Hello.. 

 

Oh wandering wisp of the internet.. or should that be Edna the Evil TV? Sit back and relax, grab a tea, coffee or beverage of choice while I, your town crier, regale you on how Streaming Companies of Mordor have locked us all in to 1080 and stagnated the industry..

 

Skeptical? I don't blame you, its a large and sweeping claim.. but for balance.. remember how locked we were with DX9? that thing just would not die! until; we starved it to death. Hear ye! Hear Ye!

 

Some time around.. oh 2010?.. we began to get HD content.. internet broadband was fast enough that spinning wheels were slowly disappearing all over YouTube and 'potato cam' of 240p was a thing of shame... 

 

Like coming out of a daydream and realizing you have been staring at your friend's grandmother's boobs, and look around and everyone is staring at you.. oh my! These Mordor companies need a wake up call that it's not okay to advertise 4K and not deliver on PC nor is it okay to drag everyone's eyesight down to Magoo levels because they don't have their stuff sorted with DRM.

 

And that's their so called excuse.. DRM.. but that seems like more of a 'you problem' than a 'me problem'.
It's not like I/we can fix the DRM for them!

 

It's the 2020's.. and we are still streaming 1080 with our superfast broadband we pay a lot of money for. And don't get me started on how janky and early beta HDR PC streaming is..

 

Even on TV.. I have a 4K Smart TV with the appropriate apps.. looks downscaled 2K @24fps. I'm just not convinced.

 

So.. is it okay to take the DRM out of 1080 and rip that? no? Why are we allowed 1080 then?
Ah! because they had to! They didn't have a choice! We all had 1080 TVs.. and they wanted our money.
Wait a minute! So why are they getting the choice this time? And don't we all have 4K TVs now..??

10 years of 1080 is far too long and no one is saying anything.

 

We are pacified and like Oliver with an empty bowl we meekly go up to them and say; please sir, can we have some more?

Remember we pay for these services and media.. they don't just provide it for free.. flip even YT channels with a tiny fraction of these companies budgets give (imho) most users their first taste of 4K.. isn't that a failure on the companies part?? That even though their customers were paying for something their customers had to go elsewhere to get the content..

 

We get 1080p @24fps.. not even 1080 @ 60fps which is bad enough but a miserly 24fps.
Oh how Fagan would cackle looking at their stock prices rise.. potato shame on all these companies.. *potato* I say sir!

 

So if we want 4K streaming one of two things has to happen.. either we stop subbing to their service or another legitimate service streaming provider comes along and blows them out of the water by offering.. flip.. at this point I'll even take 2K@60fps.

 

Here, in Scotland we have a tax from England on TVs called a TV Licence. It's money they take from ill-informed people. I refuse to pay it.. and so the law provisions that if I do not use terrestrial television, I need not pay for a licence.. meaning I am confined to certain catch-up & streaming services only. And even worse than this.. the BBC is a Unionist mouthpiece for the Tories, I am a Scottish Nationalist, there is no way I paying money to fund the BBC (except buying Doctor Who on iTunes).

 

Evil Auntie Edna* sits there with a huge smile on her face; hoovering up all that lovely subscription money and dishing out Magoo vision to PC users.

 

Aren't we the Master-race? .. well no. Not when it comes to getting these companies to cough up what is paid for and owed.

 

I tried.. Kodi with the CDM extension... I tried Bluestacks with the Chrome extension.. I tried *every* browser that I could find. Nothing would give me greater than 1080@24. And in Kodi it was worse with some crazy 896p thing.. I dunno iirc. 

 

Now add to this to the new culture that these companies are introducing us to.. start a show then cancel.

I am familiar with the idea of commerce.. if something is profitable then keep doing it.. however.. what if short changing us is more profitable? Would they just keep doing that?

 

And what we have left is.. 8 to 12 episode runs of shows then cancelled that we watched in 1080@24fps for £120/€140/$160 a year.

 

And there's the crux.. our *only* move is to unsubscribe.. they have us cornered and they know it. What they fear is mass unsubscription.. and would that really happen for an upgrade in resolution?

 

So we queue up again for some more 1080poverty.. cash in hand. Like its 2009.

 

peace

 

 

Dava

 

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Evil Edna pictured right: