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Amazon is updating their prices, but you might be using Netflix or even Hulu,
We're gonna talk about that next.
Hey everybody, Jeffrey Powers here with geekazine, think
magazine and put in a geek, you've got geekazine. Today
we're going to take a look at those streaming media services that you can get.
Some of them are free, some of them you have to pay for.
And, we�re going to do basically be highlighting the top three,
Amazon instant or Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu or Hulu Plus.
There are other services out there, just so you know,
we�ll talk about them a little bit later, as well.
But what we�re going to do, we�re going to focus on the three, we�re going to take
a look at the good, take a look at the bad and figure out if you only have ten dollars
a month to spend, which one should you go for?
First of all, my Twitter handlers, geekazine once again, think putting the [Inaudible],
geekazine@gmail.com, everywhere you can find me, just look geekazine, and there you are.
All right, well let�s take a look at these service, �cause this are great streaming
services, especially for those of you who are planning
to cut your cord, or get rid of your cable, and get into a streaming
service where you can get movies for you, for the kids, for friends, whatever.
And, go from there.
[Netflix]
We�re going to start with the Netflix. Now, Netflix has been a service, it started�
I�ve had Netflix on and off, for the last ten, twelve years. It started as a DVD rental
service, you get a DVD through the mail, and they went
from one, they went to two, and the three, and four. I�ve used their
DVD mail service for the long time, but when they switched over to streaming, I�ve switched
to streaming as well.
I did have a streaming and DVD rental. You know, you always seem to put those DVDs on
the counter or the table, and then you forget about them
for a couple of months, and then you�re like, oh yeah, I�ve got
to watch that movie. And then, send them back. So, when Netflix
switched and had their whole quickster debacle, that�s when I got rid of the DVDs all together.
I don�t even have a DVD player on any of the TVs I own anymore,
so� There�s still a DVD rental and a streaming service.
And, of course, you can get both of them, or you can get on or the other.
I�ve got streaming services. Now here, we�re going to focus on the streaming
services, not on the DVD rentals. But here is the good on what�s going on
on that flix. First of all, it�s 8 dollars a month. So,
for about a 116 dollars a year you will have enough movies,
enough TV shows to be satisfied and watch Binge watcher,
whatever you want to do with your time there. It�s got one of the best delivery sistems
when it comes to movies and TV shows. They work really hard in creating algorithms
that you can use, that they can figure out what you want to
watch, and when you want to watch, maybe you watched an old TV show or a movie
or something like that.
They even plan Hackatons, in fact, for a couple of years they were giving away some big money
to people that would create algorithms that would help in
the search process of Netflix.
Now, Netflix has movies, TV shows, documentaries and some concerts,
comedians and stuff like that. Anything that would come out on a DVD, it
would pretty much be on a Netflix subscription. They also have a great kid�s library. So,
if your kid wants to watch that episode of Thomas the tank engine,
or something like that, then you can mostly find all of those shows right in the kid�s
section. And they focus it, big time, for the kids.
Because, they just want to watch a TV show. They�ve probably watched that TV show a
hundred times already, they�ll watch it again.
Netflix is also working on some great original TV shows, House of cards, season two is coming
very very soon. Of course, they had Orange is the new black,
they had Arrested development, and some other original shows as well.
House of cards coming , not only in 1080p, but they�ve also talked about it coming
in a 4k resolution, so if you�re using 4k television sets, you�ll
be able to watch Season two of House of cards, at least that was the last rumor that was
thrown through the mill there. Here�s some bad when it comes to Netflix.
The first of all, is they�ve separated their DVD rental from their streaming services.
So, instead of having 8 dollars for one, 8 dollars for another, they didn�t do a 12
dollars for the both, maybe one DVD and streaming.
They don�t work back and forth, they work as two separate companies.
Eventually, either that DVD rental will die out like blockbuster did, or they�re going
to sell it off to somebody else. Now, another thing is, you might not find
the videos, or TV shows renewing as much as you really want.
Netflix is got rid of a lot of movies and a lot of TV shows, it�s part of contract.
In the beginning, they�ve been bringing some new content in, things like Hansel and
Gretel, and the new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.
So, it�s had a refresh. But there�s been times when I sat and watched the cue, and
the cue did not move for a month or even more. So, you might find that once you watch all
the tv shows and all the movies that are on Netflix,
there�s nothing else on there. There are a lot of titles there, so if you�re
always open to watching something maybe older, some re-watching something, this is perfect.
But if you�re person that pretty much watches one and done, then you might find that Netflix
will use it�s luster after a couple of months there.
The biggest thing is that hold DVD separation between streaming, you know,
the one thing that I find interesting is that they don�t offer you to buy the movie after
you�ve watched it. So, that�s one of the things that I would
like to see Netflix do.
[Amazon]
All right, let�s move on to Amazon. And like I said, Amazon is thinking of actually
raising their prices. It�s 80 dollars a year, which comes out
to less than 8 dollars a month, and they wanna bring it up to, somewhere between
a 100 and 120 dollars a year, which means about 9,99 a month you�ll actually
get the service. And then of cours,e you can say,
I wanna pay for the year rather than I wanna pay it month a month a month.
Which makes it easier, �cause I can plan for that 80 dollars and have it in the account.
So, with 80 dollars a month, you get your movies, you get everything on prime, you get
the movies, the TV shows, and all the original series
that they have, as well. Now, there�s a lot more that Amazon offers
than just music and TV shows. They offer music, they offer products that
you can get shipped to your door. They offer their Kindle and their Kindle e-books.
Now, this is perfect, not only that you get movies and the TV shows that you can watch
any time, you can also get certain books that you can
download at your Kindle and read at anytime, whether it be a novel, whether it be� I
do a lot of computer stuff, so I read a lot of social media, social networking
books. I can get those downloaded. And if I wanna buy them, I can buy them as
well. They got new TV shows, they do it a little bit differently,
their big show right now is called Alpha house, but they�ve just put out a whole bunch of
brand new shows. And they�ve asked you, which ones stay,
which ones go. They did that last year, they�ve put on
five or six shows and they�ve let you vote on them
and then they chose on from that to actually put money into for a whole season.
The other thing is, if it�s not on prime, you have the ability to rent it,
you have the ability to buy it. So if you need to watch Anchor man,
because you just watched Anchorman 2 in the theaters, or you�re getting ready to watch
Anchorman 2 in the theaters, you can actually go and see if it�s on Prime,
if it�s not on Prime, you can rent it, if it�s not for rent, you can actually purchase
it. 12,99 mostly for movies like that, and TV shows,
TV series, I�ve got Big *** theory, a couple seasons of Big *** theory on my Amazon account.
Couple bad things here, first of all it has, Amazon has a port desktop presence.
So, if you�re watching on a tablet, if you�re watching on a smartphone,
if you�re watching on a Roku Apple TV, or Chromecast, it works really well.
They�ve got a great interface, you can pull that from and then send it to. When it comes
to the Desktop, they use Amazons regular website, which I�m
really hoping they�ll actually change up, and give us an Interface that looks more like
what Netflix has, more like what Hulu plus has.
Another thing that happened was, and this happened back in December, certain Disney
movies that people paid for were taken offline, so the only way you could watch those Disney
movies, those holiday movies, was to actually re-rent them.
And they got a little bit of flack on that, I�m not sure if they�re gonna do that
again, sometimes is licensing of the actual media
as opposed to of Amazons policies are. Because, if Disney says take all our movies
offline, than Amazon has no choice but to take the movies offline.
Same thing with Netflix, same thing with Hulu plus. They�ll come, they�ll go, that�s
what it is. But hopefully, if you did pay 12,99 for a
movie and it�s taken of Amazon service, you�ll either get a refund or you�ll get
a digital download of that somewhere. So, that�s Amazon, that�s the advantages
that you have, it�s more than just movies and TV shows,
you also get books, you also get 2 days shipping, and a whole slew of stuff for 9,99 a month.
[Hulu]
All right, let�s talk about Hulu and Hulu Plus. Now, there�s a distinct advantage
of Hulu plus over our Hulu over the other ones.
Hulu, you can actually go to the desktop, call up hulu dot com, and watch shows right
then, right there. Whereas, with Amazon and Netflix, they might
have some samples you can watch, but they�re very limited. Hulu, you can
watch shows from last night, or whatever. You won�t have the extensive library that
if you pay the, I think it�s 8.39 a month right now than if it was free,
but you can definitely watch certain things. Their biggest advantage is once a TV show
on NBC, on fox, on ABC, when they�re done, within 24 hours they�re actually released
to Hulu. So it can be your DVR, it can be your instated,
it can be whatever you wanna call it, but you can watch things the next day.
They also have original shows as well, the Awesomes, the Morning after, [Inaudible] and
the Maddison Wi, that I really hope that they make a second season on soon,
called Battleground. They have TV episodes, they have movies. Their
biggest downfall though is, of course, commercials. They put commercials within the content. Even
when you pay the monthly fee, you have to, you get two to three commercials
between each show. The other bad thing about Hulu and Hulu Plus
is that, sometimes they do added content. Not as much, what they do have filters for
child safety. And of course they put out more risky content as well.
But they are certain TV shows, copyright issues, or time issues they�ll actually condense
it. For instance, Saturday night live, they won�t
put a whole episode of Saturday night live, sometimes they�ll take the musical guest
out, sometimes they�ll take a skitter two out,
just to compress it within an hour as opposed to the full 90 minutes of the actual show.
The others]
There are a lot of other services out there, like for instance, Vodoo, Crackle,
that have paid and free models that you can get into.
HBO go is really getting into the streaming market.
Right now you need an HBO cable subscription before you could actually get HBO go.
But I could see within the next couple of years, contracts like that actually getting
completely rewritten. So, HBO can actually go on the streaming set
up boxes. And when they do, it will be a very big game changer because
they come up with a lot of great content. Stars used to be on Netflix, as a streaming
option and content within, but right now you have more than just these
three, you have other options, and you just have to research the good and
bad of what these options are, if you can buy the movies,
if you rent the movies, what the charges are, and what the content that gets delivered to
you comes in. One big thing about this services is, you
got to remember that your internet connection rules the internet connection at the TV.
So, if you�ve got a blurry picture on Netflix or something like that, that�s because they�re
pulling at a lower stream rate so they can get the content to you.
You might want to check with your internet provider or streaming provider to find out
why it�s not getting the full 1080p. If you choose
that on your box. These are all the things you�re taking on
account when you get streaming service like this.
The best part is, you can watch it anywhere, you can watch it on your desktop,
you can watch it on your tablet, on your smartphone, and even on over the top television on your
TV in the living room. So, you have many options, and that�s the
cool thing about today, and where we are with the internet, is you
can choose and have a great service. So the real question is, are you going to
get Netflix, are you going to get Amazon, are you going to get Hulu? Are you going to
get Netflix just for House of cards, or maybe Orange is the new black, remember�
That, it�s 8 dollars a month, but you know, if you�re only watching those
two shows, that comes out to about 80, 90 dollars a year. Put a little bit of financial
though into that, and of course, Amazon having more than just that, with movies,
TV shows, the Kindle, and of course the 2 day shipping if you order stuff online.
Well, that�s it, hopefully I�ve helped you figure out where you�re going to go
with your money, and which service you�re going to go, let
me know where you�re going to go by Twittering me over at geekazine,
of course, geekazine@gmail.com is the email address.
My name is Jeffrey Powers, thanks a lot for watching this special media of which streaming
service you�re going to get. And, until next time,
you guys, geek out, and take care.