Affording to watch popular television dramas

[mtbc]

I can't help but notice television streaming services raising their prices again. Most of them don't carry enough that I want to be worth the price they ask. I used to cover for this by subscribing to the couple that do while using DVD-by-post rental for late catchup on the one or two shows that I may want from each of the others. Though, Disney seemed to be tending not to release their shows also on DVD, and the by-mail services have also been growing more expensive, or ending altogether.

I wonder where this is going and how people respond. Fortunately, I don't have much time for engaging dramas at the moment anyway, and what's available for free here largely covers me. Still, I suspect that VPN services are doing well these days.

Comments

[thewayne]

Right now, the only streaming that I'm directly paying for is Netflix, and I'm considering cancelling that as we're just not using it. I've dropped Disney, HBO, and Acorn or BritBox, I don't remember which we picked up. I'll resume Disney when Dr. Who starts airing, or maybe wait until the season is over and we'll binge it in a month or two and drop it again.

I remember when TiVo with cable was awesome, and then it was a DVR built into our satellite receiver. And for the most part, programming was more appealing - Food Network wasn't the Food Competition Network then and you could learn something from watching it. But now? Just not interested in watching.

[mtbc]

Waiting and bingeing indeed seems a good strategy for some of these.

Yes, I was rather satisfied with our series 2 TiVo, it could be a little slow in UI responsiveness but was overall a pleasant experience indeed.

And, indeed, a number of the rather educational main cable channels seem to have moved into rather more sensational stuff. There's been a shift in Britain too though not quite as badly.

In terms of technology, I often wish I lived in the world of maybe twenty-five years ago. As it is, I get to try to make the best of what we have now, including a television set with an operating system that means that it can be very many seconds after power-up before I can switch to the broadcast channel of my choice. It'd be faster to wait for the vacuum tubes to warm up.

[thewayne]

We started watching Three Body Problem, and I screwed up and we accidentally watched the first episode of the Chinese version!  I kinda liked it and plan on continuing, but for now the wife and I have watched the first two eps of the Netflix series and are enjoying it.  I've read the trilogy and am glad that they've gotten into the VR game aspect so soon.  It'll be interesting to see how it develops. My TV is no great shakes.  I bought it because of its dimensions: it needed to fit in a specific niche!  It was supposed to be an 800, and when I unboxed it, it was a 1080p!  I was quite happy at that, though I expect an 800 would have been sufficient.  We're planning a move in the not distant future, and at that point I may consider a 4K TV, though it'll be hard to find one without a "smart" OS.

[mtbc]

Yes, I was very happy with the 720p TV I bought in maybe 2007 or so, just late enough for the digital broadcast support, but family much appreciate something rather larger than its 32". I find that, whatever the TV is, I soon adjust to it and stop noticing. Back in the 90's I used to watch on my now-boss' TV whose red gun had failed completely.

[thewayne]

I had a ViewSonic monitor that suffered a red gun failure!  Kind of amusing trying to play games like Diablo 2 on it where color can be important.  But I got a lot of use out of it after that problem surfaced by telling my video card to switch to monochrome.

[mtbc]

Ha, nice trick. And now I realize that I probably hadn't thought about the Hercules monochrome cards for years. (-:

[thewayne]

I think about the old Herc cards now and again.  I even mentioned QEMM386 to a friend in the last month or so.  That was one amazing program!