TCM – Auxiliary Memory

When I saw the ads on TV for the Chromecast I got the impression that anything you could see on your smartphone, tablet or laptop could be sent to your big screen TV. Cool. Well, it doesn’t work that way. I ordered a Chromecast from Amazon for one purpose only, to see Watch TCM from one of my tablets to my big screen TV. My wife works out of town, and since she loves TV far more than I do, I let her have the cable TV. However, she’s let me have the streaming apps for HBOGO and Watch TCM. HBOGO however has a Roku channel, so I watch it through my Roku. I love TCM, but watching TV on an iPad is no fun for me, so I didn’t watch TCM. Then I saw the Chromecast and thought, wow, I can now watch TCM! Quick review: No such luck.

It turns out the Chromecast is designed to work with only a handful of optimized apps. Of the twelve apps listed, I only like three, and all three are available on my Roku. So the Chromecast ends up being useless for me. I went on the net to see if I could hack it for some other fun use, and discovered some people casting from the Chrome browser – but evidently that’s only from laptops. I can’t cast from Chrome on my iPad or Nexus 7.

From Googling around I discovered other people trying to do the same thing I’m doing, buying a Chromecast in hopes of seeing TCM on their TV from their laptop. Through this research I discovered Watch TCM is online and I can now watch TCM on my big screen TV via the computer that’s attached. So I really don’t need to Chromecast at all. However, since I don’t like sending things back I started looking around for other fun things to do with a Chromecast. I hoped there might be a way to put Android on my TV using the Chromecast, but couldn’t find anyone that had done that. About the only thing I found even slightly useful was to play YouTube on an older flat screen TV that doesn’t have a Roku. And even this works very flaky.

I started a one hour lecture on speeding up Python, but I couldn’t shut it off. Once the film began it appears the Chromecast might not be getting the film from the iPad, but off the net. I haven’t tested this thoroughly, but closing the YouTube app doesn’t stop the film. Neither did shutting off the iPad screen. I didn’t try shutting off the iPad. I did shut off the TV. Then turned it back on and the film was still playing. I then started the iPad back up, launched YouTube app, and found I could then shut off the film.

The Chromecast is a nicely made product, that comes in packaging that reminds me of something from Apple. The trouble is, Chromecast is so limited in what it can do, especially if you have a smart TV or Roku, that it’s practically useless. My guess is its useful to people that have a TV with a HDMI port, but no other connected devices or smarts. If Chromecast had merely mirrored my Nexus 5 or iPad screen to my TV it would have been wonderful to me. And such a feature might be forthcoming in future updates. So I don’t know if I should keep the Chromecast or send it back. I was hugely disappointed.

Evidently, there’s a lot of us old baby boomers that love old movies that don’t want to buy a zillion cable channels we don’t want to watch. Our alternatives to TCM are improving.

Note #1. To TCM: Put Watch TCM on the Roku and charge $7.99 a month like Netflix and Hulu Plus. TCM is the gold standard for old movie watching, but not worth buying cable just to watch old movies.

Note #2. For you old movie fans, try Warner Archive Instant on the Roku. At first it looks like it has a very limited selection, but poke around. Plus new films are cycled in each month. I find plenty to watch, except that in the past few weeks net traffic keeps it from working during prime time hours. Warner Archive focuses on the 1920s through the 1980s.

Note #3. If you live in one of these cities, Sony is now broadcasting old movies over the air for something called getTV that appears to be capitalizing on the TCM craze for old movies.

Note #4. Try Classic Flix. It’s a disc rental service like Netflix, but focuses on old movies. Unfortunately, it has only one mailing location – California, so it takes 3-4 days for me to send back a movie. I get about 4 movies watched a month for $10.99.

[Translation. By old movies I mean movies from the 1920s to the 1950s. I keep meeting young people that translate old movies to mean movies from the 1980s and 1990s.]

JWH – 3/23/14

Millions of people have dropped cable and satellite TV in the last few years. Some have done it to save money during a recession, and others because they are tired of ever increasing cable bills, or being forced to buy TV channels the don’t watch. Recent news reports say the average American is paying $100 a month for TV, that it will be $123 by 2015, and $200 a month by 2020.

Even the people who continue to subscribe to cable and satellite services complain about too many channels, bad service and growing bills. When will the pay TV industry wake up and think, “Hey, the customer is always right!” A friend of mine got mad when his cable company charged him $50 to fix his cable service he was paying over $100 a month to use – shouldn’t something you buy be in working order? He wasn’t ready to quit cable completely, so he took his service down to the $29.95 basic rate. He’s still mad and thinks of giving up cable completely.

I gave up cable because I got tired of paying for a zillion channels I didn’t watch. I wanted a la carte pricing but cable companies want to bundle their services. If you want to know why, look at this chart I got from “Hate Paying for Cable? Here’s Why.” You’ll probably need to click on the image to see the larger version to read it. This is an example of what cable/satellite companies pay for each network to get all those channels they offer.

I don’t watch sports, so I would be paying over seven dollars a month for sports channels I don’t watch. WTF!!! I recently tried to get U-verse to sell me just Turner Classic Movies (TCM) which this chart says this cabled company pays 26 cents a month per subscriber, but I’d have to pay AT&T $80 a month to watch the one channel I wanted. Sure I’d get 200 other channels, but I only wanted TCM.

By the way, that chart is old. A newer article says ESPN is $4.69 and TNT $1.16 (“How ESPN Is Making Your Monthly Cable Bill More and More Expensive”). This is like going to Target to buy toilet paper and being forced to buy a pair of pants, a quart of motor oil, a bottle of shampoo, a comb, a gallon of Clorox, and 200 other items just to be able to leave the store with butt wipes.

But you can see why cable networks want cable companies to bundle their stations. Take ESPN. For each million homes forced to buy ESPN, they contribute $4.69 million per month to ESPN. However, if we went to a la carte pricing and only 500,000 per million wanted ESPN, and ESPN wanted to make the same amount of money, then they would have to charge $8.38 a month to the people who wanted it. Which would probably make many of those 500,000 subscribers think even more about if they really wanted ESPN.

If we have a la carte pricing, I doubt Comcast or U-verse would sell me TCM for 26 cents. But I’d be willing to pay $10 a month for TCM, but I’m not sure how many other TCM fans would be willing to pay that much. But for a la carte to work, instead of shaking everyone down for 26 cents a month, TCM fans would have to pony up more, maybe a lot more, or TCM would go out of business.

If we had a la carte pricing, many cable stations would go out of business. Bundled pricing is keeping these channels afloat. If the goal is to have hundreds of television networks, bundling is the way to go. But most cable customers bitterly complain about buying channels they do not want, and it’s the reason why cable bills keep growing and growing.

Cable and satellite companies need to get right by their customers. What they need to do is provide a base service, say $19.95 that provides a HD DVR/modem box and the local stations. HD is standard with free over the air stations, so quit being a dick and charging extra – and it will simplify things for both the customers and you.

DVRs should be standard too. Quit finding ways to charge extra for what should be standard, that only annoys the customer. And don’t charge for fixing the system when it’s broke. We’re renting a service from you, it should be reliable and high quality. Even at $19.95 a month for the base system with just local channels, pay TV services should be able to make a profit at this level.

Then offer an onscreen menu that customer’s can control from home that shows all the channels, pay-per-view, on-demand channels and other services with the monthly costs for each. Let them sign up with their clickers – no annoying phone calls. I bet you can make the same profits or more by pricing the channels individually. The only downside will be that the total channels will go from 200-300 to maybe 50-100.

Since I gave up cable TV I learned just how good 1 channel can be. I have a home built DVR (HTPC) and what I mainly record is PBS. It offers more top quality TV than I can watch. If you distilled hundreds of channels, with mostly crappy content, into dozens of channels with mostly quality content, the perception of your product will vastly improve.

I think most homes will be happy with 10-20 “a la carte pay” channels. Having fewer channels makes watching TV less stressful. To much choice can be painful. Their cable bill could be as high or higher than it is now, but it would reflect exactly what they wanted.

If such a system was available I’d go back to being a cable subscriber.

In the future there are other changes cable companies could make to make their customers happier. Get rid of the cable box. That would reduce clutter and a clicker. Work with TV manufacturers to make smart TVs work with cable/satellite feeds and develop standards. DVRs should be built into TVs. A SSD drive would not take up much space. It could be user replaceable. Or make TVs with 128-256gb SSDs built-in, with a slot for customer’s to add an additional drive.

A TV could be built to do TV, Internet, video games and music that uses one clicker plus game controllers. One cable, from a cable/satellite/broadband company could provide all content. And build your systems with self-diagnostic awareness so we won’t have the aggravation of feuding with your company over intermittent problems. There should be no reason to send a cable guy to see what’s wrong. Your system should know what’s wrong, and if it’s involves something in the house, notify us to pick a time for your guy to come by – otherwise fix the outside stuff without bothering us.

And why fight Netflix – make it part of your lineup. Right now I have over-the-air stations I use the TV clicker to manage, and then HTPC content, which I use a wireless keyboard, and then Amazon and Netflix through a Roku box with another clicker, and watch Blu-Ray/DVDs with another box and clicker. Plus I manage sound with a receiver and another clicker. That’s a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS! The next TV I buy should have all that crap built-in, requiring only one clicker.

If Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other Internet TV services can work with TV manufacturers to get their content built right into the TV, why can’t cable/satellite/broadband companies? Sorry Roku, but it’s obvious that your 2 ounces of electronics could easily be added to a TV set. And why not a computer and stereo receiver? If such integration happens, and TVs are moving that way now, having an external cable box is just stupid. I’m not an inventor but I can see which way the electronic wind is blowing.

Lastly, Hey TCM, go the Netflix/Hulu Plus route and set up your own Internet TV service. I’d gladly pay you $9.99 a month, but you might get more subscribers at $4.99 or $7.99.

JWH – 4/15/12