Month: February 2023

NBCU’s Peacock ending free tier

CompuScoop Staff February 2, 2023 1

Once touted the free, ad-supported flavor of Peacock as a competitive advantage in the streaming wars when the service first took flight in 2020 — even debuting with the tagline “Free as a Bird.” But now, the media company will make anyone who wants to stream Peacock pay up.

As of Monday (Jan. 30), Peacock had stopped allowing new users to sign up for the free tier. To get Peacock, users will need to subscribe to the Premium plan ($4.99/month) with ads or Premium Plus ($9.99/month) without ads.

An NBCU spokesperson said that as part of its growth strategy for Peacock, the company is shifting focus to the paid plans. Peacock Premium, the rep said, better reflects the streaming platform’s brand and the “unique” experience it offers.

Existing users who have signed up for Peacock Free will continue to be able to access the service for no charge, with ads, for now, according to NBCU. The free Peacock tier has offered only a subset of the programming on the paid plans, with around 10,000 hours.

Meanwhile, NBCU has offered eligible Comcast Cable and Cox customers the ability to access Peacock Premium (with ads) for no additional cost. However, the company plans to eventually end that, too, NBCU chief Jeff Shell said last year.

The move to end signups to Peacock Free comes as Comcast reported 20 million paid subscribers for the streaming service as of the end of 2022, more than doubling from 9 million a year earlier. For full-year 2022, Peacock had an adjusted loss of $2.5 billion — which Comcast expects to increase to about $3 billion in 2023, marking the year of peak losses for Peacock.

The amount of content on Peacock Premium will continue to grow in 2023, ultimately reaching nearly 100,000 hours of programming across original series, licensed TV shows, movies, and live sports and news, according to NBCU.

Original series on Peacock include “Poker Face,” “Bel-Air” and “Dr. Death,” with upcoming originals including “Mrs. Davis,” “The Continental,” “Based on a True Story” and “Bupkis.” The service includes popular library TV content like “The Office,” “That ’70s Show” and “Yellowstone.” Pay-1 window movies from Universal Pictures coming to Peacock include “Tár,” “M3gan” and “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.” Live sports coming to the streamer in 2023 include the FIFA Women’s World Cup and Big 10 football. In addition, Peacock now offers next-day streaming of NBC and Bravo shows following their linear TV premiere, after NBCU clawed back those rights from Disney’s Hulu in 2022.

NBCU’s ending signups to the free Peacock tier was first reported by The Streamable.

Via: Variety.com

YouTube new Hub of Free Streaming Channels is in Testing Stage

Dan Uff February 2, 2023 1

As U.S. Business News reports, YouTube is currently testing a new Hub for Free Streaming Channels. Watch the video below for more information:

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How Netflix plans to prevent users (YOU) from sharing Passwords

Dan Uff February 2, 2023 0

After testing this idea in other countries, Netflix is now ready to ramp up the ability for its customers to not be able to share their passwords with family, friends, and others. The company thinks that it is loosing revenue by allowing YOU to share your password.

An article from a website called GHacks outlines how the company will start to block people from using the feature:

Netflix explained in an updated account sharing FAQ how it plans to prevent account sharing in the future. The company highlights in the FAQ that devices will have to log into the local home network of the Netflix account and stream Netflix content regularly to avoid being blocked.

Netflix defines household devices in the following way: a device needs to be used to sign-in and watch Netflix content using the official Netflix apps or website while connected to the Wi-fi network at the primary location at least once every 31 days. Netflix mentions Wi-Fi network specifically and makes no mention of ethernet connections.

Information, such as IP addresses, device IDs and account activity is used to “determine whether a device signed into your account is part” of an account’s primary location.

Netflix targets account sharing with the restriction, but customers who only use their devices may also face verification prompts if they did not sign-in with a device for the 31 day period.

Could this be a model for other companies to begin implementing such feature? Sound off in the comments below.

By the way, you can learn more about this by going to Netflix's FAQ web page.

Opinion: Four months in, here’s where I was wrong about the Apple Watch Ultra

CompuScoop Staff February 1, 2023 0

Four months after Colin Jenkins’ initial review of the Apple Watch Ultra, a lot of his opinions have changed and many of the issues that first bothered him have turned out to not be so bad. At the same time, there are also features Jenkins thought were great, but have since ended up being more cumbersome than useful for him.

My biggest criticism about the Apple Watch Ultra, in terms of being a sports watch, was the lack of any useful navigation. Apple’s new compass with waypoints felt (and still feels) terrible to use… However, long after my review I eventually found an app that solved this problem: Footpath. With Footpath, you can create, save, and download offline routes and get turn-by-turn directions. And importantly, unlike others I tried, you can utilize this navigation feature while tracking your workout with other workout apps.

One thing I didn’t touch on too much in my initial review was the Apple Watch Ultra capability to make calls, texts, and play downloaded music/audible without a phone. While I mentioned it, I was so disappointed with the sports functionality that I didn’t really get to enjoy as much of these “smart watch” features.

The more I’ve used the Apple Watch Ultra, the more useful I have found all of this to become. I don’t like to run with my phone if I don’t have too, but I often will in case of an emergency (or in a lot of cases because I want to listen to continue listening to an audio book). Unlike other sports watches, I can do all of this seamlessly with Apple, and this deserves a lot more praise than I originally gave it…

After four months of use, I can definitely say that the Apple Watch Ultra is growing on me. While I still prefer a Garmin for running with navigation, and prefer a WHOOP/Oura for HRV and Recovery tracking, I find the Apple Watch Ultra best for pretty much everything else.

Via: Connect The Watts