Cordkillers 158 - On... DEMAND! (w/ Jared Newman)

Apple’s plans for TV, Caavo gives one interface for all boxes, and the future of Plex from Jared Newman. With special guest Jared Newman (https://twitter.com/OneJaredNewman).

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CordKillers: Ep .158 - On... DEMAND!
Recorded: February 20 2017
Guest: Jared Newman

Intro Video


Primary Target

  • Eddy Cue says Planet of the Apps will premiere this spring & be ad-free, watch the first clip now
    - At the Code Media Conference Monday, Apple’s Eddy Cue and Ben Silverman talked about the upcoming Apple original show “Planet of the Apps”. Will.i.Am created the show and appears as an advisor along with Gary Vaynerchuk, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jessica Alba. Developers appear on the show to pitch app ideas. Each advisor picks one developer to work with and pitch to venture capitalists. The winner of the series gets $10 million in funding and prominent app store placement. The show will premiere this spring on Apple Music.
  • Apple Vowed to Revolutionize Television. An Inside Look at Why It Hasn’t
    - Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says his sources report Apple is testing a new Apple TV with 4K capability. Regarding the hiring of Fire TV chief Timothy D. Twerdahl, “The arrival of Twerdhal, the former Amazon Fire TV chief, will free up his predecessor, Pete Distad, to try and hammer out content deals and potentially revive the skinny bundle.”


How to Watch

  • Caavo knits together TV devices, streaming and voice control for $400
    - Caavo announced its streaming media box which plugs into your other boxes, like Apple TV, Roku, and your cable box to provide a unified front-end for finding shows. Caavo uses machine learning to interpret what’s getting sent to it from the other boxes so it knows it sent the right command. Essentially it tries to do what you do when you control a box by looking at what’s on the screen. It also has a skill on Amazon Voice Services. Caavo was founded by the late Blake Krikorian, former Slingbox CEO, and is run by former Microsoft employee Andrew Einaudi. Caavo will go up for preorder in May for $400 shipping in the autumn.
  • Jared's Write-up on the future of Plex

What to Watch


What We're Watching

Front Lines


Dispatches from the Front
Long-time cord cutter here, and long-time fan of the show (the two kind of go hand in hand).

Regarding your recent Dispatches discussion about cord cutting in the UK - After having moved here recently myself, I felt the topic could use some more local content - so I researched the UK's cord cutting options and just launched a dedicated website with guides, news and reviews:

https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/

The name is definitely an homage to one of my favorite podcasts! Thanks and keep up the good work,

- Or Goren

 

 



Hello Killers,

Boss #1772 here. I wrote you guys in December recapping my adventure with killing the cord because Comcast made changes that rendered my TiVo obsolete. You read that email on show 148.

I thought it may be worthwhile to follow up with a progress report and a few observations.

I am extremely happy with my cord killing experience and I don't see myself ever going back to cable.

At $30 per month, the PlayStation Vue basic service is working nicely for those "cable" networks which have programs I want to watch. The DVR option makes it worthwhile for someone used to the on-demand viewing that TiVo provides. Skipping commercials is a bit less convenient than with a TiVo but not horrible.

The OTA antenna is still working great with my old HD TiVo for the shows on the "broadcast" networks.

HBO Now, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime are also continuing to work well although I had those before I killed cable with specific reasons for each service.

I use an Apple TV for most of the non-broadcast viewing like HBO Now, Netflix, Hulu, and PlayStation View. I do find it rather annoying I can't see my Amazon Prime video on the same device.

I think I am actually watching a little less TV than I did before. I am not sure if that is entirely a result of my killing cable or the fact that I had some new Peter F. Hamilton books to read while waiting for Amazon to deliver my pre-ordered copy of Pilot X. I think it may be a combination of both. I just don't turn on my TV unless I am going to be actively watching it. I think I casually turned on the TV in the past more often than I realized.

Lastly but perhaps most importantly, my wife is still happy with her Amazon Fire Stick and watching her TV shows using the various services she can access with it. She bought the Fire Stick on her own last year and set it up herself.

Having PlayStation Vue available on the Fire Stick and Apple TV was a major factor in my decision to use the PlayStation Vue service and shows how prescient Netflix was in getting their service on every device. If you want to be a player in the video landscape today and you are not an 800 pound gorilla like Apple or Amazon you need to be available "on any damn device I please."

I just wish Apple and Amazon would kiss and make up over the Apple TV.

- TJ

 

 

Hey Tom and Brian,

So I'm all in on my Amazon Fire TV as most of my content is purchased from Amazon and I've got Hulu, Netflix and Prime as my primary sources.

Yet you might find it interesting that I decided the other day to cut my HBO Now subscription in exchange for paying for HBO through Amazon's add-on services. It gives me all of the same catalog and I was able to watch the Young Pope in real time the same as all the other apps but it kept me in the Amazon UI without kicking me off to another App.

I've already got a Showtime add-on for watching Billions (if you haven't already started watching it know that you are both missing the greatest show on TV ever, just saying) so I didn't think much of getting add-ons when I need them.

The only downside of add-ons is that you can only cancel on the desktop Amazon site but otherwise I'm loving the experience of never leaving the Fire TV UI.

Hope you find that interesting and love the show.

- Michael

 


 

Hey guys! Wanting to add an Amazon firestick to our apple tv and xfinity x-1 box lineup, we've run outta hdmi ports on our Samsung tv I know there are hdmi splitters/ports... What do I get, to add two more ports? Seen prices from $19 on Amazon for one, to $99 for one on Monoprice. Any advice would be helpful .

- T.

 

 

I don't remember how I found you guys back when you were doing FrameRate on TWiT, but as soon as I heard you guys had left TWiT and were starting your own thing, I signed up on Patreon and I THINK CordKillers was the first show I supported on there.

Ok! I just checked! Beginning in January of 2014, I signed up for Patreon and began supporting DTNS and CordKillers.

Keep up the great work, guys!
- Michael From North Texas



Links

2016 Winter Movie Draft
patreon.com/cordkillers

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