Amazon Snags Older HBO Shows For Web Streaming | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Snags Older HBO Shows For Web Streaming

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163 pointstimjahn143 comments

"In addition, HBO GO will become available on Fire TV, targeting a launch by year-end."

Looks like this deal also adds the last missing checkmark to the Fire TV comparison chart: http://www.amazon.com/Fire-TV-streaming-media-player/dp/B00C...

There are definitely others, MLB.tv for example. Of course they pick the list to look good for their device.

Live sports (baseball and basketball, specifically) may be one of the last remaining things keeping many Americans from "cutting the cable". I think the first streaming service to be able to offer a significant amount of these will have a clear competitive advantage.

You're spot on. Sports are the single thing that there really is no easy way to watch without traditional cable/satellite.

Once they finally come around, it will be much easier to convince people to cut the cord.

MLB, NBA, and NHL all have streaming service for live games. They are still subject to blackouts though, which is crazy.

But the NFL, the big kahuna, does not. It really stinks; I'm going to have to figure something out come fall as I cut the cord a few months back.

All your local team's games are going to be on free channels. Get a $8 rabbit ears antenna, or if you have a cable modem that provides internet only, get a splitter and plug the other end into TV (that you would normally plug into the cable box). The local free channels (NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC, etc) are going to be available, and that's enough for NFL. You're not going to be ESPN or NFL Network, but if it's your local team, the game will be on a local channel anyway.

This may have been the case at one time, but now the local channels are not available like that from Comcast. You need a cable box to get anything at all.

And many people live in areas that don't get over the air reception, at least not with any commonly available antenna.

Tell that to the mountain on my left.

NFL is one of the easier ones to go watch at a bar or restaurant because the games are weekly. Other sports with games on almost nightly are a lot harder to go out and watch.

I happen to have cable again because it was a very nominal increase over cable modem only and because I don't get a very good OTA signal from our apartment.

Prior to this move though, I'd done without cable for ~5 years. I got MLB and NHL direct from the league offerings, and as noted as long as you can get an antenna singal and are willing to go to a bar or a friends house for Monday or Thursday night games the NFL is relatively cordcutter friendly. I would _love_ to give the NFL money directly for something similar to MLB.tv, but don't see it happening anytime soon.

Yeah, the blackout situation on MLB.tv is ludicrous. Living in the home television market of my chosen team, why would I pay to be blacked out on half the games?

On the other hand, the cable carriers' indifference to the demands of serious sports fans has pushed the sports streaming environment to the point where it's often significantly better than what's available on cable.

I care about sports. I'm willing to pay to watch them. I'm willing to pay extra to watch them in high quality. And in particular, I'm willing to pay extra to watch my favorite teams.

In terms of cable choices, I have a glut of options: AT&T, Comcast, and Astound all serve my apartment (though I can't use a satellite dish). I picked the company with the best sports options. And even so, and even when I pay extra for the NHL package or the MLB package, most games are only available in low-def. There is no amount of money I can pay any cable company that will ensure I can watch the Red Sox in HD (on those rare occasions that they're still playing when I get home from work.) So instead of paying the cable company, I pay for the online streaming service, which is almost, but not quite, HD quality.

The funny thing is, I never seriously considered cutting the cord before, but now that my TV setup is streaming-centric (with both a Chromecast and a PS3, since not all of the services I want are available on either device), it's much easier to imagine getting all of my content over the internet.

Indeed. Lack of MLB.tv makes this a non-starter for me. We don't have cable TV, but I love to watch baseball. MLB.tv lets me watch just about anything I want all year.

Our Roku is basically an MLB.tv machine.

Huh, interesting. Any idea why they would even include HBO in the chart if they weren't offering it?

Because they are comparing their product against other products that do offer that feature and wish to give their customers an honest comparison?

Right, because “number of cores” is an honest way to compare processors (and why does the customer even care about the processor?).

It is called marketing. Cores do not matter, until they do for marketing reasons. See recent Apple keynotes.

The comparison is far from honest. It leaves out iTunes and Airplay, it discusses CPU cores and memory without explaining to the consumer how that will affect their streaming experience, etc.

Amazon is at least being consistent about leaving out proprietary/locked services. For instance, they don't list Google Play, Xbox Video, or Playstation Video.

It's weird that they include Chromecast to that comparison chart. Sure, they offer some of the same features, mainly streaming video to the TV, but that's where the similarities end. Chromecast is not a set-top box, it's a second screen device. It's up to the apps and other services to extend functionality to this second screen. In the comparison chart, for example, it says Chromecast doesn't have voice search, well, you can voice search youtube and have it play on Chromecast so that single point is incorrect.

I sat through 20 minutes of a co-worker directly comparing these two items the other day. As different as they are, people look to both company's offerings like they're competing neck and neck.

> It’s the first time HBO has offered access to its catalog via a streaming video service that’s not its own HBO Go.

Wrong, iTunes and Google already have the first three seasons of Game of Thrones.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/game-of-thrones-season...

https://play.google.com/store/tv/show/Game_of_Thrones?id=71E...

And so has Amazon Streaming, but you needed to purchase it. I guess what's new is that some stuff will be free to prime members.

That depends, the article mentions Amazon Prime which implies these episodes are free to watch after you have a subscription. If that's true it just means the author is confusing streaming and "cheap subscription services." iTunes is just like buying a DVD except on your computer, so that's not exactly "special."

They are talking about ala carte streaming, not pay per episode content.

Isn't paying per episode the very epitome of a la carte pricing?

I should have said all you can eat for a flat fee. There you go.

Yeah, "streaming video service" isn't the right term, since the places where you purchase videos also let you stream them, but I don't know what a better term is. Netflix calls themselves an "Internet television network" but that kind of makes me gag.

Edit: Actually, the Amazon press release uses "online-only subscription streaming service", which does the job.

I can watch any episode of Game of Thrones and stream the new episodes as they broadcast live on TV with Sky Now in the UK. £5.99 a month.

Note that they are called Now TV, not Sky Now, thought they are a Sky service. (No Sky subscription needed.)

Yeah you're correct. I keep getting it confused with Sky Go.

I watched Game of Thrones live on Now TV and the adverts where a nasty surprise. You forget how much broadcast TV damages the content with ads. It would not surprise me if in five years time TV was exactly the same as it always was, just transported differently.

Yeah It's really weird seeing adverts, feels like Sky double dipping to me.

To be fair to Sky though when Now TV went down last week they gave us a free month to make up for it.

Game of Thrones (and all HBO shows) are not broadcast in the US with commercials; do they edit in commercial breaks in semi-random spots (or just pre/post-roll)? How much time do they add per hour?

Every ten minutes or so I think. It adds twenty minutes to the length.

Now TV (www.nowtv.com) does have Game of Thrones with a subscription model.

(UK only, but that shouldn't stop you!)

Now TV is owned by Sky, who have an exclusive on all HBO content in the UK.

>first time

At one point "Arli$$" (a HBO show from the 90s) used to be on Netflix streaming.

As does blinkbox.com in the UK

The article also mentions that.

> That’s not entirely new territory for HBO, which already sells digital versions of its older shows — including Game of Thrones — via outlets like Amazon and Apple’s iTunes store.

The Variety article about this deal uses the term "SVOD", or Subscription Video On Demand.

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/hbo-cuts-exclusive-lice...

This is great for Amazon. Looks like they're attempting to be the primary outlet for premium big-name content producers, while Netflix is trying to be the primary outlet for their own content, which has the HBOs and Showtimes shying away from doing business with them. Both Netflix's and Amazon's are viable strategies, and it'll be interesting to see which pan's out.

On the other hand, piracy has gotten way easier. The technology is already here for the more tech savvy to instantly stream (or at least quickly download) The Wire and Game of Thrones, bypassing Amazon, as well as Arrested Development and Orange is the New Black, bypassing Netflix. Netflix and Amazon aren't just competing with each other, they're competing with illegal p2p technology. And in the case of Netflix, throw in traditional premium content producers as well.

Reed Hastings currently has great hair, I expect that'll start turning grey real fast.

> they're competing with illegal p2p technology.

The technology isn't "illegal", but some uses for it are. Big difference.

Netflix's evolution is more a reaction to HBO and Showtimes reluctance to work with them.

Yup, parent is confusing cause and effect.

Would upvote 100 times if I could.

I briefly worked for a movie/tv streaming service whose CEO was a movie industry exec. (I worked there almost accidentally as fallout from a previously company failing and that streaming company basically taking on all of the previous company's employees as a team).

One of the big take-aways from that brief stint was realizing how much the management at traditional "content" companies hate Netflix... like seething, psychopathic hate. In their minds they are on a mission to destroy Netflix at all costs because of how Netflix's all-in-one pricing model "devalues" their content.

That's not necessarily an unfounded fear, though, is it? They're used to the kind of profit margins you can get in a world where people value a copy of one movie at $19. If that changes and suddenly copies of every movie are available all-you-can-eat for $7, those margins collapse. (Not to mention that you're splitting those seven bucks with Netflix.)

I have to think they look at how Apple managed to maneuver itself into the position of being an intermediary between most people and the music business, then look at what that did to the profit margins of the music business, and think "there but for the grace of god go I."

Oh, yeah I agree their fears aren't unfounded, but they take a really over-reactionary stance to the threat, I think.

IMO they would be better served working with companies like Netflix to figure something out that is more mutually beneficial rather than pissing away billions on half-assed alternate solutions of their own (that are designed to maintain the status quo at the expense of the obvious preference on consumers to keep things simple) like "Ultraviolet media lockers".

Of course, I'm assuming Netflix would also be a reasonable party to compromise solutions and maybe they aren't; I don't know for sure, I just know that the media guys have a very "must-destroy-at-all-costs" view of Netflix in particular.

My customers see netflix-like services as a way to get easy revenues once the premier/release time window is over. Same for music and Spotify.

By doing so, they can charge whatever they want for their productions using their own e-commerce solution (which we provide them [1]) and then get the long tail revenues that come afterwards by adding third parties like itunes, netflix or amazon.

[1] KiteBit, the direct-to-fan selling solution for video

So naturally they've got into bed with Amazon who have an all-in-one pricing model as well as a history of screwing suppliers with their dominant position to enforce wafer thin margins.

Seems like a plan with no flaws there.

There is an amazing quote I read over a year ago on the Netflix vs HBO battle and it basically said that it's a race for Netflix to become like HBO before HBO can become like Netflix.

That feels like it's based on what feel to me at least to be several flawed assumptions, primary among them that there can be only one.

It's not about them being the only one, but it is about being the market leader. And with exclusive content, there actually "can be only one."

I believe in a mature paid-streaming market, consumers will likely subscribe to multiple services, all for way cheaper than satellite or cable currently costs.

I am going to edit my top level post and add the quote now that I am in front of a laptop.

"I believe in a mature paid-streaming market, consumers will likely subscribe to multiple services, all for way cheaper than satellite or cable currently costs."

Agreed and that's kind of my point - HBO and Netflix can both win big here, it's not really about who can do both content and provision first. If you follow the exclusive content model there can be only one place to watch Game of Thrones or House of Cards but people can (and I think will) subscribe to many services.

There may also be models where exclusivity isn't a given (as it isn't with music services) or that it will just be about content and that streaming will become a commodity, though they're harder to predict (and go against what has historically happened in TV).

Well, there's more than one HBO-like service (e.g., Showtime, etc., exist) just as there is more than one Netflix-like service (plenty of subscription-based video streaming services exist), but that doesn't stop the fact that Netflix's streaming service is pretty much in the same position with regard to content producers as HBO was when it first ran into premium cable competition, and its route to sustainability in a market where it is no longer the sole player is pretty much exactly the same thing as HBO's was in the same situation -- stop being primarily a route to other people's content and instead become a premier content producer that also provides other people's content, so that you have (1) a compelling reason for consumers to choose you when other services exists, and (2) protection against content producers raising their rates so that all the profit from your business goes to them instead of you.

On the one hand this reinforces that cordcutting will continue to be a second-class citizen in terms of first-run/same-season content, but on the other hand, making it easier for people to discover Six Feet Under is a great thing.

> making it easier for people to discover Six Feet Under is a great thing.

Well, the first few episodes at least. The show starts out awesome and gets progressively more depressing with no payoff episode after episode.

By the end I was watching out of sheer stubbornness.

Really? I just finished re-watching it and found the later seasons to be incredible. Better than the first two. Especially the climaxes of seasons 3, 4, 5. I definitely got more out of the second viewing, I had much more focus on character arcs than plot.

Different strokes, I suppose. There was a lot more black comedy near the beginning instead of just the grim realism of people making the same mistakes over and over again.

Totally agree. The series finale was one of the best series finale's I've seen.

Just pirate it.

Don't be a tool. Just pay for it. It's been available on DVD for years now, is available on HBO Go, and is now available on Amazon for non-subscribers, and has already been available for non-subscribers on iTunes for years.

The latest episodes are not on Amazon or iTunes (or DVD). Just searched for Game of Thrones season 4 on Amazon and iTunes to confirm.

HBO's business model is exclusivity, which in my opinion is anti-consumer.

HBO's business model is exclusivity, which in my opinion is anti-consumer.

Then don't watch.

Why? It's readily available on the internet with minimal effort.

For one, because you're hurting your own cause. Watching GOT and talking about it helps to reinforce HBO's position as the a premier programmer with the kind of cultural cache others would kill for. They're still profiting from you, just not in a directly financial way.

If everyone without an HBO subscription refused to watch GOT then HBO might actually be inclined to re-examine their subscription options.

I'm not a believer in the "if everyone just did their part" strategy. Not with this, not with the environment, or any other big issue.

Market pressure is already pushing HBO towards a non-cable option, they're just moving into it kicking and screaming because the current way has been immensely profitable for them.

You seem to entertain a rather convenient set of beliefs and opinions. I pay a pretty hefty price because I do not share them (and go out of my way to 'do my part').

They are able to fund episodes for $6 million each because of exclusivity.

I agree with the thrust of your comment, but it would have been more civil without the first sentence.

There are legitimate reasons to pirate, but "I want to consume it but I don't want to pay for it" isn't one of them. That is the mindset of a tool.

That is not my position. I gladly pay for many season tickets of shows through Amazon, but HBO does not provide this option (or on any competing service).

They do, you need a cable subscription and HBO Go.

You need to buy a package of stuff that you don't want and then pay extra for HBO. That is not reasonable.

Sure, but that doesn't entitle you to just take it since you don't agree to their terms. Just like I can't demand to drive a Ferrari because paying $200k for a car is out of my price range.

I'm entitled to have a sequence of bits on my computer, and to play that sequence of bits in an application capable of doing so. Since I'm a good person I'm willing to give money to the person/company that came up with the sequence of bits but I don't feel obligated to do so if they make the terms wildly out of my favor, that is I'm forced to also purchase other sequences of bits that I have no interest in.

As for your Ferrari example, some day it will be trivially easy to 3D print a Ferrari and we'll be going through the same thing with physical items as we are going through with IP today.

No one is "forcing" you to buy "sequence of bits" of the latest Game of Thrones episode.

Exactly, and I don't.

Therefore your excuse for not legally paying for content is: "I'm cheap and break the law because there's only a very small chance I can get in trouble." Not bad...not bad.

This mindset baffles me. You're entitled to Game of Thrones, and are justified in pirating it because you don't agree with the terms under which it's made available?

Would you also consider people from countries that have those services blocked, as you nicely put it, tools? Are you aware that there's people outside of the United States?

As Amazon Prime's catalog has improved, I've bought fewer videos in the last few years, even as prices have plummeted. (Whole series are selling now for what a single season used to cost!) Good news for my closet space, but to the collector in me it seems so ephemeral. When the copyright on The Sopranos lapses a few hundred years from now, my DVDs and Blu-rays will be in the public domain. Meanwhile, Amazon could lose its license before I get halfway through season three.

Agreed. What's your moral stance on buying a show from iTunes/Amazon and then torrenting a copy for safe keeping?

I don't know what to think about TV.

On one hand, there's a lot of progress happening. Streaming, on-demand and pay-per-view/download are really getting bigger and more prominent every year. HDboxes, are getting better too and achieving a lot of the same things (watch anything anytime).

The artform itself is improving. Game of Thrones or Breaking bad are better that any show could be in the stand alone episode paradigm of Star Trek. They are using the 10+ hrs hours of sequential viewing to do some serious plot & character development. Walter White wasn't possible before serials.

On the other hand, it's all such a kludge.The whole thing is built around creating and maintaining an artificial scarcity modeled on the slightly less artificial scarcity of a few years ago. We pretend that we're paying Amazon or Netflix's for a cable or pretending that we're paying Apple for a video cassette. Don't get me started on loaning.

I'm not claiming that copyright could go away and still have Game Of Thrones. This isn't that kind of statement. But… it's just such a kludge. Something this brittle and ugly can't be the right way to do anything.

I don't follow. How is paying Netflix a kludge? They're providing a fantastic service in addition to some great new content. If Amazon, Hulu, et al step up their game then we're all the better for it.

Netflix on its own isn't a kludge, but paying netflix, plus maybe Hulu, and oh, there's stuff from Amazon as a side effect of 2 day shipping, plus buying individual episodes from Amazon, iTunes, or Google, and don't forget the old Ultraviolets, right, right? Add in some ripped media and possibly a wire or antenna hooked to a dvr and that's what's a kludge.

What's the point you're trying to make? That you can't buy episodes of shows like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones separate from cable, they're too expensive, or that Netflix and its kin aren't good enough?

My point is that even applying the word "buy" to something like an episode in todays context feels artificial. It's built around rules which state that everyone must pretend that Game of Thrones is being recorded onto video cassettes and you are walking over to the video store to borrow them.

I'm not trying to make a normative or ideological point. Overall, the shows themselves and the system of selling and delivering them to us is way better than 10 years ago. I'm not claiming some unalienable right (though ironically there is an inalienable ability, via pirating) to see anything, anytime at a price of my choosing.

I'm not making suggestions for an alternative economy where Game of Thrones gets produced. I'm just saying that this system is ugly and feels fragile. It's a kludge.

I agree with you. I just would have understood faster if you just wrote:

buying a physical copy of media != buying a license to play for legitimate digital media with DRM where they can take that license away for any reason

Well, that was a pretty effective move, since now it seems worth it to get a streaming device that does Amazon Prime, where yesterday I didn't care.

Do your due diligence well. Amazon does an amazing job of obscuring what Instant Prime is available on leaving an easy impression that it is when it isn't. No Tivo, for example, but they make it all too easy to misunderstand that.

Yeah, I have an Apple TV and a Tivo now, which are both fairly useless for Instant Prime.

Wow, this is big surprising news I think. Not so much what it says about Amazon, more what it says about HBO. Seems to indicate strongly that they may never offer a straight stand-alone streaming app without a TV subscription.

I was thinking this is their first experiment into offering content outside their own platform. While the content isn't spectacular, it's at least a step in the right direction.

The content is actually spectacular. The Wire is one of the best shows ever made.

I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting. To me this says that HBO is becoming more like most other content providers.

You can already sign up for HBO Go with Comcast without having a TV plan. They'll bundle it with your internet plan.

Is that something you had to call and ask for? Doesn't seem to be an option for me on their website through my existing account.

It was a plan on the website for me.

They call it "Internet Plus", I believe they were only running it as a trial in certain markets: http://gizmodo.com/comcasts-hbo-internet-plan-is-the-one-you...

You can try calling them and see if they'll give it to you.

This is basically a marketing move: HBO gets to keep their new programs so customers have to have HBO to see GOT and so forth (HBO gives up its back catalog but I doubt their old shows bring in new subscribers so that isn't a huge loss), Amazon justifies their Amazon Prime price increase and also gets people to buy Fire TV (Amazon Prime is probably not coming to any other device like Chromecast). I would say it's a huge win for Amazon and a so-so win for HBO, so likely Amazon is paying a hefty price to HBO for this ad campaign.

Amazon Prime works on most gaming systems and Roku, just not Chromecast and AppleTV.

I don't think gaming systems and Roku as entries to streaming entertainment are great long-term, mass-market options. They are/were good for early adopters or the more tech-oriented. But for the larger markets, Chromecast, Apple TV, the new Amazon service, and smart TVs is where the market is evolving.

I think you're off base. Roku is a very mature product. Amazon might be able to beat it with marketing, but one could argue that Chromecast, Apple TV and Amazon have to catch up with Roku.

You're absolutely right. Roku has been around longer and is more fully featured than many of its competitors, but that's not going to matter in the long-run.

Google, Apple, and Amazon all have substantially more brand recognition and marketing power than Roku. Additionally, those three companies are also building upon their existing businesses to drive their TV devices and strategy. Smart TVs are also going to cut back on the number of people buying these types of devices.

Roku is a fine option, but I don't see it being a big player a few years from now. I may be wrong, but I think they'll ultimately end up serving a niche market.

I think home streaming is still in

Have you used the latest Roku (Roku 3)? The interface is extremely non-tech-consumer friendly.

You don't think that the Xbox 360 (with 79.4 million in sales[1]) are a better long term, mass market option than the Apple TV (with 13 million[2])?

Games consoles are not very tech-oriented. The Roku is every bit as tech-oriented as the Apple TV (they're basically the same product by different companies).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_sales [2] http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/28/4374480/apple-tv-sales-13-...

What percentage of that 79.4 million bought the XBox 360 specifically for its video options? 100% of Apple's 13 million did.

I personally use the 360 as my living room vehicle for Netflix and Amazon, but that's only because I also use it to occasionally play games.

I would say the percentage is higher than you think. So much that the Xbox One seems to be designed more like an entertainment system than a gaming console.

I don't game much but I use my Xbox 360 as a glorified streaming device. WMC, Xfinity and Amazon Prime all of them are convenient on 360 especially when compared to Comcast's clunky set top box interface. Ohh did you know Comcast allows me to stream full HD for free on the Xfinity app whereas to do it on their Set Top Box, not only do I have to get a new one, I would have to pay $5 extra per month.

With the Amazon Instant Video app on an iPhone/iPad you can use Airplay to stream to an AppleTV. I've never used it but do this a lot with BBC iPlayer which works really well for me.

The Amazon Prime, Netflix apps are front-and-center on the Xbox and PS3 console dashboards. One click install, enter username / password, and you have a very easy to use navigation / search for instantly streaming anything. If you own one of these devices (a lot of people do), it is a pretty easy experience.

The problem I have with devices from Apple, Google, Amazon are that they limit them to make their own content front and center, and often they won't even allow sources outside their own. With a console, I can stream from Hulu, AMZN, Netflix, or a PC in the office. Plus if you add a DLNA server like http://playon.tv, you add hundreds of other sources.

Or any Android devices but their own awful Kindle Fire tablets. Or any GNU/linux operating systems.

Amazon does work on Linux.

HBO is also sticking it to Netflix with this move. It's clear that traditional premium channels and streaming premium channels are on a collision course and it makes sense for HBO to spread their content juice to someone other than the streaming Goliath. Selling the content to Netflix would give Netflix an even stronger position as it continues to flank traditional cable. While this move makes Amazon stronger, it makes Netflix weaker.

I hope this will help expand Amazon's reach and get their service on to more devices. Netflix needs a legitimate competitor and Amazon looks to become a formidable player in the streaming arena.

Amazon's streaming is on Roku already, with support for Prime and rentals/purchases. I don't see why they'd have any problem with Chromecast. The Fire TV doesn't seem like a product where they intend to make money off of the hardware. It's just a means to get their content in front of more eyeballs.

Their big battle (in my opinion) is that Netflix has a whole lot of name recognition, and that's where making an Amazon streaming box can help. Right now people associate Amazon more with buying physical goods, and less with digital media where their main presence is with the Kindle brand.

I saw a Vizio smart TV that has a red "Netflix" button on the remote. That may change if Amazon becomes a legit competitor to Netflix, but Netflix definitely has a stronghold.

Kinda like this Amazon button on a Vizio remote? (next to Netflix) - http://cdn.vizio.com/resources/img/technology/remote.jpg

In my experience, Amazon does not care for high quality streaming. As a Prime member for a while, I gave their streaming a shot. Laughable. Might as well have been watching the video on a 56k USRobotics modem with a very high latency connection. Low resolution, fuzzy picture, stops and starts. I simply do not trust Amazon to do it right.

Not to mention HDCP. The first time I tried out Prime streaming, I turned off my second monitor after starting up the video, and Amazon took that to mean that I was a criminal, and that my video should be stopped.

I groaned and fired up Netflix.

May be we both live in a different world of sorts. Are there others like you who seem to be facing issues with instant video recently because for me it works quite well. Also , how long back did you try it ?

No matter where you are, Amazon won't stream high quality (or even HD) streams to a PC. Their streaming quality is quite poor compared to their competitors.

Don't spread FUD. I get 1080p streams on my PC when I rent or purchase videos through Amazon VOD or watch the free ones through Prime. If your PC isn't getting HD (but for some reason your other devices are), the problem is probably your computer or its network connection.

"HD playback is not available on all devices. For example, some Roku and TiVo devices don't support HD content. The Kindle Fire HD is HD compatible, along with Windows computers that meet the content protection (HDCP) requirements."

My computer is perfectly capable of playing 1080p content (I do it all the time) they just choose not to provide it to me on my non-HDCP monitor. That's clearly their problem, not mine.

I have never been able to get HD in a browser on my PC with "free" Instant Prime. I cancelled Prime because of all the obscure restrictions on streaming Instant Prime. What are you doing to get HD from Instant Prime?

Weird, I use it a lot (almost as much as Netflix) and haven't had those problems. Always get HD and an uninterrupted stream.

The money is in the back catalog, as Ted Turner showed when he kept the MGM film library and sold the rest of the company.

But only in the US, it seems. So far, while the UK might have (a poorer selection of) Prime Instant Video, it doesn't have the FireTV and won't be getting the HBO shows. Maybe they'll launch at the same time?

This is a very big deal for me. I've had Netflix, Amazon and Hulu streaming via my Roku for over 2 years now but no HBO. I use comcast for internet but no TV so the Roku HBO app would not work.

I'd really like to watch Oz.

Coming from the UK that was the first show I watched where I thought "There's some good American TV, What is this HBO thing?"

Too bad there's no first-party app for hardware-accelerated 1080p/DD5.1 streaming on Windows like there is for Netflix and Hulu...

So what was it about the Amazon deal that made HBO say yes when they've been telling Hastings to gfh for years now?

Yes, I'm surprised Amazon could pay HBO enough. My assumption was that Netflix couldn't afford HBO content, but that apparently wasn't true, as Amazon doesn't charge more than Netflix and has hefty delivery costs.

I was actually hoping this meant shows like The Larry Sanders Show and Dream On had found a home online. Darn.

Exclusive deals don't solve piracy, we're just jumping from one platform to the next.

Agreed. It's very positive that the distribution channels are opening up such that more companies are distributing shows like this -- yet as a casual viewer, it's hardly worthwhile for me to subscribe to Amazon Prime and buy some specialized proprietary device, just for one network's older shows.

And presumably there will be other vendors offering other narrow selections, only on their own or "partner company" devices or DRM-ware. This sort of thing makes sense if you already have the device or service, otherwise it just prices the video files beyond any reasonable market value.

And piracy will continue as long as this "jump thru hoops" mentality goes on: compared to the hassle-laden commercial experience, pirating is convenient, and files are high quality, free from junk, and play on VLC.

The copyright holding companies will probably die off before they realize that they could have done better just selling files. They're convinced that only a few would buy and they would put them on torrents - but if I paid a dollar an episode of a series, with no DRM, trailers, ads or other BS, I wouldn't bother sharing, I'd just refer people to the same source to buy their own copies.

Until everything is given out for free with no ads, there will always be piracy. However, that would mean that there would be no way to pay for the content, so there's always a balance that needs to be struck.

As a German customer is it possible to get any movie or show on amazon prime in English?

Some are available. Just search for OV or OmU in the catalog. It's a pain in the ass finding them, though.

The selection is terrible - a few BBC series and some weird films. It's really annoying, because Amazon.de has quite a lot of great TV series and films, all dubbed in German, usually quite poorly.

I honestly don't understand how German audiences tolerate it. 90% of the time, it really just sounds like a bunch of actors sitting in a studio, reading lines melodramatically. I seem to remember the LOTR dubs were well done, though. In contrast, I saw the first episode of Game of Thrones at a friend's house and it was godawful. Completely lost the nuance of every performance.

Anyway, other streaming services (Maxdome, Watchever) will give you the original audio track, but their selection is also rather limited.

And neither Amazon nor Watchever offer subtitles.

This explains why Amazon Prime now costs $20 more per year! ($99 vs $79)

Amazon Fire TV is just the perfect platform. Now with old and new HBO series you can literary watch anything you want, including good foreign movies, Hollywood crap. Not to mention the gaming capabilities of the device.

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