pontalba Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 It looks like Cable Television just might be in it's death throws. HBO is launching a new, separate from cable streaming possibility for viewers. Of course they are not the first, but certainly HBO has been one of the premium channels on cable tv for a long time now. One could almost call it one of the "founders". The Washington Post newspaper ran this article, even sent out a special News Alert for it! http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/10/15/hbo-is-launching-a-stand-alone-streaming-service-in-2015/?wpisrc=al_tech_b An excerpt: HBO will launch a streaming video service in 2015 that doesn’t require consumers to have a cable or satellite subscription, the company said Wednesday, in a move that could roil the television industry and pave the way for vastly more choices for consumers. But with an online streaming service, HBO is taking a page directly from Netflix and will soon compete head-to-head with the rival streaming service. HBO has 30 million subscribers in the United States; Netflix has about 37 million. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emelee Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 I believe online channels will be the next big thing. Connecting your TV to the internet, have an account with channels and watch via wifi connection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted October 16, 2014 Author Share Posted October 16, 2014 Looks like you are right. CBS just announced the same...here, in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/business/cbs-to-offer-web-subscription-service.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news from the article: Subscribers to “CBS All Access” will be able to watch local CBS television stations in 14 markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas and San Francisco. More affiliates are expected to join. I cancelled the cable here five years ago. Only use the TV for DVDs, and we stream Amazon as we have Prime. I don't miss "regular" TV, in fact when we are out of town, I occasionally will watch, or try to watch network television, and honestly, my eyes glaze over, and I can hear the brain cells screaming in agony. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emelee Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 I can't stop with TV. I prefer TV over film, just because I get restless. When watching TV, you can look when there's something interesting, and when not, do something else, like playing on the phone or go make coffee or play with the dog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna Begins Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 I can't stop with TV. I prefer TV over film, just because I get restless. When watching TV, you can look when there's something interesting, and when not, do something else, like playing on the phone or go make coffee or play with the dog. Ya I do like TV as well. I would be interested in HBO's service though. I hope you are right about the single channels doing a subscription, cable is astronomical these days here and I hate paying for channels I don't want! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 I think cable TV will exist a while longer. There are plenty of people who don't have a great internet connection (yours truly). Admittedly, we don't have cable either (the government refuses to lay it in our street), we have satellite TV. But hopefully satellite TV and cable TV will exist for a while longer, I have sometimes trouble just watching YouTube videos in SD (particularly if there's multiple people in the house using the internet).. there is no way we could do HD streaming. My connection is ~200 kB/s max or ~1.5 Mbps. That said, I'm glad for this, most companies don't offer any internet in this region so until we discovered our current one we were stuck with ISDN dial-up (8kB/s) for a long time. 4G is 5-6 times faster than our internet. It's all well and good all this digitalness, but some people have older TVs (that'd be us too) or not fast internet connections. Sorry if that was a bit ranty.. ! But sometimes I am a little bit jaleous of people with faster connections who can watch ie. streaming videos in HD. Digitalness and the internet is probably the future though for TV, but personally I hope it's the far future (unless the governments will give everyone fast internet connections and TV, for affordable prices). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 (edited) In the UK, as well as cable and satellite, we also have 'Freeview' which is what we have to watch TV on since they switched off the analogue signal and transferred to digital. As the name suggests, the channels on Freeview don't cost anything*! We don't have cable or satellite TV so the free channels are the only ones we watch, but as I only watch a couple of things on TV and Peter mostly watches crap films it does what we need. I think he'd possibly like Sky to be able to watch cricket and rugby but the cost doesn't justify the expense as far as we're concerned. If we were to lose cable (and satellite) then I'm sure there would be lots of people in the same position as Gaia, whose internet connection just isn't up to the job. They'll have to put in better connections to help people in locations with poor/slow service. * ETA: Actually, that's not strictly true - we pay for a TV License which goes to fund our BBC service, but I think it's excellent value when it's broken down into a daily rate and it means we don't get adverts on those channels, so I'm more than happy to pay! Edited October 17, 2014 by Janet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muggle not Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 (edited) If people "really" thought cable TV was on the way out they would be "shorting" (method of investing that the stock will decrease in value) the stock of Time Warner Cable and Comcast, two of the biggest cable TV companies in the U.S.. Instead, the stock value of Time Warner Cable has increased 100% in the last 3 years. Edited October 17, 2014 by muggle not Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted October 17, 2014 Author Share Posted October 17, 2014 I think cable TV will exist a while longer. There are plenty of people who don't have a great internet connection (yours truly). Admittedly, we don't have cable either (the government refuses to lay it in our street), we have satellite TV. But hopefully satellite TV and cable TV will exist for a while longer, I have sometimes trouble just watching YouTube videos in SD (particularly if there's multiple people in the house using the internet).. there is no way we could do HD streaming. My connection is ~200 kB/s max or ~1.5 Mbps. That said, I'm glad for this, most companies don't offer any internet in this region so until we discovered our current one we were stuck with ISDN dial-up (8kB/s) for a long time. 4G is 5-6 times faster than our internet.It's all well and good all this digitalness, but some people have older TVs (that'd be us too) or not fast internet connections.Sorry if that was a bit ranty.. ! But sometimes I am a little bit jaleous of people with faster connections who can watch ie. streaming videos in HD.Digitalness and the internet is probably the future though for TV, but personally I hope it's the far future (unless the governments will give everyone fast internet connections and TV, for affordable prices). In the UK, as well as cable and satellite, we also have 'Freeview' which is what we have to watch TV on since they switched off the analogue signal and transferred to digital. As the name suggests, the channels on Freeview don't cost anything*! We don't have cable or satellite TV so the free channels are the only ones we watch, but as I only watch a couple of things on TV and Peter mostly watches crap films it does what we need. I think he'd possibly like Sky to be able to watch cricket and rugby but the cost doesn't justify the expense as far as we're concerned. If we were to lose cable (and satellite) then I'm sure there would be lots of people in the same position as Gaia, whose internet connection just isn't up to the job. They'll have to put in better connections to help people in locations with poor/slow service. * ETA: Actually, that's not strictly true - we pay for a TV License which goes to fund our BBC service, but I think it's excellent value when it's broken down into a daily rate and it means we don't get adverts on those channels, so I'm more than happy to pay! If people "really" thought cable TV was on the way out they would be "shorting" (method of investing that the stock will decrease in value) the stock of Time Warner Cable and Comcast, two of the biggest cable TV companies in the U.S.. Instead, the stock value of Time Warner Cable has increased 100% in the last 3 years. It's interesting, the varied manner in which countries handle television broadcasting. And, I definitely sympathize with the problem of a slower internet connection. Our location only has DSL because when Hurricane Katrina blew through in 2005 it uprooted 75% of the trees in the area, and in doing so pulled up the buried phone lines. So it was logical for the phone company to add the DSL in with the new wiring. Otherwise we still wouldn't have the faster connection. We are rural. But look at the way broadcasting has morphed in the last 40 or 50 years...in another span of years, we would/will not recognize it. Companies like Time Warner and Comcast will either change and grow, or perish. I had cable for a few years, and for me at least, it wasn't worth it. It was simply more of the programming that is on the broadcast channels, 80% of which we are not interested in seeing. There are only a handful of programs we like. So streaming is a more palatable choice, for us, and evidently many others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emelee Posted October 17, 2014 Share Posted October 17, 2014 I think cable TV will exist a while longer. There are plenty of people who don't have a great internet connection (yours truly). Admittedly, we don't have cable either (the government refuses to lay it in our street), we have satellite TV. What? Why? In Sweden, there's wifi almost everywhere. Schools have wifi for students and teachers and are giving all students their own laptops. In this old building where I live, where they don't even bother fixing balconies or windows that are still from the 60s or 70s, and only offer us 10 channels on analogue TV as part of the rent, we have very fast internet connections at least. I have bought a wifi to it, which I suspect a lot of the neighbours also have since I get a very long list of wifis on the list of nearby wifi connections. The new TVs that are sold in stores have the opinion to connect wifi to them. So you can already add apps to your TV. Netflix is one app that the new TV has already installed, but you have to pay to remove the coding that blocks the channel. Steaming channels will be the next big thing. But it will take years to fully get there. We're not talking year 2020. But I could imagine maybe year 2040. Maybe even sooner considering how fast technology is evolving. In 1998, who of us could have imagined a fast internet, wireless? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 What? Why? There is no cable in our street for cable TV or a good internet connection and the government refuses to lay it even though they're legally obliged to provide us with one. Their reasoning is that it would cost too much money, because there aren't enough houses per square metre (between some houses there are fields). It's because our street looks rural, they don't consider the expense worth it . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muggle not Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 The only way to receive TV in many areas is via either Cable or Satellite. I could not envision giving up TV altogether due to a lack of content/interest. There are many great/good TV programs to watch. To just name a few in the past/current years (and I am sure other members can name many more great programs): Game of Thrones Sopranos Breaking Bad Walking Dead Seinfeld Sex In The City Wonder Years Six Feet under Doctor Who Saturday Night Live Entertainment Concerts And..........sports Soccer Major League Baseball...World Series....etc. National Football league National Basketball league Nascar Formula 1 NCAA .........Football, Basketball, etc........nothing much bigger than the NCAA Basketball playoffs Indianapolis 500 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted October 18, 2014 Author Share Posted October 18, 2014 LOL The only sports that would interest me is soccer. So, it's not worth it for me. As far as 90% of the programs you've listed, I'm not interested, or I've seen enough of them to last me a lifetime. There are some new shows in the last few years that we've liked a lot, and have streamed them from Amazon...Person of Interest and Blacklist to name two off the top of my head. We are rural, and there isn't "regular cable" out here. I had a satellite dish when we had cable, when a cloud passed over the area, it cut out. As I mentioned above, we wouldn't have fast DSL internet if we hadn't experienced Hurricane Katrina. It seems that no matter where one goes, there are televisions blaring, mostly several at the time. Any lunch sort of restaurant seems to have at least two. And some have 6 and 7. Even McDonalds has two televisions going all the time. What is the reason we have to be entertained 24/7/365? Why do we have to have constant input. I guess that is my real question. When did we stop resting and thinking, contemplating? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 The only things I've seen from your first list are The Wonder Years and some of Doctor Who, Muggle not! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted October 19, 2014 Share Posted October 19, 2014 It seems that no matter where one goes, there are televisions blaring, mostly several at the time. Any lunch sort of restaurant seems to have at least two. And some have 6 and 7. Even McDonalds has two televisions going all the time. What is the reason we have to be entertained 24/7/365? Why do we have to have constant input. I guess that is my real question. When did we stop resting and thinking, contemplating? I'm with you there! No constant input for me please! Television in restaurants I find distracting, what happened to having a good conversation? (though that would definitely be input for me). There isn't a lot on the Dutch TV that I'm interested in seeing. I also share the TV / satellite with my parents (well, it's their TV) so I can only watch when there's nothing on they want to watch (ie. I can hardly ever watch Top Gear because they want to see The Voice). With most things I buy the DVDs to watch the TV series (we do have a TV in the bakery, but we can't get a signal on it, you'd have to buy a new satellite device and cabling). On occasion I can re-watch the TV series online via Uitzending Gemist, but this is only the case for the TV programmes of the government channels I believe (or not?). I prefer doing it this way sometimes, since they offer subtitles and our TV / satellite doesn't seem to offer that (they show some nice documentaries sometimes). But I hardly watch TV really, the things I'm interested in I generally buy on DVD. I don't watch any sports, I'm not interested in them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted October 20, 2014 Author Share Posted October 20, 2014 Exactly! Sometimes I really wonder what has happened to good conversation! I like subtitles too, sometimes I miss a crucial word, and they help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emelee Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Big fan of subtitles. I don't really need them for english-spoken shows as I can manage, but I want the subtitles there. Just in case I miss something. On some shows (on DVD) that have Swedish voices, I choose to add subtitles, also in Swedish. Then it won't matter if there's noice in the background. You don't miss anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted October 22, 2014 Author Share Posted October 22, 2014 . And the subtitles help when the actors mumble. Heh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athena Posted October 22, 2014 Share Posted October 22, 2014 It's nice to hear I'm not the only one who likes subtitles . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virginia Posted October 22, 2014 Share Posted October 22, 2014 We've gone the cable and satellite route, then we got rid of both and did the streaming thing. Since moving however, we've gone back to the cable thing. The hubby really enjoys his football and he doesn't get much opportunity to do much else, so we're going to bite the proverbial bullet and keep the cable for now. We started off with just the basics but this didn't allow for my favorite shows like the Travel Network and HGTV and History so we upgraded. Now we are doing a special for all the premium channels for an additional $5 for three months. We don't get out much when the weather turns, especially with all these little ones under foot, so, there's our entertainment. Growing up in rural Virginia, we experienced the same thing as you Athena. We could only access about 4 channels. It took years (I actually grew up and moved away) before satellite companies came threw. It was only a few years ago that they got rid of dial-up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunnyShadows Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 My mum and I decided to get rid of our TV since we barely watched it, and then it was only for repeats of Columbo and Diagnosis Murder. I do like to watch shows now and then, but I'm the sort of person who has to be doing something, like writing or crafts, whilst I watch (my mum is the same), so it ended up just being used as background noise. We're thinking of maybe getting Netflix or something like that, since I think I'm right in thinking they update the site with new shows all the time. I do have a few favourite shows I watch over and over, though, so I might just end up buying them on DVD when I can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted November 17, 2014 Author Share Posted November 17, 2014 Two good series! There seem to be some attachments that you can purchase that will stream shows....Amazon has one, and I've seen others advertised. Not sure how that will turn out. But at least one can be selective with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian Posted December 12, 2014 Share Posted December 12, 2014 Streaming seems to be the way that the industry believes is the way forward, but I do wonder. I seem to remember that when cable and satillite TV started to take off in this country, there were a plethora of companies you could choose from. Now, there is Sky & Virgin. At the moment, there are a plethora of streaming TV services. I can't see people wanting to subscribe to 2 or 3 different ones just to pick up one particular programme. I think a lot of these going by the wayside till we end up with just one or two giants. One positive note - I was listening to an interview with David Lynch this morning and he was saying that while alternative cinema is dying in the US, he sees a bright futire for it on cable TV, which has, in his opinion, become the new home of alternative film & TV. It doesn't seem a big jump for that to also translate to streaming TV. At the moment, with lots of companies all vying for our attention, it may be that people power willl mean that, for a short while at least, these companies will be very keen to listen to viewers needs and programmes will be made that we actually want to watch! That's my optimistic view anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted December 12, 2014 Author Share Posted December 12, 2014 (edited) I like your optimistic view! And hope it comes to pass in that fashion. I've always hated that the viewer was literally forced to buy a plethora of unwanted channels, just because they were in a package. Wasteful and arrogant on the companies part! It's very difficult to find any sort of what we used to call "art" theatres here. I think that New Orleans is so far behind some of the other larg(er) cities in, well most everything. It used to be said that N.O. was at least 10 years behind in fashion, behind New York City. I believe it! Unfortunately, the few art/innovative theatres that have opened are in neighborhoods that I'd be very nervous to park and leave the car in. And, they're out of the way enough (for us) to have to use the car. Annoying. The only films that are shown at the chain theatres are very run of the mill, and they all seem to show basically the same things. I'd like to go to the movies more than we do, but the selection is poor. It burns me up when I read, for example, the New York Times Movies page and see some films I'd really like to see, but they don't come down here! Just have to wait, and hope they will be streamed on Amazon (for example). Edited December 12, 2014 by pontalba Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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