Amazon's Netflix-gnasher to hit top gear In December Amazon.com looks like it is about to wade deeper into competition with Netflix, by making at least one of its new self-produced programs available for viewing around the world. At about the 45-second mark of the video below, James May of new "Amazon Original" The Grand Tour says “In December we will be launching the show …
but he is quite a funny boorish privately educated upper class overgrown school kid twit ... so much better than shouty Chris Evans.
So I have to admit, yeah I've subscribed to Amazon Prime to watch TopGear-mark-3 ( and a few other things that don't look too bad ... )
I almost tweeted Clarkson, May and Hammond "You B**tards, you've cost me £79 a year by moving to Amazon" . I guess they'd be happy, so I couldn't be ar***d to tweet it ...
Is this modern version of a Mad Max car chase worth £79/year?
Or is it a very, very expensive loss leader in order to get you to buy more stuff from Amazon?
I'm getting lots of 'we thought you might like' emails from them at the moment. Mostly they are for the same effing thing/product type that I actually bought from them. Do I really need another 50in 4K TV?
As a result, I've decided that Amazon will be one of the last places I go shopping for now. They know far too much about me, you and everyone.
Posting AC because I did search for some 'bedroom' toys a few years ago and still get emails about them. As I'm with a different partner these days, they could prove a tad embarrasing if the new one sees those emails.
Seriously considering deleting my account if that is the only way to stop them coming.
It's not the first time I've read about that... By which I mean Amazon's marketing emails. Is finding Amazon's marketing preference page and turning everything off really that difficult?
Yes, Amazon's recommendations are shit as ever. I bought one mobile phone recharger and now it thinks I want to fill the house with them.
I can't remember the last time I saw one and I have Prime an' 'ting too.
Perhaps I accidentally have the right options set without realising or something.
On a GT related note, I did read a BBC news 'article' about the launch of GT and it seemed noticeably butthurt and pitifully childish, decrying the big budget 'cinematic' opening to the show - like you're going to launch a new flagship show with a pitiful, weaselly cheapass intro; ah yes, BBC.
If you've not watched GT yet, it's pretty much Top Gear. With a nice budget. As you'd expect really.
This post has been deleted by its author
Seriously considering deleting my account
How about something simpler? I know it requires minimal intelligence and brain activity. Go into your account profile and:
1. Clear your browsing history, turn off ad personalization
2. Turn off marketing email and offers in message preferences.
Amazon is not Google - you actually can tell it to "reset" itself. It is not paypal. It does not leak your email to "partners" so you do not get decades of SPAM after that. If you tell it not to bother you with something it actually will comply.
It has LOTS of things to grind an axe about, but getting it to stop offering you stuff you feel "embarrassed" about is IMHO not one of them.
Ugh, I know what you mean, I've been an amazon customer for 17 years, but the website these days is mainly just a spam-fest for prime,
I even went to buy some things recently, only to be told "sorry, this is just for prime members'. So I bought them elsewhere.
And yeah, constant nagging over stuff I happen to have looked at. Nothing embaressing though!
Don't know why you got all the downvotes though.. Not wanting amazon recommendations on sex toys from a previous relationship popping up when your girlfriend uses amazon hardly makes you a prude
Isn't December too late, anyone with any real desire to watch from the countries that don't have Amazon will have already found a way to do so. Surely they should have launched the Grand Tour at the same time as launching the new countries?
As someone frustrated at "Swiss" Netflix's selection, I hope that competition will lead to a wider range of programmes.
Yep. Grand Tour isn't available in Canada.
So I watched it last night anyway.
Oh well, I'll likely sign up when it's available.
This is where the 'Cable Cutters' monthly bills start to add up. Netflix. Amazon, etc... Eventually this sum will exceed the old 'Cable TV' bill. Mark my words.
It would be nice to think that eventually the streaming services will become largely irrelevant, and we'll be able to buy content more or less directly from the producers. Want the latest episode of The Grand Tour? £1 direct from the production company. Want a 2009 episode of Top Gear? 10p. And so on...
Of course, this will require a workable and transparent micro-billing framework to be in place, which has thus far completely failed to appear. In fact, the nearest we've got today is probably Amazon themselves, where content not included in the Prime subscription can be watched on demand for a few quid without noticeable fiddling about.
GJC
It's psychology. Would I pay £1 per episode of The Grand Tour? Probably not. Would I pay £12 to watch all 12 episodes? Almost certainly not! But am I willing to pay £7.99 a month for an ill-defined package with various benefits of questionable value (Twitch Prime, seriously?), but which happens to include a very popular TV show? Yes, I am. I like the predictability of monthly bills; and I like the fact that everything is "free" once I've paid my entrance fee.
The downside is that Amazon's content-discovery mechanism keeps trying to push you towards paid content (rental/purchase). There's nothing worse than paying for a buffet at a fancy restaurant, then being told that oysters cost extra. Even if you didn't want oysters, you can't help but feel ripped off.
"> There is a free/pay filter
Not on the Amazon app on my Samsung TV, alas."
I didn't know there was a filter - but you should be able to prevent accidental purchases. I didn't even realise this was an option until I bought a Fire Stick, but you can add a PIN for parental controls, and specify that it's required for purchases. AFAICS, it's not a Fire Stick thing, but an account thing (presumably because of 'smart' TVs and the like)
Log into your Amazon account on a normal computer, and click on "Your Prime Video" from the "Your Account" menu. A nav bar appears under the main Amazon header bar - click "Settings" which is somewhere over to the right on this bar.
Scroll down to parental controls, and set a pin - and underneath that, there is a "Purchase restrictions" option - turn on PIN on Purchase.
Want the latest episode of The Grand Tour? £1 direct from the production company.
You are misunderstanding how such "premium exclusive content" is marketed. It is not something you will get from the producer. Ever. It was commissioned specifically as a leader for a large content bundle by a content bundle seller and it will not be made available on a PAYG basis.
This is where the 'Cable Cutters' monthly bills start to add up. Netflix. Amazon, etc... Eventually this sum will exceed the old 'Cable TV' bill. Mark my words.
I cant help thinking Amazons current price is just to get you in and build the numbers .
you get a lot for about £1.20 per week.
This is something these companies fail to grasp. GT was available for free on torrent sites as soon as it was available. I suppose it makes them feel smug by staggering releases, all the while pushing people to not subscribe and just get it for free. Then they'll complain about piracy. They must know something I don't.
The producer said on Radio 4's Today program last week that it was being released weekly because it's not like a drama, in that you will want to binge watch, as there is no story to be continued. It's just 3 blokes cocking about in different cars/locations each week.
As far as I remember he said it was the production team who wanted it to be weekly, not Amazon.
There have been various discussions around the place recently about what value The Grand Tour has to Amazon. The theory I like best is that this will get a large number of previously passive consumers of broadcast TV to investigate the possibilities of streaming services in general, and Amazon Prime in particular, leading to a much larger mass-market involvement in their services.
In short, the sacking of Clarkson could well be the beginning of the end for the BBC. Which would be a shame, but everything has its time, and I for one have been viewing broadcast channel-based TV as a bit of an irrelevance for some time now.
It's interesting to note in passing that the new Plex DVR software doesn't bother itself with channels at all, it just displays a screen with "On now..." and "Coming soon..." sections for Sport, Films, Drama, and so on, plus a search function for all shows. Takes a bit of getting used to, but works pretty well.
GJC
The theory I like best is that yet another streaming service setting up on the basis of a couple of "must see" series that will supposedly be sufficient reason for you to cough up yet another £8 a month will just drive piracy increasingly into the mainstream. Is anybody really going to subscribe to every streaming service in order to watch one or two programmes a week from each?
You may well be right within our somewhat privileged tech-savvy elite. Those are not the people under discussion, however - those who are used to getting their content online are already settled.
I think both Netflix and Amazon Prime have enough content to tempt most viewers, and don't forget that Amazon Prime offers some real advantages to anyone who shops on Amazon, too. Indeed, I came to it as a subscriber to the original Amazon Prime scheme, which at the time cost £50/year for unlimited free next-day shipping. When the price went up to £80/year, it didn't take long to decide it was worth the extra £30/year for the audio and video content.
But consider further - the people I am talking about come from a background where a Sky subscription (£30-60/month) is considered something to aspire to. So £80/year for Amazon Prime plus £7.50/month for Netflix looks like a real bargain.
GJC
Yeah, I imagine people will as I know many people with at least 3 subscriptions to services that partially overlap. Amazon offers much better value for money than the others though given the money gets you multiple services.
Netflix around £7 a month gets you video... and er... well that's it.
Amazon around £6.50 (paid annually) gets you video, audio, fast shipping on real items, discounted nappies (obviously only of use if you're a parent), audiobooks and a whole host of other stuff for similar money.
Meanwhile, in our house it's Netflix that's under threat of cancellation, not Amazon or Sky - Netflix has been in the house so long we've pretty much done with watching it now - if it was worth watching, we watched it. If it wasn't, we probably also watched it too. Amazon is constantly adding value and new things. Hell I had it before anything other than shipping existed.
"Amazon around £6.50 (paid annually) gets you video, audio, fast shipping on real items, discounted nappies (obviously only of use if you're a parent), audiobooks and a whole host of other stuff for similar money."
...and not forgetting a larger tax bill to cover that which they don't pay...
Don't understand the downvote - a totally valid point IMHO.
I do not subscribe to satellite TV channels, streaming services etc. as the overall bill would just end up being really high, especially as I do not watch masses of TV so would be using each service just for a small number of programs (Clarkson & co not a thing I would bother about so Amazon marketing not affecting me).
My TV budget is basically mainly spent on UK TV licence.
Multiple satellite / streaming services are only for those with lost of money to throw around / watch enough hours of TV that the cost is justifiable for them
With so much entertainment on offer these days (music, TV, film, lots of games all vying for my time / cash) - even with multiple lifetimes I could not consume a fraction of what's on offer.
You see what is available and pick the one you want, if you can afford it pick others as well.
But with about 60 or so TV episodes already lined up I have enough to look at already just with Amazon.
Alos it is easy, I had the client installed and signed in within a couple of minutes, then watch a trial episode of a series which convinced me to spend £59.
Picture was good and no logos.
Piracy is a lot more work, than simply pressing HDMI-3, PS button, right, right, down, X, right, X, X
Another good point - the Amazon Fire TV hardware is cheap, well thought out, and very easy to use, making access to the Amazon Prime content very easy for the technophobic. I foresee many of them turning up under the tree this coming festive-consumer-blowout-holiday season.
GJC
I do hope so - I've spent many enjoyable and informative hours watching BBC content. I fear for their continued existence in the New World Order, however. I can't yet decide if they've been thoroughly outmanoeuvred, or if it's much more simply that the world has moved on from the world that the BBC was designed for.
Well, we'll see. Interesting times, as ever...
GJC
We use Amazon anyway so Prime was worth it for us, this was the final pusd.
So what have I got for my £5 a month?
Grand Tour - VERY good.
Films - A good selection of films, a little newer than Film 4, easy to find at least one a week to watch.
Other TV - finally I can watch a series workmates are raving about, The Walking Dead. Also I do like The Man in the High Castle.
Other important information
No logos
Full HD
No logos
Client is easy to use and install
No logos
I really want streaming services to work but the fragmentation is killing them. To be able to see the shows I like I'd need to subscribe to Now TV, Netflix and Amazon at a monthly cost of £20.50. The latest season of half of the shows I watch aren't available on any of them. Other than limited Amazon titles I can't download any shows so I'm reliant on my by no means exceptional broadband. I'm also certain that once they become popular they'll move the way of subscription TV and have just as many adverts as regular broadcast television.
Offer me a single service with no ads, all shows, the ability to automatically download a few episodes of each show at the best quality that works on multiple devices and I'd be a buyer at a higher price than the three services combined now.
£20.50/month is, from memory, below the cheapest Sky subscription package.
As for downloads, a subscription to Netflix and Amazon Prime will legitimise most of the stuff you might want to download from your Torrent site of choice, excepting just-released films. Worth thinking about for those who have always protested "I'm not a pirate, but..."
GJC
There seems to be an assumption that this means that The Grand Tour will be made available to stream in all these countries before Christmas and therefore Amazon video must be extending its footprint, but is it not possible that Amazon are just selling the show to traditional broadcasters in other countries?
Hey, maybe it'll even sell it back to the BBC (like it did with Ripper Street) to replace Top Gear, coals to Newcastle and all that
I have been grumbling about fragmentation, and desperately looking to spend my money on a SINGLE point of delivery service to knit together Netflix, Amazon, Sky, HBO, et al.
For years.
It's only today, that I have read more than one persons comment which supports my view.
Incidentally, Amazon are - and have been - ahead of the competition for YEARS by simple dint of realising that (some) people live lives in "households" where 2 grown adults may have individual identities while sharing the same account. Hence my wife can access OUR Prime with her Amazon login, which is separate to mine.
Compare and contrast with all other online merchants who give you AN account. If you want to use it, it's a single login you need to share (against T&Cs). Tesco et al take note.
Netflix gives you multiple logins too. I can't remember how many but you can upgrade for more if you live in a large household.
I agree with previous comments about divergence being a problem. I'm not going to subscribe to several services, plus manage things so I can appear to be in the US so I actually get a catalogue worth having.
Well I have never got Sky due to hating Turdoch and his empire. I was a very early DTTV adopter, but I did have Ondigital for a while, 15 channels for £3 a month (IDTV via CAM), guess what? We only watched 2 of them, and then they dropped one, so I cancelled, then they went bump.
And my TV behaved better with the CAM removed as well.
Move on a couple of years, as I am on BT I had an offer for BT Vision. Too expensive for what it was but it gave me BBC I Player on the TV for a one off payment of £30 for an OK Freeview PVR with BT EPG. Rental of TV and films was too expensive so only ever used it for the free stuff.
Anyway BT shut down the EPG, box is now scrapped, along with my first Freeview PVR.
Been using games consoles now for a while for streaming TV, notably BBC I Player and the Channel 4 version, shITV do not do console clients, C5 do not do watchable TV.
Out of all of this I have worked out that pay TV is only worth it if you actually watch it. And me being awkwards want to watch it when I want to, not when the broadcasters want me to.
On Digital was a waste once the IDTV offer was over, especially as recording it was a total PITA (using a pre SCART VCR), I was happy to give it up. Well I managed for a couple of years previous on free channels only, I mainly went digital for anamorphic widescreen broadcasts on the free channels.
I am also completely intolerant of on screen channel logos. That stopped me watching a lot of stuff.
There is no way I was going to pay 30-40 a month for a bunch of channels I have little choice over, with adverts and logos, using hardware I have no choice on. And no easy binge watching.
For viewers like me streaming is good, I can binge a series over a week, Amazon passed their test with no on screen shit. The price is affordable as I watch little TV, but want a good experience. And swapping from games to streamed TV is as simple as quitting Destiny and loading Amazon.
On broadcast (Freeview and Freesat) I personally watch mainly the BBC channels, C4, and Film 4.
I do like to find a good SF series to watch occasionally. I am prepared to pay for logo free HD and Dolby Digital sound over a overlogoed torrent from US TV. But I am not prepared to pay a lot.
Inherited Amazon Instant when they took over LoveFilm...
After a while, they dropped support for our 3 year old TV and Blueray "smart" boxes.
So I dropped supporting Amazon.
Netflix still works fine on both...
(The first episode of the TG-Rebooted which I watched elesewhere had too much wheelspinning round corners - it just got dull)
they dropped support for our 3 year old TV
that's your problem, right there. Hopefully punters will catch on that "Smart" TVs are only as longlived as the manufacturers decide, and we see a return to dumb panels, which you plug your <whatever> into to provide content.
And see a corresponding drop in TV prices (I doubt it).
James May of new "Amazon Original" The Grand Tour says “In December we will be launching the show globally … in over 200 countries around the world.”
Last time I looked there were only about 195 countries on the planet, so Capt Slow must have found new horizons for Amazon's Top Gear replacement.
Define 'country'. YMMV.
Here...
UN Members: 193
UN Observer States: 2
States With Partial Recognition: 2
Inhabited Dependent Territories: 45
Uninhabited Territories: 6
Antarctica: 1
Total: 249
http://www.polgeonow.com/2011/04/how-many-countries-are-there-in-world.html
I have all three - Netflix, Sky and Amazon. I got Amazon Prime for the deliveries initially but now with TV and music, it's frankly superb.
Some of the content on their is absolutely first rate (take a look at Halt and Catch Fire, for example).
I am seriously considering dropping Sky completely. Yes, there are a few series on there that I'd personally miss seeing at release but from memory, I believe most of them are available on one or the other shortly afterwards anyway.
I have the Amazon & Netflix apps burned into the 4k, 40" Hisense Smart TV that was less than £250 from...yep...Amazon and a Fire TV box downstairs.
The box, in particular is just a beautiful user experience. I do look forwards to the day they put full blown Alexa on there instead of just using it for searching media. And that's a great thing about the Fire TV box - when you search, it searches across everything. Something on say, Netflix AND Amazon? You'll see it on both. Something on one or the other - it'll find it.
Yeah I seriously question why I stick with Sky right now and their massively overinflated prices.
So I bought a new house last year, got lots of CAT6 cabling throughout, didn't bother with a satellite dish and got fibre, netflix, already had amazon prime and a NowTV entertainment subscription. Saved me a fortune and I'm yet to find some content that I've not been able to watch, in my own time, with very few adverts and the whole family can stream anything they want to whichever room they happen to be in at the time. (If I want to watch Live footy, there's always the pub. :) )
It's the future, or technically.. the present.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
