10
votes
How to save money by switching subscription between multiple streaming services
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- Title
- How to save $375 a year on streaming
- Authors
- agoodmovietowatch
- Word count
- 741 words
Some people believe pirating is immoral. I'm no such people, though.
I have a few subscriptions that I never actually use because I'd rather automatically download the content. The quality is consistent and I don't have to dig around or bookmark anything. Even running Netflix through Kodi -- while it does work really well -- isn't nearly as good.
I've been shocked at how bad the picture quality is on NowTV (HBO's UK streaming partner), particularly given how beautifully many of their shows were shot.
The service is cheap and has great content, so I still pay for it, but the encoding bad enough to detract from the content itself: very visible macroblocks, ridiculous amounts of compression noise in darker scenes (just great for GoT), and severely curtailed dynamic range. By contrast, Netflix has nearly always been fine to my eye - although they do restrict stream types by device, so I can believe that Kodi isn't getting the best of what they have available.
In either case, I'd definitely appreciate a higher quality option, even at slightly higher cost - but we all know it'd end up being a way to segment out the audience with higher end equipment and charge them triple rather than just adding an extra dollar or two to cover bandwidth.
Truth be told, Netflix through Kodi is pretty much as good as you can get. It uses Inputstream.adaptive and the addon along with Widevine. You can set bitrates in Inputstream or select the quality manually. I've got the mid-tier plan, so I can only get 1080p streams --- but even with those I typically have three options. You can also choose the normal audio tracks, etc just like the web UI... well, if you're using Explorer or whichever browser gets the good streams. I've never watched anything using their web interface.
But with the addon, for the most part, it's perfect and is one of those things that just works until Netflix does something with their site (about once a year or so) -- at which point you wait half a day and an update for the addon is out.
That aside, there's no excuse for poor encoding. GoT's final season had so many shots that just weren't meant to be compressed. I tried so many sources -- even a raw 1080i TV rip that was said to be the best. It was marginally better, but during that near-black episode, it was still worthless.
Netflix and Amazon seem to be the best for video quality. The rips of Too Old to Die Young vs the less-than-the-best streams weren't too far off. The dls were ~8gb or so and used every bit.
As an aside, have you ever watched a series with audio descriptions on? I watched Daredevil like that.. and it felt like the normal, exciting show with this bonus layer of a really well-performed audiobook. Not the best description, but it was pretty great -- especially for the fights.
I concur, for most instances. I pay for a netflix and hulu subscription, because I want them to keep making good content.
I also occasionally pirate content that lives in one service that for some reason, that while I have an account, it doesn't let me access. Or, if I have the media physically (Which a lot I do), but no player.
I've already been doing this, but with no planning. Then again, I did it because I found I went a month without using Netflix at all but paid for it anyway, and I don't particularly care about watching things right when they come out. So, when I'm in the mood for some binge watching, I'll start a subscription with some streaming service, then cancel once I get bored with it.
This article gives me an idea. What if there was a website for keeping track of upcoming releases on each subscription service and building a schedule around them so you could choose shows you want to watch with the intent of rotating between multiple subscription services to see how much you save.
A lot of people became cord cutters because cable was too expensive, too unreliable, too inflexible and was being run by shoddy companies like Comcast, TWC and Verizon that would do everything in their power to stop you from cancelling your subscription. Streaming services may have largely replaced TV audiences but with an overabundance of streaming services, it's now becoming just as if not more expensive to catch up avidly on television.
The TV Time app achieves this for me.
This article highlights exactly why I pay for spotify, but not any video streaming services. With the exception of a few niche bands and region restricted songs, I can find all music in one really convenient place for one low price. All these different video streaming services are= too much effort to maintain, especially compared to how simple piracy has gotten with Plex, Sonarr, Radarr, etc. It's not even a cost issue for me, piracy is just a lot more convenient than managing multiple inconsistent streaming platforms. I have Hulu because I'm grandfathered into a Spotify plan that had Hulu included for free (not the student one). I have access to my family's HBO GO account. I can use my sister's Netflix account. My mom has an amazon prime video account that I've used exactly once. At the end of the day, I still pirate because it's just that much simpler.