Cordkillers 236 - Are You Still Watching? (w/ John Hess)
Roku's not scared, Mary Poppins is back, and more American Gods problems. All this and more on Cordkillers! With special guest John Hess. Winter Movie Draft next week!
CordKillers: Ep. 236 - Are You Still Watching?
Recorded: September 17 2018
Guest: John Hess
Intro Video
History of Frame Rate
Primary Target
Why Roku isn’t afraid of competition from Apple, Google and Amazon
- Roku CEO Anthony Wood appeared on Recode Media with Peter Kafka.
Referring to Google, Amazon and Apple, Wood said he believes Roku's technology is superior.
- He also thinks one of Roku's advantages is focus
- “All we do is we come to work every day and we think about how to make TV better. Those companies, yes they’re great companies, but they come to work thinking about how can I sell a bunch of shoes, how can I be better at search, how can I sell more phones? TV is on their list but it’s at the bottom of their list.”
-In November 2006 - Palm CEO Ed Colligan: “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
How to Watch
Plex shutters its cloud service after months of technical issues
- Plex will shut down its Plex Cloud service at the November 30, due to multiple technical issues. The service allowed users to integrate cloud storage from Amazon, Dropbox, Google and Microsoft into their Plex Media Servers. The service has been in maintenance mode for a few months.
What to Watch
The First Trailer for Netflix's Hilda Is Full of Lighthearted Magic and Wonder
- Netflix has an animated series based on the graphic novel Hilda from Luke Pearson. Hilda is a young girl in love with all the magical creatures of the forest who is forced to move to the city. It premieres on Netflix September 21.
Authors’ viral Twitter thread is now a horror film starring Alyson Hannigan
- Last July, authors Chuck Wendig and Sam Sykes created a hilarious Twitter conversation about a camp counselor in the midst of a massacre. Veronica Belmont and I did a dramatic reenactment of it for Sword and Laser patrons. But now it's an honest to goodness full length feature movie called You Might Be the Killer starring Allyson Hannigan as Chuck, who gets a panicked call from her friend Sam. You Might Be the Killer will premier at the Fantastic Film Fest in Austin on September 21.
Netflix’s Hold the Dark throws Jeffrey Wright to the wolves
- Netflix premiered a movie called Hold the Dark at the Toronto Film Festival, an adaptation of William Giraldi’s novel from director Jeremy Saulnier. It's about an animal behaviourist played by Jeffrey Wright is called into a small town to hunt a wild wolf that killed a child. Something he had done once before to great trauma. It comes to Netflix US on September 28th
The New Trailer for Mary Poppins Returns Reveals a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Emily Blunt
- Mary Poppins Returns, a sequel to the 1964 movie starring Julie Andrews has a new trailer out. This one stars Emily Blunt as Poppins returning to visit Jane and Michael Banks 25 years after the events of the first film coming December 19.
HBO joins the BBC and New Line to produce HIS DARK MATERIALS
- HBO is joining the BBC and New Line's production of His Dark Materials, based on the novels by Phillip Pullman. The first season of the show is already in production. HBO will air the show in the US. It's set to have five seasons of 8 episodes each.
NFL RedZone Launches a Standalone Subscription Service For Cord Cutting
- The NFL is offering access to RedZone, the channel that shows you the most important plays across multiple games as they happen, for $4.99 a month, without a cable subscription. YOu can access the subscription through the NFL app for Android and iOS phones, though apparently not tablets.
Report: American Gods Is Experiencing More Showrunner Issues
- American Gods is changing showrunners again. Jesse Alexander, who replaced Michael Green and Bryan Fuller has not been fired... but Alexander will not be asked to do any duties on the show associated with writing or showrunning including participating in edits or being on set... so kinda fired? Supposedly another writer was promoted to showrunner but then quit almost immediately. Now, producing director Chris Byrne and line producer Lisa Kussner are reportedly in charge. Its still set to come back in 2019.
Eyes On
- Brian: Better Call Saul, Deadwood, Good Place, Ozark SN 2, Arrested Development
- Tom: Terrace House, Fresh off the Boat
- John: Ozark Season 1, Operation Finale
- On the Lookout: Swiss Army Man , White gold
Front Lines
Streaming service CBS All Access rolls out support for offline viewing
- CBS All Access is making its shows available for download for offline viewing if you're subscribed to the no-commercials tier which costs $10 a month. One you download it, you'll have it for 30 days and once you start playing it you'll have 48 hours to finish it. It also doesn't apply to local news or sports.
Imax CEO Says Streamers Weighing Giant-Screen Releases
- IMAX CEO Richard Gelfo told the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference that the major streaming services have been in talks to screen original content at IMAX theaters.
The Unlimited Movie Plan Returns- For a Price
- Sinemia has introduced an unlimited plan that lets you see one 2D movie a day at whatever theater you want for $30 a month. Sinemia has offered unlimited plans in Europe for several years. And in related subscription theater news, AMC is now letting subscribers to its A-List program get their tickets through Fandango and Atom Tickets.
Delayed by Popular Demand: Academy’s Controversial New Oscar Category
-Remember the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ plan to add a new category called Achievement in Popular Film. Well you can forget it for now. The Academy says it will not add the new category this year saying the plans need "further study."
Hulu and Discovery announce partnership for live and on-demand programming
- Hulu announced it will make nearly 4,000 episodes of Discovery's shows available on demand and add five additional Discovery TV networks to Hulu Live. The new channels, Discovery Channel, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Motor Trend, Velocity , and Animal Planet will start streaming in December.
Nvidia releases remote app for Shield TV
- Nvidia released an app for Android and iOS that lets you remotely control a Shield TV streaming box. Apps make it a little easier to log into services since you can use the phones keyboard and cut and paste functions.
Dispatches from the Front
I want to know what happened to NFL Now, the free streaming service that was inside the NFL app. Looks like all its URLs just point to the NFL videos channel. Anybody know?
- Matt
In Aftertalk, an observation was made that SlingTV doesn't have a "last channel" button. You have probably already received some answers about this, but if not... The SlingTV app on the Roku uses the back button (the one that looks kind of like an arrow starting into a circle) works as a last channel button.
If you hit the OK button on the Roku, a quick menu pops up that mentions using that "back" button for "last channel."
Later!
- Michael
Hey Tom and Brian!
On this latest episode of Cordkillers you guys brought up the new EU law that would require streaming services to have 30% European made content, and brought up Netflix already being near that number. Something I think you guys missed is how this could hurt niche streaming services like Crunchyroll, which serves almost exclusively Japanese anime. While this law may not hurt big established brands, I think overall this can be bad for those smaller streaming services. Would love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks,
- Alex
DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET – COMMISSION UPDATES EU AUDIOVISUAL RULES AND PRESENTS TARGETED APPROACH TO ONLINE PLATFORMS
-"The proposed rules also include a mandatory exemption for companies with a low turnover and low audiences as well as small and micro enterprises. It could also be inappropriate to impose such requirements in cases where – given the nature or theme of the on-demand audiovisual media services– they would be impracticable or unjustified." --2016 preliminary release on the same broader EU AVMDS regulations linked in the current news press release. *Anime is not dead in Europe.*