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posted by LaminatorX on Thursday December 11 2014, @08:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the applied-fragmentation dept.

http://torrentfreak.com/uk-users-need-27-services-to-get-most-popular-films-report-finds-141208/

If UK Internet users want access to most recent popular film content they'll need to remember a lot of passwords. A new survey from KPMG has found that while overall availability is good, users wanting the best will have to use to a patience-challenging 27 services

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by b on Thursday December 11 2014, @09:26AM

    by b (2121) on Thursday December 11 2014, @09:26AM (#124993)

    Perhaps I just haven't found it yet, but (legal) film availability drops to 0% if you run a Linux-based XBMC media centre.

    • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:40PM

      by richtopia (3160) on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:40PM (#125088) Homepage Journal

      DVDs play just fine.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @05:53PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @05:53PM (#125150)

        DVDs are not acceptable substitutes for high-definition, instantly-available videos.

      • (Score: 2) by b on Friday December 12 2014, @01:14AM

        by b (2121) on Friday December 12 2014, @01:14AM (#125335)

        I've been trying to minimise physical goods. (Who has enough storage space?) One way to do this would be to stop buying physical DVDs, and download movies instead. I prefer watching from the media centre anyway, as I can pause and resume, mark what's watched, and skip the piracy and splash screens, etc.

        Also, there's the issue of delivery time of DVDs, as the other poster mentioned. This is even more of an issue in Australia, where the more obscure titles must be sourced from overseas, usually the US, which takes about a month for shipping.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday December 11 2014, @09:31AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday December 11 2014, @09:31AM (#124994) Homepage

    Yeah, we do now since they raided Pirate Bay. Before that, we only needed one.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @09:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @09:38AM (#124995)

      I wonder why NK doesn't run a copyright infringement service just to piss off America.

      • (Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:09AM

        by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:09AM (#124998) Journal

        That's a really good idea.
        Maybe you should go interview [imdb.com] Kim Jong-un to get his thoughts. Try not to assassinate him though. :)

      • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:56AM

        by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:56AM (#125005) Homepage

        Wasn't there some island where the courts decided that because the US had screwed them over in the past, US copyright didn't have to apply there? Or something...

        --
        systemd is Roko's Basilisk
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:11PM (#125071)
    • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday December 11 2014, @11:49AM

      by zocalo (302) on Thursday December 11 2014, @11:49AM (#125013)
      Give it a little time, I'm sure we'll be able to do it all through SystemD soon enough... /ducks
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  • (Score: 1) by Hannibal on Thursday December 11 2014, @09:38AM

    by Hannibal (1589) on Thursday December 11 2014, @09:38AM (#124996)

    If we had a monopoly then there would be only password to remember! The problem is that they "exclusive content" is the nly USP that streaming providers can think of, and so, we're faced with splintered set of providers. Perhaps there is will come a point at which we end up bundling services together for a single monthly subscription via a unified content delivery system? Perhaps we could name this new product after the cables it came through? I don't know, we could call it "Copper" or something...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:28AM (#124999)

      Maybe someone could create a single online storefront where every publisher can easily sell his media, possibly with such things as user reviews, holiday sales and early access to unfinished series, and usable on every platform. We could call it "Hot Air" maybe.

      • (Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Thursday December 11 2014, @12:44PM

        by arashi no garou (2796) on Thursday December 11 2014, @12:44PM (#125025)

        usable on every platform

        Not that it matters to me since I don't own a console anymore, but wake me up when Steam hits the Wii U, Xbox, and Playstation. Many people use their game console as their main media consumption device, and the term "usable on every platform" doesn't mean just traditional PCs anymore.

  • (Score: 2) by elf on Thursday December 11 2014, @12:00PM

    by elf (64) on Thursday December 11 2014, @12:00PM (#125017)

    I have Netflix's in the UK and it has a lot of content I like and a lot I don't. New items get added at a pretty regular rate. For the price you pay (ability to watch anything they have an unlimited amount of time) there isn't too much to complain about. I also pay for Satellite TV (a lot more than Netflix's) and for that you get a lot less content that you can only watch when they want to show it to you.

    more competition is good but that also dilutes the market a bit.

  • (Score: 2) by SrLnclt on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:09PM

    by SrLnclt (1473) on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:09PM (#125070)

    While I am not in the UK, this is exactly the problem with most of the streaming services today. The technology is at a level where they could setup a service to digitally access every virtually movie, TV show, music video, etc. from a single service/interface. Unfortunately every company wants to create their own service to keep a bigger slice of the pie.

    By fragmenting the content between so many services, they are slowing adoption. Potential customers are either unhappy because they can't find all the wanted content, or they get turned off and don't pay for the services. In my opinion this is part of what drives piracy today. If you have to jump thru hoops and have 20 different services to watch everything, even those who want to do the right thing will find it simpler to fire up a torrent client and have everything "just work". If you run one of these services and want paying customers, but can't match the quality or selection of what is available elsewhere, don't be surprised when people pursue those alternate options.

  • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:24PM

    by Alfred (4006) on Thursday December 11 2014, @03:24PM (#125079) Journal

    ... they'll need to remember a lot of passwords.

    Well if most of the UK are like most people out there, which I suspect they are, it will be very few passwords; probably just the same password they use for online banking.

  • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday December 11 2014, @06:33PM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday December 11 2014, @06:33PM (#125165) Homepage

    ...the number of "most popular films", according to this study, is 756.

    I don't know if my local 10-screen even shows 756 films a year.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:41PM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 11 2014, @10:41PM (#125288) Journal

    When was the last time someone made a film worth watching, let alone worth paying money to watch?

    • (Score: 2) by khedoros on Friday December 12 2014, @01:26AM

      by khedoros (2921) on Friday December 12 2014, @01:26AM (#125338)
      That depends on how you define the cost-benefit calculation. The cost always includes time and often money, and the value of time is subjective. The benefits are also subjective. Myself, I might find 3-5 movies per year that are worth watching, in my estimation. My wife might find 20 that she thinks are worth it. Based on the tone of your comment, you might not find any in a decade (or longer). There's no accounting for taste.
      • (Score: 2) by turgid on Friday December 12 2014, @08:06PM

        by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 12 2014, @08:06PM (#125573) Journal

        You're right. I haven't seen a film that I really enjoyed since the late 1990s (Southpark, Starship Troopers, Minority Report). I can't even remember what I last saw. All three LotR films (my wife's the Tolkein fan here), the Amber Spyglass, Michael Moore's one about the Iraq war etc and maybe one or two others, all OK but not nearly 2001: A Space Odyssey standard. Oh, the Iron Maiden one (again, wife is the fan here). I sometimes watch things when they're on TV and buy the occasional DVD e.g. Team America, Borat. But really, everything these days is nonsense. Life is short.