Hey guys. For some, this might seem like a dumb question. However, I'm a total novice for watching TV shows and movies online. However, my family and I will be moving into a new home in a few weeks, and for the first time will be able to get broadband in our own house, which is very awesome. We've been looking at the various streaming services - Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, ect. I know that these all have shows and movies that come and go, generally on a monthly basis. However, they all also have their own original content as well. So my question is, if I subscribe to one of these, are all of their originals always going to be available to watch? If I want to watch a season of a show that Netflix made five years ago, is it sitting there ready to go? Or do those shows come and go also? The FAQs I've found don't answer this one.
From my experiences with Netflix and Hulu, most of their content stays. Netflix does have movies that they stop showing from time to time, but I haven't seen any of their "Netflix Originals" go away. Just an FYI, Netflix, even though they have TV shows, is good mostly for movies. Hulu is more geared for TV shows. You can generally get a free trial from most of the streaming services and I recommend you do that and see which one(s) you prefer.
We ended up getting both. LOL. And still have DirecTV for sports and kids channels. But broadband freaking rocks. I am an programmer trapped out in the country because my wife has a horse ranch. I talked a Wireless ISP to come in and now have 35 Mbps service. It ain’t cable, but it ain’t bad. I can play FPS such as Overwatch even when the kids are watching Netflix. I am pumped for you Unlucky!
My wife and I have always had DirecTV since moving in together in 2005, but we're excited to be moving to Comcast. The 100mbps package will be light years better than the Satellite service we'd had for years, and what's better, our local electric co-op is putting down fiber lines, with the intent that within five years, all of their customers will be able to get Gigabit service. Hopefully we're on the quicker end of that too, so our change is going to be massive.
Mmmmmm, fiber. So jealous. Heck, I am jealous of the 100 Mbps. I guess the tradeoff is I have like 3 neighbors within a half mile of me.
I've done my penance! After having broadband from 1998-2005, I've had dialup then Satellite for 13 years!
Yeah, I lived in a pretty rural area, and worse, on the borderline (literally) between the zones served by Centurylink and Verizon for local phone service, so even though my neighbors in several directions could get DSL, I was in this black hole, and they said screw it, they weren't going out of their way to bring service to the stretch of road in the corner of my county where I lived. Now, I live in the middle of the county near a large development, so even though I'm still semi-rural, things are a lot better.
I'd recommend both Hulu and Netflix. both are good. Netflix has some fantastic original series. Amazon is pretty lame. they have some stuff available that the other two do not and some free movies, but some of their stuff is pay per view, so I usually use them as last resort.
I second this. I have both Hulu and Netflix and can find most anything. However, I watched West World and Curb Your Enthusiasm and use HBO Go for those series. However, I think for an extra $8 per month you can get HBO on Hulu.
I was debating on HBO on Hulu. do you get up to the minute HBO content? or is it like NetFlix where you have to wait for a season to be available?
On Hulu HBO you get live and on demand content. So you don't have to wait a season. And you can also get HBO Go on your computer if you want to watch things away from home.
Thank you all for the information. I think that we're unlikely to go with Hulu right away, because we will have Comcast TV and so less of a need for it. There don't seem to be enough originals on there to warrant it otherwise. We're exploring the various levels of Prime with Amazon to see if that makes sense for us, though we have no desire to deal with Alexa or any music streaming. Once we have fiber in the house, we might cut cable and go with a combination of the other services. But that wont happen for a while.
I've had them all and Netflix is the only one I still use regularly due to all the Marvel content and a couple other great shows like Stranger Things. Hulu I cancelled because it's mostly TV and I don't watch a ton of basic television shows. Amazon I use my sisters password and will stream a movie from it now and again. HBO Go I cancel and renew every time Game of Thrones is back on.
I'm now a member of the modern world, after having Comcast finally send someone to plug my new house in! We have cable TV and internet, but a pleasant surprise was that their current promotion also included free subscriptions to Showtime and Cinemax, as well as Netflix. Plus, Netflix works directly through the TV, so you don't have to connect the TV to the WiFi network. (My parents system struggles with that a lot, and it lags badly) So far, I've only watched kids shows via Netflix, but my wife and I did browse through all of the exclusives, and there are a lot that I'd like to check out. On another end of the conversation, I was dissapointed to see that Marvel is apparently making several very high budget shows that will be a part of the coming Disney Streaming service exclusively. I guess I'll wait and see if those come out on Bluray later, because we won't be spending money on that one.
Disney is saying that their streaming service will be "much cheaper" than Netflix. I guess we'll see what that means. To this point, I've been very wary of the idea of subscribing to it due to the cost, but if it ends up being $5/month, then I may have to jump in, depending on what the content is.
It better be cheaper. Netflix spent 12 billion in original content last year. That’s 12 billion in content that Disney won’t be showing.
I would get a prime membership that gets you video streaming. Then buy a firestick. Then download KODI. With Kodi you can download all the movie, tv and sports sites you need. The streams are great for the most part. The only pain is periodically (every six months or so) you have to delete a site that stops working.