Live Poll: Streamers You Barely Miss

@urbanemovies​ I've filled out the list with some of your suggestions.

Thank you

@urbanemovies​ Changes made.

Thank you again.

@themoviesmith​ It looks pretty good. I had a final thought though. Other than fubotv and ESPN+, which is great for streaming college sports, you don't have many sports streamers, like the NFL network, the MLB network, NHL.TV, NBA League Pass, and a catch-all option for the premier world football (soccer) leagues. Those five alone will get you to the maximum thirty-five choices.

And for sure, I would likely miss any of the most useful streaming services if it disappeared off the face of the Internet. I can't imagine being so terribly displeased with any of them that I wouldn't miss it if was gone.

@jeorj_euler​ Do I hear a dueling poll idea in your comment, Streamers You Consider Indispensible? or Streamers You Can't Live Without?

@jeorj_euler​ I think a lot of people are alternating between different streamers, or canceling for a months a time and then returning for a month to catch up all at once with titles they care about.

Regardless of the scale, variety and quality of usual content offerings, one of the cool things about the Netflix company is that it has not made many older versions of the Netflix app unusable, so for example it probably still works on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, in addition to Android OS devices that debuted over a decade ago. The same cannot be said of Hulu and all of the apps of newer services to break into the market. I do believe however, the version of the Netflix channel available for the original Roku no longer functions, but I should double check. A couple of years ago, the Amazon company puled its streaming service app from availability on the seventh generation gaming consoles. I'm not sure whether or not the version available for older versions of Android OS retain basic functionality. I might as well not bring up the original Wii, because given the way it works, the streaming service apps are dependent upon a connection to the Wii Shop which was closed several years ago. I don't know what to make of YouTube, but last I checked, the Xbox 360 app for it couldn't connect to wherever it ordinarily connects online.

@jeorj_euler​ I've heard this is one of the reasons Netflix tends to be a little pricey. They need to format their movies many different ways so they can play on all the players they are available on.

@themoviesmith​ I agree. It is a pretty good strategy to rotate. As binge warchers can go through the all series they are interested in a few month's time on a particular service and you get the most bang for your buck. Plus, its not like you can meaningfully watch five streaming services at the same time. The kicker is that shows like the Office and Friends that use to be able to watch on free TV are being pulled back to drive subscriber growth on the pay networks.

@Peter_pbn​ Change made. it's amazing how many of these are just name and a + sign after.

The studios are doing that to distinguish the broader brand from the streaming service, hence we see, e.g., Disney+, Paramount+, MGM+. For whatever reason, they are all comfortable with simply appending the plus sign. Over a decade ago, Hulu distinguished its website-only anonymous-access streaming service from its premium service by naming the latter Hulu Plus, but eventually they were merged together and both simply named Hulu, and now at the very least, viewers must sign in/up in order to watch anything even through the website. AMC, Showtime and Starz don't do this, as all their streaming services are simply named the same as the corresponding studio or cable television channel. The branding "HBO Max" is apparently portmanteau of HBO and Cinemax, but usually anything that is on Cinemax is on HBO anyway, since Cinemax is a subsidiary of HBO. I do believe all of Public Broadcast Station's screaming services are named the same as whatever television channel or television program from which they are derived.

Looks like HBO Max will be renamed to simply Max. (By the way, I just recently noticed, after all these decades, that the brand name "Cinemax" could be interpreted as "Cine Max" or "Cinema X".)

I don;'t know. To me, it feels like room should be made for Tubi, Plex, Pluto and the somewhat eponymous FilmRise, which has been quite something in the film distribution market. They all only offer ad-based plans that largely require no registration/subscription to watch the movies and TV series.

Occasionally I visit broadcast television stations (OTA via DTV now), as I already have the rabbit ears set up, like This and Bounce, but for a while I've not thought about these. By the way, technically the rabbit ears are not literally necessary anymore. since they are for VHF signals, which are not utilized in the digital television bands, but rather only UHF which involves the circular antenna. The future of DTV is worrisome, since the industry is planning to integrated it with out-of-band targeted advertising services through the Internet. Seemingly most folks are getting tired of long antennas, so AM radio (audio) may die out within the next twenty years, just like VHF television. I think FM radio (audio) still requires a long antenna, but by now, such a thing is manifested as earphone wires, which are dying out, and vehicle-chassis-embedded wires. All the present day stuff is oriented around fifth generation cellular networks (5G/NR), fourth generation cellular networks (4G/LTE), XM radio and the fibre optic land-based medium.

@jeorj_euler​

I agree people should be able to choose those platforms or vote for them too. But, I think there are plenty of options for both a poll focused on subscription-based revenue streamers (paid) and one that is focused on ad-supported revenue streamers (free).

IMHO, I don't they should be mixed. My standards and degrees of satisfactions are influenced by whether I have to pay for them or whether they are free.

Right, I prefer premium services too, but there are so many thing to watch, I may find myself not having enough time to watch all the things I'd like to see. YouTube is such a special case, because there are some very straightforward ways to watch almost anything without experience ad breaks. Unfortunately everything that is on broadcast television, always had commercial breaks, so that is where DVR units come into play. Only a special section of YouTube is considered to be the streaming service comparable to that of, say, Amazon, Vudu, Apple and Redbox.

@jeorj_euler​ How come DAB Digital Audio Broadcasting never replaced AM/FM in North America?

So, are these for show or do these configurations serve a purpose for DTV.

I've no idea! An interesting thing to know is that the transition from analog broadcast television to digital television was heavily pushed hard by Barack Obama back when he was President of the United States, and the VHF band wound up supposedly being assimilated by the Department of Defense for military communications. The people of the United States were given all kinds of opportunities to acquired digital converter boxes, either free of charge or at discount. Seemingly there is always at least one quarter of the United States citizens who don't want any meddling or interference from the United States government. I'm similar, but not necessarily extreme in the particular way. Anyway, as I understand it, in the electromagnetic spectrum, the wavelengths of UHF and beyond (lower wavelengths, higher frequencies) don't really warrant the need for the retractable pair of long antennas. I should really double check, though. I'm by no means a professional physicist, let alone one specializing in electromagnetism (electrostatics, electrodynamics, optics, radio, Doppler effects, and special relativity), but I've studied a very small bit of the stuff a long time ago. I figure the rabbit ears are retained for good measure, just in case, a customer of these products needed to pick up, VHF, FM, AM or other "short wave" signals. An even longer antenna, like the ones found affixed to recreational vehicles, is needed for long wave, I do believe. But those low frequency (high wavelength) signals also entail lower bandwidths, so I don't know, I'm not even a HAM operator, at least not yet.

@jeorj_euler​

It seems like a necessary change every fifty years or so, after all we aren't riding around in horse and buggies anymore, just because that is the way people always got around. (Newspapers > Telegraph > Radio > TV > Internet)

I know some places in the world skipped having widespread landline telephone service, because cellular service was an option by the time the landline eventually filtered to their corner of the world.

It seems like we should have moved onto another dominant energy source, instead of still being oil-based, just like we did from coal and whale oil before. It seems like we are purposely being held back by the powers that be on that one.

The energy problem does sort of feel like a no-win situation, because almost zero manufacturers of batteries offer the manner of battery that is easily recyclable, in the sense at least that the elements lithium, nickel, cadmium, lead or other materials are recovered and used to create new batteries. In lieu, the industries continue to mine for new amounts of the same important elements, which is environmentally catastrophic, due to the dangerous chemical processes involved both in mining and manufacturing. To lower the heavy reliance upon batteries, we would indeed have to stick with combustions of fossil fuels, which produces greenhouse gasses, the problem being the amount of these gases per time as measured against what constitutes the natural balance in earth's atmosphere; or somehow manufacture better batteries (that are safer, recyclable, more longevious, more easily disassembleable) or hypercapacitors meeting the same requirements. To top off, even if we had a solution of the problem of over production of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, there is still the matter of water vapor, which will arise simply out of the need for heating, smelting (in foundries) and supercomputing (in data centers). The situation keeps pointing back to the fact that there exists and shall exist so many human beings who need for a certain minimal level of electricity and related commodities, whether directly or indirectly. If we could safely ignore the problem of excess water vapor, then I would adamantly suggest that more nuclear reactors be utilized, but there is always a catch. These things would have to be built somewhere far from fault lines and coast lines, and it would help if simply no military tactician ever wanted to deliberately damage such a source of his/her enemy's electricity. Even without those problems, nuclear reactors are (with the exception of being aboard large-enough sea vessels) thus far stationary power sources, so they provide no solution to small vehicles like cars, trucks, helicopters, planes and jets. If only there was a way to power these vehicles wirelessly, even at night time and without a hazardously-constructed hazardously-disposed battery.

@urbanemovies​ Added to the list to get to 35.

Thank you!

@jeorj_euler​ This conversation could go on forever and never get anywhere. It seems like to me we could have quit oil in the 1970s and  have dragged our feet for fifty years. Between the lack of conservation efforts (100 mpg , etc), the non-development of green technologies and the non-use of green resources: solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc. (resources that are wasted if not used, and don't have real downsides), it is a sad state we find ourselves in. It seems like we are moving backwards instead of moving forward,  and when we do have something that works, it is dismantled or subverted. 

@jeorj_euler​ Antenna is my go to source for TV nowadays.

I do understand and acknowledge the merits of streetcars, trains and bicycles. These three along with some other methods of conveyance can avoid the both the combustion reaction problem and the battery toxicity problem. So much could boil down to promoting, adopting and retaining the attitude of "waste not, want not", so that all the hurtful sacrifices made in order to manufacture new tools/toys would not be made in vain by those products basically being discarded into a place that won't be harvested from within a century's time, thus leading to possibly unnecessary blasting, drilling, mining, burning, refining, smelting or other processing even though these sorts of things will always been necessary to a degree. Yes, of course, there is a lot of moving backwards, and for a variety of reasons, most notably that things don't always go according to plan, or how even the most honest of people can inadvertently make poor predictions. Nearly all of these wonderful tools we made require maintenance, whereby the intervals typically fail to extend longer than a century's time. The shame is how most completely literate people simply cannot even try to think beyond twenty years into the future. Indeed a conversation like this on such a subject matter could go on for a very long time, but even that begs the question of how much time is even available against how much time has already been wasted throughout the past multiple decades, going back to the earliest point of awareness of a potential problem.

@urbanemovies​ Changes made. Thank you for all your help!

@urbanemovies​ EROS is an Indian streaming service. I had overlooked it and added to the Asia option. Changed the Latin American catch all and replaced Eros with NBC sports.

@themoviesmith​ I pre-checked almost all the suggestions I made, as being available as stand-alone monthly subscription services, that would be available on an app. That said, you need to double check all your answer options to make sure nothing incorrect got through. NBC Sports is available as part of other subscription services, like Hulu. Plus, there was a version called NBC Gold, but I think they rebranded it as Peacock Sports, as it directly links to that website for a $5 and $10 monthly service when you try to subscribe. 

@themoviesmith​

I wouldn't be surprised if erotica-dedicated streamers were big business among streamers. The internet was built off it and it is the #1 income generator on the entire internet. You should seriously consider porn streamers as an option. Plus, if you are going to be listing some continents that have unique markets, like Asia and Latin America, you should at least consider Africa and Australia too. I think you can safely exclude Antarctica, and North America and Europe (because they are well-represented by the individually listed streamers on the list already).  But, Africa and Australia might be like Latin America, India and China, which have streamers that are immensely popular there, but are not as popular in the rest of the world. I don't know if that is the case, but I think it merits investigation as an option. FYI, Max, internally now called Beam is the merger of HBO Max & Discovery + services and is coming as soon as the spring of 2023.

FYC

????? Any Erotica Streamer, such as 

Playboy TV, etc..

????? Any Warner Bros. streamer, such as

HBO, Cinemax, Max (HBO Max & Discovery +), etc.

????? Any Australian-based Streaming Service such as

????? Any African-based Streaming Service such as

@urbanemovies​ Correction to NBC made. 

I'm just going to leave it as is. They can use the catch all in case there option isn't listed.

@themoviesmith​ Sounds good, I like how it came out.

@urbanemovies​ Thank you for all your help!

@Pencho15​ Thank you!

@rob_webster​ 100% true