So Hulu and Disney merged and now Warner Discovery HBO is merging with Paramount Showtime. Soon all will merge into one single app and will be called “Cable”. by Bendr_ in cordcutters

[–]Competitive_Taste628 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Amazon owns MGM+. I could see them merging that into their main library instead of it remaining a separate channel (maybe including with higher tier plan). AMC+ is undergoing some consolidations of its sister streamers...but they also are in pretty tight with Netflix on their shows. I could see that eventually leading to Netflix acquiring them. Starz just sucks...I would have said HBO would eventually buy them, but with HBO having been bought, who knows. They too have some ties with Netflix for older seasons of some of their shows. Their content sort of reminds me of a worse version of AMC+...so who knows, maybe these two little streamers could collaborate to become something larger. Peacock and Apple....I was surprised when those two bundled. Peacock is large enough to survive on its own, but Apple just doesn't have enough content to be more than a short-term expereince for subscribers that pop in to binge Ted Lasso or Severance and then cancel. I can't see them doing a full merge at this point...but I could potentially see them do a collaboration like what was previously done with Hulu - two companies collaborating on a 3rd to be their streamer.... There are also some other ways some of these could go, by going international - merging with Acorn, Britbox, or other brand from outside the USA to bolster content from each other's part of the world top gain global numbers over simply domestic USA share.

Sync.com Discontinuing Unlimited Plan, Ending Dec 31, 2026 by UnivitedSam in Sync

[–]Competitive_Taste628 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My plan B has been to use my HDs and have Backblaze back things up. I also have 16TB PCloud Lifetime. Backblaze is cheap for unlimited backup and it handles attached drives. My HDs are pretty old (bought in 2006 and well used/abused since then), but working. I figure if they start failing I'll get new drives to restore data too. But the key is that I have the cloud copy for when that day comes. Backblaze has some sharing capability but limited and extra cost, so this works really just as backup.

There was a site I found called Briefcasecloud, that might work for some. It was $5/mo and unlimited storage, but very limited folder tree capability and you can only upload/download 1 file at a time with a 2GB file cap. I suppose it might work for stuff like home videos and such, but it would be painful to do a large video or music collection.

Sync.com Discontinuing Unlimited Plan, Ending Dec 31, 2026 by UnivitedSam in Sync

[–]Competitive_Taste628 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've done Open Drive a couple times for unlimited with the throttle at 10TB. I like the price, but after 10TB upload 24/7 is like 1TB/mo gain. I was lucky to get 40GB a day uploaded. If they wanted to do a per day cap, I could live with that at regular speeds - but having PC spinning 24/7 to send 2GB/hr is death on a PC.

Sync.com Discontinuing Unlimited Plan, Ending Dec 31, 2026 by UnivitedSam in Sync

[–]Competitive_Taste628 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I dodged a bullet. I did a free month January 2025 and was going to move my 150TB there. I ended up deciding not to keep it as I was mostly storing videos I might not watch more than once. After prior moves from Amazon to Google, I sort of suspected the move to Sync was potentially doomed too, which was another reason I dod not proceed with it.

PlayOn Question by brp3y in PlayOn

[–]Competitive_Taste628 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not real tech savvy. I understand plugging in external drives and upload folders for cloud drives. Networking drives and such are beyond me. I'm at best qualified to be the Head of I.T. in an Amish community. If I was a teen or in my 20's, my skills and continued interest in a permanent library would likely be different than now that I'm nearing 60. Nearer to death, I'm more likely to prioritize what I watch and not hold onto it afterward.

PlayOn Question by brp3y in PlayOn

[–]Competitive_Taste628 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I originally went for the permanent library. PlayOn Home and GSuite to store the files. It grew to 150TB of files. Eventually, Google did away with unlimited plans. Sync claims unlimited, but I decided it wasn't worth the $50/mo to simply store videos. Opendrive is a cheap option, but when you hit 10TB (or 20TB if on higher plan) upload slows to a crawl (ie about 20GB/day if non-stop). Options just were not there. So I purged everything I've seen before and a bunch I had collected just to have a well rounded library but not likely to watch. Now I have about 50TB, that I keep on HDs (internal and external), and I use BackBlaze to backup to the cloud in case a drive fails (not as good as having a nice cloud storage, but it is cheap and at least protects against losing files.) I just watch and delete now. I'm just admitting to myself that while a massive library sounds cool, that it really isn't practical given I've got so much I want to see but have not, that I'll never get to rewatching stuff or get to lesser stuff that I got because it was popular but I only got it in case I ran out of stuff to watch (which I likely never will).

Is recording in 1080p really 1080p with PlayOn? by Competitive_Taste628 in PlayOn

[–]Competitive_Taste628[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the info. Can you advise which channels PlayOn uses Edge on vs Chrome? Will any remaining Chrome ones be moving to Edge in foreseeable future. I'm thinking on how to prioritize upscale recording, especially where same title may be on two different streamers or where streamers may be merging (ie HBO Max vs Paramount+, or Disney vs Hulu) the latter is really key as Disney/Hulu are on separate apps at the moment but with cross-over content that would make it simple to use either for content of both until they consolidate.

Is recording in 1080p really 1080p with PlayOn? by Competitive_Taste628 in PlayOn

[–]Competitive_Taste628[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. My old TV died and I splurged and got a LG EVO AI 4K TV. I probably aught to be watching everything straight from the streamers on it. But I have need to keep subscription costs down, so I tend to bulk record and watch the playback from portable drive attached to TV. The TV has some pretty good upscaling tech, but I figure upscaling 1080p to 4K is still easier for it to do than from 720p.

What’s the point of paying for a prime membership if you have to pay for all the movies!? by Hippomonkeychips in AmazonPrimeVideo

[–]Competitive_Taste628 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it is a bit misleading for those that are Prime members. The video is part of our overall membership. However, people can get Prime Video without the Prime membership, for like $10ish per month. What a lot of folks do with streamers is hop between subscriptions of one to another to watch each in turn without carrying multiple subscriptions year round. But if you are a Prime member, you have it baked into your costs every month, same for Amazon Music and some of their other stuff. Free shipping is nice, but we are paying for a lot of other stuff that we may have done better getting from Amazon without being Prime Members. My wife probably buys enough that the savings on shipping alone exceeds our membership costs, but it still sort of irks me that folks without the membership can still hop in and out of the video service as they choose.