Cordkillers 315 - Play It Again, Lamarr (w/ Lamarr Wilson)
HBO Max won't eat up your data, live soccer coming to Amazon, and Hollywood has approved select productions to start this week. All this and more on Cordkillers! With special guest Lamarr Wilson.
CordKillers: 315 - Play It Again
Recorded: June 8 2020
Guest: Lamarr Wilson
Intro Video
Love, Victor
Primary Target
HBO Max won’t hit AT&T data caps, but Netflix and Disney Plus will
- AT&T confirmed to the Verge that its HBO Max streaming service will not count against AT&T Mobile’s traditional data caps or the soft data caps on unlimited plans. Competing services like Netflix and Disney Plus will. A Verge source says HBO Max is using AT&T’s “sponsored data” system, which technically allows any company to pay to excuse its services from data caps, which would mean, internally at AT&T Warner Media records an expense and AT&T Mobility records revenue. When the Verge investigated in February 2018, only AT&T's own DirecTV, U-verse and Fullscreen used the sponsored data service. AT&T lists Aquto as a partner on its Sponsored Data page. Aquto is a marketing company that gives customers more data to use in exchange for viewing ads.
developer.att.com/sponsored-data
How to Watch
Korean Box Office Doubles From Previous Weekend
AMC Theaters warns of ‘substantial doubt’ about future
AMC Reopens The First Of Chain’s Shuttered Theaters: Odeon Cinemas In Norway
Cinemark Misses Wall Street Q1 Financial Targets, Confirms June 19 Reopening
‘Tenet’ July 17 Opening: Cinemark Boss Optimistic Pic Will Stick To Its Opening Date
- When will peoplgo back to the theaters?
- South Korea is a good test case. It has a thriving film industry and its theaters have been open for awhile.
- Ticket sales this weekend rose 112% to just less than half of normal.
- The Korean Film Council issued discount vouchers with the equivalent of about $5 off tickets
- And "Intruder" was the first major film to get a theatrical release since the virus hit. It brought in $2.23 million. Coming up are “Innocence” (Jun. 10); “Me and Me” (Jun. 18); and “#alive” (Jun. 24).
- The big date to watch though is July 17 for the worldwide release of Tenet from Christopher Nolan. While Unhinged will be the first new wide release in July1, Tenet is the first major budget movie, so everybody's looking at it. It will pave the way for Mulan on July 24. So far everyone is confident, but nobody is promising.
- Cinemark is expecting phased US reopening. Between June 19 and July 10
- AMC reopened three cinemas in Norway June 3. More to come over two weeks with wider European openings to follow. But in a financial filing, AMC also warned that if it can't reopen by July 17 for Tenet “substantial doubt exists about our ability to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time.”
What to Watch
HBO’s latest terrifying trailer for Lovecraft Country couldn’t be more timely
- HBO released a trailer for LoveCraft country coming in August. It's based on the book of the same name telling the story of a black family in the 1950s, investigating its history in an area associated with Lovecraftian rumors.
Amazon will stream four English premiere League games this summer for all viewers whether they have a Prime subscription or not. Premiere League resumes on June 17.
‘Poppy’ Is First New Zealand Film to Restart Shooting Since Coronavirus
- Production resumed on the film Poppy in New Zealand Friday. It's the first local film to restart. New Zealand has production protocol but the country has also eliminated almost all restrictions as it has gone more than 12 days without a reported COVID-19 infection.
California says film and TV shoots can start June 12. But big changes are coming
- California has authorized production to resume June 12. Productions must get sign-off from the County public health officers. The film industry developed a set of safety protocols as well that productions must adhere to.
Eyes On
Brian: Wind of Change
Tom: Joy of Life
Lamarr: Flintstones on HBO Max
On the Lookout: TaskMaster
Front Lines
Quibi Says Senior Execs Taking 10% Pay Cut, Denies It’s Making Layoffs
- Quibi executives have agreed to take a 10% pay cut “because it’s the right thing to do.” According to a memo from Katzneberg and Whitman. The executives said the company is in good financial position and is "not laying off staff as a part of cost-saving measures." In fact the company has added a dozen new Quibi employees and renewed several shows.
Connected TV usage remains above pre-Covid-19 levels as traditional TV viewing normalizes
- Nielsen estimates that streaming is staying higher than it was pre-lockdown despite the lifting of restrictions. Connected TV includes game consoles, Rokus, smart TVs and the like. March 2 Nielsen estimated 2.7 billion hours of viewing on connected devices. That peaked at 3.9 billion for two weeks form March 23 to April 5. As lockdowns were eased the hours fell but not by much. The week ending May 10 still had 3.5 billion hours viewed. Nielsen said traditional live TV usage in early May was only marginally higher than in 2019.
Roku Unveils On-Screen Program Guide, Adds Live Linear Networks To Roku Channel
- Roku has added a program guide grid to its Roku Channel app which shows what's streaming at the moment own the 130 viewing options. The options include several live news streams. This is similar to how Xumo or Pluto TV work. The Roku Channel also offers on demand programming, some free with ads as well as premium offerings from Start, BET+, Acorn TV and others.
The Next Web reviews a Chrome extension called TV Chart that adds IMDB ratings to your Netflix account. A graph button is added to titles that you can click on to get IMDB ratings. It can even show episode-specific ratings.
This is Google’s Android TV dongle, remote, and new UI
- XDA-Developers obtained renders of something that may be Google's upcoming Android TV stick code named Sabrina. The renders come from pre-release firmware provided by an XDA recognized developer called deadman96385. The device in the video is oblong and shown in black, white and pink. The top half of the remote shows a control wheel, mute button and Google Assistant button among others. Screenshots of the interface show large tiles for shows and a grid for YouTube TV. The Firmware also indicates support for Dolby Vision.
Dispatches from the Front
Welp, I did it. After years and years of watching, going back to Twit days, I finally gave myself a promotion to boss…which only makes sense because I work in the Events industry and well, I’m bored now due to lack of work, so why not get a job with one of the few folks hiring right now!
- Jeff
Love the show guys. Listening in Derby, UK. I am blind and have been doing the online watch party thing for a very long time with other blind people. We have a bit of a novel solution to this. As none of us can see the images, we gather together on a voice over IP program called TeamTalk which allows transmission of stereo audio and one of us pipes the audio track with the audio description into the conference and we listen together like this. As an example, Netflix have just recently added audio description to breaking bad so a few of us have been watching it together like this for the past couple of weeks. I have personally been doing this for at least 10 years now but totally understand that this is a niche thing. I would love this to catch on but I agree with Tom. I think this is a novelty that will wear off for most.
- Matthew
You guys were talking about the watch party add-ons and features coming to streaming services and you all seemed pretty cold on it. I've never used one either, however, I work for a school with a one-to-one laptop program. About a week after the school went into quarantine we got email requests from dozens of students asking for us to allow the Netflix Watch Party extension on their laptops. Teenagers who aren't allowed to leave the house but still want to watch movies and shows with their friends (and not their parents) might be a pretty big audience for this kind of service, at least at the moment.
- anonymous
In response to Brian's question about why someone would pick "just HBO" instead of "HBO Max" when they load the app. There seems to be confusion among people who don't listen to Cordkillers about what HBO Max even is and how much it costs, so some people may load the plain HBO thinking that Max would increase their monthly cost.
I also really enjoyed how sad Brian was that the transition was easy and painless. I have only ever listened to Cordkillers as a podcast, but I pulled up the video and rewatched the How To Watch segment (after sending the link to someone who was confused about HBO Max) just to see him suffer again.
It was fun to see Justin on Cordkillers, and as always, Bryce is my favorite!
- Ulrike
P.S. Tom is my other favorite.
Hello,
Here is what Channel 4 is, and isn't, in the UK.
What is Channel 4?
Channel 4: this is the station you get to if you press the "4" button on a remote control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4
...
What isn't Channel 4?
BBC 4: This is a BBC TV channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Four
.
ITV4: This is an ITV TV channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITV4
ITV 3+1: Although 3 + 1 = 4, ITV 3+1 just shows what was on ITV 3 one hour later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITV3#ITV3_+1
All the best,
- Ed