Episode 009 – Streaming Wars

Suburban Folk 0:00
This is the Suburban Folk podcast episode nine, the streaming wars.

Unknown Speaker 0:11
Having some real talk with some real folks.

Suburban Folk 0:14
Hey, this is Greg with the Suburban Folk podcast. My guest today is Brandon Brandon, how you doing?

Unknown Speaker 0:19
Hey man, good to talk to you again. How are you?

Suburban Folk 0:21
So from the podcast standpoint, you were my first guest co host and you are my first repeat co host

Unknown Speaker 0:29
and you have brought me back and I means I didn’t do too badly rambling on about the tool level. So now we’re doing but we are talking about another topic today that it’s definitely in my wheelhouse and it’s interesting and it’s fun to fun to mess with.

Suburban Folk 0:44
Yeah, today’s topic is the streaming wars. I thought it would be an interesting topic to get to as we head into November. Disney plus has caused a lot of waves. Along with that there’s Apple TV plus that is coming Just before Disney plus, and Netflix, who has long been the behemoth in the streaming world, it’s going to have some significant competition that they haven’t necessarily had before. There’s other options out there like Hulu, and then things like HBO that people have, depending on where they’re at in their family life or what their interests happen to be. So we’re going to talk about all those things. Give our tips as far as what is the positives versus what are the negatives, what are the price points, and hopefully provide folks with a pretty good overview of what their options are going to be? So I like to always start with the history of what has got to this point. So Brandon, for you, when were you a cord cutter if you are a cord cutter and how have you started to get into the world of streaming TV?

Unknown Speaker 1:58
Yeah, so for me cutting the cord was always something that was I worked in television and moved to the area for a job in TV in 2005. So I always want to be able to watch broadcast television, either over the air through cable or satellite providers, because that’s what Nielsen could measure it on. What has happened over the years is it just naturally we have moved to watching content on our devices, our phones or laptops or desktops, but still on our TVs and the delivery method has changed to your way from your traditional services, your Comcast Fidos spectrum, all the other providers depending on you know, where you live to the standalone streaming only services. So for me, it’s really sort of fascinating to see the the explosion of this content deliver Every system and also it’s it’s about as close to Allah carte TV as I think we’re ever going to get. I don’t think anybody or any company is going to allow you to completely pick and choose individual channels that you want just because of the complexity of the negotiations that those companies have to go into to be able to provide that content to buy that content and then they resell it to you for a profit. That’s how they make money. So for me, it’s been really interesting to see that I cut the cord in 2017. I had been paying. Gosh, I think I had like a triple play bundle package through right through XFINITY Comcast for like, I think we were upwards of 250 bucks. 260 bucks for phone, TV, internet, HBO Showtime Stars. No didn’t have HBO stars an encore.

Suburban Folk 4:06
You had the big package then?

Unknown Speaker 4:08
Yeah. I mean, like they get you with an entry. They go to door door, we had just moved into our house, they do the door to door. We’re like, Hey, we’re selling this. And it’s like, yeah, I want to watch TV. I don’t have an attic antenna, which I do now. So we’re like, Yeah, fine. Do we’ll do it, the price was probably under 100 bucks a month, at the time we signed up, but by the end of our contract, and then our contract renewal, even with negotiating them down for like the first year again, it’s still eventually crept up and just sort of out of laziness. It’s like Yeah, whatever. You don’t you don’t you don’t, you don’t really feel those incremental minor increases. And then it was like, man, let’s, let’s cut some costs. We got a second

Suburban Folk 4:52
second child on the way. let’s let’s let’s look at a couple things. So I don’t know. Do you want to get into the process of How I landed on my streaming service or do you want to where do which was direction you want to go? A whole bunch of different ways on on streaming right now we know I didn’t have that much in my notes about talking shop and like you said, You have been in that world as far as local TV and it wouldn’t be interesting to me to know, how does that compare to the music industry where Napster, iTunes, all that stuff crept in the music industry as a whole wasn’t ready for it. Now we have, you know, direct to consumer. Are there any parallels in the TV world, too? Because Netflix is what I’m saying. So example like they they had the DVD, you know, males, of course, everybody’s joke about blockbuster, right? They didn’t see that coming. Yeah, they didn’t jump on it. They’re making fun of this company. Then we see what Netflix does to pivot into streaming, which has backdoor. almost an made its way into the overall TV world. So is that similar that the TV world didn’t necessarily see it coming that way from a male DVD service to now it’s disrupting everything in the

Unknown Speaker 6:12
TV world, I think I think I’m sure a lot of people were caught off guard by the impact and growth that Netflix had from the original mail order. And, you know, it was it was slow. You mailed off your DVD. And remember when my wife and I started dating, she had Netflix DVD and the DVD plan, and we started dating like, Oh, you know, can you have this movie on there for me? Yep. And like, I’d get it and I watch it that day and it’ll be in the mail the next day. She’d like camp on a DVD and watch it watch it. I’m like, What do you like you’re paying for this like, so me. I’m very much like, if content is available, I’m going to digest and eat that content up on to the next month like it and that’s very, that’s very much how people are. So I think a lot of people work or probably caught off guard, even in the industry about how fast and how big Netflix grew. However, the networks as a whole, I think have positioned themselves fairly well in adapting to the changing environment, it may have been slower than they probably would have liked. By a very top level, I mean, all the major networks are offering their own apps, their own subscription services. You know, we’re talking about big players that aren’t even really on the traditional broadcast side of the house. NBC has their own, you know, you have to login through your if you go to the NBC app, on on whatever device you have, you’d have to login with your provider credentials. There is some content that’s free, probably, you know, Days of Our Lives or something like that. CBS has their all access package. within their they’re taking the route of the Star Trek series. What’s the start and Picard the new Yeah, the new card series and Gosh, what was the other series that just came out last year. So anyway, so the broadcast is are also sort of going that route as well. And I’m not really sure what ABC is offering, but they’re owned by Disney. So I’m sure that’s a much larger Disney plan in the works.

Unknown Speaker 8:09
on the local level, it kind of

Unknown Speaker 8:13
it hurt more because Nielsen wasn’t able to measure some of those services. So from a ratings perspective if people started cutting the cord, but we’re still able to watch your stuff. We weren’t really getting credit for now there were measurement services. Like Sorenson, who could literally measure what was on the glass It was a pass through once the and this was through Vizio televisions from when Vizio got sued years ago for their end user agreement not being transparent enough with user data don’t really okay, they got they got it. They got sued because they didn’t let allow people to opt out of their data and it’s being used. Gotcha. So now they had to make it more clear that you could you opt out of this, but there’s services out there who can literally dial into wired televisions and report back on a tangible rating. How many people are in a specific area watching a specific show or shows on the TV without having any additional devices. And it’s just straight up reading the data that’s on the TVs glass. Right. And it reports back in about 15 minutes to a interface that whoever subscribes to the rating service can see, which is, which was a whole different world from the what Nielsen was where you had to wait for overnights to the next night for that crunch the data, apply a ratings algorithm and model the numbers. So it was I mean, there’s there’s a lot going on as far as ratings go and that’s a whole other topic of nerdery of all that, but let’s let’s let’s focus more on and I probably derailed this a little too much. But let’s but we probably focus more on like the consumer and like what do people really want to do. They want to cut the cord. Are they? Are they? Are they stuck in a contract? And they’re coming towards the end of it? Like that’s really sort of where I was I was ready to jump ship.

Suburban Folk 10:10
Yeah, well, I, I’ll pick up what you’re talking about with how you use the Netflix service. Okay? It’s funny because I was the exact same way. So when I graduated college, I did the blockbuster one because it was like $1 cheaper. If they were, they were just doing that, hey, it’s just a little cheaper, even though it’s the exact same service and nothing else differentiating what they’re doing. And I did the three DVDs and was exactly like how you said, when that one came in the mail. I was going to watch it that night. And if it was a Monday night and I had to get up early in the morning, didn’t matter. I had that DVD in hand to be back in the mail. So I got the next one in my queue. And basically there was one in my hand, one being fulfilled by blockbuster and one presumably and route and I’m watching like a movie and now you haven’t stepped exactly and There were there were conspiracies at the time to that you would be flagged if you were consuming that much of their media, that they would get lost in the mail. And I am not a conspiracy theorist. But pretty early on, all of a sudden, when I had that going, where I expected a new DVD every single day, it stopped showing up and then I would do the warning or the flag that would say, Hey, I haven’t gotten this thing. And that would automatically show up immediately the next day. So from my experience, there might have been something to that and you

Unknown Speaker 11:34
were relying on the postal service to deliver your DVD.

Suburban Folk 11:37
That’s true. That’s true. However, the way blockbuster ended up going after that, that may might have been doing some things to make their costs a little more manageable. Be kind rewind it Right, exactly. So from there, I happen to live in an apartment complex that had just basic cable that came with your cost of rental so I did not get anything else. That’s when I first got an HDTV. And it was you’ll know the year but it was the year when all of the obear Anna converted over to HD. That was the first time I actually even was able to have HD on the TV, right that I purchased. And before that it was like, Well, I’m not going to pay extra just to get the HD channels when I at least get these free channel. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 12:26
I’m trying to remember the year 2007 2008 2009 in there. But yeah, so what happened is the over the air, one from analog signal to pure digital, that wreak havoc for a lot of people because depending on what channel it is, and where it falls on the spectrum, the digital transmission is a lot less forgiving than analog was digital is either on or it’s off, right? analog is you can get some ghosting, get a little bit of snow, you can tweak it a little bit Digital is is much, much less forgiving, although you get a higher quality of picture of content and then you also get into the trap at that same time where retailers were selling HD antennas which is a complete fraud. So any I had a basic pair of rabbit ears plugged into an HD TV and I received HD channels, right I don’t need an HD antenna to receive that. Flat antennas are the least forgiving because you could there’s nothing to adjust. It’s just a flat panel with probably a couple little thin wires coming out of it. And those you could hang for either the UHF or VHF side of the spectrum. So I actually have in my attic when I cut the cord a second piece to it was I also wanted to get the locals over the air. So I installed an attic antenna and fortunately my house was pre wired. With coaxial cable and that was more to the previous owner from and they ran it in a different direction. They ran it probably from a cable box and split it off and fed the TVs I ran and I basically just reverse the signal flow by putting the the antenna in the attic making that my head end if you will, and then distribute the over the air signal through through the attic antenna and I can get our local stations. I’ve gotten stuff I can get stuff out at the beach, probably about an hour and a half away. usually only in the fall when seasons change. You will find some atmospheric conditions that lend itself more to that so sometimes I’ll get those stations as well so you can double your station count depending on where you are and and what type of antenna you have. I think that cost me about 6070 bucks from Amazon and popped it in the attic and point it to the tower or I knew was going to be the weakest signal, and the stronger signals were coming into. And yeah, I got an overlay over the air HD coming in as a backup to

Unknown Speaker 15:10
to compliment my streaming service.

Suburban Folk 15:13
Yeah, I would call that a tip, an official tip for anybody that has not done that yet. Now I just have the flat leaf, whatever you’re calling, and like you said, they’re not great. I don’t get nearly the coverage that you’re talking about. I’ve actually been reading about some products that you can put a, an attic antenna onto, or if you can get it onto your roof, and then it will it’s like a TiVo that will come into the box. And then there’s apps that go along with it. So then you get the app on all of your TVs that are that would be my fi and then if you’ve recorded it, you can just go and play it back just like you would have to TiVo but it’s all over Wi Fi. Or you can actually do the what’s called playing live coming through that. Right? I’ve seen varying reviews as far as how good the signal is and how well it works but I’ve been thinking about that it would at least save me the coaxial cable. Right those wires throughout the house but still getting the same the coverage that you’re talking about that you would get presumably more stations than with just the ones that are right next to your TV set.

Unknown Speaker 16:24
Yeah, and you know you hit it. rooftop antenna is the best it’s very old school. But newer antennas are not nearly the size of our grandparents antennas that were on top of their TVs. We’re probably talking six foot long three foot wide monsters. attic antennas depending on where you live or good again with the digital signal tree coverage is going to be can be challenging. Digital Signal also doesn’t like metal. depending if you just have a pair of rabbit ears and bus or large truck drivers by a can interrupt And if you live in a really urban environment, a lot of tall buildings around over the air may not be the best solution for you. So really if you’re going to so my first My next tip in solving the streaming problem is look for one that has agreements with local channels, which most of them do have at least some of the locals included in their package. So for me when I switched when I decided to cut the cable, second second child was coming. Our traditional cable plan was 250 bucks, did the math and said okay, well, I’ve got amazon prime, I want to keep that I want to keep Netflix. So amazon prime hundred dollars a year Netflix $12 a month or it’s probably a little bit less me around $10 a month, right? Okay, well, we want to keep those. I’m not even going to count my investment into that. So then I upgraded my streaming service to a fiber optic streaming one gigabit From bias, I want to make sure if I’m going to be pushed pushing content through a pipeline, that somebody My only delivery source, I don’t want my pipeline to be restricted. So I picked, I picked a cable provider, sorry, an internet provider, they’ll be able to give me the signal strength to the to speed speeds to be able to watch that. And then I basically sat down with my wife and I took direct tv now at the time, which is what this call is now at&t now, sling, Playstation view. I think those were the three we really looked at most closely. And between cable between the internet and the different tier packages, we knew where we wanted to be from a budget standpoint. So Determine your budget first, that’s always good as well. And then looked at their channel and just put those in a spreadsheet and I said, Okay, go printing that out. And I said, highlight what you watch, right? And then I went in I highlighted what I watched I wanted to watch AMC. I wanted to watch the walking dead I wanted to watch FX I don’t know if Sons of Anarchy was still on or American Horror Story. We want to make sure they each had ESPN wanted to get sports, NBC Sports all the you know, whatever, whatever it is you want to watch. Make sure your package that you’re looking at has that and some for so from there we landed on DirecTV now. It was $35 a month. They were running a deal where if you prepaid for two months, so 70 bucks. They would give you a free Roku device. Cool. So that was it. That’s a whole other issue is for selecting your streaming device. Right. So prepaid for the two months. My bank at the time a lot of banks will run deals where if you pay for something on your debit card, they’ll give you cash back. They were running a one month cashback. So I paid for two months of DirecTV now got half of that investment back plus a free Roku device. So I got two months of DirecTV now for $35 in a Roku device, so we really lucked out at that time. And so I think at that same time, Apple TV, just the old school, whatever Apple TVs product was they were they were doing probably Roku device giveaways as well with subscriptions. So that’s, that was that was how I landed on direct tv now. And we have smart TVs in our bedroom in our living room. And the reason I didn’t just go with the Smart TV interface is because I didn’t feel that those were stable, like so now we’re getting into device selection. Like what do you want to stream your content through right? Smart TVs are cool. The apps are not as stable The TV providers are not as invested in renewing or keeping contracts as the Roku and Amazon Fire

Unknown Speaker 21:10
teams are because that’s their business model, right? The TV provider, the TV manufacturers want to sell TVs, Amazon Fire, Roku, they want to sell devices, and they want you to watch their content. So I went with Roku, just because they were better. I felt that they were better had more processing power could be hardwired could be used over Wi Fi remotes had a remote finder, I already had a little kid who I knew I was going to lose one of those remotes at some time. So I can only hit the button. Plus, you know, I liked the app on the phone. I could I could control the Roku from my phone. If I couldn’t find my my remote. So, you know another thing to look at to is what device Do you want to use? You want to use Apple Apple has their own devices too. Right? Yeah. So you know, it’s it was really for me. It was Do I want to invest in fired or I want to invest in Roku and Roku went one out just because of price point availability, the deals that were going on, the one thing I would say is stay away from the sticks. They are convenient. But if you can afford to get the next model up, the next model up of Roku devices definitely does hold more apps on it. And it’s just think about it. It’s just a dedicated computer to process that content. Rather than a stick. The stick is also going to have less reception capabilities than say a standalone box for Wi Fi. So if you’re not going to hardwire your, your device go with that.

Suburban Folk 22:41
Well, I don’t think you can even hardwire your hardware stack

Unknown Speaker 22:43
that

Suburban Folk 22:44
you can. That is a good point. We had that issue when we were getting our bedroom TV set, ready to go and as far as the Wi Fi coverage in the house. Yeah, it was it was a consideration and

Unknown Speaker 22:56
unless you want to get an extender but then that’s that That could potentially cause some signal issues.

Unknown Speaker 23:03
Well,

Suburban Folk 23:04
I ended up getting one of the mesh networks that yeah, it works basically like what you probably haven’t work that would typically be Cisco or something like that. And I wholeheartedly endorse one of those because they a it’s the same network name and they advertise and I have actually found that they do not have the same reduction in performance that you get from your standard repeaters, yeah, plugged in. So I’ve had really really good luck with those. So I would encourage folks to look at those as part of their overall setup in their house. And I’m glad to hear you say the part of the the Smart TV versus not the Smart TV because the off brands, yeah, when you’re in the store and you look at them next to the Samsung’s and the Sony’s, the more expensive TVs show. You can tell a difference when you get at home, and depending What you’re using the TV for, like, we bought a really basic off brand one for the kids room so that if we need to throw on a movie for some period of time or something like that, it’s ready to go and it is absolutely fine. And it ends up being cheaper I found to get a non Smart TV and then just getting one of the streaming devices that you talked about, and it works just as well and then that’s actually really good point that for supporting the apps Roku. That’s what they do. I know they have the Roku TVs with TCL i think is the brand name but

Unknown Speaker 24:35
i think i thought was sharp that made them sharp made the Roku TVs I could be wrong. That might have been a couple of years ago. Okay. But yeah, so so that’s that’s the one maybe the one exception because of Roku is power in the back end. Yeah. of that. Yeah. I mean, you’re going to get whatever Roku has invested into their contracts with the content providers are the app providers of that point.

Suburban Folk 24:56
Yeah, but at least price point wise, I think you still get an offer. TV, plus a Roku device cheaper than the Roku TV. So you’re still getting all that yeah or at a smaller price point anyway

Unknown Speaker 25:10
yeah and as we’re as we’re recording this it’s the middle of October right before Halloween. And you said we’re going to be dropping this you know, beginning of November. Black Friday’s right around the corner holidays around the corner. So you know, subscription services are going to start pushing devices along with their along with their plans soon your Facebook feed will be popping with them at any time. As well as you know, the big box retailers are going to be marking down devices and selling them too. So if you’re thinking about it, going into the fall is is a good time to do it.

Suburban Folk 25:50
Yeah, for sure. I have it more winter actually. Yeah, I have Black Friday March, to review what all the devices that we have and see if there’s any deals that are out there, I ended up sticking with the apple environment when we first cut the cord and had the Apple TV, which, if I had to do all over again, I probably would not have done one of the things that I thought was going to be advantageous at the time was the screen mirroring. But by the time you filter out any of the restrictions in the type of content, you can actually mirror onto the screen. There’s not really that much worth it. And the other thing that has proved to be an issue now is, especially again, with the kids movies that we have digital copies of iTunes, everything you know, I’m definitely in the the just overall Apple environment. Once they’re on iTunes, that’s the only devices that you can actually get them back on versus what is calling Voodoo or that there’s a number of others that are out there that you You can redeem your digital downloads, and they have less restrictions for where you can play them. You can play them on the Roku, you can play most of them, I think on the Amazon Fire products as well. So that’s been frustrating for me as far as flexibility is concerned. Another score for Roku, I think

Unknown Speaker 27:20
and and i think that’s kind of where Apple TV lost a lot of ground from the consumer side in that they’re very they are very tight they want to control their their content and control their experience which you know, I mean, I get that that’s that’s and you know, a lot of Apple purists went with Apple TV, but from some of the things I’ve read, they also Apple themselves also kind of hurt themselves hurt themselves in the streaming space because they kept their, for lack of a better term, their their streaming software, App Store, whatever apps you could download or add to it. They kept it very, very controlled, very tight. I’m sure amazon fire and Roku found a way to fast track legitimate content providers onto their more so than Apple did. So that’s that’s that’s where those two devices definitely sped ahead of the Apple TV environment. And you brought up screen casting and I actually had a Chromecast for a while, which was really cool because it will you were able to take stuff right from your phone, whether it was Android, or or an iPhone, or even your laptop through through Chrome browser, the Chrome browser and cast it onto your TV, which was rad because you didn’t need a smart TV you had the stick. Which again back in the very early days before we went into a full streaming service. Chromecast was Chromecast was red for a hot minute. And then we and then we jumped on on board with the smart TVs. Kind of, you know, died out and I didn’t need it anymore. But uh, but uh, definitely filled that void until we upgraded our tech on the actual TVs to smart TVs and now smart TVs. We don’t even use their interfaces anymore. We use the brokers. So again, never by technology, because in a day it will be obsolete.

Suburban Folk 29:20
Right. And that gets us I think to segue into what the options are that I mentioned in the introduction. Yeah, where we are at now. And I think we’re going to see a renewal in restrictions. And if you go with a certain product, it’s may or may not work with a certain device. And it’s a little bit like how the cable wars were when FiOS first came in when Comcast was the behemoth that it was. I’m sure there’s other examples even prior to that. So there’s going to be I think Some frustrations there. I even read an article a little while back saying the golden age of streaming is over. Trying to say that well, Netflix being relatively the the biggest player is not the only player. everything you could possibly want was there and now with all the licenses and everybody getting yes to the pie, you’re going to have to do what you said in comparing the direct tv versus sling versus, you know, other options that are out there.

Unknown Speaker 30:30
So if you look at it, if you look at Disney, right, they’re taking all of their content. So what you’re getting is not a channel by channel Allah cart is you’re getting the license holder Allah card, like I am going to. I’m going to go all in on Disney because Disney with Disney plus said they’re going to take all the Disney content so anybody who’s got a kid or ever was a kid. Ooh, I’m gonna want Disney right now. Disney they got Star Wars Nat Geo for the you know more cultured of us who enjoy animal shows Marvel Universe. I mean, I was looking I made a list of some some cool stuff right as shows that are going to be on there we can we can dive into that but you know so everybody’s about original content and there were they want to keep that silo so that can that point you may unless you go with the streaming services of the at&t now sling PlayStation view all the PlayStation Sony I just read that was trying to sell off PlayStation view, YouTube TV or the Hulu Plus live TV. I mean, they’re still going to do the cable channels and the local channels. But I think what you’re going to be what you’re getting is you know more siloed content in Apple in Netflix. Hulu has their own original content Disney has their own original content. Although I saw Disney plus Oddly enough is going to be carrying all of the Simpsons episodes.

Suburban Folk 32:03
Well, like you said, we’ll save it for our Disney plus section. But another evil genius move, in my opinion is what they’ve taken from Fox. Yeah, and what they’re adding in there. So not only is it those that you mentioned, but all of the things that fox had in their collection that now Disney owns Yeah, they’ve got available so it’s it’s definitely a behemoth

Unknown Speaker 32:29
and I’m sure at some point, they will will maybe loosen the belt on that but they’re going to make those other services pay to really pay to get those Disney titles or Marvel titles or Fox titles on to their like Netflix wanted Star Wars back right. Netflix is gonna pay and then you might see a change in their pricing models where it’s like, oh, where that becomes a you know, a rental rent this for 99 cents. They get paid per, you know, 50 50% of the rental fee goes to Netflix with the rental fee goes to goes to Disney. So there is that flexibility. And they can do that because it’s all streaming. You don’t have to send a letter. You don’t have to sign a contract for that you can instantaneously do that from your remote and it’ll hit your credit card. And you get the content and they get the money. That’s it. Yeah,

Suburban Folk 33:28
yeah. And all those changing hands will be interesting to see what you can get with what service. So diving into Netflix, my history with Netflix is actually pretty basic. When we cut the cord. We did the I think it was 30 day trial at the time. I binge watched the office.

Unknown Speaker 33:52
We’re still watching that now. Really? Yeah,

Suburban Folk 33:54
it was. I actually was not sold on the office prior when it was actually on the air. And people will talk about it a lot. I thought that maybe it was some knockoff of office space, the movie, right? Which they’re not at all so they definitely have their own set of humor. But after that I actually kind of struggled to figure out what I wanted to watch next. I think Breaking Bad was out at that time. I actually watched it through the library, I was able to get the seasons there on DVD. And honestly, I actually didn’t really get into anything else. We ended it after our trial was over. And if somebody had Netflix at their house or something like that, I would sit down and watch a show. You just take over somebody else’s TV.

Unknown Speaker 34:39
You know, if you open the fridge

Suburban Folk 34:41
at night and just you know, watch whatever was on there, okay? I never really became that big of a Netflix person. YouTube really is where I stayed at because it was free and be my TV watching habits especially when MTV went from, you know, actual music TV to reality reality shows I would be thrilled when a concert was on especially if it was a band that I liked silverchair Yes, exactly. Among others, and

Unknown Speaker 35:15
ghost

Suburban Folk 35:16
ghost I’ve definitely have seen a few concerts recently. But point is is like I can pull those all up on youtube for free that’s what I would have been watching when I was a kid and had cable and got excited about those things being there. So that’s really what I stuck with. So I don’t have a lot of history with Netflix I know far as the original content they have now that I imagine that really going to be banking on right losing the stuff is Stranger Things I know has a really popular following Black Mirror. I know some folks black

Unknown Speaker 35:48
mirror is just awesome. Like it is it is very cool. And you know it’s very fitting because we talked about we’re talking about technology here and the thing I love about black mirror is that It is set in quote the future. But it is not like so far off future that it’s unrealistic it you know, our phone is a black mirror, you get sucked into it. You wake up in the morning, you look at your phone, you go to bed at night, you look at your phone, you’re going walking around the street and looking at your phone, that’s the black mirror and the technology side of it. It’s like it’s just around the corner. It could happen. Or you can see Oh, you know what, we’re really close to that or be like, oh, wow, that is kind of like what this is. I could see it morphing into this. So yeah, black mirror is is is awesome. I really like it. Don’t watch season one, Episode One. Anybody who has it and hasn’t seen Black Mirror skip that episode. You’ll thank me.

Unknown Speaker 36:48
For those of you who have seen it

Unknown Speaker 36:51
just I’m sorry. I watched it I didn’t heed the warnings I’m like I it’ll be fun. But then they even did a black mirror movie. That was a choose your own Adventure, like that was so that was very cool. I think I went through that four or five times and it gives you different paths to take and then reset you back and even reset some of the options if you die or you end the movie early. So that that’s a really cool interactive piece I think they’re really playing with and they’ve also done a bear grylls survival show on Netflix, that’s interactive. So you could choose to say you’re stuck in the woods and storm is coming in, you could either shelter in place, or you could I forget what the other option would be be explore. Right? Right. So they’re really they’re really trying to push the boundaries of what they’re doing, what their content in the interactive space isn’t from a choose your own adventure. So you know, it’s it’s it they may say the golden age of streaming is dead, but I think it’s I think people are really they’re really innovating and trying new things. Fail fast. So I mean, it’s it’s good, I’m enjoying it.

Suburban Folk 37:56
Is there other highlights for Netflix? Like I said that that’s the audience. Off the top of my head that I have heard for Netflix the Disney content that they have had can just because of the age of my kids has been attractive to be able to if I met my parents or something I got throw on

Unknown Speaker 38:15
the movie but so I think Netflix Orange is the New Black I started watching my wife watch more of it there’s some other ones but for me it was Stranger Things and black mirror that are really good that the originals I’ve watched a couple other things but they’re not really sticking out call you would want to endorse or give my recommendation but black mirror and Stranger Things are good. Prime now to I think prime now is getting some good original stuff. They can talk to you a little bit earlier about the boys. From a superhero standpoint, I was like oh my god, I listened to your comic book episode and I was like, Did you watch the boys yet and have you watched the boys

Suburban Folk 38:59
yet? It is Look at my list.

Unknown Speaker 39:00
So, you know, I think again, it goes back to what is it? What is going to make them stand out? What is going to be different, you know, like what liquid, you know stood, I mean, it’s no different than broadcast networks having a head show, right? And you don’t know what is going to stick. You could look great on paper, the pilot could look awesome to all the stakeholders, but until it goes out to the masses, you don’t really know what’s going to stick. So you know, we’ve got we’ve got the at&t now prime now and Netflix. So probably a little little fat and our streaming diet, and then we’re going to be adding Disney plus on there. So right time to time to trim back a little bit.

Suburban Folk 39:42
Well, and I guess I think that’s going to be part of considering the options that are very soon forthcoming. price points. I think folks probably know but Netflix right now is $13. We had to do a little research because I had heard that there was a cheaper version of Netflix, it turns out there is a $9 version that is standard definition. I guess that can be fine. Yes. It’s,

Unknown Speaker 40:09
it’s probably a it’s probably I’m saying probably because I don’t know. But it’s probably still a 16 by nine picture but not

Suburban Folk 40:17
the high definition 1920 by 1080 resolution. And what makes me think about that is when you said prime now I always forget that Prime house is in this world because we have amazon prime for all of the other things that come with it. And so it’s almost like YouTube, to me, it seems free, which is probably that’s how they get you you know, to have that something that’s available and keeps Amazon always in the forefront of your

Unknown Speaker 40:49
mind. I mean, so it’s but so with prime now it’s different. It’s me It’s different than just Netflix with Netflix is content, pure, pure and simple. Prime now is you’ve got the free Today’s shipping sometimes free one day ship right? Which is which is incentive to buy, buy more stuff, but you get amazon music get amazon prime video as well so prime video has a lot of lot of good stuff on it too. And they’ve got their own original stuff the jack Ryan the Tom Clancy series that’s it that’s that’s hot. I want to watch that I haven’t watched that one yet. So

Suburban Folk 41:27
yeah, and and you know, I like

Unknown Speaker 41:31
okay, let’s flash it back tools entire catalog is now on amazon prime. I don’t have to bust out a CD. I don’t have to break out. You know anything. I’ve got it. I’ve got it all on CD. I don’t have to figure out how I’m going to get onto my device and into my car. I can just load up the stream because now their catalogs on there. And not just tool but a lot of other popular music is on their amazon music without having to dive into the unlimited subscription which is another layer on top of things

Suburban Folk 42:00
Well, I have an update for you actually with tool. So I’ve started to increase my mileage because I’m very close to training for a marathon. Yeah, through the winter. And I, the audio book that I was listening to ended, so I switched over to Amazon was like, Okay, I’m going to put tool back on, guess what is no longer available on standard amazon music.

Unknown Speaker 42:26
The new album, The new album

Suburban Folk 42:28
is now only on their unlimited. So I don’t know, I don’t know who made that decision, whether that’s Amazon themselves, or how exactly that goes. But I was a little disappointed.

Unknown Speaker 42:37
So if you had If you had told me that, when we did our first podcast, I would have been like, Yeah, I’m fine with that. It’s it’s garbage. But I have come to learn to enjoy and like the album. I have come to Jesus.

Suburban Folk 42:52
Yeah, I think so as well. I know we spent a lot of time about we did the technology and I had complimented just like you mentioned Hey, I can get this right here. I don’t have to do anything else. It’s so convenient and then they did a bait and switch.

Unknown Speaker 43:06
me but that but that’s what’s going to happen that’s the exact same thing is, you know you wake up one day and marijuana is no longer available on Netflix right? Why my kid is screaming he really wants to watch some awana crap what do I do? Oh well now I have to go over to Amazon Prime I’m going to buy it and now it’s in my library right? Because Disney and did the contract with Netflix the licensing contract because they want you to come to their content vertical to they want you to come to their silo. So that’s that’s that’s all that’s the that’s the business side of it. That’s why you know, local channels get blacked out on cable and satellite providers, which then passes down to streaming so yeah, it’s the same thing. It’s a licensing agreement, retransmission agreement

Suburban Folk 43:57
right. One other things thing that I will acknowledge for Netflix. I am a stand up comedy fan and they have really pumped up their game as far as what they’ve gotten for stand up comedians. Dave Chappelle, of course, I think is the main one on folks mind. You can only get there. Yeah. I’m a big fan of Bill Burr. I’m trying to think of some of the others to do that takes his shirt off. No, that’s the crusher.

Unknown Speaker 44:23
Yeah.

Suburban Folk 44:25
So they’ve got a really good stable of stand up comedy specials.

Unknown Speaker 44:30
Yeah. The Chappelle the Chappelle stand up. I mean, he’s amazing. Yeah, he did it right. He left us wanting more by walking away from Chappelle show.

Suburban Folk 44:40
Right? For sure. So everything that he puts out, I tried to consume in some way even though I don’t have my own Netflix account. I’ll stop over to people’s houses and say, hey, let’s, let’s watch this.

Unknown Speaker 44:53
Let me sleep on your couch nation.

Suburban Folk 44:55
And then for Prime they’re getting a little bit in there. Jim gaffigan had put out Special amazon prime sort of Alonzo Bowden. He was a guy back from last Comic Standing from years ago when I saw him Okay, check out some his special. So that’s something that I will admit I like to be able to watch when I can and Netflix has definitely done right there. So let’s move over to Apple TV plus, in my mind, from the marketing standpoint, what’s so interesting is they’ve not been nearly as forthcoming with what their content is going to be. They’re not Disney that has this massive vault of stuff ready to go plus what they’ve purchased over the years in your Marvel your Star Wars. And when they did finally announce it, it’s going to be a week and a half earlier than when Disney plus comes out. At the price point is like $1 $2 cheaper per month. And they’re also going to give a year free when you buy any Apple device but of course they’re coming at it with no but I have to I have to go ahead

Unknown Speaker 46:01
I, again, I think they’re, I think they’re doing it wrong. You have to buy their proprietary device right? Which means not only am I locked into your content silo, I’m a locked into your device silo. But for Apple purists if they if they want to cater to their pure audience right, then that’s what they’ve done. That’s their model. That’s their plan. And I’m sure to a degree, I don’t know what their measure of success is going to be. But that is but I was looking at the apple apple plus site today. And I’m like, all right, what do you guys have on here, and it was a whole lot of flash. A whole lot of, here’s how you’re gonna feel watching our shows. This is a monumental shift. You know, some great graphics, great overlays. Great, great presentation. It’s apple. Disney releases a 300 tweets string of all the content. They give it to you raw and say, You want this here it is Yep. So I mean, I’m not even looking at Apple, you’ve looked at it more than I have.

Suburban Folk 47:05
Yeah. And I’m only looking at it just to say I did the research a little bit for the one thing for Disney that is you either love it or you hate it is that they can get their hooks into you, so to speak when you are really young. So with the Disney streaming service, I don’t have to do any extra work to know the backstory for all of the licenses and content that they’re going to be offering. I’m super excited for it. But that’s something at least to give Apple some credit cuz I agree with everything that you said, is what they’re putting out there. They’re starting from scratch and I then have to decide what I’m going to invest in, like you were talking about before. They got to throw something out there, see what sticks fail fast, right? But for where I’m at in it just the way they’ve gone about it. I don’t feel like investing much time and what I’ve seen

Unknown Speaker 48:00
So So here’s how I look at it is that Apple is a tech company who’s getting into the entertainment business. Disney is an entertainment company, always has been. It has been about the experience and about whether that’s going to their parks, whether that’s watching their movies, it’s an entertainment company. And over the years they have acquired through very smart and strategic business, acquisitions, right? companies that will allow them to not just control the content, or own the content, but also deliver the content. years ago, they made a run at Comcast, they want to buy Comcast that fell through, right. So then they bought ABC, and they own it, they own ESPN. So not only do they have the resorts and the movies and the shows, they now have pipelines to deliver that content through, also to market their content. So they’re basically taking their own inventory. And they don’t have to spend ads outside of, you know, they can take and save some money incrementally advertising on ABC, on the ABC platforms, the Disney platforms, ESPN. And also, now they’ve got an app and they’re in the perfect environment where, okay, we build the infrastructure for this app. We’ve been delivering content through these portals, these pipelines now let’s go directly to a standalone app. Let’s take all of our library and consolidate it there and hand it to people at a price point. That is You and I both got into and I think you really pushed me to do it. A couple months ago when they were like, you can lock in for under $4 a month right for Disney plus For three years, and you do the math, it was like it was under 200 bucks, wasn’t it? Right? I’m like, gosh, you know, 200 bucks to do that. Yes, boom done. Cuz I want to see the Mandalorian. Right. But you know, you talked about get the getting getting their hooks in us. Like we were born into that like, like, we were like, you don’t have to be hooked into Disney.

Suburban Folk 50:24
Like it just is like somehow

Unknown Speaker 50:26
and some time of your life. There’s Mickey Mouse, or there’s frozen or there’s marijuana. Or, you know, let me go back to stuff I didn’t even realize was Disney. And now we’re diving into all the content that they’re bringing a totally rad movie that I loved as a kid the black hole for 1979 the year I was born, I brought in lifestyle was older. But that was an awesome movie bread bedknobs and broomsticks. Kind of campy. If you would ask me yesterday, like is that a Disney movie? Or the black hole was a Disney movie. I’m I know. It is. It’s on their list, right? All the herby movies of course Tron and a classic was Sarah Jessica Parker. Hocus Pocus flight of the Navigator. Oh,

Suburban Folk 51:16
okay. Oh, yeah, I know what you’re talking about.

Unknown Speaker 51:19
Do you leak? You know, you leak navigator? You know, I don’t know.

Suburban Folk 51:24
Oh my god talking about but

Unknown Speaker 51:26
one of the Navigator and Willow. Willow Willow. Well, it was coming. Okay, Who Framed Roger Rabbit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids who doesn’t love Rick Miranda, right? And then of course the cartoons from when we were older because I want to watch Disney movies. I’m a teenager now I’m or preteen I’m too cool for that. But I will watch DuckTales Darkwing Duck Rescue Rangers. Yeah. And like you said all the Pixar stuff too.

Suburban Folk 51:50
Well, and jumping off of what you had said about just how smart they’ve been when what they’ve purchased from there. And like I said, I’m always You’ve been using the point counterpoint for Disney because it seems to be the obvious choice for my family, a just the age of the kids and be all the other stuff they have acquired because Marvel was not a Disney license up until, I don’t know 10 years ago. Yeah, and Star Wars, same thing. They were smart enough to pick up these things that had such a following. We have been able to bring them back to a certain relevance now, hardcore Star Wars fans may have something to say about that for the movies. That’ll be another time. At the end. You’ve got all of that background and all of that history with these things that for all the things that I said for investing time in the Netflix shows that are brand new, like you said, the Mandalorian Yep, I’m gonna watch that as a show. I will. I didn’t even watch any of the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoons or the rebels. I will probably watch those. Thanks.

Unknown Speaker 52:59
Clone Wars was on Netflix. I won’t even say Clone Wars. I think some of the ladder series latter seasons may have actually been Netflix proprietary content. But I’m sure from a licensing standpoint is still fell under Lucas Films or

Suburban Folk 53:15
whatever. And the one that I’m really amped about even though I watched the DVDs again from the library last year, sorry, song from the fox vault, they are bringing out the x men animated series.

Unknown Speaker 53:29
It’s on my list.

Suburban Folk 53:30
It’s on my list. And they’re excellent. And the Spider Man animated series that came out right towards the tail end of the x men was I watched those and will rewatch them when they come out. Yeah. And all for again, the price point if you did the three years get like you said we did as well. Even for our kids age, if after three years, they’re at a certain age where they’re done with the Disney stuff. Okay, great, at least up to that point. It will have definitely been the obvious deal. Yeah, I think it’s also very smart that they have The other package, I think it’s gonna be 13 somewhere between 13 and $15. Where you can bundle Hulu and ESPN together with them. Yeah, kind of the same considerations you were talking about if you want some of the sports or some of the other network shows that hulu’s presumably going to at least be able to hold on to for yeah amount of time. You can get that for the same price point of just straight Netflix.

Unknown Speaker 54:22
Yeah. And Hulu was a joint venture, I think between multiple networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. I think they all had a cut in that all had a you know, a stake in that. So they make sense that Disney is going to add that in there. And then again, Disney owns ESPN. So an ESPN like if you look if you were to actually get a breakdown of your cable, a traditional cable bill, your per sub subscriber, the your your dollar, what portion of your dollar goes to ESPN, it’s up there. It’s um, it’s probably the highest one. Just because live sports really does keep really brings a lot of viewers to the table.

Suburban Folk 55:05
Yeah. And obviously and I guess that depends on the family makeup of how much you’re using that or not. I’m in the middle as to whether or not I would use it on a regular basis right we’re not going in with it. We did the other one that’s the Disney plus but you’re going to get some local sports going back to what we mentioned. If you get the antenna working and what you need there. You can decide if you would want to have any of the other subscription packages like MLB you know has a package similar to what the Sunday ticket is for the NFL.

Unknown Speaker 55:36
Yeah. And you could do those directly through the you know, Major League Baseball or through NFL or I’m sure NHL has one too but I don’t really watch hockey right. And for me living out of market for you know I grew up in Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia an hour and Phillies fan Eagles fan. If I really really want to do I would jump into those in To those into those packages, but I haven’t but they are available and that’s and that’s really you know, the consideration is that there is a lot available. It’s not totally pick and choose one individual thing that I want like all a cart but there’s options there if you’re willing to to work your budget and really do some research about what you want. The one thing I am a little disappointed on from the Star Wars catalog that is not included in what Disney is going to be offering is the is the Star Wars Christmas special. I said,

Suburban Folk 56:30
Well, you can get bootleg copies on YouTube if

Unknown Speaker 56:34
I have a bootleg DVD that was given to me. I don’t watch I just started immediately because I didn’t want to violate any copyrights. Right? I don’t have it anymore. I’ve seen it I will never give I will never give you a copy of it if you ask.

Suburban Folk 56:48
Well, I’ve seen enough of it to know why it has been so hidden away

Unknown Speaker 56:53
protected, no hidden away

Suburban Folk 56:54
for years. So the other thing to mention sort circling back to the streaming device that you use. As of this recording, the fire amazon fire products will not support Disney plus what I had most recently read, there’s some sort of debate about how the ad revenue goes. Because if you’ve ever used a fire device, it basically you’re in prime when you start and then the apps are already embedded into what is prime. Yeah, I’m understanding that there’s some

Unknown Speaker 57:30
given time debate there. So when I first got a fire, stick it YouTube wasn’t on it because Google and Amazon hadn’t reached an agreement, right? Give it time. That’s all tied to licensing revenue. How am I going to get paid and how is how is Disney being on Amazon going to benefit Disney? Right? If they’re capturing Roku and any other streaming device, they’ll figure that out. Right? You know, and that’s I think that’s what probably catches a lot of consumers off guard. They don’t do that research as far as compatibility between content and device. So it does add another layer of complexity. And when you’re, it’s not as easy as just, I’m just going to cut the cord and it’ll be easy. And there is a little bit of work to do. Right? That’s so that that is one advantage that your traditional providers have is that they make it easy. Here. Here’s the channels you get. Yep, those can change though. Just like content can be pulled off of Netflix. Right? So in some ways, it’s parallel. Other ways it’s, it’s easy, I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to worry about buying a device wire in my house, making sure my Internet’s up to speed. So

Suburban Folk 58:50
So I, if I were to summarize our recommendations, it seems like to this point Netflix if you’re into some of the shows, we talked about, probably where Keeping prime you probably have amazon prime for all the other things that are going on. So give it a look they’re actually better shows on there then are necessarily advertise, you may find some things to watch and it’s more or less free because you’re probably paying for Amazon Prime as it is. Apple’s gonna have to do a little bit more to entice us to jump on to what they’re offering right now. Disney plus seems like a no brainer at the moment based on all the content that we talked about and the price point. Are there any other services that we haven’t talked about HBO comes to mind that you would recommend that you’re currently using. Have your eye on to complete the streaming package? Yes.

Unknown Speaker 59:44
So I watch HBO streaming. Game of Thrones was huge and is huge still was a great get. I just started and it just came out a little while ago. The new watchman series watched the first episode. It is hot. It is awesome. I really like it. And there’s a few other HBO series that are coming out that I’m that I’m interested in. But again, depending on what streaming service you have, you can either buy HBO streaming standalone through HBO or you could potentially bundle it with your streaming service, your streaming service may have cut a better deal. At the time when I first signed up for DirecTV, now, they were offering HBO streaming for five bucks a month I looked now is up to like 15. So things change. But really, you know, for me a big consideration for anybody looking to cut the cord to move away from traditional cable, or if you’re just looking to shop around your options. Consider what you can get over the air. Get a cheap pair of rabbit ears plugged into the back of your TV and you’d be surprised The amount of stations that you can get locally, especially if you watch live sports, that is a great option and can really supplement not just your cable package, but potentially your streaming service because you are getting a pure unadulterated HD signal through there. And depending on the infrastructure around you, from your cable provider or content provider, you may actually get a better picture with an over the air signal. Do your homework on your devices as far as Roku, Amazon Fire Apple TV box as well. And make sure that it meets your needs as far as reception of Wi Fi. Again, I like the Roku boxes. It’s a dedicated device. hardwired or Wi Fi Same thing with some of the higher end amazon fire devices that can that can really just be a standalone processor for content. Make sure your internet speeds are up to snuff. Because if you have slow internet, you’re not going to be able to push through video content because it does take a lot to push video content through the pipeline. And then look at all your service your service options, you really are able to shop around for the service that meets your viewing needs and viewing habits. If their core packages don’t have all the things you need, a lot of them do have add on entertainment packages or sports packages. So you could get that so you know where we live. We’re limited to dish and DirecTV for satellite xfinity and files for traditional cable right. But streaming services just on this piece of paper with different pieces of content. There’s at least six seven, almost eight now nine if you count Disney and Apple, so you have a lot more options. It does take some legwork to really figure out okay, what do I watch? How do I how much do I watch and what’s what’s going to fit my budget but you You can really reduce your content price point. If you do your if you do your homework, work those spreadsheets.

Suburban Folk 1:03:10
in your spare time when you want to have some fun with spreadsheets, maybe you can even use the wardrobe consideration what do they say put everything in your closet on one side, see what you were in a month’s time and anything that you didn’t wear that’s still on that side, get rid of it

Unknown Speaker 1:03:28
on my T shirt,

Suburban Folk 1:03:30
when you have to pair some of this stuff down. So I think we have some great advice here. Again, we’re both excited about the Disney plus the over air antenna is certainly something for folks to consider and be considerate of what type of device you’re going to use based on the content that you think that you want. So, Brandon, appreciate it. Anything that we missed before we sign off.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:55
No, I think we have wrapped this one up.

Suburban Folk 1:03:58
Alright, sounds good. Happy streaming. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to give us a rating on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to be notified of future weekly shows, please hit the subscribe button. Thank you. Suburban Folk is now part of the pod all the time podcasting network. Be sure to check out the other podcasts that are part of the group

Transcribed by https://otter.ai