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IMDb Launches Ad-Supported Movie Streaming Service (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: IMDb is known as the place to go to look up details for any film under the sun, and now it's entering the streaming video arena. The company has launched Freedive, a free streaming platform that's supported by periodic ad breaks. The service's films and TV shows are available to registered IMDb or Amazon users and Amazon Fire TV owners. (The list of compatible devices is the same as the list for Prime Video.) Fire owners can navigate the service by way of a new icon in the "Your Apps & Channels" section or by telling their Amazon smart device, "Alexa, go to Freedive." The site says it will continually add new offerings to the site. The site will also indicate on a film's page if it's available on Freedive.
Title currently is "MDb Launches Ad-Supported Movie Streaming Movie"
They put streaming in your streaming!! Incredible.
"His name was James Damore."
Yet Another Streaming Service! :)
IMDb Freedive is only available to customers in the U.S. at this time.
WOW that's useful for most of /. readers :P
"IMDb Freedive is only available to customers in the U.S. at this time."
I don't see any mention on the website as to when it may be available outside of the US.
Also, it doesn't support chromecast or apple tv, so that'll make it useless to a lot of people. Chances are most of them won't want an Amazon stick. Yes you can cast the screen of your phone to the TV, but that never works out well.
Before the current FAANG mega-corp parasites sunk their collective tendrils into the world wide web, the internet served as a wondrous gateway into fresh and novel place. Hobby site linked to special interest site, linked to that unique repository of esoterica only yourself and a few hundred other weirdos like yourself even knew existed much less hung out on forming a tight nit community of like minds.
Then the dot com boom happened and the incipience of corporate controlled dystopia was born. Slowly they grew from an online book store and a simple search box to the behemoths we are saddled with today. Of course you could opt in for a while then as their power and their "like" buttons and "+1" buttons spread, their gaze increased in purview from your search history and the missives you sent to your friends to today where literally everything you say and do is tracked, tied to your real world identity, just sitting in a database waiting to be weaponized for whatever nefarious scheme the net giants can dream.
You cannot opt out as they are everywhere. Yeah, sure, some intrepid fools^H^H^H^H souls with too much time on their hand can make a valiant effort to escape the botnet but with shadow profiles, collusion with ISP's and even governments in some cases, there is no practical escape and be able to use anything resembling a world wide information network.
So what have we done? We've leaned in even harder bringing the botnet into meat space with Uber, Shipt, Byrd, and their ilk under the moniker "sharing economy". I'm not arguing that these services don't have value, merely suggesting we see the big picture and ask "at what cost"
People, Slashdot, that once great bastion of hell raising bathing geeks in its glowing green light since 1996, you, each and every one of you can be part of the solution. Hacker News as a space for honest discussion is long lost to the shills and mega corp employees. They are arrogantly proud of their ignorant echo chamber. But this sight, still one of the best independent communities on the net is still a beacon of hope. No more centralized trash!
You want to stream movies and not line the pockets of yet another group of sillycon valley elites? Easy, use the beast against itself. Fire up your script blockers, you ad blocker, your cookie blockers, turn off your javascript and point your browser to the heart of the beast.
http://www.google.com/
In the box, type these word:
intitle:"index of" star wars
If the rotting reanimated corpse of Lucas' bastardized creations turns your stomach, just replace the last two words with a phrase of your choice. HIt the enter key and the revolution begins.
We take back the internet.
Works on Firefox on Linux Mint, only I let Firefox enable DRM.
I've got Momento playing now.
Frankly, I don't see why it took so long for this to be a thing. It's basically like viewing a movie on TV except the ads are more targeted.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
this will live or die depending on how many ad interuptions there are and how they will be.
it looks that, for now at least, it's mostly older movies that have been made available. i quickly scrolled through the recommended lists, and there were no movies that i hadn't seen before, nothing recent from the last 5 years (or more).
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Available only for US citizens (to be precise to US IP addresses). A full list of movies/series is here: https://www.imdb.com/freedive/
Lastly, IMDB is an Amazon company.
It's only available in 1 country that has just 4% of the world's population.
Wake me up when something newsworthy happens.
Frankly, I don't see why it took so long for this to be a thing. It's basically like viewing a movie on TV except the ads are more targeted.
I'm confused. Are you somehow implying that is a good thing? Personally I prefer to watch movies without any ads at all much less targeted ones that still somehow manage to have no relevance to me.
this will live or die depending on how many ad interuptions there are and how they will be.
If the number is greater than zero it is dead to me already.
it looks that, for now at least, it's mostly older movies that have been made available. i quickly scrolled through the recommended lists, and there were no movies that i hadn't seen before, nothing recent from the last 5 years (or more).
In other words, it's yet another shitty catalog of old movies that nobody really cares about anymore. How bored does one have to be to find something like that to be a worthwhile use of your time?
Not sure everyone knows that, but they have owned IMDb for many many moons.
Ever since IMDB dumped down the drain all the accumulated invaluable information about old/obscure/non-Holywood movies you could find on their forums I stopped visiting/using them.
Most of the other information can be now looked up on Wikipedia and other sources.
Region-restricted ad-infested streaming? Meh...
At least EU condemns geo-blocking:
https://www.consilium.europa.e...
When you hit IMDB, and you have a web blocker, it becomes quite apparent there is a lot of shit from Amazon in there.
If I block that (which I do for all Amazon shit), the site more or less becomes useless.
So, let's be truthful here ... Amazon is adding ad supported videos on IMDB.
I almost don't use IMDB any more.
They don't have Jim-bob hacking an old rusty crane in the middle of shit face nowhere. I like those videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Someone Launches Video Streaming
Of course they are.
It'll be real news when the fragmentation is so fucked that they're losing money chasing increasingly divided slices of the pie.
I watched one movie the first time.. adverts every 20-30 min.. the same ones with little variation. But the interval wasn't bad. Today I tried again.. every 10 minutes. The same adverts.. come on? Seriously, do you think your audience is mindless? It became incredibly annoying to have to stop every ten minutes, not even network TV used to do that (I don't think, I have to remember way back) unless it's football. I've uninstalled it. Whichever bean counter thought he could shorten the interval to make a client happy, well I hope it flushes down the drain for ya!
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?