A downside of an ad-supported Netflix subscription

It hasn't launched yet, and we don't know when it will launch, but Netflix will have an ad-supported tier.

Right now, Netflix has three streaming tiers, ranging from $10/month to $20/month. What you get on the three tiers today varies.

The $10 plan lets you watch a single stream at a time. No watching Netflix in the living room while someone else watches Netflix in a bedroom. Additionally, the content is at standard definition, not HD.

The $15 plan (actually $15.49) adds a second stream, meaning two at a time. And the streams will be HD.

The $20 plan adds another two streams, giving you four. The streams are available in UHD/4K.

All three plans let you download content to devices for offline viewing. The number of devices is equal to the number of simultaneous streams.

The coming of a new ad-supported tier brings some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that Netflix is reported to have promised no ads in children's programming, or in original movies, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Netflix has told partners it won’t run ads during original kids programs, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the company is still working out the details. In addition, some studios that have licensed Netflix the rights to kids programs won’t allow the company to run commercials in them. The company has decided original movies should stay ad-free, at least at first, the people said, which should allay the concerns of top filmmakers.

Netflix is still finalizing plans for its advertising-supported service, which means details and strategies could still change. The company aims to introduce the ad tier early next year. Netflix declined to comment on its plans beyond saying that it is still in the early stages of figuring out the advertising business.

No price for the ad-supported tier has been announced, so a really high price is not the bad news. The bad news is that unless something changes, you won't be able to download content with the ad-supported tier.

A developer found code in the Netflix app that already is laying the groundwork for an ad-supported tier. And it says no downloads on the ad-supported tier.

Text found in Netflix’s app reveals that the new plan will not allow content to be downloaded for offline viewing. This is not a surprising move given that many other streaming services only work online.

Downloads available on all plans except Netflix with ads.

Other text in the app implies that there will be a set up experience for users of the new Netflix with ads plan.

This isn't really surprising to me, or to others. But I expect some people will be disappointed with this decision.

When the ad-supported tier does launch, this will be welcome to many users, and may achieve the goal of retaining some users who might otherwise drop the service. Or it could backfire and cause some users to downgrade. Unless they make a lot of money on the ads. Either way, another option in your Streaming Life is a good thing.

NFL+ is as bad as we thought it would be

I've written before about NFL+. Twice, actually.

And, I said that it isn't actually for streamers.

Now that the NFL preseason is underway, that has certainly shown itself to be the case.

One online Website I visit regularly is Phillip Swann's TV Answer Man. Recently, he answered a question from one of his readers about not being able to watch his team (the Raiders) on NFL+. And Mr. Swann gave his reader (named Mike) the bad news.

For instance, Mike, since you live in Las Vegas, you couldn’t watch the Raiders-Dolphins game on NFL Plus last night because it was airing on one of your local channels (Fox 5 in Vegas). However, if the game was in regular season, and Fox 5 was airing it in Las Vegas, it would be available on NFL Plus.

He went on, explaining that during the regular season, even if the game was on NFL+, Mike wouldn't be able to watch it on his TV.

And if you think you’re confused now, wait until the regular season when you will only be allowed to watch the NFL Plus games on mobile devices. (The pre-season games are available on connected TV devices such as Roku.)

That's a confusing setup for pro football fans.

I'm happy the NFL is getting into streaming, with some content available, but it's not what football fans want. And I'm not sure when fans will get it, if ever.

Right now, it's hard to include a full NFL experience in your Streaming Life. But, maybe this first step will lead to bigger steps down the road.

Big Ten tops SEC

If you know me, you know that I'm a big fan of college football. And that I am an SEC fan as well. The school that my daughter attended is an SEC school, and I've been to some of their games since before she was born.

I'm talking about the University of Georgia, which is a team I've followed since childhood. I've also followed Georgia Tech, as my mother favored the Yellow Jackets over the Bulldogs in my childhood. And I've followed Georgia Southern, since football was restarted in the 1980s. But generally, people think of me as an SEC partisan, and I won't argue with that assessment at all.

I've enjoyed the domination the SEC has had in college football, winning 13 titles since 2000, and baseball, winning 9 titles since 2000.

The SEC was the first conference to hold a championship game, something every conference now does. It's almost as if the SEC runs college football. They don't, but they do carry some heavy influence. There are a lot of SEC haters out there.

Usually, you'll hear me singing the praises of the SEC. But today, I have to give props to the Big Ten. If you want to watch major college football without cable, and cheaply, the Big Ten is actually your best bet. Or will be after this season.

After the latest round of realignment, kicked off by last year's announcement that Oklahoma and Texas would leave the Big 12 for the SEC, some TV deals came up for renewal. The SEC is leaving CBS after this season, and going all in on ESPN. And the Big Ten takes advantage of that by signing a deal with CBS, Fox, and NBCUniversal.

The Big Ten on Thursday announced a new seven-year media rights deal with CBS, Fox and NBC that begins July 1, 2023, and runs through the 2029-30 season. The multiplatform agreement is believed to be the largest in the history of college athletics with industry sources putting the approximate value of the deal at a record $1.2 billion annually.

Spanning five linear networks, including the Big Ten Network and FS1, the deal positions the Big Ten with three premier windows to show college football games on broadcast television. Fox will air a featured "Big Noon" game on Saturdays at noon ET with CBS following at 3:30 p.m. and NBC wrapping up each week with "Big Ten Saturday Night" in primetime.

NBC will have games available on Peacock streaming service. CBS games will be available on Paramount+ as part of the live local CBS stream.

It'll still be easy to watch SEC games without cable. However, the cheapest streaming service that carries ESPN is Sling TV (Orange) which is $35/month. And, to add the SEC Network, it's another $11/month for the Sports Extra package.

The Big Ten is cheaper to watch, and is big time football. It's actually one of the better deals for having big time college football as a part of your Streaming Life.

Google to push increased onboard storage on Google TV devices

One of the things I absolutely do not like about Chromecast with Google TV is the limited onboard storage of the device.

I've ranted about this before. A couple of times, actually.

Here's the problem.

Chromecast with Google TV comes with 8 GB onboard storage. That's four times what you get on a Roku Ultra, by the way. But there's a catch. Google TV (also Android TV) devices can get full, and won't let you add more apps once the device is full. Or, more likely, if the app you're trying to add exceeds the amount of available storage. That's not good.

To deal with this, you have to remove an app. Maybe more than one, if the app you're wanting is really large. But you have to do it before you can add the new app.

Most streaming devices have this problem. Amazon's Fire TV devices can encounter this as well. Same with Apple TV devices. However, those devices, particularly the Apple TV devices, have a lot more storage. And that's what Google is wanting from their devices, according to NextTV:

Google met with manufacturing partners who use its TVOS products last month at a closed-door event, discussing ways to optimize their gadgets for the pending release of Android 13.

Google encouraged a number of new features, including integration of connected TV devices with fitness trackers, as well as support for Bluetooth 5.0.

The push for additional memory comes amid rancor in the tech press late last spring that Google's own Chromecast with Google TV device and its 8GB of random access memory isn't up to the task of handling Android 13.

"8GB of storage was not enough for a streaming stick in 2020, and it’s even worse a couple of years later," 9to5 Google lamented. "This is restrictive enough for security updates, but it also limits how often Google can address bugs and other quirks that may arise. Worse yet, it also prevents any form of major system update -- or at least makes it much more difficult."

Google can handle things with the next release of Chromecast devices. I assume they will, after urging other manufacturers to do that. And it would be good for Google and those other manufacturers to increase the onboard store.

But this brings up a question: why doesn't Roku have this problem? After all, they have the least amount of onboard storage.

Well, quite simply, Roku handles things for you. When the onboard storage is full, Roku will remove an app from your device, but leave it in the list of installed apps. The name and icon for the app is there, even though the app isn't actually on the device. There's nothing to indicate the app isn't on the device. When you go to launch that app, the system will download it -- you'll see a quick progress bar (circle, actually) that goes to 100% -- and the app will launch. Mere seconds is all it takes. It's almost seamless. If not for the 2 seconds or so that the download window appears, you wouldn't even know it.

So, Google, Amazon, and Apple make you remove apps when the device gets full. And Google is the one that does this the most. When you remove the app, it's no longer listed on the device, and you have to search for it and re-download it in order to launch it.

With Roku, it manages everything for you, and the app is still on your menu.

That's actually a better way of doing it, in my opinion. But, if Google does increase onboard storage, and gets other manufacturers to do the same, that will make the Streaming Life of many people so much better.

My Linux desktop died

I don't think the recent storm had anything to do with it. I think it being an old device was all that was the problem. But what a problem it was. And is. But not an insurmountable problem.

On Wednesday night, I pulled up the Linux desktop computer and there was a major display problem. Now, realize that I have a KVM switch controlling input/output on four devices (three, actually, but it handles four). I had been using a Raspberry Pi, then switched to a Windows desktop to do some stuff. When I finished that, I switched it to the Linux desktop. And only then did I see the problem.

That morning, the computer was working fine. I had used it to check email when I woke up, and when I left for work on Wednesday morning, everything was fine. Wednesday night, around 8:00 PM, when I next went to the device, there was a display issue. The screen looked really bad. I was worried it was a cable, but the Num Lock and Caps Lock buttons didn't toggle the associated lights, so I knew the computer itself was locked up. So, I powered down, waited a little bit, then powered up.

The computer wouldn't start. It's a Dell desktop, and the light on the power button was amber, and gave two flashes, then seven flashes. The codes I've found indicated amber and white flashes, not both being amber. And the online data conflicts, but one indicated a CPU problem, and the other indicated a memory problem. Either is a problem.

As it's not the only computer I have, and not the only Linux computer I have, I decided to wait until the weekend to deal with it. So, I unplugged it, and went about my business, knowing that Sunday afternoon would be a busy afternoon.

You see, it was too late to begin on Wednesday night (not urgent, as I have other computers), and I had things to do Thursday and Friday nights. Saturday was an out of town trip, and I wasn't sure how I'd feel after getting home Saturday evening. So, I decided I'd tackle things Sunday afternoon. And this afternoon, that's what I'll do.

First thing I'll do is remove the SSD I installed and put it in another old Dell desktop that's on the floor next to the bad device. I had two from which to choose when I decided to replace the hard drive with an SSD, and picked the one on the left. Well, now that the one on the left has gone bad, I'll put the drive in the one on the right. I may have to start over, but if the drive will work as is, or good enough to reconfigure easily to that computer, I'll be back up and running this afternoon. Then I'll start working on the bad desktop device.

I'll put the old hard drive back in and see how it goes. I may end up having to buy new memory modules for it, and if so, I'll deal with that. But I may have a bad CPU, and if that's the case, I'm not sure if I want to take the trouble to deal with that. I'll find out soon enough.

I did decide to check out what it would have cost me if I needed to buy a computer to run. A new one ran over $500. But an older device that would run Linux was under $150. So, more than I wanted to spend, but not terribly bad. With all the computers I have access to, my Streaming Life isn't impacted in any major way at all. And I'm fortunate that way.