HBO GO is awesome, and it works on linux!

[chunky bacon!]

Another thing to get me over Netflix not cooperating (the first was Amazon's streaming for prime members of certain movies/shows).

Has a ton of HBO series that I've always mean to watch, but never did. It also has the new Game of Thrones series.

Anyway, just another "yay" for linux and freedom of choice.

:guitar:

[earthpigg]

Good news.

[lovinglinux]

Freedom for a few.

http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/5543016/img/5543016.jpg

I wonder when they will learn.

I recently subscribed to the local equivalent of Netflix, NetMovies.com.br (http://www.netmovies.com.br) and canceled my HBO subscription.

NetMovies is awesome and supports Linux. They charge R$49.90 (U$32) for a plan in which you can have 3 DVD's at home, "unlimited" number of rentals per month and unlimited online video access. The equivalent Blu-Ray plan costs R$64.80 (U$41). Just for comparison, the cheaper satellite HD TV subscription plan here costs R$179.90 (U$115) and only offer 18 HD channels (2 HBO) and a total of 128 channels (mostly crap).

NetMovies online service is well organized and works perfectly on my Core2 Duo machine. However it doesn't work well on a low-end notebook and the quality of the movie titles sucks. They offer only 3.500 titles online, while they have 23.000 titles on DVD and Blu-Ray. Although I have actually watched some pretty good stuff online, the number of good movies is really scarce. Most of them are really old movies or "B" quality titles. The delivery service on the other hand is great and I get all titles in my wish list as soon as they are available. I just watched the latest "Harry Potter" and I am just waiting to receive "Tangled" today.

Bottom line, I am a lot happier with NetMovies then I was with a HBO subscription. I am spending less money and watching better movies. I just hope the online catalog gets better with time.

I have read recently that the main problem with online video rental services, is that the studios delay the online release to force people to buy the physical media. I suppose they also charge ridiculous expensive fees, otherwise it would be more available already, with fair prices.

TerraNetworks, which is an online media mogul here, recently launched their on-line video store (http://videostore.terra.com.br). It doesn't work on Linux and although the subscription plan is pretty cheap, only R$19.90 (U$13), they online catalog is ridiculous. When you access the store home page (http://videostore.terra.com.br) you see new releases like "Tron" and "Tangled", but if you read the small notes in the subscription page (http://videostore.terra.com.br/Web/AssineVideoClube), you realize most movies are available only for rental, independently from the subscription plan and they cost R$6.9 (U$4.5) each.

[sydbat]

Freedom for a few.

http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/5543016/img/5543016.jpg

I wonder when they will learn.Never. Now that the corporations have more dominatrix-like control influence over government policy/ legislation, they have been able to make sure that any sharing of entertainment online is stopped at a countries borders, based on often erroneous IP information. Unfortunately, I have noticed this with a couple of other countries too.

The stupidest thing is, most of the online content that you cannot access outside the US, is shown on TV and played on radio outside the US. Example: Hawaii 5-0. Missed an episode a few weeks back because the PVR had the wrong episode info. We watch the show on TV, on a US channel, but cannot access the episode on the CBS website because we live outside the US.

One other stupid thing - a friend mentioned an old song from a Canadian band from the 80's. We looked it up and found that the video on YouTube was blocked because we live in Canada. Um...IT"S A CANADIAN BAND. WTH?[/rant]

[TeoBigusGeekus]

Haven't you ever heard of what a proxy is?

[mips]

The stupidest thing is, most of the online content that you cannot access outside the US, is shown on TV and played on radio outside the US.[/rant]

It's got to do with broadcast rights. The US studios will sell the content to regional broadcasters in other countries. These broadcasters pay for the shows and also generate revenue via advertising. So the US studios would be biting the hand that feeds them if they allowed the content to be streamed outside of the US. The BBC for example is also funded by tax payers so most of their stuff is also not available outside of the UK. Also keep in mind that stuff showing in the US now will be delayed by a month or two before screening in other territories.

There is a perfectly legit way around this nonsense though. Sign up for a good paid for VPN/Proxy service in the USA & UK. This way you get a US/UK IP address and you won't be blocked. There are free options out there but they are usually slow. The cost is really not that much per annum.

[TeoBigusGeekus]

It's got to do with broadcast rights. The US studios will sell the content to regional broadcasters in other countries. These broadcasters pay for the shows and also generate revenue via advertising. So the US studios would be biting the hand that feeds them if they allowed the content to be streamed outside of the US. The BBC for example is also funded by tax payers so most of their stuff is also not available outside of the UK. Also keep in mind that stuff showing in the US now will be delayed by a month or two before screening in other territories.

There is a perfectly legit way around this nonsense though. Sign up for a good paid for VPN/Proxy service in the USA & UK. This way you get a US/UK IP address and you won't be blocked. There are free options out there but they are usually slow. The cost is really not that much per annum.

....or, find a free us based proxy, sign up to hbo go, let your videos load while you have them paused (for as long as it takes!!!), grab them with lsof (or any other way) and watch them like a boss!

[aeiah]

....or, find a free us based proxy, sign up to hbo go, let your videos load while you have them paused (for as long as it takes!!!), grab them with lsof (or any other way) and watch them like a boss!

if you're gonna go to that much trouble, you might as well just pirate it the normal way.

but yes, its nice that HBO supports linux.

[TeoBigusGeekus]

if you're gonna go to that much trouble, you might as well just pirate it the normal way.

but yes, its nice that HBO supports linux.

Where's the fun in that?

[earthpigg]

Where's the fun in that?

It is more efficient and provides a product superior to the official one by having the same or better quality without the DRM.

[lovinglinux]

Haven't you ever heard of what a proxy is?

Yes, sure. But that is not the point.

It is time for them to revise the way they do business. The broadcast rights scheme is so outdated, that they only hurt potential costumers. For instance, I cannot watch the major local network, because were I live there is a lot of interference (we don't have HD TV yet). I used to subscribe to a satellite TV service, which include premium channels and local free-to-air channels. However, they did not include that particular major local free-to-air channel, because there is an affiliated TV station in my town, which I can't tune due to the interference.

So, I cannot watch on free-to-air because I cannot tune it and I cannot watch on satellite because they block the signal in my location. So who are they hurting?

There is more nonsense tho. Here in Brazil we have to pay the Internet access to a Telecom, which provides the DSL infrastructure. However, we also have to pay a smaller fee to a "Content Provider", which just authenticate us in the network (this has been challenged in court a few times). My last content provider didn't offer me anything I wanted, but I recently switched to another provider that owns that major network I can't watch on TV. So they stream their TV programming to their Internet subscribers. Great...no so much. Due to broadcasting rights issues, they do not stream some shows, that happens to be the ones I like the most. At least the service is Linux friendly.

Anyways, is really nice that HBO is embracing Linux like other local companies I mentioned, but until they really embrace the Internet for worldwide distribution, it will be a limited service and piracy will prevail.