Subj : Re: Media Servers
To   : Accession
From : jack phlash
Date : Sun Oct 08 2023 08:13:48

on 07 Oct 2023, Accession said...
 
 Ac> Oh I see. I guess I never really needed to do any of that since Plex did
 Ac> most of the grunt work for me. At least everything that I needed, which
 Ac> was basically a title and cover art.

Point proven! ;)

 Ac> We have Hulu Live TV with no ads as our main, which is fairly expensive
 Ac> (75/mo or something). We also have Prime, but I think the last thing I
 Ac> watched on there was Mr. Robot, which was years ago. But like you, we
 Ac> have Prime for other things. Netflix, but I always fight myself and the
 Ac> rest of the family to get rid of it, same reasons as you. We've watched
 Ac> all the good stuff already, and nothing new has come in awhile. MAX is
 Ac> free for us, which now includes most of what's already on Discovery+,
 Ac> and Paramount+ is nice for skipping the theatres for some movies (Top
 Ac> Gun and Transformers were the last couple I watched anyway). I think we
 Ac> have Peacock, but we don't pay for it (shared account or some such).

Jesus, didn't know it was so expensive, but Live TV is something I don't really need (or want) personally.

Prime's content is pretty odd compared to most services. Like I said, they do have a lot of really esoteric stuff if you dig for it, which can be cool. Amazon has also had some decent *attempts* at original content. Jack Ryan, Wheel of Time, the Lord of the Rings one, I know The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is popular. My favorites are the recent Reacher series, The Boys, and of course, The Expanse (if that counts, heh.)

I don't think this requires a Prime membership (but I could be wrong) but one compelling case (well, to me at least) for Amazon is "renting" with media credits. If you buy stuff from Amazon even semi-regularly, you sometimes get the option to receive a few bucks credit that you're only allowed to spend on media (I think) when you group items for slightly slower delivery. They've been doing this for years now, but I rarely did it and when I did I'd be like "cool, I'll have to use that credit sometime..." and then forget about it. Nowadays, anything we're not in a hurry for, we pick that option, and every time I watch something I can't stream for free, I see if I can rent it from Amazon (I usually can) and just use those credits to do it for free (which it actually defaults to doing.) The only downside is that they expire after a while, but it's several months.

 Ac> So with that said, it's still at or under $100 probably. Whereas cable
 Ac> is like 140 for their medium package around here. Not saving an arm and
 Ac> a leg, but plenty enough to not want to go back to cable. I remember
 Ac> flipping through cable channels with absolutely nothing on, wondering
 Ac> why I was paying so much for it. At least now when I actually want to
 Ac> watch TV there's always something to watch.

Your last two sentences there pretty much sum up one of my main reasons for never regretting leaving cable for even a second (and an early compelling case for piracy too.) Unless there's some kind of major event going on I want to watch live, I have zero need to watch TV on *someone else's* schedule.

I'd guess the millennials are the last generation to experience that, but it's really ingrained in a lot of older people. My parents, for example, whose evening pretty much every night of the week is turning on the ol' boob tube to watch... well, whatever the fuck there is to watch. I mean, they have their favorite shows of course, but they watch stuff they'd probably not watch otherwise just to pad out their schedule, they watch reruns, or whatever random stuff if nothing better is on. It's kind of gross to me to think of how much time they've wasted in their lives watching some bottom of the barrel bullshit they never had any real interest in, and a third of which was commercials anyway. When I spend all evening watching TV, it's at least a show or a movie that I actively want to watch.

I admit, I do miss occasionally finding a hidden gem or developing an appreciation for something you might have never gotten into if you weren't in an entertainment desert, but then there's virtually limitless stuff on streaming services (and to leech) that you can explore if you want to spend your time that way. I simply don't - I have enough stuff in my backlog I want to watch, and a lot of other things I'd rather be doing than watching something that is likely to be garbage. *shrug*

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

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