People who subscribe to NOW TV in the UK… I’m so sorry you’ve put yourself through this.
Seriously, this is exactly the sort of streaming service I’d imagine to be run by Sky - overpriced (£20) just to get 720p and Ads, you need to pay even more (£5) to get mere 1080p and remove Ads. £25 a month for what I’d consider the bare minimum. If you don’t want movies, it’s £15.
Unfortunately it’s the platform that US shows without equivalent streaming networks in the UK seem to get funnelled onto - your Peacock, HBO, Starz etc.
If they’d just drop the money grubbing £5 premium to remove ads, it’d probably be a decent option (although not streaming 4K in 2023 is ridiculous).
@theronster I might be imagining it, but I think my PiHole is blocking the ads. The PiHole can’t increase the Ps beyond 720 though.
@theronster likewise have All4 ads blocked, but not ITVX. I did have the ITVX ads blocked at one point but they changed something (probably what you said).
Blocking ads on All4 was “the most useful thing you’ve ever done with your life” according to my wife.
@mo I actually have a YouTube Premium account, but I wonder would it be possible to block those ads with the PiHole. I’ll try someday.
@theronster I’ve also got YouTube premium, but all my research to date has shown that it’s fruitless. Everything suggests that the ads and content is cohosted.
I went family plan for YT Premium, just tk make sure the kids don’t see the ads on their own accounts.
@mo Never thought about that - do they actually show ads to children?
@theronster well, my children are “adults” as far as YT is concerned. The YT kids stuff is too restrictive in general. It was easier to create them accounts with older birthdates.
@theronster you might have noticed it too, but the NowTV app for AppleTV is so shit that sometimes it stops responding to the pause button on the AppleTV remote.
@mo I refuse to use the thing. It’s so user and market hostile I’ll just pirate the shows on there. If they fixed the UI and the gouging price model I’d absolutely pay - there’s tons of stuff on it I’d happily watch.
@theronster pirating works for me, but not for the rest of the family.
@mo You mean they can’t get what they want to see?
@theronster no it means they don’t know or care how to do it. They’re not worried about 720p or ads.
@theronster I know this is going to sound weird but I’ve found that not everyone is like you and me. They’ll put up with sub quality trash without doing anything about it.
@mo Fair enough. I can’t abide an ad-break, never could. Even as a youngster I’d just get up and leave the room, I found the interruption to what I was paying attention to so disruptive. Probably points to some mental disorder.
@theronster I am right there with you. I also can’t listen to radio. I don’t want to hear inane shite from DJs, or songs that I would not personally have chosen.
I don’t particularly like listening to individual songs either. Sometimes I’ll listen to a curated playlist, but usually it has to be albums.
@mo Haha I’m the same with radio. Can’t abide it.
I have delved into the world of the curated playlist, but I’m very skip-happy.
@mo @theronster I pay the £3.99 a month to All4.
@mo @theronster And the only thing I watch is Grand Designs. So I’m basically paying £3.99 for that 😊
@ianRobinson @theronster yeah, paying the money is an option. 🙂
@mo I successfully managed to block ads on All4, rendering the paid for service moot, but similar attempts with ITVX caused the app to not work at all (I suspect the content and ads live on the same server, which would make ad-blocking nigh on impossible sadly).