but permanently thinks I'm watching a show I never have. CrunchyRoll is a vastly superior experience with a lot more polish...but they don't have licenses for everything.
When I first signed up for Paramount+ for a few months to run three a few Star Trek shows, for the first day it would only serve an ad and then error out instead of starting the show. I also paid for an "ad free" experience and discovered that their definition of "ad free" meant several minutes of advertisements for Paramount shows and movies before each episode.
Netflix has historically been the best. They were a video tech company that also got into making shows, so their player worked smoothly and they were the absolute best for language track and subtitle flexibility. Metadata in general. Some shows would also have fancy subtitles that would be centered on the character speaking.
FWIW the Apple TV HiDive app is fine, mostly. Only weird thing it does is display a “are you sure you want to leave” dialog when you back out to the home screen, otherwise it’s about as good as Crunchyroll’s is. So there’s definitely variations between TV platforms for streaming apps.
Canada (and presumably other locales that had Disney+ but not Hulu) already had all Hulu content in Disney+ anyways
E: by this, I specifically mean things like FX/FXX and Hulu Originals. I'd assume there's other content that Hulu just currently has the rights to in the US alone and may be on Netflix or whatever other service elsewhere.
Yeah, I believe this delay had to do with eights. The Us may be one of the last places where Hulu is. I’ll just be glad to not see commercials anymore.
Related: Paramount Plus and Pluto TV to be similarly integrated, and Paramount isn't ruling out a merger of the two.
https://cordcuttersnews.com/pluto-tv-paramount-could-soon-be-merging-into-a-single-app/