back to article Let's get to the bottom of in-app purchases that go titsup

I have paid to watch a fat French man’s thrusting buttocks on TV. But something has gone wrong. Despite my attempts to display gallic grinding on the living room screen, my TV is – quite literally – not playing ball. It’s not what you think. Actually, on reflection, yes it probably is. I had better explain. This week I …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lawn: Get off it now!

    Maybe because I wasted too many precious hours of my teenage years reinstalling yet another hosed Windows 9x install, but I literally don't have the time to f**k about with fake Amazon coins, and buying disappearing films "in-app".

    1. Martin Summers Silver badge

      Re: Lawn: Get off it now!

      Well I spent almost an entire day of one of my early teen years installing Windows 95 on a knackered 2x cd rom drive that wasn't screwed into the chassis. I can't have you think you had it so bad without comment thank you!

      I expect more tales of 'up north' woe to appear below this one. Only please note I'm not up north I'm in the middle.

      1. Omgwtfbbqtime
        Devil

        Re: Lawn: Get off it now!

        Meh, windows 95 installs were easy ... as long as you remembered to shed blood inside the case before you closed it.

        Blood sacrifice - never fails.

      2. BillG
        Joke

        Re: Lawn: Get off it now!

        In a fit of irony, all the videos on this article will not play, showing instead "Error 2025".

        (I ask again that El Reg create an icon for irony.)

        1. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

          Try this

          The real men start in 2 minutes. I believe the head of an axe used by these athletes weighs about 6 pounds and it is flying at the end of a three foot stick:

          https://youtu.be/YnBHaq6rzcE

  2. Shadow Systems

    Gérard Depardieu shafting kittens on Youtube?

    Why did the kitten cross the internet?

    He was stuck in the Frenchman.

    *Runs away*

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Coat

    Youtube is not just for kitten videos

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGfYHTJitlo

    1. tony2heads
      Trollface

      Re: Youtube is not just for kitten videos

      Next to that item on Yotube were (when I pulled it up) "Reacting to my teenage computer" - reasonable enough, and then "5 most brutal prisons in history".

      Does the 2nd item say something about Mr Dabbs home life, or the conditions he works under?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Youtube is not just for kitten videos

      Bwahahaha - epic find, thanks.

    3. Bill M

      Re: Youtube is not just for kitten videos

      Yes it is. Kittens are why Tim Berners Lee invented the internet and YouTube is part of the internet. QED.

    4. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Youtube is not just for kitten videos

      Those idents need epilepsy warning!

      I've not seen anything so genuinely painful since the last art-house film I accidentally caught in the the corner of my eye.

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Youtube is not just for kitten videos

        But the Guardian says it's "ENGROSSING" (don't they mean "engorging"?)

        Though I don't know what about Office Sluts & Fat Guys could ever be eng.rw...whatever.

    5. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

      Re: Youtube is not just for kitten videos

      And to think that I spent all my Windows 98 days wondering why MAC users filled 2.5 GB drives with pictures.

      It never occurred to me they were pictures of children playing, nor that grown men would spend evenings filming children at birthday parties after spending 2000 quid for the apparatus to make it all worth while.

      Which begs the question:

      What apparatus did Cyril Smith use?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Where's page 2?

  6. frank ly

    Maybe this is one of the reasons why ....

    .... people downoad from torrents?

  7. John Tserkezis

    "To this day, I find SCART an amazing hardware interface"

    Don't be. SCART was created to simplify the millions of different cables to cater for Audio, Composite Video, Component Video, RGB, both in and out. It was implied, if one device only had one type of video connection, the receiving device would be able to cater for that. In practice that never happened. Ever.

    Worse still, while it was wildly popular in Europe, it wasn't here in Australia, so with the odd device that came into the country with only SCART, we needed adaptors apon adaptors, and made the cable situation worse.

    "I purchase a handful of virtual Amazon Coins"

    I'd have alarm bells ringing from there. Are they like Itchy and Scratchy money? You know, the pretend "money" you're forced to buy to use within Itchy and Scratchy Land, but no-one there takes it anyway?

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Re SCART

      Purely invented as a Tarriff wall by French. A TV had to have Peritel (SCART) to be allowed to be imported and sold. It was meant to be really cheap, which meant that the cables would easily fall off. It was a failure for intended purpose as everyone selling to France simply added them. They never really made to USA which prefered RCA connectors for EVERYTHING! (RF, audio, phono, Y/C aka s-video, composite video, stereo record / playback-- four cables instead of a DIN, component video, HD Component etc).

      SCART could have done HD, but by time (much later than USA because PAL higher resolution than NTSC) HD came to Europe, copy protected Digital connections preferred.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Re SCART

        Couple that with SECAM instead of PAL and we can only assume that the powers that be in France thought colour television was the le travail du diable but as they couldn't get away with banning it they just decided to make it a horrible experience instead.

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Re: Re SCART

          SCART (Peritel to the French) was invented as a way to easily connect a Canal+ decoder to a TV, and mandated on all TVs as state-aid to Canal+. The tarif-wall advantages only appeared later.

          SECAM was a French invention, and in post-1950s Gaullist France there was no way in hell that they were going to pick a German system like PAL to replace it, even though PAL was better and, at the time, cheaper to implement.

          1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

            Re: Re SCART

            That would be an English system like PAL.

            And (as an aside) because of the continuous FM colour subcarrier that SECAM uses, it's impossible to mix two SECAM images together. So every French TV studio had to decode video and work in the RGB domain, or (quelle horreur!) do the much cheaper approach of transcoding to PAL, use PAL internally, and transcode to SECAM as the signal left the building...

            1. JulieM Silver badge

              Re: Re SCART

              I think you'll find PAL is about as English as Queen Victoria .....

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Re SCART -I think you'll find PAL is about as English as Queen Victoria ....

                Upvoted for a very clever and accurate observation.

                Is there still a special relationship between England and Hannover?

                1. JulieM Silver badge

                  Re: Re SCART -I think you'll find PAL is about as English as Queen Victoria ....

                  Afraid it was just a Blackadder reference (Blackadder Goes Forth, Episode 5: Plan E, General Hospital).

                  As for the Hannover bit ..... Only if you're too cheap to pay for a proper PAL decoder with a delay line :)

                  1. Anonymous Custard

                    Re: Re SCART -I think you'll find PAL is about as English as Queen Victoria ....

                    https://youtu.be/x7px5FZ9jD4

                    A slightly more up to date education, albeit not the "proper" video to go with it.

                2. Scott Wheeler

                  Re: Re SCART -I think you'll find PAL is about as English as Queen Victoria ....

                  > Is there still a special relationship between England and Hannover?

                  No. Hanover had Salic law (monarchs must be male), so Victoria could not inherit it when she came to the throne.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Re SCART - SECAM

            Systeme Essentiellement Contraire AMericaine.

  8. Mage Silver badge

    Totally irrelevant fact

    The first UK set top boxes were to add Band III (for ITV) to older Band I only sets (BBC 1 only) around 1955. Some earlier sets couldn't work if moved from London to Birmingham as they had only a single factory aligned channel.

    Cable TV in USA was probably the first major set box market.

    Fire TV and Apple TV are more misleading than AMDs 4 module Bulldozers as they are not TVs, no screen and no tuner. They are media streaming gadgets, not TVs.

    1. g00se
      Linux

      Re: Totally irrelevant fact

      ... and Java was invented for set top boxes

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-top_box

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: Totally irrelevant fact

        Java is the devil's work in C's braces.

        But the GC is nice.

        1. phil dude
          Coat

          Re: Totally irrelevant fact

          A horrible fact, that Python is Java with no braces, so you can see its arse...

          P.

          Who makes whitespace part of a programming control syntax? (WTF^10000)

          1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

            Re: Totally irrelevant fact

            Who makes whitespace part of a programming control syntax?

            You can't win, though. Fortran pays no heed to whitespace, hence the notorious space program bug where a line like:

            DO 20 I = 1,10

            (loop to statement 20, 10 times, incrementing I each time) was mistyped as

            DO 20 I = 1.10

            so instead of a loop the compiler obediently created a variable named "DO20I" and assigned it the value of 1.1, then did the loop code once with some indeterminate value of I.

          2. Deltics

            Re: Totally irrelevant fact

            Autocrats who despair of ever getting free thinking individuals to conform to their mandated code formatting style. Making it part of the syntax solves that particular problem.

          3. Martin Budden Silver badge

            Re: Totally irrelevant fact

            Who makes whitespace part of a programming control syntax?

            Edwin Brady and Chris Morris

        2. John 110
          Joke

          Re: Totally irrelevant fact

          "...But the GC is nice...."

          Speaking from the perspective of a diagnostic microbiologist, I would NEVER describe the GC as nice...

  9. Manolo
    Headmaster

    Sacrebleu

    “I think that I shall never view / A French film without Depardieu.”

    Yes, I think most anglophones would pronounce Depardieu as if to rhyme with view.

    Hint: it does not. It rhymes with a Danish cow: møøø.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Sacrebleu

      Brits can pronounce it but Americans such as John Updike might not. I also hear that they refer to Van Gogh as "Van Goe" and that even Weird Al Yankovic pronounces his surname "Yankovick".

      1. MrT

        Re: Sacrebleu

        Reminds me of Alan Partridge interviewing Michel Lambert, France's second-best racing driver...

      2. Anthony Hegedus Silver badge

        Re: Sacrebleu

        Americans pronounce "note dame" as "no-terr dayme"

        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: Sacrebleu

          Just what exactly is a "note dame"? Sounds intriguing...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sacrebleu

          And tomato as tomato. Let's call the whole thing off.

      3. g00se

        Re: Sacrebleu

        Indeed. Similarly Alan Harper's mother's definition of chiropractor in Two and a Half Men:

        That's a masseuse without the hot oil.

        (Rhymes with 'moose')

      4. DropBear
        IT Angle

        Re: Sacrebleu

        ...insert obligatory joke made by Niklaus Wirth himself about Europeans calling him by name and Americans by worth...

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Sacrebleu

          Europeans calling him by name and Americans by worth

          "by value", not "by worth". Otherwise the joke doesn't, y'know, work.

    2. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Sacrebleu

      To force the rhyme I read "view" as "v-yer".

      The things I do for a cheap laugh.

  10. tony2heads

    Old TVs

    you forgot the high-pitched whine of the flyback transformer; a sound that I remember from childhood

    1. JulieM Silver badge

      Re: Old TVs

      Well, he wouldn't be able to hear it now anyway .....

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Old TVs

      Or the ultrasound remote control which made the cats jump.

      1. Alistair Dabbs

        Re: Old TVs

        If your TV had a remote control when you were a child, you are clearly not old enough. The closest I got to a TV remote control before my mid-20s was a foam rubber joke brick we used to throw at the set to push in the OFF button.

        1. Martin Summers Silver badge

          Re: Old TVs

          "If your TV had a remote control when you were a child, you are clearly not old enough"

          Indeed, not conducive to late night channel 4 viewing when someone came downstairs.

        2. Dr_N

          Re: Old TVs

          Listening to a David Sedaris "audiobook" the other day I was shocked to hear what (some?) South Carolinians (used to?) call the TV remote.

        3. WolfFan Silver badge

          Re: Old TVs

          If your TV had a remote control when you were a child, you are clearly not old enough.

          I was the remote control when I was a young cub. And no, I didn't get to pick the channel.

          1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

            Re: Old TVs

            Yeah. Our TV had pushbuttons of the quality used today to launch ICBMs.

            SCHZLACK! SCHZLACK! BZZZZTT. "Fuck you, antenna!!!!"

            1. DiViDeD

              Re: Old TVs

              Pushbuttons?PUSHBUTTONS?

              That were luxury. The first TV I remember had a turret control like early automatic washing machines. CLICK!! THUD!!! Instant RSI.

              And out of the doG knows how many positions you found, only one worked. No BBC2 and for my formative years, no ITV either.

              Bah! Kids today, etc.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Old TVs

                Push buttons, indeed a luxury, when I were a lad we had tuning dials, the first remote I had was on a wire from t'vcr.

                Actually I'm not that old (except for the remote control bit) but my gran up till the day she died refused to have a colour set and used a b/w with a dial, she was also an avid snooker fan, go figure that one out.

                I have just burst out laughing at "I find SCART an amazing hardware interface: it must be the only connector capable of gradually expelling its own plug even in zero gravity." because it's soo true, they were f*ckers for it, especially in the middle of a game at an important point.

              2. Mark York 3 Silver badge
                Childcatcher

                Re: Old TVs

                An old Sobell 405 line set, with 12 (maybe less) presets on a rotary control (the numbering wasn't sequential either now I come to think of it) for ITV sharp clear picture until the chronic frame collapse kicked in (First widescreen TV in the street - LOL) & BBC (BBC2 on 625 lines was right out the window) was a cloud of fuzz (worse in the summer thanks to continental (as my mother termed it)\co-channel interference).

                Father was finally shamed into getting a new one by either visiting his sister for a wedding & or howls of amusement by his visiting sister in-law sometime around 1978 of "How the fuck can you see anything on that 3" wide stripe!" Thus saving my eyes from permanent damage (Hence the icon)!

                1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                  Re: Old TVs

                  "the numbering wasn't sequential either now I come to think of it"

                  That's because they were designed to put the BBC & ITV settings next to each other. As they were on different bands there were a good few channels between them. So ours had 2 & 10 next to each other.

              3. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Old TVs

                Please, I beg you all. For the sake of the Internet, house prices in your area and the children, stop the bad Monty Python pastiches now!

                1. Swarthy

                  Re: Old TVs

                  "What's that on the television then?"

                  "Looks like a penguin."

          2. Martin Budden Silver badge

            Re: Old TVs

            If your TV had a remote control when you were a child, you are clearly not old enough.

            Our first telly didn't have a remote. The next one did, but it was attached to the telly with a 6ft wire which didn't quite stretch to the sofa, so it was only remote-ish.

            1. John Styles

              Re: Old TVs

              We had a rented teletext TV with a remote at one point - the interesting thing about the remote was that the 'off' button tripped a relay (or something) to physically release a catch so that the on/off switch came out, turning it to off (so no power consumption and no turning it on again from the remote).

              of course, the flaw was that after a few months a little bit of plastic broke so that when you turned it off the on/off switch detached itself from the TV and flew a few feet across the living room.

        4. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: Old TVs

          We only ever had one of these.

          But seriously, a lot of my childhood memories are in black and white. To this day it happens from time to time that I see an old movie on TV and I'm surprised it's actually in colour. The same goes for Star Treck TOS. (Most of the sets and props DID look better in b/w...) 'Space Patrol Orion' actually had been shot in b/w.

          And the first colour TV my parents got had one of those ultrasound remote controls and I could actually hear it!

          Does anyone still remembers the little white dot?

        5. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Old TVs

          If your TV had a remote control when you were a child, you are clearly not old enough

          Ultrasonic remote controls came out in 1973, so, depending on the definition of "child", they could have appeared in the childhood homes of those born in 1955. Sixty seems old enough to me.

      2. gotes

        Re: Old TVs

        Oh, the ultrasonic remote... We could change the TV channel by dropping a bunch of keys or clapping.

    3. Anthony Hegedus Silver badge

      Re: Old TVs

      I remember that whine. Being 48 years old, such a beautiful sound will never pass my ears again. That, and the fact that I don't know where I'd find an old TV

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Old TVs

      We had a school visit to the Thorn EMI factory where they very proudly showed us the vacuum impregnator that would make flyback transformer whine a thing of the past. I do wonder if Arnie Weinstock subsequently cut it out as unnecessary expense, because the sample they showed us didn't whine but Thorn EMI sets in general did.

      I cannot help remembering how physical that factory was - fibreboard, plywood, glue, machines for stamping holes for valve bases, the smell and smoke of solder flux everywhere. Electronics is so aseptic these days.

  11. Fraggle850

    Content and delivery

    I consider myself to be reasonably technically competent yet I find the current media landscape to be bewilderingly shit. I've had a similar experience when trying to pay for and watch video but my main issue is: if I want to watch something specific chances are that it won't be on whatever I happen to be subscribed to and actually finding it in the first place is a pain, to the point where I really can't be arsed. The same applies to music.

    I don't do torrents/pirate sites because I do believe in paying for content that someone has made but torrents appeal to me because I suspect I'm more likely to actually find what I want and be able to access it. I mean, for fuxache, HOW many subscriptions do I need to take out? And why the fuck are their UIs and content discovery mechanisms so varied, even within the same service across different devices?

    It's bullshit: c'mon big media and tech CDNs, quit with the turf wars and walled gardens and get your shit together.

    1. VinceH

      Re: Content and delivery

      "And why the fuck are their UIs and content discovery mechanisms so varied and utter shit, even within the same service across different devices?"

      FTFY

      I'm looking at you, Amazon Prime, in particular. Why is there no option to view all the films in a particular genre in alphabetical order?

      Oh, wait - I think I know. I frequently notice the same title popping up more than once at different points in the list. If they were listed alphabetically, the two instances would be side by side - and more people might notice and wonder if your claims of having x movies is exaggerated by duplicated listings.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Content and delivery

      All they need to do is serve up a picture, how many stars it's got, a bit of text info, and a view button. Add a search option. Just the kind of thing a common API could do, and it all gets presented by the telly or box or stick in a standard way.

      Sad to say the latest Apple TV is the one which has come closest to this. Bloody Apple. Again. Not really innovating, just doing the obvious thing while everyone else spent years not doing it.

      1. Fraggle850

        Re: Content and delivery

        @ VinceH (ta!) & @ Dan 55

        Yup, shonky UIs and crappie search mechanisms abound. Wouldn't surprise me if Apple have fixed much of this, they're very good at that sort of thing but I don't want to pay the Apple tax to enter the walled garden.

        All that aside though, if I want to watch top gear and peaky blinders series one for example then I'd need an Amazon sub and a Netflix sub? And then maybe I'm a footie fan (I'm not!) So Sky Sport and BT subs too? No doubt crapple will have their own exclusive content too? And every other Tom, Dick and Harry the hairy fucking hipster who gets enough VC funding to start their own 'disruptive' delivery platform?

        Why can't I have a multi-source, subscription-free, pay as you consume system that allows me to easily find and watch (or listen to) what I want? Oh yeah, because big media is run by dinosaurs and advised by lawyers and the best technology started out as an underground thing taking the lead in the face of collective media head-in-sand behaviour.

        (Background: Grew up on free TV in the UK and find it laughable that people PAY for TV and STILL have to put up with adverts? In the words of one Johnny Rotten: 'ever get the feeling you've been had?)

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Content and delivery

          "big media is run by dinosaurs and advised by lawyers"

          Or vice versa

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: Content and delivery

            Actually,.....by accountants.

            Lawyers just block things. As required.

            Accountants run them. And they are, by training and personality, focussed on short term goals.

            1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

              Re: Content and delivery

              > focussed on short term goals

              I read that as "short term goats"..

              1. Swarthy

                Re: short term goats

                I guess whatever floats your goat.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Facepalm

          Re: Content and delivery

          But that second entry is the DIRECTORS CUT; it features nine whole seconds of additional footage.

          They say it completely changes the tone of the whole film.

          (Sorry, couldnt resist - TBBT Fan obviously - downloaded via torrent to avoid all the adverts).

        3. Jamie Jones Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Content and delivery

          Background: Grew up on free TV in the UK and find it laughable that people PAY for TV and STILL have to put up with adverts? In the words of one Johnny Rotten: 'ever get the feeling you've been had?)

          Paying for ENDLESS REPEATS and adverts!

    3. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: Content and delivery

      Market segmentation. That way different sources can charge different fees and also offer premiers (qualified by on this channel, on a wet Wednesday, in August, this year). By not being able to find the cheapest easily and quickly some will pay over the odds.

      1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

        Re: Content and delivery / market segmentation

        Market segmentation: don't make better products, find dumber customers.

        (Yes, there is a Dilbert cartoon on the subject, but I can't find it right now.)

      2. Fraggle850

        Re: Content and delivery

        @ Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Indeed. But all of that notwithstanding and given that I'm happy to pay to watch what I went when I want to I STILL can't find what I want when I want it. Have your 'premier' window, just give me pay per view. Give me a cheaper, ad-supported option and a premium, ad-free option and I'll make my own decision. Who knows, you may even find that you get more out of me if you produce some compelling serial content.

    4. JulieM Silver badge

      Re: Content and delivery

      It's going to take for somebody to have the market dominance to say "Enough with the DRM bull$#!t already! It's doing more harm than good!" before things get any better.

      Those who really don't want to pay for your content will simply go without for want of any way of getting it free, so they don't represent lost money. It's those who don't mind the idea of paying for it in theory, but find it much less hassle not paying for it in practice, you need to worry about.

  12. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    great Article

    Makes me more certain never to use any streaming service that I have to pay for.

    All that faffing around when things go wrong (As they inevitably do) when all you wanted to do was watch a flick.

    Rather be watching paint dry than have to go through all that.

    As for 'hot off the press releases'.(aka blockbusters).. are mostly silly remakes or sequels. It is almost at if any trace of originality has gone from mainstream film production.

    Kudos for choosing something certainly not in that sphere. Shame the systems let you down.

    Oh, and my Humax FreeSat PVR is IMHO better than many Tivo's I've seen in the USA. As for the Clarkson Amazon TV thingy Add, you have to see it because it is titterful but utter shite. Who will miss him from Free-to-Air TV?

    1. Anthony Hegedus Silver badge

      Re: great Article

      When I want to watch a movie, I need to check first on Amazon Prime, then Sky Movies, then check it's not on netflix, then see if it's on Amazon for rental. Sometime you can only buy the movie outright (£10-15), sometimes it's £3.49 or £4.49 but a quid off for not watching it in HD. Sometimes it's less. Sometimes it's free.

      Then my son told me about Putlocker. I just choose the movie, and if it's available, I watch it on my iphone, which can mirror to my amazon tv stick with an app on the stick for Apple's "airplay" service.

      And Putlocker costs £0.

      Yes it's illegal, and I don't mind paying for movies (I already pay for sky, netflix, amazon etc anyway) but I do mind the inconvenience. I'll go for the path of least resistance, and if that means paying £3.49 for a movie rental, then I will. But if it means "stealing" a film using this putlocker thing, then I'll just do that. The film company won't get my money, because "you snooze you lose". If they had the movies I wanted when I wanted them, I'd pay.

      Having said that, I've only ever watched one movie on putlocker and I didn't even like it that much.

      I think I'll cancel my sky movies though. Waste of money.

      1. Fraggle850

        Re: great Article

        @ Anthony Hegedus

        Precisely. All that palaver and you've STILL had to resort to piracy. What a bullshit system.

      2. JulieM Silver badge

        Re: great Article

        Amen to that!

        I only hope the content providers are listening.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: great Article

          And then you need to fire up the VPN to see if it is available on Netflix UK or Netflix USA if it isn't on Netflix Canada

  13. Dr_N

    Original Version Films

    One thing I find very annoying about most VOD film services, especially in France, is they only offer the dubbed language version.

    Both Google Play and XBox Videos do this. Along with all the IPTV services available from the ISPs. (Amazon doesn't yet offer video in France.)

    iTunes is slightly netter, but expensive and has a very **** UI.

    Side loaded services on a FireTV Stick seems interesting, but why can't Amazon just offer multi-lple sound tracks on films? Even broadcast TV is doing this this days.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Original Version Films

      Sad to say that nobody in all these gigantic megacorps has thought of just starting up Kodi and copying it.

      Actually I'm not sure why I'm that surprised, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone/Mobile/whatever it is now should have feature matched every feature from older OSes like Symbian and Blackberry 7 but still haven't managed to.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        Oh I'm sure somebody has thought of it, but the road to video streaming is stuffed to the gills with stumbling blocks, slippery stones and every outright trap that the entities called "content owners" can dream up.

        The name content owner is appropriate, you see, because they own that content and they prefer being sodomized with a rusty tube before giving anyone a chance of viewing their content without them taxing every second of the experience, even when said content dates back to the early half of last century.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Executive summary

    Some apps/streaming services aren't that great. Curzon Home Cinema on the Fire TV stick is apparently one such at the moment.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Executive summary

      To be fair, CHC still has an outstanding collection and I may try their app again later if I get drunk and lose the ability to reason. It's my birthday weekend, so this may well happen

      1. Shadow Systems

        Happy Birthday Dabbs!

        Get drunk, get laid, and get arrested for something I haven't done yet! You've certainly earned it! (Just don't call me to bail you out of jail, I'll be in a nearby cell trying to give you a HighFive through the bars.)

    2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Executive summary

      Fire Stick: stick it where it burns.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Set Top Box - new acronym

    Dabbsy pointed out the redundancy of the term Set Top Box (STB).

    I suggest "Under Set Box" to reflect where the buggers live these days. Shortened of course to USB.

    See, that was easy.......

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: Set Top Box - new acronym

      These boxes are under the TV, so perhaps Box Under Television?

      1. Alistair Dabbs

        Re: Set Top Box - new acronym

        Box Under The Television.

        1. John H Woods Silver badge

          Re: Set Top Box - new acronym

          And the space in the TV stand where it slots in is obviously the BUTT hole.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Set Top Box - new acronym

          Big Intelligent Graphical Box Under The Television.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Got it! Re: Set Top Box - new acronym

            Box Under The Telly For Upgrade Con Device

            Usage: 'not happy with the choice of TV channels? You need to get BUTTFUCD'

            (With fondest regards to previous commentards)

  16. Martin Summers Silver badge

    Since Amazon seem to be intent to kill off their by post dvd/Blu-Ray service they inherited from Lovefilm by whacking up the prices (I'm currently paying £2 a month going up to 9.99 in Feb when I cancel). Given the lack of competition to that postal service I predict inevitably anyone still running one will shut down leaving streaming to be the only choice available. Which is pants, because I want full fat quality that Blu-Ray provides and not the dumbed down compressed quality you get with streaming. I don't mind catch up TV or films I'm not bothered about being streamed but not films I really care about.

    1. Fraggle850

      @ Martin Summers

      And I suspect that because you care about a particular film you would be prepared to pay for a premium online service with bluray quality playback? You ought to have this option.

    2. Cosmo

      Agreed.

      I got the same e-mail about a week ago about the LoveFilm by post price hike. It's obvious what's going to happen there. Come February, tons of people will cancel en masse. As a result of that, Amazon will say - "Look! Subscriber numbers for the LoveFilm by post have fallen off a cliff! Oh dear, we had better cancel it then!".

      Amazon Video is so difficult to use it's unbelievable. Oohh there are 4 seasons of that series I want to watch. But I can only watch the first three. The last series is pay per stream.

      Oh you want to watch that film? Well you can either buy it for £x, or stream it for £y. But wait, now that you want to stream it, you can stream it in HD for £z, which is obviously more that the £y that it was listed at. Morons.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Getting the flatley stick...

    1965... Winston Churchill's funeral on TV. I was 6, and to change the channels on the TV my parents had was a button to push. There was a hole in the front, and behind that was some sort of device that rotated the tuner which had a disc with the numbers 1 to 12 on. BBC was No. 7 and ITV was No. 11. You pushed the button to change channels, and it went like "CHUNK -> 1 CHUNK ->2 CHUCK -> 3..." etc. So to go from BBC to ITV was 4 CHUCKS - to go from ITV was 8 CHUNKS (the tuner device didn't go back wards, so 11 to 7 was 11,12,1,2,3,4,5,6,7).

    Back to the story. I was so amazed the same PICTURE was on both BBC and ITV at the same time I kept changing channels to see if the picture was still the same - it was!

    After about 30 minutes of this my Dad came in and threatened me with the flatley stick if I touched the TV again!.

    Hah, good old days :)

  18. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

    Formica

    The nostalgia trip down memory lane brought back memories of fibreglass curtains, polyester trousers, and lino, and left me wondering if anyone ever manufactured a formica encased TV?

    On SCART; the ability of plug to separate from socket is legendary but there were some plugs which had locking clips which could keep them in place. So well in fact that when I land-filled an old VCR it went with the cable attached.

    Off to re-watch La Grande Bouffe; not a Depardieu in sight.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Formica

      "if anyone ever manufactured a formica encased TV?"

      Oh yes. We had a Bush 23inch B/W set that went with me to college after the parents got a colour set. A beautiful mock wood effect case with chromed plastic knobs.

      The beast died in spectacular style in 1977 (buzzing and smoke) while we were watching Boney M play (play?) Daddy Cool (or was it Ra Ra Rasputin?) on TOTP.. it was a long time ago and while the memory of the song fades, the demise of the telly and the singer's amazing dance routine remains. Still not sure how the performance ended.

      1. Alistair Dabbs

        Re: Formica

        >> Ra Ra Rasputin

        Can I be the first to comment that it was shame how he carried on? Thank you.

  19. Anthony Hegedus Silver badge

    " it [SCART] must be the only connector capable of gradually expelling its own plug" - brilliant!

    You can tell it's French. Only the french could design a connector system that causes the plugs to literally fall to bits, and whose inherent design means that the plugs pop out all the time. It will not go down in history as a good design, but having said that, it was a bloody good idea.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Well, that and they could give you an electric shock if it was feeling particularly French because the metal surround was actually a pin as well.

      Also your SCART with RGB DVD player probably didn't talk to your telly in RGB because you plugged it into the SCART with S-Video plug or you bought a cheap 10-pin cable, instead you got a composite picture. Same for stereo and Dolby sound.

      About the only thing it did was standardise the connector, but it didn't do that right because as mentioned there was some stange repellent magnetic force between socket and plug.

      And we're about to go through all that again with USB-C, the SCART of USB connectors (see news of the Google engineer reviewing USB-C cables on Amazon). Apart from the falling out bit as we will find out when people trip over the cable and it's not at all like magsafe.

  20. thx1138v2

    The problem, Mr. Dabbs, is that while you have upgraded your hardware your wetware also needs an upgrade. In today's down side up dlrow the "set top box" goes on the surface nearest the earth's core and the TV, sitting atop that hold the "box top set" down to prevent it slipping away back to the factory and in such position conveniently blocks its vents so you get to buy a new one after each non-movie regardless of national origin.

  21. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    SCART

    Never had any trouble with SCART plugs whatsoever, even had (still have, infact) a 15 m one, all the pins connected, that worked like a charm. OTH, none of my AV equipment was 'Made in France'. SECAM was also used in most of the eastern bloc counties, they wouldn't want to buy PAL as it would have cost 'real' money. I think they did a deal with France like the USSR did a deal with FIAT, but dinner is ready so I can't look it up.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: SCART

      That was the meta-exit right there.

  22. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    WTF?

    Curiously, I am unable to play Dabbsy's supplied videos...

    What's an Error 2035 when it's at home? It's all I see when I try and play them.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: Curiously, I am unable to play Dabbsy's supplied videos...

      All three are share links to YouTube. Online movie streaming really is crap, isn't it?

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: Curiously, I am unable to play Dabbsy's supplied videos...

        It's something weird that has happened to Firefox and Linux and video; youtube things that worked mid-week have stopped working. The only way I have found to get *some* things working is to uninstall the Adobe package and force youtube to deliver in HTML5.

        So now the BBC is dead instead.

        1. conscience

          Re: Curiously, I am unable to play Dabbsy's supplied videos...

          "It's something weird that has happened to Firefox and Linux and video; youtube things that worked mid-week have stopped working."

          I don't think it's a specific Linux problem as this error also happens on my friend's Windows 8.1 laptop.

          My Mint/Firefox combo plays them without an error.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pi + openelec + chrisbwizard.pcriot.com = android box or just kodi which has been side loaded onto your firestick or installed on a pc/laptop/phone.

    I'll just leave this here, maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should, who is to say what's right or wrong? I don't use it personally as I use a pvr in kodi and it's not compatible.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      I prefer OSMC on my Pi. I also hear that TVAddons is a good thing to install, especially for those who can't be arsed to install many addons only to find they don't work or don't do what they want. At least that's what I've been told by a friend of a friend whose name I don't remember.

      Personally I only ever watch ESA TV, NASA TV or Archive.org addons :-)

      The thing about Kodi is that it seems to run on pretty much any platform and if you want to, can share a common database on your network so you can watch/resume on any device. In particular, you can still watch your own purchased library items even the internet connection goes down.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's their own stupid fault.

    VPN + WebRTC blocker + torrent.

    I'd rather pay a reasonable fee for each movie/series I choose to watch but the idiot providers make it so annoyingly difficult to find+pay+stream effectively that it simply isn't a realistic option. They don't make it easy for me to give them my money, so they don't get my money. It's their own stupid fault.

  25. rainjay

    Kids nowadays

    I remember reinstalling WFWG from multiple *floppies*! The horror...

    In-app purchases are fine if you get a license app that stays on the phone, for example, and doesn't need to keep polling an authentication server to keep working. For content, I'd rather go for simple streaming off established platforms like Amazon or Netflix or (gasp) shiny plastic discs or (ducks) The Bay for geolocked stuff.

    Make it easy for people to part with their money and people will part with their money. That's the simple secret of online content delivery but only Apple and Netflix have understood it.

    1. Retired Ninja
      Mushroom

      Re: Kids nowadays

      "I remember reinstalling WFWG from multiple *floppies*! The horror..."

      *inserts disc 19*

      *Error reading disk please insert disc 1 and reboot your computer*

  26. Dale 3

    Cara Delavigne

    I stopped reading the Evening Standard and Metro because it was getting so tedious with Cara Delavigne showing up in every issue. Went back a few weeks ago thinking their annual pass must have run out by now, but no, there she was on page 28.

  27. Anodynous Dullard

    Generation Snowflake

    'OMGzzz I have to log into 3-4 different providers to find a film!'

    Poor lambs, how would they have coped with a copy of the TV times (4 channels) and a walk round the nearest blockbuster?

    I can't believe you IT chaps buy into these endlessly redundant smart sticks, smart TVs and STBs. An HTPC in a nice case with a good hdmi graphics card replaces all of them. And can stay up to date. And proxy. Simples.

    Netflix worldwide is a joy (25+ countries), App guides available. I can watch US TV series as they come out, especially via Canada. I find telling porkies about my location preferrable to torrents.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Float

    With today's micro-second stock transactions, they are using what you pay buy and sell stocks, as long as there is a cash flow and a delay between purchase and refund, they profit.

  29. Valarian

    Programmable Channel Buttons

    I remember, in 1978, the awe of upgrading from a b&w TV with a big chunky rotary tuner knob (want to switch channels? retune the set!) to a COLOUR set with PROGRAMMABLE PUSHBUTTONS for channel selection! The button panel popped out and allowed access to a series of tiny wheel-tuners, one per button. There were 8 buttons, and for a long time we used 1,2,3 and 8 (the latter had the Atari VCS tuned to it). I recall the excitement of tuning button 4 in 1982.

    1. John Styles

      Re: Programmable Channel Buttons

      Dee daaa pum pum - dum dum dum dum dum dum dum.

      The Channel 4 theme was by Lord David Dundas.

      If he doesn't have an answerphone that goes something like

      'David Dundas - he is sorry he's not home'

      'David Dundas - leave your message after tone'

      Then I want to know why.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Programmable Channel Buttons

      PROGRAMMABLE PUSHBUTTONS for channel selection

      Yes, we had one of those too. I'd completely forgotten about the programmable buttons until your post.

      This was in the States, so of course we had plenty of stations to program. At least three came in well enough to make the picture out.

      There was also the UHF tuner - continuous tuning with a fine-tuning dial as well. Between fine tuning and much fiddling with the antenna, you could often get something recognizable on some of those channels too. Good times.

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