While I’ve been a fan of Showtime, often preferring their original content to HBO’s, my primary ding against the Showtime Anytime streaming service has been stereo sound. With the launch of Showtime’s new Internet streaming service this week, that does not require a cable subscription, I reached out to Showtime’s PR team. And the good new is that 5.1 surround sounds it coming to these services “very soon”. I expect this will apply to both native Apple TV and Roku Showtime apps, but the fascinating Hulu Showtime linkage remains a question for me given Hulu’s own auditory limitations.
Ah, good news indeed. It is odd that they didn’t launch with 5.1 SS and I was wondering if/when that would be added. Just for kicks, I signed up for the free month via the new Showtime app on my Apple TV 3 this week. (I already have a regular paid Showtime subscription.) I’m impressed with the HD video quality when streaming shows on-demand; so far, it looks even better than the linear Showtime channel does on DirecTV, which is the best-looking traditional TV source I’ve ever had (although I’ve never had FiOS or Google Fiber). Still, the quality isn’t *quite* as good as Netflix or Amazon Prime’s HD streams (although it’s better than HBO Go). It would be nice if Showtime offered a top-tier stream of all programs in 1080p24 H.264 in the 7 to 8 Mbps range, kind of like Vudu’s HDX stream – I’ll bet the majority of their subscribers’ home networks could handle that. Unfortunately, the video quality for the live linear Showtime channel (as opposed to on-demand selections) through the new streaming app is not too good; it’s watchable but appears highly compressed, I’m guessing it’s something like 1 Mbps H.264. They’re probably afraid their servers wouldn’t have enough upstream bandwidth to support higher bit-rates for the live channel during peak watching hours on Sunday nights.
Any word on whether Showtime and TiVo are in talks about bringing this new service to TiVo?
“While I’ve been a fan of Showtime, often preferring their original content to HBO’s”
“I have a headache.”
“It might be a tumor.”
“It’s not a tumor! It’s not a tumor. At all!”
Well, if it’s a not really a tumor, Dave, how else on earth do you possibly explain this?
“While I’ve been a fan of Showtime, often preferring their original content to HBO’s”
I mean, this is akin to proclaiming your prefer your guacamole to be make out of peas.
Clickbait is understandable, but one must strive to maintain a viable connection to reality…
Now that Justified has concluded, maybe Deadwood will return to HBO and I’ll feel differently c*cksucker.
Tim, no whispers have come my way regarding any potential new TiVo apps… Given their OTA/OTT push, I would hope Sling TV is top priority. An updated Hulu app *with* Showtime should be up there too.
Let’s see: Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex this summer on Showtime vs. True Detective S2, Ballers and The Brink (all three of which are getting lukewarm reviews) on HBO. This fall Showtime has The Affair and Homeland while HBO has The Leftovers (which should only be watched while on No-Doze, anti-depressants or both) and … and … nothing else? Oh yeah, the last six half-hour episodes of that crowd-pleaser Getting On. Seriously, I don’t think HBO has anything else in the pipeline for this fall in terms of original series. (They were originally planning to air Westworld, which looks very interesting, but that’s been moved back until sometime next year.) Showtime for $11 a month looks like a bargain next to HBO Now at $15, at least for the remainder of 2015.
“Now that Justified has concluded, maybe Deadwood will return to HBO and I’ll feel differently c*cksucker.”
c*cksucker. Heh, heh, heh, heh.
If only Mike Judge would put a good show on HBO, I’d have a comeback for you.
(And speaking of Milch, the highly underrated John from Cincinnati finally made it to Amazon Prime. It’s only SD, but Amazon’s fulfillment standards are high enough that’s actually ‘good enough’ for a PQ freak like me. Also, oddly enough, it’s the first official “fail” of OnePass I’ve encountered. TiVo search won’t pick up the ‘free’ Prime version, but it is there if you go into the Amazon app on any device, including TiVo. Bad, Alviso, bad…)
Here’s a decent, recent Hollywood Reporter story on HBO, which makes the now familiar complaint that HBO has locked up soooooo much of the available talent pool that their real problem is that the pipeline is too fat for the limited airing spots.
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“vs. True Detective S2, Ballers and The Brink”
Yeah. I’d be fully willing to concur that the current couple of months are far weaker than normal. (Although TD S2, though utterly and bizarrely flawed, is still an above average teevee series, and worth a viewing.) In fact, it’s their weakest lineup in years. But even during this downtime, we’ve still got John Oliver and the Monday docs.
But I think the real solution for the “too fat a pipeline feeding too thin air spots” problem is to have a second night of programming per week. They’ve got the talent to do it. They’ve just got to find a way to make the economics work. Perhaps do the ‘second’ night on indie budgets. That way, an abnormal downtime like now would still have alternatives.
But at the end of the day, we’re still talkin’ avocados vs peas…
Now I finally understand. CBS Corporation bought control of the Akismet spam plugin for its own benefit…
“Now that Justified has concluded”
Dude. Have you gone through the Elmore print catalog on your Kindle yet? And not the Westerns, including both Raylan and the early stuff? You can pick pretty much any of the crime stuff from ’74 to ’92 and have zero regrets. Dutch could write. And that was his best groove.
(Though with your Southern fried roots, you might even enjoy the senile period Tishomingo Blues, which ain’t bad.)
We’re not talking about a mere couple of weak months for HBO, we’re talking about a whole six months. At least I’m getting it free with my internet right now, as it’s not currently worth the asking price. (Looking forward to Togetherness, Girls and Silicon Valley next year though.) Meanwhile, Showtime got more series noms at the last Emmys than any other network, plus picked up two major series Golden Globes while HBO series won nothing. It’s certainly arguable which is the better network these days (and FX, Netflix and Amazon Prime are looking strong too) but dismissing either entirely just means that you’re either not paying attention or you have no taste.
“It’s certainly arguable which is the better network these days (and FX, Netflix and Amazon Prime are looking strong too) but dismissing either entirely just means that you’re either not paying attention or you have no taste.”
FX? Netflix? Prime? Good lord, man. Each of those are lucky if they have a single above-average series on each year. I mean, I like The Americans as much as most folks, but it’s still not as good as the average HBO series. (AMC has easily had a better run than any of the above, though that has obviously petered out.) And you’ve actually sunk to citing the Emmys and the Golden Globes?!?
Of course, at the end of the day, it indeed comes down to taste. You are free to prefer Showtime to HBO. De gustibus non est disputandum, and all that. Similarly, I can’t argue your preference for guacamole made out of peas. I can’t argue with you if you think Terminator:Genisys and Ted 2 are the two greatest movies ever made. I personally think these are all insane positions, but again, de gustibus non est disputandum…
(HBO is the only teevee studio that reliably values qualities beyond mere thumping plot arc, which is how we get wondrous things like The Leftovers, Olive Kitteridge, Enlightened, The Knick, and much, much more – stuff we simply wouldn’t get anywhere else. And yes, I count The Knick since it comes out of the same studio, even if it airs on the sister channel. Qualities beyond mere thumping plot arc are not for everyone. Not everyone cares about, or even notices utterly exquisite visuals, to note one quality out of a multitude. Since Dave seemingly watches all his teevee on his phone, I can actually kinda, sorta understand his unnatural love for Showtime, since you can’t really notice anything but thumping plot arc when ‘watching’ radio with still photos. But hell, it’s not teevee, it’s HBO. It’s not for everyone. The average American has highly questionable taste. HBO just needs to appeal to the subsection of folks who value quality.)
Hmm, wha? Oh, sorry, I dozed off somewhere just after you Googled that Latin phrase. (Hey, what’s the classical expression for “I drank Plepler’s kool-aid?”) But at least your HBO fanboy love letter is more entertaining than watching The Leftovers. (Granted, that that’s not saying much — please knife the baby after this fall, HBO, and give us a decent new one-hour drama).
Good news! I just read that HBO is renewing Ballers, the unfunny second-rate remake of Entourage, itself the bro-derivative answer to Sex in the City. Mmmm, smell the prestige programming quality, folks. It’s not “teevee,” it’s existential manna for those aesthetes with above-average-American tastes! With any luck, Charles, you’ll be able to catch the start of Ballers S2 next summer on the same night that HBO premieres Entourage: The Movie (or, you know, Ted 2, ’cause that’s the sort of high-brow Hollywood films that HBO and Cinemax schedules are chock-a-block filled with). HBO roolz!!
Have a good weekend, y’all. Dave, I’ll be over here watching the season premieres of Ray Donovan and Masters of Sex on Showtime. Stop by for a beer.
Fortunately, we can subscribe and drop as the content dictates… as these are some of the few channels NOT trapped in a bundle. (Although I do now see the need for and value in the bundle.)
“Fortunately, we can subscribe and drop as the content dictates… as these are some of the few channels NOT trapped in a bundle.”
Screw that. If you’re lucky enough to live in the third of the nation served by multiple wireline MSO’s, you can negotiate a package with a heavily discounted bundle of multiple premium channels. Harvest it all!
I value HBO/Cinemax for that incredibly tasty Time-Warner Original Programming, along with the licensed movies. As I’ve always said, HBO is the best bargain out there. But I also highly value Showtime because they don’t force FIOS to unjustly restrict the CCI-byte, and thus let me archive their licensed movies. Since Time-Warner stupidly cracked down on the CCI-byte, almost all of my movie archive these days comes from Showtime, HDNET Movies, and TCM. (God, I’d pay anything for TCM HD…) So I do love me some Showtime, just not a fan of their studio.
So if you can get a good price, subscribe to it all, and harvest it all. That’s why god gave us internal 3TB drives and storage on the LAN and cloud…
“CBS Corporation bought control of the Akismet spam plugin for its own benefit”
I remain convinced.
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That Amazon 1998 first order thing is an artifact. I know for a damn fact that my first listed order, (which is also 1998), was not nearly my actual first order from Amazon.
The current system just only dates back that far. I was buying books there long prior to my listed ‘first order’…
From Wikipedia:
“Barnes & Noble sued Amazon on May 12, 1997, alleging that Amazon’s claim to be “the world’s largest bookstore” was false. Barnes and Noble asserted, “[It] isn’t a bookstore at all. It’s a book broker.”
Ya’ think we OG netizens were all ignorant of what was already “the world’s largest bookstore” in early 1997? This stuff was already long on the covers of newsweeklies talking to the housewife in Dubuque…
“But at least your HBO fanboy love letter is more entertaining than watching The Leftovers.”
High praise. Hey, Tim, will you be my agent? I’ve got a pitch for Time-Warner…
“It’s not “teevee,” it’s existential manna for those aesthetes with above-average-American tastes!”
Mmmm… Manna. And that’s why they’ve got that pricing power!
Chucky, regarding Amazon… my first order probably really was 1997 or 1998. They were primarily books at the get go, and I got most of those at Borders, B&N, or university. Most of my online commerce in the early and mid 90s was selling stuff on Usenet – looks like I joined eBay in 1999. I do remember ordering a USA Wrestling shirt online prior to the 1996 Olympics, but don’t know if that was my first “retail” purchase — back in those days, I really did enjoy browsing music (Tower) and book stores – or Borders that had both. And, mid 90s, I was still doing paper catalogs and phone orders from the likes of LL Bean.
“Chucky, regarding Amazon… my first order probably really was 1997 or 1998. They were primarily books at the get go, and I got most of those at Borders, B&N, or university.”
At the time, I was living a couple of blocks away from a kickass and large indie bookstore, so that’s where I did most of my purchasing of in-print books. I’d even order stuff they didn’t have in stock through them. But I leapt on Amazon very early on for out-of-print stuff that I’d wanted for years. Also, from early on, I did a notable minority of my in-print purchasing from Amazon.
I’d guess my first order from them was probably 1996, and maybe even late 1995…
“I really did enjoy browsing music (Tower)”
I have no idea the date when Amazon really launched into the CD/DVD business, but pretty much from the minute they did, I was buying like crazy from them. Physical browsing was indeed nice, but having the full long-tail catalog of stuff available to you at the click of a trackpad button blew that away for me.
“Most of my online commerce in the early and mid 90s was selling stuff on Usenet”
Yeah. I was a heavy Usenet participant, but actual commerce with strangers and no intermediary scared me too much to get involved with that.
“looks like I joined eBay in 1999”
Likely an artifact too, no? eBay was a pretty big deal right from the get-go in ’97. Unless you were really hooked into some vibrant Usenet commerce subculture, it’s hard to imagine you being that much of a late adopter to eBay. (Plus, the fools would always massively overbid if you spent 15 minutes putting together a nice ad.)
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The thing I really miss from that era was when buy.com was going all in on the ‘lose tremendous amounts of money on each order and make it up in volume’ strategy. They had free overnight shipping with 10am delivery and no minimum! Plus, since the warehouse was next to the Memphis airport for FedEx access, the order cutoff for 10am delivery was midnight the night before!
It never got as good again as being able to spend 99 cents for an ethernet cable that arrived at your door 10 hours later…