Watch TV from the 90s and earlier

I always did think that streaming services need to revive their format and bypass menu choice fatigue by letting you create "channels" by picking from shows/genres you like and then set you loose to channel surf.

I like plutotv for this purpose. Feels pretty close.

I both like and am afraid of a system where you can just continuously flip to the next show or tv series, browsing by clip until you find something interesting and choose to roll back to the beginning of the episode. Netflix almost does this but it's not seamless enough due to the menu still being there and the variety of shows still being curated.

If you manage a decent sized video library at home, there are some options for self hosting an IPTV service that can then be accessed through Plex or etc.

You can set channel weighting distributions, add watermarks, schedules, practically anything that you’d want,

I think that's basically what TikTok got right. It's providing that experience in short form.

But similarly, Amazon has never properly captured the experience of simply browsing the curated shelves of a bookstore or library. I don't think any online service has.

I mean why can’t I shuffle the episodes of a show I’ve watched a hundred times? Why can’t I make a “playlist” of shows to share with friends? I really thought during COVID they’d finally implement stuff like that but nope

Whatever goal streaming services have in designing their interfaces, it cannot be ease of finding content.

Netflix, for example, basically just pushes the same 10-20 movies and series at you under different headings.

At one time you could browse by categories like "classic TV" but those seem to be long gone.

And the craziest thing is that every single new network or studio entrant just copies the same old format set up Netflix/Hulu ages ago, instead of trying to introduce any sort of innovation. Understandably, it's a tried and true standard but they could always introduce alternate modes for that sort of interactive viewing. Who knows, maybe they could drive greater engagement that way.

Still slower than OTA TV was, but about as slow as the last satellite box I ever owned so fair enough.

It’s to my understanding that YouTube has been developing something in this vein; that’s currently being discussed with creators, to get them to select videos to be involved in the trials.

Yeah, and studios will start making movies with original IP, and we'll get music that isn't top 40s rehashes.

Netflix tried something like that once… I used to have “watch something random” button.

I think it always played me Friends episodes for some reason.

You'd expect lack of innovation from studios, but then why are Netflix or Amazon or Apple or Google acting so risk-adverse? Why aren't they trying anything new with the medium of streaming?

Peacock has “Channels” which I appreciate.

Except the channel is usually a single TV series with the channel looping through all seasons/episodes.

Great for creating background noise from reruns of shows you’ve already watched.

Google TV on Chromecast does that, kind of. I have a list of favorite free channels that I sometimes shuffle between. The channels themselves come from Plex, Pluto, freeve and Google TV itself.

What options are these? I wouldn't ask but I've been googling for a few weeks to no avail. I keep finding options to set up IPTV from a broadcast source but not from files.

Yeah it’s definitely very clear that they are outright hostile to user-determination. Seems like they have proven in testing that they can best maximize watch hours (or perhaps renewable) ONLY when the algorithm heavily influences what you watch (and by maximizing the number of exclusive series you start?), so it seems like they hide anything you’re already watching and push all their series at once.

Dizquetv is the one and only that I’ve tried so far to be honest, but it just worked exactly how I was hoping right from the start.

https://github.com/vexorian/dizquetv

Linus talked about this recently on a LTT video. it sounds like they get to make a list of previous videos that air onto a 24-hour TV-like live broadcast. Not many details it sounded like and I'm not sure if you set the order or if YouTube decides. You can see the LTT one on the Live tab if you go to their page.

There's no innovation in streaming because there's no competition in streaming. There's no competition in streaming because the business model is about hoarding IP and tying it to the service that will provide the most money. The actual streaming service itself is ancillary.

If you want to see innovation in streaming you need the sort of legislation that prevents that tying. If every show was available on every streaming platform, then they would start to compete on offering the best streaming service and you'd start to see innovation. Right now, there's just no incentive.

They tried with Quibi, didn't they? /s