Anyone have FilmStruck ?

This is lousy news. Yet another reminder that it pays to own a copy of anything slightly outside the mainstream whether it's music, movies or books.

 

Terrible news.

 

Yup. That's why music/movie streaming to me, is purely for convenience. I still buy CDs, vinyl, Blu Rays, Criterion, etc. I'm sure that's true of most on this site.

Kind of sucks they're gone though. I waited a long time for them to deliver via PS4, but it never came. So I finally bit the bullet, bought an Amazon stick and signed up. I'm about 3 months into this subscription (luckily I did monthly) and there it goes. Oh well, nothing is ever certain but change I suppose. Great idea while it lasted.

 

I can't believe they're shutting down. Was finally going to subscribe over the next couple weeks. Man, I'm bummed.

 

News About FilmStruck

 

"
News About FilmStruck
We have some sad news to share: earlier this morning, Turner and Warner Bros. Digital Networks announced plans to shut down FilmStruck, the streaming service that has been our happy home for the last two years. Like many of you, we are disappointed by this decision. When we launched the Criterion Channel in 2016, we had two goals: to ensure that our entire streaming library remained available, and to address our audience in our own voice. We’re proud of the work we’ve done, bringing curated programming and the full range of supplemental features to the streaming space, championing a diverse array of filmmakers from beyond our collection and creating original content that invites you into exciting conversations about cinema culture.

All this is very new, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated as we learn more details. But rest assured that we are still committed to restoring and preserving the best of world cinema and bringing it to you in any medium we can. In the weeks ahead, we’ll keep you informed about the great programming you can watch on the Channel before it shuts down on November 29, and we’ll be trying to find ways we can bring our library and original content back to the digital space as soon as possible. Thanks to everyone who enjoyed FilmStruck, and we hope you’ll join us as we look forward to what the future brings...."

 

Too bad - that looked interesting. All the more reason to keep buying those weird DVD's though.

 

Great site for content, lousy site for operation

 

The software could be quite buggy, particularly on Roku. It's why I only intermittently subscribed.

But as a curated collection of films from all over the world new and old, it was second to none. Sad to see it go.

 

Awful news. I have Netflix, Prime, Hulu, HBO and Sling as well and none of those come close to the content they offered. Content I love. The offbeat, artistic, classic and at time just ****ed up. Where else am I going to get all these? Please Hulu, get Criterion back.

I bought a new Roku specifically to get the stream working right. And it did. No more buffer issues.

Wonder how much of the 140 plus in my watchlist Ill be able to get to before the lights go out?

 

Are you effin' kidding me. It was only because I ren across this very thread today, that I finally decided to visit the site, and see what it was costing these days. Boggles the mind.

Gotta take my mind off of this...maybe I'll go see what Audio Fidelity's remastering these days - which reminds me, I was gonna finally pull the trigger on that Oppo 205, after I got my second pair of Boston Acoustics speakers...

 

It was a shame they were trying to do it on their own, when it was obvious they didn't have the development resources to make it work. Maybe they can bring it back as an add-on inside of Amazon Prime. Their movies coupled with Amazon's programming and streaming resources would be unbeatable.

 

That's too bad. We have it and I was able to check out many Samourai movies and German Sci-fi films like World On A Wire.

 

You can put the blame squarely on AT&T for this development. It's exactly the sort of thing critics warned about prior to the approval of their acquisition of Time Warner.

AT&T cares about nothing but profits, and they don't apologize for it. Check out the speech the CEO recently gave to the staff at HBO.

Next up will be adding commercials to Turner Classic Movies.

 

My counter argument (as a former FilmStruck subscriber and huge Criterion fan) is that Filmstruck was a prettty bad product, especially for Criterion fans. The move to the platform was clearly a play by Janus to get more money for their library, but the streaming quality was never as good as Hulu, let alone Netlflix, and the price was nearly as high. I always saw it as a silly move as as the physical Criterion releases put a huge emphasis on quality, and the digital platform had huge compression issues, and poorly stocked transfers.

Far before huge IP brands like Disney talked about making a private streaming service Janus and TCM pushed away from the major services and helped raise the monthly cost for entertainment for many of their consumers. I’m all for competition, but to me this is not competition in the movie streaming sector. Unlike music, where Apple, Spotify, Tidal and Amazon largely have the same library with features being their differentiator, video streaming has become increasingly fragmented. I hate to say it, but as a consumer, I hope the failure of the FilmStruck experiment is a lesson to studios who think their IP is really worth $10 a month on top of every other service the average consumer pays for.

As for where Criterion goes next, I would hope they return to a major service to expose the masses to their content or work to create a truly top-tier product. FilmStruck got better but it was still far, far away from the experience of their physical output.

 

Fair points. Amazon could pick up Filmstruck's catalog with the change in Jeff Bezos' couch cushions, and offer it as a $5 per month add-on to Prime.

 

Or preferably $0 like it was with Hulu. I hope this outcome of this ise spending less money haha.

 

Or included it for free with the amazon prime service to gain more prime members.

 

More free stuff would be nice, but Filmstruck with Amazon Prime ease of use and reliably would be worth something.

 

SAD!

If FilmStruck Can’t Survive, Who Can?

The Death of FilmStruck Is a Dark Day in the History of Movies
This is a slow erosion of cultural heritage under the guise of infinite availability.

 

Interesting read, although I ultimately disagree with the conclusion

The silver lining is a lot of the core Janus catalog is widely available on Kanopy, a free platform for participating universities and public libraries. To me this is much more of a public service and cultural archive than any streaming service can claim to be, and I would love to see more added to the catalog. I think because of the absurd length of US copyright some people start to form Stockholm syndrome with IP holders that causes them to think $10 a month services to watch films from the 30s and 40s is serving the public good. IMO ethically those films should belong to the people at this point, but I digress...

I am sad a service like this can’t suceed, but I think it’s a mischaracterization to paint FilmStruck as anything other than an arm of a Hollywood studio. I also think it’s unfair to real independent services like MUBI and Fandor that are dedicated to quality content and human curation, to portray FilmStruck as an “anti” Netflix. After all, the reason the major services like Netflix and Hulu are cultural wastelands is because of ventures like FilmStruck and whatever Disney’s cooking up steadily pulling content away, while those platforms try to figure out how to make it finance their own stuff to fill the void.

 

I'm disappointed. I was actually planning to sign up for a year in December as a Christmas present to myself.

 

I'm bummed over this as well...i too was going to sign up as a 59th bday present for myself.
Plus, I'm getting a new TV in the next month or so, and Filmstruck would have been a greast way to break it in.

Sigh.......the times we live in...no entertainment biz is stable.

 

Maybe they'll hook back up with Hulu

 

I found out they were closing down on the very day I went to research signing up!!