Streaming Services

Interesting viewing patterns in the big 3 streaming services...

Star Trek Floppy Disks

Gene Roddenberry left behind 200 floppy disks and the data has been recovered. No one is saying what is on the disks, but I think we finally find out that Captain "Red" Janeway and Pavel Chekov are cousins.

Making a Murderer

If you like yelling at your TV, then Making a Murderer on Netflix is for you. There are very few reasons that I want to stay up past 11:00 PM. My wife and I stayed up until 2:00 AM to finish the series.

I'm sure we aren't getting all of the story, but the police, lawyers, and even the judges seem completely biased against Steven Avery and his nephew. Not just biased, but actively working to make sure those two are found guilty. That's a lot different then working to solve the crime and see justice done.

Facebook Data

So the autoplay videos are eating up people's data plans. Rumor has it that at one local university, Facebook downloads are second only to the bandwidth used by Netflix. It's sneaky because you think you just loading "a page."

Stream

For the children...

Yesterday, I posted change your font. Today, stream that movie instead of buying that DVD.

Netflix Drone Delivery

Via @Pogue

Chromecast

Some have complained that the Chromecast is too limited, but I bought it to stream Netflix. If it does anything else, than that is just gravy.

I hooked it up this morning. It took about 10 minutes. Like my thermostat, it advertises a wireless network that you connect to from a laptop/phone/tablet. Once you've connected, you supply the information for your home network and the Chromecast will connect to it.

Once I got it on my network, I opened Netflix on my iPad and told it to send the stream to the TV. It worked like a champ!

The only thing that is a bit clunky is that you have to plug the dongle into a USB charger for power. That keeps it from being 100% wireless all the time, but that's a minor quibble in my book.

Chromecast

Chromecast - a $35 (plus shipping/tax) HDMI dongle for streaming video to your TV. It will stream from Chrome, Youtube, and Netflix. They same more to come - Amazon maybe? You can control it from a PC or tablet. Buy now and you get 3 months of Netflix free. I have a Wii for Netflix in our living room, but the TV in our bedroom isn't connected at all.

I'm in for one.

harrymccracken Now Google’s unveiling Chromecast, a tiny HD-streaming gizmo you plug into a TV’s HDMI. Yup, another Google approach to Net-enabling TVs. Wed, Jul 24 12:51:50 from Tweetbot for iOS

Netflix Diversity

I wondered how they handled the different people in a household using the same Netflix account:

"Take as a first example the Top 10 row: this is our best guess at the ten titles you are most likely to enjoy. Of course, when we say “you”, we really mean everyone in your household. It is important to keep in mind that Netflix’ personalization is intended to handle a household that is likely to have different people with different tastes. That is why when you see your Top10, you are likely to discover items for dad, mom, the kids, or the whole family. Even for a single person household we want to appeal to your range of interests and moods. To achieve this, in many parts of our system we are not only optimizing for accuracy, but also for diversity."

Lessons Learned

jsnell Netflix announces that HP will keep its PC division after all, won't spin it off into "Compaqster."Thu, Oct 27 16:43:29 from Twitterrific for Mac retweeted by asymco

Qwikster - We Barely Knew You

msuster lol “@ConanOBrien: Just spent 5 hours organizing my Qwikster queue. Really starting to love this new site! #qwikster4life”Mon, Oct 10 16:16:05 from Twitter for iPhone

I think I need to follow @ConanOBrien

Mad Men Streaming on Netflix starts today.

The wife will be very happy. Mad Men streaming on Netflix starts today.