I see something in it, although it looks like a circular motion.

One of the main complaints at the moment is the fragmentation. There are more and more services, all with a rapidly changing range of different qualities and prices. People want one environment for everything. This is one of the reasons why Netflix is ​​as popular as Spotify: one place for everything.
It’s also an important reason why The Piratebay is so successful, one place for everything, no need for quests.

All the big companies want to kick Netflix off the throne and become the biggest themselves. That is why they started their own service and attracted customers with exclusive content. This is fine from the point of view of competition, but not from the point of view of consumer convenience.

This is why I see space for this kind of comprehensive service that makes the offer available to many providers via a standard interface. The success of this depends on the willingness of these providers to cooperate. If they want to be the one-stop service themselves and don’t want to make their exclusive services available to other services, we’ll quickly go back to zero.

I really hope that the various providers can agree on a standard protocol for delivering and streaming content. Personally, I hate video players that offer streaming services. All of these are childishly bad compared to what an app like VLC can do, and many streaming programs are 20 years behind. I don’t know of any streaming device that even comes close to a “real” video player. I’m really talking about simple features like running frame by frame or hotkeys for all functions. according to instructions Netflix knows a total of 10 (actually 9 because space and inputs do the same thing) and you can’t set anything. VLC comes pre-configured with over 100 and you can add more. It doesn’t mean that everyone in the world uses every 100 people, but if you want all the functionality available, you can choose how much of them you use.
Now I also know that there are many apps for Netflix but most of them work less well.
If you have special needs (eg due to a physical disability), it is very important to be able to choose your own programme. Not everyone can operate the mouse. Not everyone can see (all) colors. No one can press the little buttons or respond quickly.

Unfortunately, streamers only compete with each other for content. Exclusives are what it’s all about. If they’re talking about the user interface, it’s just about how “easy it is” to use. Ease means a very simplified approach, which quickly comes at the expense of more advanced features. All of these players have to reinvent the wheel and write their own video player. Most of them never go beyond the basics.

I hope they agree on a standard protocol that is also implemented by media players so that the content and user interface can be separated. Technically, this isn’t really a big step, all the tough issues with streaming (like codecs) have already been resolved. There are still a few things left, like a standard for displaying tips or metadata, but it’s not a technical challenge, it’s just a list of text to pass, and there’s nothing exciting about it. All of these services already have APIs for their own use. Login to prove that you are a paid customer should be everywhere so hacking is not an excuse.

All they have to do is sit down together and agree on a standard API.

[Reactie gewijzigd door CAPSLOCK2000 op 13 augustus 2022 13:41]