Whoah, it's awesome to see this posted here in my native habitat! I've spent the last 8 years of my life building MUBI as Co-Founder and CTO (even longer than I've been on HN!). Please AMA.
We are doing what we can to move the ball forward on this issue industry-wide, but historical rights arrangements are working against us here.
Netflix is also odd about this but usually we can get German subtitles for any film and choose the audio with original language. Ideally we should be able to select any language that there are available subtitles for. Why restrict it by region ?
They certainly do not buy rights for anything at all. They represent copyright holders and collect fees and distribute them.
In Kodi player, I can connect to subtitles sites and have it automatically downloaded. Why don't you do allow it? I know that it is a muddy copyright terrain, but would be a Good Thing for more advanced users.
I live in Germany, but I don't speak German. Well, not enough to watch films or feel comfortable browsing the site. Took me a while to find the browse films link as a result.
I was wondering about changing the interface language, and more importantly, whether the film selection will be heavily skewed towards German films (and perhaps without subtitles??).
...I guess I could use a proxy to access it from the UK, but it feels like I'd be trying to trick the system.
One thing I'm certain of is that aggregation of content directly in a way as to provide the holy grail of streaming everything is simply never going to happen because rightsholders are unwilling to cede control of distribution to a powerful entity like Netflix or iTunes (hence Netflix's pivot to focus on production and exclusives so they can control their own destiny).
But it's also clearly not viable for the majority of rightsholders to do their own distribution, at least not yet. As much as streaming technology is commoditizing and device manufacturers outside of Apple/Android are converging on web-based platforms, it's still a massive effort to build a good UX and make it available everywhere that counts. There is clearly huge opportunity for platform makers like Apple to capture value by enabling distribution like they did with the iTunes Store and App Store. There is also opportunity for new middleman strategies like white-label apps, or transparent aggregation that would be something akin to channels-within-an-app type of setup
At the moment there's so much churn happening and so many different strategies that it's very hard to predict what the landscape will look like in 5-10 years. The only constant is that cable companies are being rapidly disintermediated, because they were overly reliant on their monopoly status, and have no talent in either production or UX design so I don't see much chance for them to survive.
If I had to sum my thoughts up it is that the apps of today are replacing the channels of yesterday. The most successful channels are themselves becoming apps (eg. HBO). In the past channels were distributed either as broadcast or as cable, but there is not such a clear distribution pattern for apps. Already apps are available on numerous devices, all with their own idiosyncrasies, sometimes overlapping with other platforms and sometimes not. Platforms that were relevant just a few years ago (Boxee) are completely gone, and new platforms are launching every day. I agree wholeheartedly with Tim Cook's assertion that the future of TV is apps, but I don't have a clue what the platforms will look like in a few years. MUBI will continue to be one of those apps, mostly independent (although we rely on platforms so there's always a degree of cooperation involved), certainly not integrated exclusively into a larger offering ala Netflix or IPTV.
Here's my gripe ... am I doing something wrong, or do I have to create an account just to find out the subscription prices? If it's not just my user-stupidity, don't make me register just to see the prices.
My best experience was when I fired up my MUBI app in my holiday home (different country in Europe) expecting nothing (like with Netflix and Amazon film), only to find another excellent selection of films.
Discovering that rather than punish me for trying to use MUBI in two countries, you actually gave me twice as much content, was a beautiful surprise to say the least. Thank you.
Also does "Android" support include direct (not tab-cast) chromecast support, or is that another thing entirely? (I'm not home now so I haven't tried this myself.)
I don't really want to add another device to my entertainment center and not interested in watching anywhere but the TV (except on the iPad when traveling). We've got AppleTVs and a PS4. Tossed the Rokus.
Not expecting you guys are hurting all that bad for my $40. But figured another vote/story couldn't hurt.
One other thing I wonder about curation of media in general is whether you think your customer base is willing to try new things because they trust you rather than simply trying to find something that is known to be similar to what they liked in the past? Do you think trust based recommendation system overcome the bubble effect that similarity based systems fall in to?
Thanks!
As I mentioned in another thread, we did try the data-driven recommendation engine approach and did not achieve great results. We definitely believe that the human element of our editorial voice leads to a greater level of trust with our subscribers, and enables us to introduce hidden gems and lesser-known films to a wider audience.
One complaint on the homepage that'd usually have me close right away, if this wasn't on HN:
Why do you ignore the user's language presence and send them a language based on a guess from their IP? My OS is English, my browser is in English and only ends en-US and en in the Accept-Language field. Yet because I'm traveling in Central America, I get content in a language I'm not keen on. With no obvious way to change back to the correct language.
Changing back to my US IP, it still continues to show stuff in Spanish. I've gotta clear history for it to reset.
This is a really annoying thing to do. Did this actually test well? That is, do users often send the wrong Accept-Language header and appreciate the site second guessing them? And those users, do they not like having a quick option to change the language back to the one they requested?
Otherwise, really interesting looking service. Kudos.
And I especially loved the welcome email that felt so personal (I know this is an automated form letter. I specialize in CRM systems).
This is a fine example of great customer service.
I am sure the content will be as discerning.
On Android you can download a movie and view it offline for 7 days. What are the obstacles to offer something similar on other platforms?
We definitely have a million other ideas about how to expand this model in many different directions, but I won't comment on any of those yet as its all speculative at this point. For now we are trying to get people familiar with the model and improve the design because it is a bit unintuitive at first.
As far as downloads, we only offer them on Android and iOS for the time being because those are the two platforms that it was feasible to implement easily. We are always looking at the possibility of bringing it to other devices and even the web, but so far it's too much effort for our small engineering team.
Furthermore, what assumptions are you comfortable sharing about your business model's target audience as financially viable in the short/long term?
Just a quick FYI, you might benefit from some outreach to sites like The AV Club, as the top voted comment was essentially a joke picking on your lack of exposure to certain groups: http://www.avclub.com/article/paul-thomas-andersons-music-do...
1) Is MUBI available in the UK?
2) Do you support or are you planning support Plex?
Plex is currently not on our roadmap (though I do run a plex server at home).