TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Prime does have better movies right now. TV I'm not sold on because they just hoover up crap across the world to pad but movies is what I want more of and they're delivering. Some do overlap with Hulu because of the Epix contract (so Paramount and Lionsgate movies), but they are also slowly building a decent backlog from the past ten years worth of movies, as in real movies not pure VOD or foreign filler, as well as having a good rotation of 80's and 90's b-movies and even a few classics. They actually do put up some good seasonal bits.
Right now they have a tile for Halloween that has some new Blumhouse cheap movies like you get during this film season, as well as bigger movies like Hereditary, Resident Evil movies, Friday the 13th, Silent Hill, Train to Busan, Addams Family OG and new CG movie, Fright Night, there's variety there including Best of the Worst schlock too. And then they have a TV row with Buffy, Teen Wolf, Grimm..., it's stuff they had before but at least it's tiled and easy to find compared to their normal layout.
The question of what's good and worth it seems to me pretty personal. With the obvious caveat that everyone's needs are different - I love, love, absolutely love HBO Max, and it is my main source of visual entertainment. It's the one subscription that I don't see myself cancelling for the foreseeable future, and I used to cancel and resubscribe to the old HBO service all the time.
What I'm looking for in a subscription service is a good mix of new and old. That last bit isn't a side bonus for me, if I don't have a decent number of old movies to go through, I'm not gonna be happy with the service. HBO overdelivers there, because their selection of old movies isn't just big, it's also really good and diverse. I recently went through all Fred Astaire & Ginger Roger movies, all the Lone Wolf & Cub series, and rewatched a bunch of Truffaut films. And if I'm feeling like watching a blockbuster or two, they're always rolling through. And throughout that, I'm slowly going through all the Looney Tunes shorts from the 1930s through the the 1960s (I highly recommend this). They finally figured out how to keep me between seasons of their shows.
Amazon might actually have more old movies overall, I wouldn't be surprised, but browsing their app is such a messy experience I don't really care to find out. Netflix was one of my favorites, and I like their app, but for various reasons (cost of licensing) they went in a direction that leaves me largely uninterested in their stuff.
So for me for HBO + Criterion channel is the best way to spend $25 a month, but I'm not comfortable unequivocally recommending that to anybody else.
If you don't think Netflix is worth the money, then I don't see how an argument could be made for any streaming service. Netflix is constantly releasing show and movies. I watch almost all of it. It's a proper replacement for cable, imo.
Personally, the only Netflix show I’m waiting for is the next season of Umbrella Academy, and that’s a year away at least.
The other shows I liked have either ended, or cancelled.
I think Prime will do for a while, and I don’t even watch a lot of stuff on that, in between bingeing shows.
I’ll be doing a lot of gaming over the next few months, and I’m reading more, so I can afford to lose a streaming service.
The question of what's good and worth it seems to me pretty personal. With the obvious caveat that everyone's needs are different - I love, love, absolutely love HBO Max, and it is my main source of visual entertainment. It's the one subscription that I don't see myself cancelling for the foreseeable future, and I used to cancel and resubscribe to the old HBO service all the time.
What I'm looking for in a subscription service is a good mix of new and old. That last bit isn't a side bonus for me, if I don't have a decent number of old movies to go through, I'm not gonna be happy with the service. HBO overdelivers there, because their selection of old movies isn't just big, it's also really good and diverse. I recently went through all Fred Astaire & Ginger Roger movies, all the Lone Wolf & Cub series, and rewatched a bunch of Truffaut films. And if I'm feeling like watching a blockbuster or two, they're always rolling through. And throughout that, I'm slowly going through all the Looney Tunes shorts from the 1930s through the the 1960s (I highly recommend this). They finally figured out how to keep me between seasons of their shows.
Amazon might actually have more old movies overall, I wouldn't be surprised, but browsing their app is such a messy experience I don't really care to find out. Netflix was one of my favorites, and I like their app, but for various reasons (cost of licensing) they went in a direction that leaves me largely uninterested in their stuff.
So for me for HBO + Criterion channel is the best way to spend $25 a month, but I'm not comfortable unequivocally recommending that to anybody else.
This is another issue I have with Netflix. The way they constantly move around rows makes browsing it a pain on top of which it's algorithm is not great at showing me things I'd want to watch. Over half of my list is things I had to specifically search for because I found out it was on Netflix from somewhere else.
+1
Options
thatassemblyguyJanitor of Technical Debt.Registered Userregular
I think the only QoL I'd want from Netflix browsing is to be able to easily drop a movie/show from my "continue watching" queue - because sometimes I get 5-10 minutes into a thing and realize it's rubbish, but T H E::A L G O R I T H M will decide to keep it in my "continue watching" for a couple weeks, and even if it's fallen off due to the time decay part of the algorithm, it will then every so often wonder out-loud to me - Y'ALL WANNA FINISH THIS SHOW/MOVIE!?
Amazon's movie selection is far larger but people who tried watching old movies on Prime tell me that on a regular basis the version Amazon have is a poor quality transfer they obviously couldn't give two shits about. YMMV and I haven't watched anything other than Picard on a free trial my wife signed up for by mistake, but as a guy whoe likes watching old movies this made me hug my DVDs a little closer.
Amazon's movie selection is far larger but people who tried watching old movies on Prime tell me that on a regular basis the version Amazon have is a poor quality transfer they obviously couldn't give two shits about. YMMV and I haven't watched anything other than Picard on a free trial my wife signed up for by mistake, but as a guy whoe likes watching old movies this made me hug my DVDs a little closer.
My favorite thing about them is that sometimes they’ll have the VHS pan-scan version of a movie, and you’ll have to double check in case they also have a version that’s more watchable.
If you could recommend one or two animes on the streaming services, what would you go with?
Edit: Something with limited number of episodes.
What sort of show are you looking for? And are you looking for dubs or are you ok with subs?.
Shows I’ve liked before: Evangelion, Azumanga, SE Lain, Excel Saga, Haibane-Renmei, Berserk, KEY the metal idol.
Yeah, I know, it’s been a while.
Paranoia Agent and Welcome to the NHK are on Funimation if you want some dark, cerebral stuff.
Welcome to the NHK explores themes of escapism vs reality and anti-social tendencies, which I think hits a bit too close to home for a lot of anime watchers. Also a pretty good comedy despite the themes.
Paranoia Agent was a show Satoshi Kon did and sort of deals with with the dualities within people, which was a common theme throughout his work. Every Frame a Painting did a pretty excellent video on Satoshi Kon and it briefly touches on Paranoia Agent as well.
Paranoia Agent also has, in my opinion, an excellent OP. The song and imagery are great and the scene of the businessman laughing in front of a mushroom cloud while crazy yodeling-esque vocals are playing works super well for me.
I think the only QoL I'd want from Netflix browsing is to be able to easily drop a movie/show from my "continue watching" queue - because sometimes I get 5-10 minutes into a thing and realize it's rubbish, but T H E::A L G O R I T H M will decide to keep it in my "continue watching" for a couple weeks, and even if it's fallen off due to the time decay part of the algorithm, it will then every so often wonder out-loud to me - Y'ALL WANNA FINISH THIS SHOW/MOVIE!?
Can't you accomplish that by just giving the show a thumbs down?
Netflix's algorithm seems to work pretty well for me, but I think that's because I'm very meticulous about rating everything I've ever watched.
By "make" you mean "license". There's a big difference there.
There's clearly very little in the way of creativity at Netflix proper considering the state of the service and their inability to keep anything streaming beyond 3 seasons.
+2
Options
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Prime's movie selection is way better than Netflix's. It's not even close.
Good luck finding any of it with the interface, though!
Fair, but I have no problem finding new stuff to watch just through their recommendations. The "customers who liked this also liked" or whatever tends to net at least one new movie for my watch list each time.
Now that I have Disney+, Amazon's interface problems seem quaint.
What's that, USER you want to watch an episode AGAIN?! I bet you mean you want to watch the credits from when we moved on to the next episode last time you watched.
Haha, a "watch from beginning" option? why would you need that?
BSoB on
+4
Options
lwt1973King of ThievesSyndicationRegistered Userregular
I use JustWatch to find anything on my services. It’s been great so far!
I have D+/Netflix/PBS kids because of my 5 year old. We’re getting rid of cable in 2 weeks as nobody watches it, so there goes HBO/Cinemax/etc as we had all channels except Starz(which I wanted but forgot to include).
For me, the Netflix algorithm sucks. I am thinking of just resetting my profile(or deleting and making a new one) as it shows me about 75% things I’ve already seen and rated, or a large amount of things I do not like and have marked as thumbs down. Example is stand up shows. I don’t really care for them except for rare exceptions. I have so many being offered to me even though I’ve thumbs down’d a bunch of them. Same with Horror genre. It would be GREAT if my recommendations actually were New things that I enjoy. So for me, Netflix is an endless cycle of me scrolling through.
Once again, JustWatch has a New section showing Newly added stuff to your services and that’s how I find stuff to watch now. They even have a watch list which works and is simple.
Good news: some additional LG TVs now have the Apple TV+ app.
Bad news: Apple TV+ continues to have pretty worthless content that's been barely updated since launch. In addition, they've now mooshed CBS All Access and AMC premiere into the UI so they can sell it as a bundle, and it's almost impossible to click around and find something that's "free" with just an Apple sub. It's truly one of the worst products Apple has ever put their name on. It's make HBOMaxxxxxx's app look like a winner.
That said, if you've bought an apple product (not sure what the list is), you can get a free year and watch Ted Lasso and Mythic Quest, which are both fair to middling comedies. The rest of their stuff is super weak, even some of the conceptual stuff that sounded cool on paper a couple years back (like the Ron Moore alternate history space show).
Straygatsby on
0
Options
thatassemblyguyJanitor of Technical Debt.Registered Userregular
I think the only QoL I'd want from Netflix browsing is to be able to easily drop a movie/show from my "continue watching" queue - because sometimes I get 5-10 minutes into a thing and realize it's rubbish, but T H E::A L G O R I T H M will decide to keep it in my "continue watching" for a couple weeks, and even if it's fallen off due to the time decay part of the algorithm, it will then every so often wonder out-loud to me - Y'ALL WANNA FINISH THIS SHOW/MOVIE!?
Can't you accomplish that by just giving the show a thumbs down?
Netflix's algorithm seems to work pretty well for me, but I think that's because I'm very meticulous about rating everything I've ever watched.
The biggest problem with that approach is that I have no clue how the thumbs down will impact T H E::A L G O R I T H M. It may want to no longer suggest stuff of that genre/topic when the problem was that the show/movie was just done poorly or has a lazy/shit writer/director.
Honestly, the "don't show me this content" thing on instagram has more contextual options than Netflix. Which is a shame considering I pay for one and actually enjoy it for the most part.
“We understand people have more entertainment choices than ever (on other services) and we’re committed to delivering an even better experience for our members (the shareholders),” the company said in statement. “We’re updating our prices so that we can continue to offer more variety of TV shows and films (and cancel them) — in addition to our great fall lineup (now that winter is here). As always we offer a range of plans so that people can pick a price that works best for their budget (because we TOTALLY care about your budget, for real).”
0
Options
ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
Ya'll are entirely too cynical about Netflix.
And, honestly, a little bit too antagonizing considering we (used to) have someone here that works for them.
I am cynical about Netflix because I care about Netflix. I want them to do better, and I have seen them do better.
For example, Netflix has growth 20% year over year, and is on track to have record profits this year (again). Netflix doesn't need a price hike to cover costs, it's purely a bid for what the market can bear to pay, and is meant to maximize profit. I would be perfectly ok with paying more if it meant that Netflix would deliver more (e.g. tie the price hike announcement with new shows), but I don't think that's what is happening.
And I understand that the purpose of a corporation is to maximize profit. And I'm always going to be cynical about corporations due to this fact.
Netflix's Al Gore Rhythm knows that you will hate watch trash. Giving something a thumbs down means nothing because you've watched it. It thinks you like to watch bad content and will feed you more things that you hate. If you watch something and truly despise it and want to avoid everything like it, you have to get it out of your history. The Rhythm only knows to find you something you will watch, it doesn't try to make you happy.
I think the only QoL I'd want from Netflix browsing is to be able to easily drop a movie/show from my "continue watching" queue - because sometimes I get 5-10 minutes into a thing and realize it's rubbish, but T H E::A L G O R I T H M will decide to keep it in my "continue watching" for a couple weeks, and even if it's fallen off due to the time decay part of the algorithm, it will then every so often wonder out-loud to me - Y'ALL WANNA FINISH THIS SHOW/MOVIE!?
Can't you accomplish that by just giving the show a thumbs down?
Netflix's algorithm seems to work pretty well for me, but I think that's because I'm very meticulous about rating everything I've ever watched.
The biggest problem with that approach is that I have no clue how the thumbs down will impact T H E::A L G O R I T H M. It may want to no longer suggest stuff of that genre/topic when the problem was that the show/movie was just done poorly or has a lazy/shit writer/director.
I've always assumed the way it works is, "You liked X and disliked Y. Other people who liked X and disliked Y also liked Z. Therefore, I will recommend Z."
In other words, it uses patterns in other people's preferences in its attempt to determine yours. Genre/topic doesn't necessarily factor into it, except to the degree that people who have similar preferences will usually like similar genres.
Posts
Right now they have a tile for Halloween that has some new Blumhouse cheap movies like you get during this film season, as well as bigger movies like Hereditary, Resident Evil movies, Friday the 13th, Silent Hill, Train to Busan, Addams Family OG and new CG movie, Fright Night, there's variety there including Best of the Worst schlock too. And then they have a TV row with Buffy, Teen Wolf, Grimm..., it's stuff they had before but at least it's tiled and easy to find compared to their normal layout.
What I'm looking for in a subscription service is a good mix of new and old. That last bit isn't a side bonus for me, if I don't have a decent number of old movies to go through, I'm not gonna be happy with the service. HBO overdelivers there, because their selection of old movies isn't just big, it's also really good and diverse. I recently went through all Fred Astaire & Ginger Roger movies, all the Lone Wolf & Cub series, and rewatched a bunch of Truffaut films. And if I'm feeling like watching a blockbuster or two, they're always rolling through. And throughout that, I'm slowly going through all the Looney Tunes shorts from the 1930s through the the 1960s (I highly recommend this). They finally figured out how to keep me between seasons of their shows.
Amazon might actually have more old movies overall, I wouldn't be surprised, but browsing their app is such a messy experience I don't really care to find out. Netflix was one of my favorites, and I like their app, but for various reasons (cost of licensing) they went in a direction that leaves me largely uninterested in their stuff.
So for me for HBO + Criterion channel is the best way to spend $25 a month, but I'm not comfortable unequivocally recommending that to anybody else.
I really ended up liking attack on titan although that one is obviously super popular.
I don't know if it's anime, but aggretsuko is also surprisingly good
My Backloggery
Personally, the only Netflix show I’m waiting for is the next season of Umbrella Academy, and that’s a year away at least.
The other shows I liked have either ended, or cancelled.
I think Prime will do for a while, and I don’t even watch a lot of stuff on that, in between bingeing shows.
I’ll be doing a lot of gaming over the next few months, and I’m reading more, so I can afford to lose a streaming service.
Shows I’ve liked before: Evangelion, Azumanga, SE Lain, Excel Saga, Haibane-Renmei, Berserk, KEY the metal idol.
Yeah, I know, it’s been a while.
I still lie in bed thinking how John Doe was going to finish.
As it turned out, it finished on a massive cliffhanger after one season.
Good luck finding any of it with the interface, though!
The weird one for me is being mad at Fox for years for cancelling Arrested Development, then being mad at Netflix for bringing it back.
This is another issue I have with Netflix. The way they constantly move around rows makes browsing it a pain on top of which it's algorithm is not great at showing me things I'd want to watch. Over half of my list is things I had to specifically search for because I found out it was on Netflix from somewhere else.
Star Driver on Crunchyroll? It’s basically Utena, but with all the dark stripped out and replaced with ridiculousness and giant robots.
The main character’s robot has a hat with a holographic feather in it.
Have you ever heard of neon genesis evangelion? It's a breezy 26 episodes.
Netflix has Violet Evergarden. Short-ish, doesn't drag on forever.
Netflix also has Gundam UC. OVA, so limited episodes.
Amazon (oddly enough) has Redline. Racing anime movie, also hands down the most gorgeous hand drawn anime ever.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
My favorite thing about them is that sometimes they’ll have the VHS pan-scan version of a movie, and you’ll have to double check in case they also have a version that’s more watchable.
Paranoia Agent and Welcome to the NHK are on Funimation if you want some dark, cerebral stuff.
Welcome to the NHK explores themes of escapism vs reality and anti-social tendencies, which I think hits a bit too close to home for a lot of anime watchers. Also a pretty good comedy despite the themes.
Paranoia Agent was a show Satoshi Kon did and sort of deals with with the dualities within people, which was a common theme throughout his work. Every Frame a Painting did a pretty excellent video on Satoshi Kon and it briefly touches on Paranoia Agent as well.
Paranoia Agent also has, in my opinion, an excellent OP. The song and imagery are great and the scene of the businessman laughing in front of a mushroom cloud while crazy yodeling-esque vocals are playing works super well for me.
Can't you accomplish that by just giving the show a thumbs down?
Netflix's algorithm seems to work pretty well for me, but I think that's because I'm very meticulous about rating everything I've ever watched.
By "make" you mean "license". There's a big difference there.
There's clearly very little in the way of creativity at Netflix proper considering the state of the service and their inability to keep anything streaming beyond 3 seasons.
Fair, but I have no problem finding new stuff to watch just through their recommendations. The "customers who liked this also liked" or whatever tends to net at least one new movie for my watch list each time.
What's that, USER you want to watch an episode AGAIN?! I bet you mean you want to watch the credits from when we moved on to the next episode last time you watched.
Haha, a "watch from beginning" option? why would you need that?
This. So much this. It's a pain to find something in the mess that they have.
I have D+/Netflix/PBS kids because of my 5 year old. We’re getting rid of cable in 2 weeks as nobody watches it, so there goes HBO/Cinemax/etc as we had all channels except Starz(which I wanted but forgot to include).
For me, the Netflix algorithm sucks. I am thinking of just resetting my profile(or deleting and making a new one) as it shows me about 75% things I’ve already seen and rated, or a large amount of things I do not like and have marked as thumbs down. Example is stand up shows. I don’t really care for them except for rare exceptions. I have so many being offered to me even though I’ve thumbs down’d a bunch of them. Same with Horror genre. It would be GREAT if my recommendations actually were New things that I enjoy. So for me, Netflix is an endless cycle of me scrolling through.
Once again, JustWatch has a New section showing Newly added stuff to your services and that’s how I find stuff to watch now. They even have a watch list which works and is simple.
Bad news: Apple TV+ continues to have pretty worthless content that's been barely updated since launch. In addition, they've now mooshed CBS All Access and AMC premiere into the UI so they can sell it as a bundle, and it's almost impossible to click around and find something that's "free" with just an Apple sub. It's truly one of the worst products Apple has ever put their name on. It's make HBOMaxxxxxx's app look like a winner.
That said, if you've bought an apple product (not sure what the list is), you can get a free year and watch Ted Lasso and Mythic Quest, which are both fair to middling comedies. The rest of their stuff is super weak, even some of the conceptual stuff that sounded cool on paper a couple years back (like the Ron Moore alternate history space show).
The biggest problem with that approach is that I have no clue how the thumbs down will impact T H E::A L G O R I T H M. It may want to no longer suggest stuff of that genre/topic when the problem was that the show/movie was just done poorly or has a lazy/shit writer/director.
My comments in (Italicized Red).
And, honestly, a little bit too antagonizing considering we (used to) have someone here that works for them.
For example, Netflix has growth 20% year over year, and is on track to have record profits this year (again). Netflix doesn't need a price hike to cover costs, it's purely a bid for what the market can bear to pay, and is meant to maximize profit. I would be perfectly ok with paying more if it meant that Netflix would deliver more (e.g. tie the price hike announcement with new shows), but I don't think that's what is happening.
And I understand that the purpose of a corporation is to maximize profit. And I'm always going to be cynical about corporations due to this fact.
It’s actually a series, not a film !
8 episodes, 30 mins each.
4 hours of Frost !
Please be good. Please be good. Please be good.
I've always assumed the way it works is, "You liked X and disliked Y. Other people who liked X and disliked Y also liked Z. Therefore, I will recommend Z."
In other words, it uses patterns in other people's preferences in its attempt to determine yours. Genre/topic doesn't necessarily factor into it, except to the degree that people who have similar preferences will usually like similar genres.
It's called Truth Seekers.
Mando season 2 ep 1
pleasepaypreacher.net
Ok I watched ep 1. Actually a little scary!! It's good so far.
Edit: main complaint, not enough simon pegg!!
Edit 2: the last line of episode 2 had me in tears
Which was mandtastic.