Comment by maccard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maccard | Hacker News Reader

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The lack of unified interface is my biggest gripe. I pay £12/month for Netflix, £8/month for Amazon Prime, £6/month for Disney+. Used to have to pay £8/month for NowTV to watch GoT in 720p. My Android TV has a Google Play store embedded in it for me to rent/buy in one tap. I often find myself jumping ebtween 4 different apps on my TV to figure out what content is where to watch, and occasionally end up finding out it's an iTunes exclusive. That's assuming the content is available in the UK at the time - many TV shows just aren't available on any of the UK equivalent streaming services until months later than the US (Mandolorian for example)

I don't want the content for free/bargain prices. I want the content in a reasonable format, that I can play legally on my TV, phone or laptop, and that I can discover easily.

Compare that experience with something like popcorntime, where a user can type in a movie name, and have it streaming in 1080p/4k/highest available quality in under 30 seconds.

I want that, but paid.

The search on my Roku is across services. I'd like to have a cross-service discovery app too, but the in my roku (and even better, on my roku phone app where typing is easier) I can type a movie name and see if it is on one of the services I use, or if not in Amazon to rent/buy).

That's really helpful. My Android TV will let me do voice commands to "Play X on <Service>" but if it's not on the play store, it won't respond to "Find <X>". Unfortunately, I'm not in the roku ecosystem right now, but this would be something that would make me change!

Kodi plugins are available for netflix, amazon prime and disney+ so you can use these 3 from kodi interface not sur about google play or apple.

Fire TV also has cross-service search which I find good. Roku has a more streamlined clickthrough interface but Fire TV generally shows me where something is available even if it takes a few more clicks to get there.

Yeah, I find myself spending 10 minutes searching for something on Netflix only to realize it's on Amazon.

People didn't like cable bundles. Now it's a la carte in various ways and people are realizing that it's not only not cheaper if you want "everything" but it's a fragmented mess.

There’s many sites you can use to see where something is. Inconvenience still but only one step first.

Have you tried the app that is called Just Watch? I use this to find what is available where. Saves a lot of time.

No, I'd never heard of it but it looks like _exactly_ what I want. Thank you!

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