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fastlanephil

macrumors 65816
Nov 17, 2007
1,289
274
So what would you consider the high point--Leave it to Beaver?

The Steve Allen Show.

Guests included a very young Frank Zappa making music with a bicycle, Jack Kerouac reciting his prose while Steve Allen played jazz on the piano, and other great moments including the show that showcased a struggling young singer by the name of Elvis Presley.

Steve Allen may have saved Elvis Presley's career on that show. The top song in 1956 was Hot Diggity by Perry Como but America was about to come out of it's post WWll slumber.
 

Bill Killer

macrumors 6502
Dec 29, 2011
495
98
The Steve Allen Show.

Guests included a very young Frank Zappa making music with a bicycle, Jack Kerouac reciting his prose while Steve Allen played jazz on the piano, and other great moments including the show that showcased a struggling young singer by the name of Elvis Presley.

Steve Allen may have saved Elvis Presley's career on that show. The top song in 1956 was Hot Diggity by Perry Como but America was about to come out of it's post WWll slumber.
Good to know what you consider the pinnacle of television is. I can safely disregard your opinion.
 

sulpfiction

macrumors 68040
Aug 16, 2011
3,075
603
Philadelphia Area
This post is why cable/sat sucks. Why don't you people wake up?

Again..Maybe for u, cable "sucks". I happen to really enjoy my Fios.

I'm not against people cutting the cable cord, but Im just gonna wait a few more years before I rely on streaming all of my content. It's come a long way, but its not quite there yet, for ME.
 

JAT

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2001
6,473
124
Mpls, MN
People keep saying this, but what is it that they've done "to" the music business? Have they gone under? Are people no longer buying music?
They, and Napster, forced the industry into paying attention to the internet. The horror!

But it looks like the Apple/Amazon digital sales era has an end in sight. The Pandora, etc. streaming era is coming.

----------

Again..Maybe for u, cable "sucks". I happen to really enjoy my Fios.

I'm not against people cutting the cable cord, but Im just gonna wait a few more years before I rely on streaming all of my content. It's come a long way, but its not quite there yet, for ME.
Not my point. Despite Darryl's comments above about how saintly they are, the TV industry is in the business of ripping off their own customers. Good luck.
 

BigDukeSix

macrumors 6502a
Sep 22, 2010
718
1
34.6700N 118.1590W
If this works, and I can just subscribe to HBO Go without having to have the rest of a cable package, that would be awesome and a serious step in the right direction. I have already cut cable, except as my ISP, and my life is going just fine. Apple and HBO, lets git 'er done!
 
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macUser2007

macrumors 68000
May 30, 2007
1,506
203
Again..Maybe for u, cable "sucks". I happen to really enjoy my Fios.

I'm not against people cutting the cable cord, but Im just gonna wait a few more years before I rely on streaming all of my content. It's come a long way, but its not quite there yet, for ME.

The problem is that unless Apple becomes a cable/satellite provider, or simply provides a front-end for the cable/satellite providers, it will have a tough time competing with the established players.

The "cord-cutters" are where it's at and Apple is not doing a great job there.

I have two ATV 3s, but they are mostly glorified Netflix boxes. But if someone came up with a good Plex standalone box (XNBC does not have a decent Netflix client), I'd dump my ATVs in a second. Or if the next generation of Google TV comes along and I like it, I'd dump the ATVs as well.

BTW, I have cable internet, but no TV. I cut my satellite service 4 years ago now and I personally don't miss regular TV at all. :D
 

canman4PM

macrumors 6502
Mar 8, 2012
299
30
Kelowna BC
You don't understand what HBOGO is then. But since you are a HBO subscriber you get if for free anyway. HBOGO is like HBO on Demand on steroids.

Just go to http://www.hbogo.com and login with your cable subscriber account. Or download the app from the app store.

At this moment HBOGO has something like 261 Movies, 43 complete series, 43 comedy programs, 85 sports programs, 95 documentaries and 25 Late Night (adult) shows that you can immediately stream either on the web or on your device (iPad etc...) anywhere. HBOGO also has extras for series like Game of Thrones, Boardwalk empire like behind the scenes, interviews and interactive features.

Yeah. I get all that through my cable provider, including on my iDevices. I have 3 apps for the cable provider: 1 is a schedule and PVR management app, 1 is a wifi remote app, and the last is an On Demand app, which includes everything HBO offers (if I have HBO, and I do) on demand, all ABC Spark on demand, CBC on demand, Movie Central on demand, Super Channel on demand, Disney XD on demand, Hollywood Suite on demand, etc.

So mine is more like HBOGO on steroids.

----------

How well does that system work for your phone or tablet?

See above

----------

There's a heck of a lot of us that are not willing to spend $80+ per month to have access to hundreds of worthless commercial-ridden broadcasts. Being able to subscribe to only the programming we want would make it worthwhile and cost effective.

I'm one of them, but if I want the movie channels and the hockey games, I gotta have cable.
 

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Not my point. Despite Darryl's comments above about how saintly they are, the TV industry is in the business of ripping off their own customers. Good luck.

Excuse me? Where did I say saintly? I believe all of my posts in this thread revolve around the idea that the enormously powerful cableTV empire will get theirs no matter how this could go because they also are the broadband providers for most of us.

And yes, I do shoot a few pokes at Apple for being their own worst enemy in helping this dream along because of how things went down with the music industry. If I was in the video side, there's no way I would just hand it over to any ONE company and let them tell me how my products will be priced, etc.

There are no saints here. Cable has a thorough hold on continuing to be the middlemen regardless of whether Apple finds a way to slip in or not. Apple is doing a Wall Street banks thing here by just trying to get themselves in as either replacement middlemen or another middleman. Some consumers are of the mindset of "if they don't give me what I want for cheap, I'll just steal it". Etc.

Pulling off the dream comes down to these simple truths:
  • The artists on the content creation end of the chain will want any replacement to make them more money than the current model gives them now
  • Apple wants to take a nice big bite of this action right off the top
  • The CableTV players own the pipes through which any replacement served via Internet must flow. They too will- one way or the other- make more- not less- in any new model.
  • Consumers live in a great illusion that somehow al-a-carte and commercial free is available to them in such a way that they can end up paying a fraction of what they pay now and still get everything they like to watch at the quality it is now... AND have the diversity of new pilots continue to flow so that we have new great shows to watch in the future. What really happens in al-a-carte world is not $100 per month divided by 200 channels = $.50 cents per channel times the 10 channels I actually want = $5/month. Instead, those 10 channels end up being priced for the new model to preserve the revenue stream. Can you say about $10+ per channel? So 10 channels we watch + 190 channels we don't watch cost $100 or 10 channels we watch at about $100/month.
  • The commercials that we never see running on those hundreds of channels we never watch provide a huge subsidy paid for by those who hope we might see their commercial, which is crucial revenue for those who make those shows we want to see. Kill the commercials and that $5 or $10 al-a-carte, commercial-free subscription we dream about has to jump to at least $59 to $64/month per household just to make up for those lost subsidies paid for in OPM... even if we could get the rest of the chain to sell us the channels at just 50 cents each.
  • The broadband bill at about $50 will almost certainly go up for "higher bandwidth users like video streamers" in this al-a-carte world. If the cable guys take the hit in their cableTV subscription revenues, they'll just make it up with higher broadband rates. Effectively, they have a monopoly on the last mile. Apple can't innovate a way around that (to link us directly with iCloud) by building a Television or new set-top box. This would take some entirely new form of very wide bandwidth, GLOBAL reach communication innovation (LTE doesn't have the capacity either).

So how does the dream end up? If we get al-a-carte and commercial free and Apple is injected as an additional middleman, I would predict our 10-15 channels will probably cost about $150 per month with broadband remaining around where it is OR we'll get a new, "cheaper" TV package (of just 10 or 15 "channels") at about $50 per month and our broadband will rise to about $150 per month. Net result: all the players still make at least what they make now and we end up with far less diversity of choice and/or quality and the loss of the big subsidy support that doesn't even come out of our pockets.

One might respond: then, I just want the few shows that I watch. We have that already in the iTunes store. But we don't want to pay for that. Instead, we want this magical, everything-I-could-want plan at a huge cost reduction vs. what 'I' pay now and yet we still expect it all to "just work" in spite of Apple plugging in as additional middleman. Somebody takes the hit in this dream. If it's just Studios + Apple + Us in the end, who is it that takes that hit? If not us and not Apple, then quality and diversity of programming must fall. We already have much cheaper "channels" and programming made on low or no-budgets; it's called YouTube.

If one dreams of al-a-carte, my suggestion is play the system "as is" flipping back & forth between providers who offer new subscriber discounts (for instance, bounce back & forth between DISH and DirecTV every 2 years). Use the "FAV" channel functionality to cut the 200 channels down to the 10 or 15 you actually watch so that you are only seeing the channels you care about. The other 190 will still be running invisibly in the background, generating that subsidy revenue with commercials you'll never see. Use the DVR function to record the shows on the 10 or 15 channels you want to watch and then skip the commercials when you play them back. That ends up being a close approximation of the dream... except the 85% to 95% savings from the "as is" bill that will NEVER show up no matter who injects themselves into the chain.
 
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canman4PM

macrumors 6502
Mar 8, 2012
299
30
Kelowna BC
I am not sure about other providers, but HBO on Demand on U-verse has a small fraction of the content available in HBO Go.

I just looked at my phone and I can confirm access to around 4 dozen series: Older ones such as "The Sopranos" and "Band of Brothers" to new ones like "Treme" and "Call Me Fitz" to oddballs like "Little Britain" and "Working Girls In Bed." Hundreds of movies and comedy specials like "The Rat Pack" and George Carlin, Specials like 24-7.
 

malexandria

Suspended
Mar 25, 2009
971
427
Mirroring/Airplay Sucks

On your Phone/iPad/Mac that you can Mirror right up to the TV.........

Bought an AppleTV to try the Airplay Mirroring and it Sucks. It's a stuttery mess. And I have a fairly decent connection most of the time.

----------

That's a joke, right? TV these days is written like little-girl fan fiction, acted by un-enigmatic cardboard, and filmed by blind men. It's the least engrossing time in all TV history. And it is mostly propaganda.

You just come across as a retarded snob who doesn't know what to watch. If you don't like TV that is fine, but don't get on some moral high horse and act like EVERYTHING is crap when there is a LOT of brilliant TV to watch - on all the Premium Channels like HBO there is something, the Cable Nets are on fire with great stuff. Just because the only thing you probably try and watch are crappy reality shows doesn't mean there isn't a lot of amazing shows available. Here are a couple:

Breaking Bad
Homeland
Nikita
Arrow
The Americans
Justified
Fringe
Game of Thrones
The Tudors
The Lying Game
Switched at Birth
Doctor Who
Downtown Abbey (not a fan, but a lot of folks swear by it)
 

trouble747

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2011
328
14
...and the last is an On Demand app, which includes everything HBO offers (if I have HBO, and I do) on demand...

What cable provider do you have?

I mean, I suppose this is possible...but I've never seen an implementation of HBO "on demand" that offers practically every episode of every series that has run on HBO for the past several years. Not saying it's impossible...

In any event, I can assure you that most cable/satellite providers do NOT offer "on demand" HBO programming that is comparable to what is offered on HBOgo.
 

TheRealTVGuy

macrumors 6502a
Jul 21, 2010
704
1,156
Orlando, FL
Again, I can't afford any subscriptions to anything right now, so my AppleTV is pretty limiting. Wake me up when the free, commercial embedded versions of ABC Player and Pandora show up on the AppleTV.
 

JAT

macrumors 603
Dec 31, 2001
6,473
124
Mpls, MN
Excuse me? Where did I say saintly? I believe all of my posts in this thread revolve around the idea that the enormously powerful cableTV empire will get theirs no matter how this could go because they also are the broadband providers for most of us.

*snip*
That post sounds much more like reality than when you said "helping many other players be successful", which is the opposite of what I see. They've fought Netflix, not embraced them. They put out their own competing service (hulu), and handcuffed it, despite owning the bloody thing. They can't even make deals amongst themselves without angst, like fights over ESPN Classic. (really? Classic?) Etc. They have been nothing but greedy.

I still think you put way too much onus on Apple's pricing plans, as compared with what the audio industry was doing to artists before. They're just a store. Amazon is making great strides up the list of music retailers, also. I can't find stats, yet, but I expect them to be #3 for 2012 overall USA music sales, maybe even #2. They were #5 or so in 2010. And, as I said, it will be switching to streaming in coming years. So, I don't see Apple as that influential on the industry long-term, despite their current 25-30% market share in music sales.

A lot of the changes (towards downloading) that have happened were going to happen anyway. Apple, and now Amazon, have kept the legal sales alive by switching to single song sales. Otherwise, Napster would have been just the first of many such sagas, and today would be some mishmash of crazed internet anarchy. How do you really think downloading would look today without iTMS? It certainly wouldn't still be BestBuy at the top of the sales heap, with the status quo (from, let's say...1990) of ruthless industry domination the studios thought they would have forever. It seems possible that they have finally realized the internet exists, and will affect the music world.

I agree completely about the TV ala carte attitude so prevalent on the internet. It would not reduce prices for most people, but the opposite. Proponents don't want to hear that, though. I just wish networks would offer better access when they do offer shows. Many of them use Flash, and poor implementations. Hulu's isn't too bad right now, but it has been all over the place in quality.
 

WhoDaKat

macrumors 6502
May 20, 2006
379
665
They're leaving money on the table. There must be people who would be perfectly happy to pay for the GO service but don't want to waste all that money on a whole cable package. Instead of making that money, people will just download illegal versions of the show or get the discs from netflix.

Do you know that HBO is owned by Time Warner Cable? I'm sure they know that if they allowed HBO to be purchased outside of a cable package then the money getting left on the table would be theirs. While I welcome the idea, and would be one of the first to sign on, it doesn't make business sense for Time Warner. HBO has to be one of the biggest draws to getting cable. If HBO and ESPN came out with a la carte subscriptions cable would loose 25% of its subscribers over night.
 

canman4PM

macrumors 6502
Mar 8, 2012
299
30
Kelowna BC
Bought an AppleTV to try the Airplay Mirroring and it Sucks. It's a stuttery mess. And I have a fairly decent connection most of the time.

----------



You just come across as a retarded snob who doesn't know what to watch. If you don't like TV that is fine, but don't get on some moral high horse and act like EVERYTHING is crap when there is a LOT of brilliant TV to watch - on all the Premium Channels like HBO there is something, the Cable Nets are on fire with great stuff. Just because the only thing you probably try and watch are crappy reality shows doesn't mean there isn't a lot of amazing shows available. Here are a couple:

Breaking Bad
Homeland
Nikita
Arrow
The Americans
Justified
Fringe
Game of Thrones
The Tudors
The Lying Game
Switched at Birth
Doctor Who
Downtown Abbey (not a fan, but a lot of folks swear by it)

You're right, this is a golden age. And you aren't the first to say it. It was, according to what I've read, started by HBO with shows like "Dream On," "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City." These shows did not conform to the old (stale?) patterns of 3-camera-live studio/laugh track comedy (eg. "Dream On") <Gasp>; standard lengths <GASP!>; Adult language/themes, nudity, etc <OMG GASP!!!>; and no commercials <BLASPHEMY!!!>. Independent cable channels were next like Showtime, TNT, AMC and they've now forced network television to pull up their socks to produce better content. Granted they are still somewhat weighted down by commercials (somebody's gotta pay for the shows - oh wait, that'd be us when we buy the advertised product) and some censorship, many comedies have ditched the 3-camera, live studio format and most shows worthy of watching have stepped up the themes, if not the language.

Granted there's still a ton of crap out there, but we don't have to watch it. I personally watch nothing on A&E on principle. What happened to them anyways. Remember when they were (if anything) a little snobby? Showing Masterpiece Theatre and live symphonies and other real arty stuff? Now it's trailer-trash TV. I'm waiting for Maury and Jerry to move to the network.
 
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trouble747

macrumors 6502
Jul 30, 2011
328
14
Time Warner Cable and the Time Warner that owns HBO are two separate companies that are not affiliated.

Regardless, it's clear why HBO (or TW) would be hesitant to buck the current model....
 

jdawgnoonan

macrumors 6502a
Apr 22, 2007
657
905
Jefferson, WI
will be great IF

I will absolutely want this. IF AND ONLY IF no cable TV subscription is required.

----------

The other thing that I want: Amazon Apps. Not likely though.
 

malexandria

Suspended
Mar 25, 2009
971
427
HBOGo vs. HBO OnDemand

Bill, yes. Directv's version of HBO on demand is essentially the same content as HBO To Go. That change occurred a few months ago.

Note, there are some shows you mention which are not available either on HBO To Go or Directv ie LAarry Sanders and Ali G - my guess is there are mixed rights issues.

DirectTV version of HBO OnDemand sounds great. I've had OnDemand for Xfinity, Optimum and Verizon. Optimum was especially awful because those bastards charged $5 extra per premium channel for their OnDemand channels. At least OnDemand is "free" on Xfinity and Verizon if you already subscribe.

I can tell you for the most part all the Premium services OnDemand channels pretty much suck. It is very spotty, rare that they include a full season of any of their shows that alone multiple ones.

OnDemand should be just that, but it is anything but. Very scattershot and absolutely no rhyme nor reason how they are programmed. This is why services like HBOGo, MaxGo, etc are really good - but I do think it's crap all the hoops you have to jump through to get it. But when you can it really is pretty awesome service.
 

malexandria

Suspended
Mar 25, 2009
971
427
HBO Go decoupling from Cable will Never Happen

The money just isn't there for them. HBO's ENTIRE business model is based on Cable Channels paying HBO a LOT of money. The only way you get the quality programming you get is because of that. Despite what people may think, there isn't this big pot of gold in selling a subscription only service via HBO Go. I'm almost positive it is probably against their long term contract with the Cable Companies and it is not in HBO's interest to get into fights with their primary cash cows over the promise of some "mythical pot of gold" through individual subs.

Their model works. Why fix it if it isn't broken, just because some people don't want to pay for Cable? For now I think HBO sees HBO GO an "added value" and additional reason for people to subscribe to HBO on Cable.
 

sulpfiction

macrumors 68040
Aug 16, 2011
3,075
603
Philadelphia Area
Excuse me? Where did I say saintly? I believe all of my posts in this thread revolve around the idea that the enormously powerful cableTV empire will get theirs no matter how this could go because they also are the broadband providers for most of us.

And yes, I do shoot a few pokes at Apple for being their own worst enemy in helping this dream along because of how things went down with the music industry. If I was in the video side, there's no way I would just hand it over to any ONE company and let them tell me how my products will be priced, etc.

There are no saints here. Cable has a thorough hold on continuing to be the middlemen regardless of whether Apple finds a way to slip in or not. Apple is doing a Wall Street banks thing here by just trying to get themselves in as either replacement middlemen or another middleman. Some consumers are of the mindset of "if they don't give me what I want for cheap, I'll just steal it". Etc.

Pulling off the dream comes down to these simple truths:
  • The artists on the content creation end of the chain will want any replacement to make them more money than the current model gives them now
  • Apple wants to take a nice big bite of this action right off the top
  • The CableTV players own the pipes through which any replacement served via Internet must flow. They too will- one way or the other- make more- not less- in any new model.
  • Consumers live in a great illusion that somehow al-a-carte and commercial free is available to them in such a way that they can end up paying a fraction of what they pay now and still get everything they like to watch at the quality it is now... AND have the diversity of new pilots continue to flow so that we have new great shows to watch in the future. What really happens in al-a-carte world is not $100 per month divided by 200 channels = $.50 cents per channel times the 10 channels I actually want = $5/month. Instead, those 10 channels end up being priced for the new model to preserve the revenue stream. Can you say about $10+ per channel? So 10 channels we watch + 190 channels we don't watch cost $100 or 10 channels we watch at about $100/month.
  • The commercials that we never see running on those hundreds of channels we never watch provide a huge subsidy paid for by those who hope we might see their commercial, which is crucial revenue for those who make those shows we want to see. Kill the commercials and that $5 or $10 al-a-carte, commercial-free subscription we dream about has to jump to at least $59 to $64/month per household just to make up for those lost subsidies paid for in OPM... even if we could get the rest of the chain to sell us the channels at just 50 cents each.
  • The broadband bill at about $50 will almost certainly go up for "higher bandwidth users like video streamers" in this al-a-carte world. If the cable guys take the hit in their cableTV subscription revenues, they'll just make it up with higher broadband rates. Effectively, they have a monopoly on the last mile. Apple can't innovate a way around that (to link us directly with iCloud) by building a Television or new set-top box. This would take some entirely new form of very wide bandwidth, GLOBAL reach communication innovation (LTE doesn't have the capacity either).

So how does the dream end up? If we get al-a-carte and commercial free and Apple is injected as an additional middleman, I would predict our 10-15 channels will probably cost about $150 per month with broadband remaining around where it is OR we'll get a new, "cheaper" TV package (of just 10 or 15 "channels") at about $50 per month and our broadband will rise to about $150 per month. Net result: all the players still make at least what they make now and we end up with far less diversity of choice and/or quality and the loss of the big subsidy support that doesn't even come out of our pockets.

One might respond: then, I just want the few shows that I watch. We have that already in the iTunes store. But we don't want to pay for that. Instead, we want this magical, everything-I-could-want plan at a huge cost reduction vs. what 'I' pay now and yet we still expect it all to "just work" in spite of Apple plugging in as additional middleman. Somebody takes the hit in this dream. If it's just Studios + Apple + Us in the end, who is it that takes that hit? If not us and not Apple, then quality and diversity of programming must fall. We already have much cheaper "channels" and programming made on low or no-budgets; it's called YouTube.

If one dreams of al-a-carte, my suggestion is play the system "as is" flipping back & forth between providers who offer new subscriber discounts (for instance, bounce back & forth between DISH and DirecTV every 2 years). Use the "FAV" channel functionality to cut the 200 channels down to the 10 or 15 you actually watch so that you are only seeing the channels you care about. The other 190 will still be running invisibly in the background, generating that subsidy revenue with commercials you'll never see. Use the DVR function to record the shows on the 10 or 15 channels you want to watch and then skip the commercials when you play them back. That ends up being a close approximation of the dream... except the 85% to 95% savings from the "as is" bill that will NEVER show up no matter who injects themselves into the chain.

Admire ur passion, but holy moley!
 

jettredmont

macrumors 68030
Jul 25, 2002
2,731
328
This would be exciting, except I already get HBO on my TV...

...by turning on my TV and cable box. :rolleyes:

The point is that you would be able to get it on a TV where you don't have a cable box, and would be able to avoid the crap cable box UI. No, not revolutionary by far. But, it's something, I suppose.

FWIW, I'll get excited when HBO Go sheds the cable subscription shackles, but until then the entire HBO Go thing is just proof that Netflix needs to take over HBO's original programming role because HBO is too addicted to the cable company kickback crack to go direct to consumers.
 

SeaFox

macrumors 68030
Jul 22, 2003
2,619
954
Somewhere Else
I want to watch The Sopranos or The Wire without having to purchase iTunes seasons or the Blu-Ray discs.

HBO Go lets me watch The Sopranos and The Wire without having to make extra purchases.

Aren't those series available on HBOonDemand, which is free with your subscription to HBO?
 
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