My problem with ESPN+

I don't normally subscribe to ESPN+, except during football season. There are college football games that are only on ESPN+, and I want to be able to watch them. So, during football season I subscribe to ESPN+.

So what's the problem? Well, it's the app. Let me explain.

When I'm watching football games, I'll often open the ESPN app on my phone, and check other games. If something seems interesting, I'll switch over to it. But, that's when ESPN+ decides to tick me off. ESPN+ is big into some fight club league or something. Ultimate Fightling something something.

I've never been big on fights, whether boxing or whatever this UFC thing is. Simply put, I'm not interested. If it's something you like, fine. They need to target you, not me.

The ESPN app allows me to pick teams or sports in which I have an interest. I've never picked any kind of fighting league, yet every time I open the app, wanting to see the teams or sports I have marked as an interest, I get some ad telling me about some fight.

I get it. They're promoting something they've invested in. They've spent money to carry that sport, and they want to make sure anyone that is interested knows about fights coming up. Only, the fact that I haven't picked that sport as a favorite ought to tell them something. And, I suspect it does, but they don't care. They're gonna show me ads for it, even though I never click on them, and won't watch the stuff.

Maybe they spent all of their money securing the rights to the fights, and they don't have enough money to build smarts into their apps so they'll get more efficient exposure of the sport. But, if they need to show it to everybody in order to pick up eyeballs for the stuff, okay. I'll ignore the stuff. I just wish I didn't have to.

If this is the worst problem I have with ESPN+, I'm doing okay. I won't be watching the fights, but if my putting up with the ads allows you to find out about something you want to see, them I'll just deal with it. Your Streaming Life is important, too.

Blackouts

Last weekend, on Saturday, I didn't watch a lot of football. I wanted to, but it just didn't work out that way. However, I was near my TV when the Georgia Tech-Miami game was winding down. I saw that it was a close game, so I decided to watch it.

The game was on ESPN3, so I fired up the ESPN app on my Roku device and found the game. But, it wouldn't play. The game was blacked out in my area.

From my house, I would have to drive 433 miles to go to the game. That's the shortest, most direct driving route. It would be a 6½ hour drive on a good day. And, according to the people that decide those things, I was in a blackout area for the game.

That is a very frustrating thing to encounter. I'm not sure I understand why games that are 433 miles away are blacked out. I suspect if I found out why the game was blacked out, I'd want to slap the person that made the decision. Twice. Maybe more than twice. Definitely more than twice.

But, that's how it is. The game was blacked out. So, what did I do? Did I fire up a VPN and get around the restrictions? No, I didn't. I could have, but I didn't. I just didn't watch the game. And that means I didn't watch any commercials that were played with the game.

I wonder if the advertisers think about the fact that people are being denied the opportunity to see ads for their wonderful products and/or services.

Now, I'm not sure if I'm correct about this next bit, but I think it is. This whole blackout thing seems to happen more with ACC games than with any other conference. Is it the ACC that thinks their stuff is so special? Or is it more widespread but I only seem to notice when I'm trying to watch an ACC game? I don't know, but I don't like it.

Will I fire up a VPN the next time this happens? Probably not. I try to respect the rights of the content owners, and a football game is not different than a sitcom in that respect.

So, no, I won't get around the geo-restrictions with a VPN, but I don't blame those that do. Normally, I am opposed to getting around rights owner restrictions. But, while I won't do it, others will (and do) and this is one of those instances where I understand why they do, and don't really disagree.

My Streaming Life should not be this difficult.

Meet the Beatles!

One of the things I like about a Plex server is the ability to have all of my media available for me wherever I am, as long as I can get to the Internet. That means moves, TV shows, short films, and music.

I've talked about my Plex servers (the old one and the new one) several times, but haven't mentioned the music aspect that much. I've got all my movies done (still need to put them into collections), and most of my TV shows done (still the new Doctor Who shows to go), and my short films (still need to put them into collections as well).

The collections on the videos can wait. The most important thing was getting them on the server. Organizing into collections and playlists will be done, but I need the files moved over first. So now I'm on to moving music files.

I started with The Beatles. I have all of their digital releases. Well, some of the digital packages are groupings of individuals I already have, so I may not have all of those. The individual albums, whether individually or part of a package, I have. And then some. Let me explain that last bit.

Being one who grew up listening to new Beatles music -- yes, it used to be new at one time -- I recall all of the albums that were released in the U.S. They hold a special place for me, even if they are no longer available. But, I want them anyway. Just because.

While I have the official catalog of Beatles music, which is essentially the U.K. releases plus the U.S. Magical Mystery Tour album, along with the later Past Masters release, I also have the U.S. albums. The albums prior to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band were different in the U.S. than in the U.K. This is because the U.K. albums usually had more songs than a U.S. album. That wasn't a Beatles thing, or a Capitol Records thing, it was just a thing. It's how it was.

Also, in the U.K., singles were rarely duplicated on an album. In the U.S., it's what sold an album. Different cultures, different expectations. The first Capitol Records release, Meet the Beatles! was essentially the Beatles second U.K. release, With the Beatles, minus the cover songs (except for Till There Was You), plus their first U.S. single, I Want To Hold Your Hand, along with the B-sides: I Saw Her Standing There (U.S. single) and This Boy (U.K. single). It made for a better selection of Beatles songs, even though it had fewer tracks. The songs that were there were original Beatles songs, not covers (excepting Till There Was You).

The songs from With The Beatles that were left off of Meet the Beatles! were included in the next Capitol release, The Beatles' Second Album, which was their third U.S. release. Yep, that's correct. Unless you count it as their fourth U.S. release.

You see, when the Beatles were being promoted by their U.K. label, EMI, Capitol wasn't interested, so the Beatles first U.K. album was release (mostly, remember the difference in number of tracks) by Vee-Jay Records, who called the album Introducing... the Beatles. It was the Please Please Me album in the same order, missing two songs, Ask Me Why and Please Please Me. After the Beatles hit big, Vee-Jay was sued over two of the songs on the album, Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You, so they quickly removed those two and put the previously omitted two songs in their place, and kept pumping out versions of the album.

Vee-Jay eventually lost the rights to publish any Beatles songs, and Capitol released 11 of the 14 songs on an album called The Early Beatles, with a totally different running order.

I bring all of this up because I remember the album. My older sister had a copy, but I listened to it many times. I seem to recall a difference between the songs on the album and listed on the cover. Or, perhaps I recall seeing a track listing somewhere that didn't match the album. I think she had version two in a version one album cover. I'll have to ask her if she still has it.

I bring this up because as I am putting my Beatles music onto Plex, I'm adding all of the albums I actually have. This includes the mono and stereo versions of the Beatles U.S. releases, at least the ones where there were mono and stereo releases, which was most of them. Everything after The White Album (properly, The Beatles) was a stereo only release. But, I have the mono releases as well. At least, the U.S. versions through Revolver. So, my library includes both the mono and stereo versions.

There is a reason for that. The mixes were different on the mono and stereo releases. They didn't record for stereo, so a separate mix was done for stereo, and the Beatles themselves weren't present for the stereo mixes. Some songs never got stereo mixes.

One of the most striking is the original mono release of the song Yellow Submarine. In the final verse, on the mono mix, John's echoing of Ringo's lyrics begin with "A life of ease" while on the stereo mix, begins with a fade in on "Everyone of us." If you know the song, you know where I'm talking about. Not a big difference, but an important difference. As I only ever heard the stereo version from Revolver and the Yellow Submarine Soundtrack, the first time I saw the movie and heard the earlier entrance of John on the song, I was surprised. They fixed the stereo version on Yellow Submarine Songbook which was released much much later. I have it on the mono Revolver album, which I didn't get until a few years ago.

So, there are differences, and I'm including the mono and stereo releases in my library, at least, where I have the different versions.

I'm also including both versions of Introducing... the Beatles in my Plex library. And, if I happen across anything else, where I can obtain the actual recordings, digitally or on CD, I'll add them as time goes on.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying listening to Beatles records as part of my Streaming Life.

Tablo Connect to Apple TV?

I really like Tablo service. It's a great device that allows me to watch over the air antenna content on my devices on my network. I also have Fire TV Recast set up at my mother's house, as well as Air TV (using the Air TV Anywhere device). Of the three options I have for watching TV via an antenna, I like Tablo the best.

I do like the way Air TV integrates the local channels into the Sling TV interface, but I like the Tablo interface better. Fire TV Recast also integrates the antenna content into the interface, but I'm not a fan of the Amazon interface. And I've mentioned the things I don't like about Fire TV before.

Tablo is my go-to way to watch TV from an antenna. And, since I put up the antenna at my mother's, and I live a couple of miles away, Tablo Connect -- the feature that lets you watch Tablo from a different network -- is the way I'm continuing to use Tablo.

Since Tablo Connect is supported by Fire TV, Chromecast, and Apple TV, but not Roku, I've used other devices. Chromecast would be my preferred alternative, but the Chromecast has other issues I've previously mentioned. And, as I said, Fire TV has its own issues. So what next? Why Apple TV, of course.

I've had an Apple TV longer than I have had Roku. About a week longer. Apple ships faster than Roku. Of course, the old Apple TV devices were far inferior to Roku, but for the last few years, they've been a lot better, and are really good. I just hated the remote that came with the last couple of models, but the new remote is pretty good. And that brings Apple TV up a notch.

I'll be trying it out again. I've looked at Apple TV recently, and was happy with the remote. I already was comfortable and happy with the interface. At the time, I wasn't looking into Tablo Connect. But now I am. And Apple TV gets its turn this week.

The Doctor is in

I mentioned last week that I was adding Doctor Who episodes -- classic Doctor Who, from 1963-1986 -- to my Plex server. I have all of the episodes, including the Loose Cannon reconstructions of the missing episodes, and I began importing them into Plex.

As I mentioned before, I had imported the first ten seasons into my old Plex server, and moving them onto the new server was relatively easy. Everything was already organized, as I found out, and it went smoothly.

As I mentioned last week, I took up the task of moving the other seasons onto Plex. That actually went rather smoothly. It turns out I had already prepped several seasons to bring in, but for some reason, I never finished the task. Until now.

The next few seasons went well. I had all of the Tom Baker, and many of the Peter Davison episodes ready to go. I had a few Colin Baker episodes, as well as some Sylvester McCoy episodes. All of the ones I didn't have purchased from iTunes, I had ripped the DVDs already, and they were essentially ready. I had even ripped some of the iTunes episodes, so even more were ready. I ripped the remaining few and began the import.

It was quire painless. Well, the actual import was. Ripping TV shows isn't always painless. The iTunes naming convention and the Plex naming convention aren't the same, so I had to figure out how to make that easier. I ended up using a couple of batch file tricks and a spreadsheet.

I used a DIR command to output the content to a text file by using the /B attribute and redirecting the output to a text file. If you use Command Line much -- I still call it DOS command line -- you know what I'm talking about. If not, it's a way to get the names of the files into a text file.

I copied the text file into a spreadsheet, arranged them in air date order (the directory listing was alphabetical), and used an Excel CONCATENATE command to write a rename batch script. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, it's a way to take content from one cell in a spreadsheet and manipulate it in a way that I got a different bit of content.

For example, one of the filenames was 01 The Caves of Androzani (1).mp4

With commands such as CONCATENATE and MID, along with some math, I got a line of script that renamed it: Doctor Who (1963) - s21e17 - The Caves of Androzani (1).mp4

Yeah, that took a little bit of work, but it was a lot easier than renaming all those files by hand. I don't do a lot of coding, but it's nice to know I can do some tricks like this, and have it work.

Now, I have all of the Doctor Who classic episodes in Plex, and can watch them any time I want. Next, I need to bring in the special episodes. The Three Doctors imported into the 20th season as I had hoped, because I used DVD order setting in Plex. I have Scream of the Shalka, an aborted 9th Doctor continuation. The six episodes were completed, but the 9th Doctor didn't take. I also have the original An Unearthly Child that was rejected, the 2019 recreation of Mission to the Unknown, and An Adventure in Space and Time. I could even include the three movies, the two with Peter Cushing and the one with Paul McGann, in the specials section, since the library source Plex uses has them.

As I wrap all this up, I'm happy to have Doctor Who, in classic form, on my Plex server, and back in my Streaming Life.