On the box...
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:39 pmWell, here we go in 2015 and finally we are starting to catch up with the rest of the world for streaming TV. I think I've had a previous thread on this, when Quickflix was new, but it doesn't show up in a search...
Quickflix was Australia's answer to Netflix, and when they started up here it was pretty much all we had for streaming TV, but they never really took off. There are two big requirements for streaming TV services -- the catalogue, and the supported devices. Quickflix was always a bit lacking in both, and I think they have only really survived because they were the only game in town.
This year, though, we've got Lightbox, Spark's streaming service, Neon, which is Sky's version, and from today, Netflix, which is the big daddy of streaming TV throughout the world. I tried Lightbox when it first appeared, and I quite liked it, the only issue for me was the huge bandwidth requirements, which doesn't really suit my frugal lifestyle at the moment.
The only trouble is that it takes time to develop, test and release support for new devices. People generally want to be able to watch TV on their TV set, but there are a lot of different ways of doing that, and to keep up with all these is a bit of a process, I imagine. Lightbox has done a good job, but Netflix has always had the advantage as they have been at it for longer.
For me, I don't have a TV, so I need to either watch on my desktop PC, or my tablet. Both are Windows 8, so Netflix already had apps ready to drop into the NZ app store, so this becomes a real nobrainer for anyone in my position. I just install the app, sign in once on all my devices, and that's it. Sure, you can watch Netflix, Lightbox, Neon and Quickflix in your browser, but an app makes things a lot simpler, and more like a 'normal' TV experience. I know that a lot of people don't see the advantage of the 'new' bits in Windows 8, but believe me, you start to appreciated them when you shift to touch screen, and watching media in particular is a much better experience.
Anyway, I still have bandwidth issues, and tomorrow is the end of my 'month', so I wasn't going to even look at Netflix until the next day, but what the hell...
Bearing in mind that some people might want to sign up on some weird devices, rather than the PC, the sign-up is amazingly simple. There are some things which I need to consider -- first, I always use a password manager on the PC, but this doesn't really suit this sort of experience -- sooner or later you will come across a device which doesn't support a manage, such as a smart TV, and even the way in which passwords are entered on these devices means that you are going to want a simpler, shorter password than normal, otherwise you'll be driving yourself crazing navigating an onscreen keyboard with a remote.
The Netflix lineup for NZ was always going to be light, the local licensing scene is very fragmented, with Sky hogging a lot of the good content. But there's enough there to keep me happy, similar to but different from Lightbox, and at the same price. ($12.99) Neon is the odd one out, at $20, but for me they've never been an option -- Sky has never been attractive to me.
The Netflix price gives two streams of HD where available, but there is a $9.99 SD version, and a more expensive 'family' version with Ultra HD when available.
I should have set up the SD option, as it will be a while until I can sort out the limited monthly allowance, but I wanted to give it a proper test on the first free month. But I have turned down the quality setting a lot to prevent the 3GB-per-hour churning through my 40GB per month....
Quickflix was Australia's answer to Netflix, and when they started up here it was pretty much all we had for streaming TV, but they never really took off. There are two big requirements for streaming TV services -- the catalogue, and the supported devices. Quickflix was always a bit lacking in both, and I think they have only really survived because they were the only game in town.
This year, though, we've got Lightbox, Spark's streaming service, Neon, which is Sky's version, and from today, Netflix, which is the big daddy of streaming TV throughout the world. I tried Lightbox when it first appeared, and I quite liked it, the only issue for me was the huge bandwidth requirements, which doesn't really suit my frugal lifestyle at the moment.
The only trouble is that it takes time to develop, test and release support for new devices. People generally want to be able to watch TV on their TV set, but there are a lot of different ways of doing that, and to keep up with all these is a bit of a process, I imagine. Lightbox has done a good job, but Netflix has always had the advantage as they have been at it for longer.
For me, I don't have a TV, so I need to either watch on my desktop PC, or my tablet. Both are Windows 8, so Netflix already had apps ready to drop into the NZ app store, so this becomes a real nobrainer for anyone in my position. I just install the app, sign in once on all my devices, and that's it. Sure, you can watch Netflix, Lightbox, Neon and Quickflix in your browser, but an app makes things a lot simpler, and more like a 'normal' TV experience. I know that a lot of people don't see the advantage of the 'new' bits in Windows 8, but believe me, you start to appreciated them when you shift to touch screen, and watching media in particular is a much better experience.
Anyway, I still have bandwidth issues, and tomorrow is the end of my 'month', so I wasn't going to even look at Netflix until the next day, but what the hell...
Bearing in mind that some people might want to sign up on some weird devices, rather than the PC, the sign-up is amazingly simple. There are some things which I need to consider -- first, I always use a password manager on the PC, but this doesn't really suit this sort of experience -- sooner or later you will come across a device which doesn't support a manage, such as a smart TV, and even the way in which passwords are entered on these devices means that you are going to want a simpler, shorter password than normal, otherwise you'll be driving yourself crazing navigating an onscreen keyboard with a remote.
The Netflix lineup for NZ was always going to be light, the local licensing scene is very fragmented, with Sky hogging a lot of the good content. But there's enough there to keep me happy, similar to but different from Lightbox, and at the same price. ($12.99) Neon is the odd one out, at $20, but for me they've never been an option -- Sky has never been attractive to me.
The Netflix price gives two streams of HD where available, but there is a $9.99 SD version, and a more expensive 'family' version with Ultra HD when available.
I should have set up the SD option, as it will be a while until I can sort out the limited monthly allowance, but I wanted to give it a proper test on the first free month. But I have turned down the quality setting a lot to prevent the 3GB-per-hour churning through my 40GB per month....
... I don't think so Bob ... I mean Rob 
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