FilmStruck

[mfunk9786]

Starting to become almost comical whenever I see anti-piracy messaging at this point. I am by no means using this platform to endorse the illegal theft of intellectual property, but it is becoming more and more woeful that there are dozens of services among varying and sometimes very limited streaming platforms and that no one has thought "Hey - why don't we make this easy for the end user and actually begin to sensibly collaborate?" yet. Every one of these companies insists on getting their own separate pie, instead of a reasonable piece of a larger one, and it's always to the detriment of the quality of what they end up delivering to the people who actually want to pay for and use this stuff.

The fact that you can bungle the launch of a streaming service in October (well, November) 2016 so badly, when you've been snowballing goodwill for months, is astonishing. You end up delivering a delay, not nearly as much Turner content as expected, and Amazon Fire TV as the only television-connected device option at launch despite there being several that have larger install bases? Woof. Criterion seemed like one of the companies that was actually doing this right by hitching their wagon to Hulu, and then we get this mess.

[mkozlows]

I wonder if this is related to timing of the availability of the Criterion Channel. It's never been clear from their original wording (that it would be "the exclusive home" for Criterion in November when it rolled off Hulu) if that meant they'd be a non-exclusive home to it starting 10/19, or if Hulu would remain the exclusive home to Criterion stuff until November. Most places reported it as the latter, but it was never clear.

If that was the case, it'd make their sign-up awkward with the yearly subscription plan (do you charge full price when one month won't have all the content there?), so maybe this delay is them recognizing that it'd be dumb to launch with a half-catalog and that they'd have to tweak their sign-up stuff to make that workable and they don't have the ability to do that in a short timeframe anyway.

[Sam T.]

This is certainly an embarrassment for FilmStruck, and a bit of a disappointment for those looking forward to the launch this week, but the problem strikes me as more of a TCM/TW one than a Criterion one. Criterion is basically just renting out their name and their library, neither of which needed to be newly produced this year. It's the same stuff they've had on Hulu. Yes, they're going to have original bonus content and whatnot, but none of that was promised for launch day anyway.

I see this as an ill omen, though. What Hulu did with the CC library wasn't perfect, but it does not seem exactly to have been easy either. They had many hundreds of films that were worth watching and rewatching, PQ was often better than DVD quality, and rarely if ever were there problems with buffering or sever overload. Subtitles were always in synch, "resume" nearly always started you back at the right point in a film, it was available on all my devices. (I also subscribe to DramaFever [which TW bought this year] and it is half the cost of Hulu but also half as reliable in all the ways I just listed.)

Launching FilmStruck on time, however, seems like it *should* have been easy. I mean, they selected the date themselves, and they didn't announce it until like two weeks ago. If you've picked your own due date, you can't really ask for an extension at the last minute and continue to be taken seriously. If the site can't launch on a schedule it chose for itself, I have doubts that it can continue to provide the level of service I've gotten used to on Hulu.

They done messed up.

[mkozlows]

This is certainly an embarrassment for FilmStruck, and a bit of a disappointment for those looking forward to the launch this week, but the problem strikes me as more of a TCM/TW one than a Criterion one. Criterion is basically just renting out their name and their library, neither of which needed to be newly produced this year. It's the same stuff they've had on Hulu. Yes, they're going to have original bonus content and whatnot, but none of that was promised for launch day anyway.

Are you sure about that? As of a day ago, their Twitter feed was saying that Criterion Channel would be available day one.

[mfunk9786]

Also found out it will not support Apple TV devices earlier than the current generation, so that's another platform down since I'm sure those are still in plenty of homes. Keeps getting better and better.

[mkozlows]

Also found out it will not support Apple TV devices earlier than the current generation, so that's another platform down since I'm sure those are still in plenty of homes. Keeps getting better and better.

That's on Apple, not anyone else. When Apple introduced the 4th gen AppleTV with tvOS and the App Store, they didn't backport it to the old units and my understanding is that they are not working with partners to add new channels to the old ones (because they want people to buy the new one).

[MongooseCmr]

Criterion seemed like one of the companies that was actually doing this right by hitching their wagon to Hulu

Maybe at first, but Hulu has seemed pretty ambivalent about Criterion for years now. They get no front page space, and even in the Movies section Criterion is buried under DTV horror and ads for unreleased films. And then there's the disaster of hosting nearly 1000 films with next to no way to specifically navigate them. They were very much the unwanted stepchild on a service meant more for catching up on The Voice than hosting a library like this

[phantomforce]

That's not quite true. If you launch Hulu on any device, Criterion has its own tab next to TV / Movies / Latino, Etc.
On top of that when you go into the Movies tab they have their own box. They definitely are promoting Criterion, however they also have to give priority to FOX shows and films as well as Original content.

As someone who had subscribed to Auteurs and Mubi, I'm not quite thrilled about Criterion moving to another one of these platforms that will inevitably become a ghost site. I can't help but lay the blame on Criterion either being too lazy or simply not having the resources to update their content on these sites. With Mubi, they faded away. Netflix had most of their library up but they never bothered to upload decent quality res material. Same with Hulu, they started off strong, but haven't bothered to update any of their films in years to at least DVD quality. There was a moment when we would see special features being transitioned over and then it just stopped. I can't imagine hulu being that difficult to work with when they are uploading events and shows literally day of or overnight from over 40 different networks.

We'll see how this plays out, though I absolutely loathe TCM (not the programming but dealing with them as a customer).

[D50]

I subscribed to Filmstruck's notification service last week and I don't think it's up / it went through yet.

[MongooseCmr]

Netflix had most of their library up but they never bothered to upload decent quality res material. Same with Hulu, they started off strong, but haven't bothered to update any of their films in years to at least DVD quality.

This is an issue on every streaming service I've used. Any older film seems to be licensed from dated sources. I'm not sure if it's laziness so much as the business of licensing, where for some reason only the older (smaller?) files are given to stream.

[Sam T.]

This is certainly an embarrassment for FilmStruck, and a bit of a disappointment for those looking forward to the launch this week, but the problem strikes me as more of a TCM/TW one than a Criterion one. Criterion is basically just renting out their name and their library, neither of which needed to be newly produced this year. It's the same stuff they've had on Hulu. Yes, they're going to have original bonus content and whatnot, but none of that was promised for launch day anyway.

Are you sure about that? As of a day ago, their Twitter feed was saying that Criterion Channel would be available day one.

I'm certainly not sure that original bonus content *won't* be included at launch, but I think launching the Criterion Channel with only the bonus content already available on Hulu would be consistent with "Criterion Channel available day one." They haven't, as far as I know, actually said they'd do any more than that.

It's possible that Criterion is producing new supplements that they intend(ed) to have read on launch day, but I haven't personally seen an explicit "launching with day-one bonus content never before available" statement anywhere. If Criterion *did* agree with TCM to have some original stuff ready this week, and *did* fail to produce the stuff in time, I speculate (not sure, but guessing) that this alone would not have lead to the delay.

[Noiradelic]

I wonder if this is related to timing of the availability of the Criterion Channel. It's never been clear from their original wording (that it would be "the exclusive home" for Criterion in November when it rolled off Hulu) if that meant they'd be a non-exclusive home to it starting 10/19

Since they knew about the Hulu overlap for months, it doesn't make sense that it would cause such a last-minute delay -- both the start date and the end date appeared in the same press release!

It's funny that so many people are coming up with alternate theories to the delay, when the registration process issue is just as embarrassing or more so than any of the speculation. There may be other factors, but I take them at their word that this is the biggest one. I'm sure they've had some original content ready to go for a while and that's not the delay.

EDIT: What Minkin said!

[Minkin]

Or the delay could be exactly for the reason that they described in their email: problems with the sign-in /registration process.

Some people just like a conspiracy :-$

[Sam T.]

Or the delay could be exactly for the reason that they described in their email: problems with the sign-in /registration process.

Some people just like a conspiracy :-$

I certainly don't think there's anything dishonest or sinister about the email they sent, but it does say that the delay would allow them to perfect the registration process and "put the finishing touches on FilmStruck." I assumed "finishing touches" (plural) referred to more than the registration process (singular), but maybe I'm reading it the wrong way.

[Being]

Well, I still have hope. Netflix is a disaster in terms of classics and arthouse. Amazon is a wasteland. I wish FilmStruck great luck, and godspeed.

[chiendent]

I don't think there's some conspiracy or that they're being untruthful in their reasons for delaying. It just doesn't exactly inspire confidence when after months of beta testing they can't even meet a barebones launch due to something as commonplace as sign-ins/user registration.

[Sam T.]

I don't think there's some conspiracy or that they're being untruthful in their reasons for delaying. It just doesn't exactly inspire confidence when after months of beta testing they can't even meet a barebones launch due to something as commonplace as sign-ins/user registration.

Completely. I mean, these are the people who announced the 10/19 date about two weeks ago, which they did not have to do. They could have played it safe and kept saying "later this fall." The fact that the project is being run by people who, apparently, cannot make firm plans two weeks in advance is disappointing.

I was cautiously optimistic about FilmStruck until today. Now I'm in "well, let's hope they prove me wrong" mode. I've been a big fan of Criterion on Hulu from the beginning, and while I certainly see ways in which it could be significantly improved, what you get for your money has always seemed to me like a miracle. It probably helps, though, that (partly because of Hulu) I watch a lot of, for example, Naruse, Kinoshita, and Shinoda, who are if anything over-represented on Hulu and who, before streaming, were difficult to see much of in the States. I'll be sad to see the Hulu deal pass.

[Ribs]

From what I can tell on the Beta (which, to testify to what kind of functionality and quality we may be expecting, was actually freely available to view with the URL even if you did not have a beta key, and there was even a workaround to watch the titles if you didn't have an account either), there were a sizable amount of new features in addition to some straight "rips" of DVDs' content (especially as the beta neared its conclusion). As mentioned earlier, it seems like the plan is to have a TCM-style short introduction available for almost every title eventually; there were a few new, exclusive video essays that appeared as well. The trailer on the Filmstruck website for the Kurosawa theme seems to be a short clip from a longer piece going through all of his films. I don't think they're going to be skimping on this particular front, but it'll probably take time to build to something significant.

[mkozlows]

Since they knew about the Hulu overlap for months, it doesn't make sense that it would cause such a last-minute delay -- both the start date and the end date appeared in the same press release!

Sure, but my argument is: Literally, right now, nobody seems to know whether they were planning to launch the Criterion Channel on 10/19 or in November. I've seen statements suggesting things both ways, and no definitive statement.

Which suggests to me that they were being coy on the point intentionally while they tried to nail things down. And that doesn't necessarily disagree with the "signup problems" explanation, either -- if they were launching with the "choose either plan, or the yearly fee" thing, but then their plans to have all content available on 10/19 fell through, suddenly they have to rejigger their registration to get rid of the $99 and $10.99 options temporarily, and maybe that turned out to be weirdly difficult to do in a bug-free way, such that it became one of those "it'll take two weeks to do it" kind of IT projects, and then in the end, it's easier to just wait another week or so for the content to roll off Hulu and go forward from there.

We'll never know for the sure, but if their revised launch is right after the Hulu expiration date, I think that would be suggestive at the least.

[Noiradelic]

Don't think they were being deliberately coy -- it's inside baseball. All most people care about (if they care about Hulu at all) is that they can watch Criterion movies on Hulu till Filmstruck is launched. Rights issues, if any, would've been resolved long ago, because companies usually know things far in advance of the public.

Yes, if the new launch date is November 12th, you'd be right, but if Hulu was the problem, they probably would've announced the new date already because they would've already known when it was, and it's so soon.

[Andrew_VB]

Since they knew about the Hulu overlap for months, it doesn't make sense that it would cause such a last-minute delay -- both the start date and the end date appeared in the same press release!

Sure, but my argument is: Literally, right now, nobody seems to know whether they were planning to launch the Criterion Channel on 10/19 or in November. I've seen statements suggesting things both ways, and no definitive statement.

Which suggests to me that they were being coy on the point intentionally while they tried to nail things down. And that doesn't necessarily disagree with the "signup problems" explanation, either -- if they were launching with the "choose either plan, or the yearly fee" thing, but then their plans to have all content available on 10/19 fell through, suddenly they have to rejigger their registration to get rid of the $99 and $10.99 options temporarily, and maybe that turned out to be weirdly difficult to do in a bug-free way, such that it became one of those "it'll take two weeks to do it" kind of IT projects, and then in the end, it's easier to just wait another week or so for the content to roll off Hulu and go forward from there.

We'll never know for the sure, but if their revised launch is right after the Hulu expiration date, I think that would be suggestive at the least.

seems like you're just quibbling with wording. it seems pretty clear from their emails and communication that the criterion channel was going to be available at launch, but the titles would still be on hulu until november 11, thus making that the time that it starts being exclusive. they wouldn't have started a 2 week trial at launch when you couldn't even try out the criterion channel which is the whole hook of the service.

[FrauBlucher]

A very interesting piece on TCM, old movies and how they're watched and thought about. It also touches on Filmstruck.

[mkozlows]

seems like you're just quibbling with wording. it seems pretty clear from their emails and communication that the criterion channel was going to be available at launch, but the titles would still be on hulu until november 11, thus making that the time that it starts being exclusive. they wouldn't have started a 2 week trial at launch when you couldn't even try out the criterion channel which is the whole hook of the service.

Okay, but the AP's story from five days ago says, "TCM's head of programming Charles Tabesh will program FilmStruck, including a rotating selection of Criterion titles. But on Nov. 11, Criterion will debut its own channel on FilmStruck featuring all of its films, about 1,200 titles that encompass a large swath of film's acknowledged masterpieces. That will run $10.99 monthly or $99 for a year." Which is stating that the Criterion Channel would not be available until 11/11.

Similarly, USA Today says, "Criterion films will be available when FilmStruck launches, but on Nov. 11 -- when the service becomes the exclusive home of the The Criterion -- the Collection Channel goes live. The channel will include live events and thematic retrospectives, too."

High-Def Digest agrees, "And beyond the standard FilmStruck library, starting November 11 subscribers will also be able to sign up for the Criterion Channel -- a premium add-on service that will be dedicated to the Criterion Collection with access to the company's entire streaming library of films and special features."

Maybe these articles are all wrong. I don't know. But you can't say that for sure from anything the Filmstruck people have said directly, which is all using the vague "becomes the exclusive home" verbiage. (Except for their Twitter feed, which implied Criterion Channel on day one, but hashtags are kinda ambiguous, too.)

If this was really nailed down, I don't think you'd have seen so much confusion about it.

[Andrew_VB]

huh, that is weird and at odds with filmstruck's own statements. but yeah, guess we'll never know now.

[mfunk9786]

Hey guys, here's some hot new info on Filmstruck