Technical Issues Continue to Affect Sling TV

To some Sling TV subscribers, streaming the April 12 premiere of “Game of Thrones” via Roku was an exercise in frustration. Not unlike the men’s college basketball Final Four April 6 when technical snafus undermined streaming Duke vs. Michigan State and Wisconsin vs. Kentucky.

Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch again took to social media, first giving a shout out to the IT department for delivering a “great experience” to the “vast majority of our customers.” He also acknowledged ongoing technical issues.

“We heard of (and experienced for ourselves) some Roku devices taking too long to load our app. Our teams are actively addressing this issue,” Lynch said.

The executive said improvements were made to a variety of core systems — from account creation to service delivery. Sling also enhanced its app across all platforms, which helped in load management and delivered new features, like parental controls, according to Lynch.

None of that mattered to me the morning of April 13 when a frozen TV screen image of Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio on CNN confirmed all was not well between Sling TV and Roku.

A Sling rep reaffirmed the Roku issues, which prompted a call to the latter’s customer service and the following voice message: “You’re estimated wait time is less than 20 minutes. We apologize for the delay.”

Luckily, in half that time I was connected to a technical rep located in India. She told me to unplug and plug-in (after 30 seconds) my Netgear wireless router. Then I was prompted to reload the Sling TV app. The technical issues continued.

I was put back on hold with Muzak. When the rep returned, she told me to push the home button on the Roku remote five times, followed by the rewind key three times and fast-forward button twice. That brought me to a screen allowing me to override the default streaming speed.

Following the prompts back to the home page, I clicked on the Sling TV link and back to CNN. The tech rep said she would wait to make sure the streams worked. They did long enough to be informed my case file would be kept open for future reference.

I was also told that my 90 days of free customer service had expired. Should I call technical support again, I would be charged a $9.99 fee.

A few minutes later my TV screen froze again. I switched to Pandora without any issues. I think I’ll watch a DVD next.

 

 

New on Disc: 'The Thin Blue Line' and more …

The Thin Blue Line

Criterion, Documentary, $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR.
1988. The prodigious list of amazing things about Errol Morris’ landmark miscarried-justice buster includes the fact that it got made in the first place, looking into the case of an Ohio drifter apparently railroaded for the murder of a Dallas cop that a teenaged walking rap sheet had almost certainly committed. About a year after Blue Line’s release, the state of Texas dropped charges against Randall Dale Adams and released him. The print here is one of renewed luster, and this is its own reward because it’s been said that the documentary had fallen into sad shape.
Extras: As we see and hear Morris himself quote his wife as having noted during the essential 40-minute interview featurette that Criterion has included with its Blue Line package, entire cable stations are now devoted to the kind of projects that he worked so exhaustingly to bankroll a quarter-century ago. Included in the extras is a “Today” show joint satellite interview with Morris in one studio and Adams plus lawyer in another. Blue Line was a true groundbreaker, something attested to with vigor on another bonus extra by filmmaker Josh Oppenheimer, whose The Act of Killing received its own huzzahs a couple years ago.
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The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry

Olive, Drama, $24.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars George Sanders, Ella Raines, Geraldine Fitzgerald.
1945. Given the censorship strictures of the time, Harry’s compelling narrative does paint itself into such a corner that it’s no surprise that five different endings got market-tested before Universal settled on the notorious end result. Which is: probably the worst wrap-up ever for a movie that is still basically a winner up until the final three or four minutes.
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Preorders Take Throne at Target

In a slow week for new releases, Target emphasized home video preorders of several titles currently in theaters. In fact, the week's new releases were so low key that some Target stores didn't even bother to put them on shelves.

The highest-profile new release was Lionsgate's A Most Violent Year, which did manage a mention in Target's weekly ad circular. However, the title that seemed to get the most push was a limited-edition re-release of the first season of "Game of Thrones," timed in the week leading up to the premiere of the fifth season on HBO. The major difference with the "Thrones" release seems to be that it comes in slimmer, more conventional packagine for a lower price.

The preorders Target plugged in its weekly ad circular were Furious 7, Fifty Shades of Grey and Insurgent. The chain offered a $5 gift card and delivery by mail of the final produce with advanced orders placed at Target.com/preorder.

Best Buy did list a slate of new releases in its ad circular, but devoted most of its space to clearing out older titles. The chain touted free shipping on orders $35 and up. It should be noted that in the past few weeks, Best Buy altered its promotions strategy, and usually lists just the Blu-ray price for a new title with a note stating "Other format available," or not even offering the DVD version in stores at all.

Is Sling TV Ready for Primetime?

As Wisconsin and Duke April 6 met to decide college basketball’s No. 1 men’s team, the Final Four competition April 4 featuring Duke vs. Michigan State and Kentucky vs. Wisconsin proved to be a bit of a streaming challenge on Sling TV.

As a subscriber to Sling, Dish Network’s upstart over-the top video service, I relished the chance to watch online as TNT and TBS streamed most of the 64 games of March Madness.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone. The live video streams were repeatedly compromised by buffering, pauses, pixilation and aggravating “error” messages.

The experience underscored OTT video’s Achilles heel, namely that the technology is not yet prepared to handle excessive demand for programming — unlike traditional linear TV. 

While the Duke/Michigan State contest wasn’t really in doubt, Wisconsin playing down to the wire and beating undefeated Kentucky was a different story. And Sling wasn’t prepared.

“We're sorry some basketball fans saw errors tonight due to extreme sign-ups and streaming. Engineers rebalanced load across network partners,” Sling tweeted April 4.

To be fair, HBO Go experienced similar technology glitches during the March 9, 2014, finale of dark thriller “True Detective.”

And it wasn’t the first time I’d experienced problems with Sling — the first OTT service to offer ESPN and HBO without mandatory pay-TV subscriptions. On several occasions, the TV screen has gone blank with Sling posting the “error” message, or my favorite: “Oops, we’re working on it.”

A call to Sling’s tech support resolved the issue by having me delete and reinstall the Sling app on my Roku device. But even that remedy didn’t work Saturday night as Wisconsin pulled off one of the greatest upsets in NCAA history -- key moments of which I missed.

To ensure no repeat during Duke's impressive comeback win against the Badgers and fifth NCAA championship, I watched Monday night's game at a friend's house -- on linear TV.

 

 

New on Disc: 'Ride the Pink Horse' and more …

Ride the Pink Horse

Criterion, Mystery, $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix, Thomas Gomez, Fred Clark.
1947. An oddly beguiling genre scrambler that goes against a slew of grains, this cultist cause seems to have been worthily undertaken by Criterion (even more than most of their selections) to make it more widely known to the general public.
Extras: Criterion extras include an essay, commentary by ubiquitous noir pros Alain Silver and James Ursini; an interview with Imogen Sara Smith (author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City); and a Lux Radio Theatre spinoff.
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Our Mother’s House

Available via Warner Archive
Warner, Drama, $21.99 DVD, NR.
Stars Dirk Bogarde, Pamela Franklin.
1967. The boozy Brit womanizer top-billed Dirk Bogarde plays here is a textbook definition of a fun-to-watch wastrel, but by the time he shows up almost 40 minutes in to add some welcome buzz to the drama, we’ve already been treated to a compelling-enough setup involving seven siblings forced to take their lives into their own hands.
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Talent in Charge?

A group of top recording artists, led by rapper Jay Z, wants to make streaming pay talent more. They’ve launched a new music streaming service — Tidal — designed to offer artists better pay for their work.

The service starts at $10 monthly and is designed to take on the likes of Spotify and Pandora by offering better-quality audio and better remuneration for artists. Such luminaries as Beyonce, Kanye West and Madonna were on hand for the announcement.

This isn’t the first time a big-name music star has called out cheap (or free) streaming services for underpaying artists. Singer Taylor Swift, fresh off the launch of her blockbuster album 1989, pulled her catalog from subscription streaming service Spotify, saying artists and their labels aren’t paid enough for the many times listeners stream their songs on the free version of the service.

“Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is,” she wrote in a column in The Wall Street Journal.

It seems Tidal may be one step in that direction, as far as artists are concerned. Artist Alicia Keys, at the press conference in New York, said Tidal will “preserve the value of music,” according to the Los Angeles Times, and will offer exclusive content not found anywhere else. Sound familiar? Tidal has no free service; it’s $9.99 monthly for basic service, with standard streaming of music and high-definition music videos, and $19.99 monthly for CD-quality streaming, HD videos and access to original content.

But in the Internet realm, who really is in charge? Is it the content producers or the technology companies that deliver content? It’s a question that has not only plagued the music business, but also the entertainment business at large.

Will Tidal’s quality streaming, offering better compensation to talent, convince consumers to pay more (or, really, pay anything at all)? That’s an open question. I, for one, hope it will, and probably so do the many movie and TV show producers out there that find they don’t get enough of the bounty from the Internet revolution. But it’s not the top stars that are really in danger. It’s the upcoming talent that is taking the biggest long-term hit for low-cost streaming. I hope Tidal finds a way to include them, too.

Smartphone Viewing

A byproduct of the growing popularity of OTT is that consumers are judging their wireless carriers not by how cheap the service is, but by how smooth the streaming experience is.

I found that little pearl of information in a recent Ciena-sponsored study conducted by ACG Research, which predicts average bandwidth consumption per mobile user is expected to go up 52% over the next three years.

That sharp uptick in consumption is being fueled both by increasing smartphone penetration, which ACG believes will rise from 55% by 67% by 2018, as well as the growing trend among consumers to watch filmed content over their phones. ACG believes OTT use on smartphones will account for 59% of the predicted bandwidth consumption increase.

At first I questioned the validity of the study, picturing my almost nightly routine these past two months of watching a “Game of Thrones” episode, on Blu-ray, in my family room, on my trusty Panasonic plasma.

But then I caught myself watching a YouTube video during a particularly long red light, and even a half hour episode of a silly old 1960s sitcom while waiting at the doctor’s office for my annual physical.

And I figured if a home theater purist like me would stoop to watching stuff on a tiny smartphone screen simply because it is so cheap and so easy, then this truly must be the wave of the future. Just like home video flourished in the first place because we didn’t want to be tied down by the networks telling us what we can watch, and at what time, OTT and smartphones, together, have unleashed us from every conceivable restraint. And as more, and better, programming becomes available with the proliferation of OTT, so will our freedom increase.

The challenge for carriers, of course, will be to increase bandwidth accordingly. According to the ACG study, supporting backhaul capacity requirements will exceed 1 Gbps by 2018, “and this will be further intensified by the latest wireless standards such as LTE-Advanced and the introduction of more small cells, which are expected to deliver faster wireless services with broader coverage to users. Service providers need to take steps to deploy a mobile backhaul solution that supports 10 Gbps to meet this projected bandwidth and ensure quality of experience.”

As ACG research analyst Michael Kennedy noted in the Ciena press release, “Now more than ever, the quality of experience for the latest OTT applications is paramount and a key driver of customer loyalty. In three short years, these networks must offer broader coverage and handle more people using more applications on more devices at the same time. As a result, the backhaul infrastructure must transform to enable a more dynamic experience."

 

Retailers Blast Off With 'Interstellar' Exclusives

The only March 31 release with any notable exclusive promotion at the major retail chains was Paramount’s Interstellar.

Walmart offered a special gift set of the Christopher Nolan-directed sci-fi film, containing special packaging and a 48-page booklet.
Target offered exclusive steelbook packaging, while Best Buy offered exclusive bonus content — a half-hour panel discussion with Nolan and the cast.

New Blu-ray copies of the film at all locations included a special collectible Imax film cel containing a scene from the film.

New on Disc: 'The Band Wagon' and more …

The Band Wagon (Blu-ray)

Warner, Musical, $19.98 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Jack Buchanan, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray.
1953. In a kind of daring move roughly around the two-thirds mark, story considerations get scrapped almost altogether, and Wagon turns into a dazzling rat-tat-tat revue with one socko Howard Dietz-Arthur Schwartz musical number after another.
Extras: Liza Minnelli and Michael Feinstein join forces in a bonus commentary carried over from the 2005 DVD.
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Alice’s Restaurant

Olive, Comedy, $24.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, ‘R.’
Stars Arlo Guthrie, Pat Quinn, James Broderick, Pete Seeger.
1969. Here’s the only Arthur Penn achievement beyond Bonnie and Clyde and The Miracle Worker to be honored with a Best Diretor Oscar nomination, a wistful hippie concoction that was and is superior to the same year’s Easy Rider. Sprung from lead Arlo Guthrie’s same-titled 18½-minute folky monologue tune that became one of the counter-culture staples of the era, Alice’s Restaurant the movie is more factually embellished than the recording, though a lot of its still ticklishly broad comedy would disqualify it as realism under any circumstances.
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'Battle' for Blu-ray Shoppers

The quest to attract buyers for Warner’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and other new releases March 24 led to a fervor of retailers rallying the troops in the form of several exclusive promotions.

Target offered an edition of the 2D Blu-ray combo pack of the concluding chapter of the “Hobbit” trilogy with pack-in Lego figures of Bard and Bain.

Best Buy offered steelbook packaging for both the Battle of the Five Armies Blu-ray and The Hobbit: The Motion Picture Trilogy Blu-ray boxed set.

Walmart offered a single-disc DVD edition of Armies with special box art and almost none of the extras in the widely available two-DVD set. In fact, Walmart didn’t offer the two-DVD set, and sold its single-disc version at about the same price the other stores offered the two-DVD version. However, the DVDs weren’t tagged with a Walmart exclusive sticker, so shoppers who picked up the DVD at Walmart might not have realized there was a version available with substantial bonus features.

Walmart also offered a DVD gift pack of Universal’s Monster High: Haunted, with a Scaremester Collection DVD containing 18 episodes.

In addition, Walmart has a $24.96 preorder for Anchor Bay’s Paddington Blu-ray with an in-store box containing a plush bear and the ability to stream the movie via Vudu.com 10 days before the April 28 street date. The film will be widely available on Digital HD April 17.

For Universal’s Unbroken, Walmart offered a version of the Blu-ray containing a booklet and 30 minutes of exclusive bonus features viewable through Vudu.

Of course, Universal made available a “Legacy of Faith” DVD special edition of Unbroken exclusively through faith-based outlets Family Christian Bookstores, Mardel Christian Bookstores and ChristianBook.com, with a bonus DVD containing an additional 90 minutes of interviews.

Target offered the Unbroken Blu-ray with a collectible bookmark, while Best Buy had a steelbook version of Unbroken as well.

In anticipation of Universal’s Furious 7 in theaters, Target offered a $10 discount off any “Fast & Furious” Blu-ray ($8 each) and a remote-control car toy ($22.99) based on the franchise. The Blu-rays contain a $7.50 coupon to see the new movie, which hits theaters April 3.

Target also had in-store signage touting an additional 10% off new DVDs and Blu-rays via its Cartwheel coupon app.