HBO No Go

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/08/hbo-no-go.html

by cwan • 14 years ago

181 96 14 years ago

avc.com

falicon• 14 years ago

It's got the button, but not the feature. Gotta love it! ;-)

jonknee2• 14 years ago

No, it has the button to play audio through Air Play. It's a different icon for video.

sudonim2• 14 years ago

Roku has the HBO Go app on it, but will probably fail you too.

Subscribers log in to HBO Go with their username and password from their cable subscription, not something they get from HBO.

Time Warner Cable blocks using the Roku with HBO Go. When you try to authenticate the device, they slap you on the wrist and say no.

You can however, airplay from the HBO website in Mountain Lion, but I find things get a little out of sync.

sabat• 14 years ago

Comcast isn't participating in this, so no HBO on Roku for Comcast subscribers.

koenigdavidmj• 14 years ago

So Comcast and Time Warner, quite possibly the two largest cable companies in the US, both ban Roku users from using HBO Go. Who can use it then?

ricardobeat5• 14 years ago

Why do american regulatory agencies put up with this crap? One provider shouldn't interfere with another (much less block it).

rhizome4• 14 years ago

The regulatory agencies are staffed almost entirely with people who used to work at the networks. They're in on it.

sudonim2• 14 years ago

Whoops - as of May 2012, TWC no longer blocks the Roku on HBO Go. Last time I tried was in April I think.

monatron• 14 years ago

I can imagine being a developer on this product would be insanity. They probably implemented the Airplay feature, showed it to their bosses and for whatever reason the higher-ups had their reasons for nixing the second screen... Then they thought -- Ok, so we can't do video but perhaps people would want to airplay the audio to their fancy pants audio setup in their homes, better than nothing, right? Wrong.

I hope the big media companies get their acts together. They only get to screw up a finite number of times before someone comes and blows them out of the water

ConstantineXVI• 14 years ago

AFAIK; AirPlay is essentially "free" with the standard video player in iOS. It takes more effort to remove it than put it in.

smackfu• 14 years ago

Well, I think it's a config switch, so it takes very little effort to add it or remove it.

jonknee2• 14 years ago

I don't think they use the standard video player though. It may have changed recently, but I noticed that the controls were jaggy on the Retina iPad. They might be doing some weird encoding of the video to prevent piracy and thus use a custom player designed to look the same.

freehunter• 14 years ago

I've actually done this before on my tablet. The speakers built in are pretty poor quality but my home speakers are nice, so I plugged in the headphone jack. I didn't want to bother moving the video from my tablet to my HTPC, but at least I got good sound.

BklynJay• 14 years ago

Not a week goes by where I don't hear from someone who wants to watch HBO GO on their Apple TV or output from their iPad to the tv. The idea that the consumer has the right to view their legally paid-content where they want and how they want is slowly but surely becoming a reality. It's just a matter of time before HBO caves. Frustrating in the interim though.

grabeh• 14 years ago

There may be alternative services which do not look to place any restrictions on where content can be viewed, which will place pressure on HBO, however, as long as a particular provider produces unique desirable content that they are comfortable monetising in specific ways, whatever restrictions that provider wants to place on viewing will remain. It may not make much sense in the example, but the idea still applies.

When you buy content from that provider, you agree to their terms and their methods of distribution. As such, there will never be a right to view content wherever you wish, unless the particular provider distributes in such a manner.

chris_wot• 14 years ago

By "alternative services" I assume you are referring to BitTorrent? :-)

twoodfin3• 14 years ago

Do you still get the video on the iPad? If so, this feature makes some sense. If you've got AirPlay speakers, they'd be a great substitute for the crummy built-in ones.

Clearly HBO is walking a fine line here: The cable companies that partially subsidize them in order to lure subscribers don't want you walking over to your (non-subscriber) friend's house and throwing "Game of Thrones" up on the big screen via Apple TV.

The whole "let me pay for it!" debate has been well-covered elsewhere: In short, HBO probably couldn't make a living charging individual subscribers for content, especially on a per-show basis. How could they produce new material without the guarantee of N-million monthly subscribers? And cable/fiber/satellite companies who help promote their service?

Argorak• 14 years ago

Airplay has an audible delay that is hard to compensate over 2 devices, so the feature makes no sense at all.

furyg3• 14 years ago

Maybe I don't understand what you're saying, but iOS corrects for the audio delay of AirPlay audio streaming.

I don't have an AppleTV, but I do have an AirPortExpress. Streaming video to iOS with audio on my home stereo works great, with the video on the device synced with the AirPlay audio.

tomjen32• 14 years ago

They can't sell it and they can't not sell it (the days where new people brought packages are over, giving how easy it is to download it). They are simply making great shows and acting irrational about the business.

danielweber• 14 years ago

the days where new people brought packages are over

You know HBO subscriptions are up, right?

SanjayUttam• 14 years ago

Regarding the À la carte / "let me pay for it"; keep in mind that historically HBO sells their content to cable companies - they don't have the support infrastructure to go "direct to consumers" at that scale yet (though I think there is some limited HBO GO support at present). Additionally, I'm not sure how thrilled their currently customers/cable companies would be about HBO going direct - essentially opening up a channel for getting content without the need for a cable subscription. I'm not at all saying it's a bad idea, but I think HBO is in the very early stages of flushing out the kinks...

angrydev• 14 years ago

How many people tried to stream stuff and thought that there was something wrong with their tv or ipad because only audio worked?

At the very least they should advise the user that they can only airplay the audio, but even still, it's not good.

brlewis• 14 years ago

The cable companies that partially subsidize them in order to lure subscribers don't want you walking over to your (non-subscriber) friend's house and throwing "Game of Thrones" up on the big screen via Apple TV.

I don't get that. I would think the cable companies would pay you to walk over to your (non-subscriber) friend's house and give a taste of what they could have anytime if they subscribed. Or are you talking about sharing your password so they could watch more shows after you leave?

fpgeek• 14 years ago

No one ever claimed that the cable companies were analyzing the costs and benefits of new features rationally.

w1ntermute4• 14 years ago

It's amazing what people will put up with. I built a media center PC running Windows 7 using a guide like this[0]. It was the best decision I made. I just torrent content on my desktop, access it over the network share on my HTPC, and everything's good to go.

You can get a 10' UI using XBMC if you want, and you can access the full versions of YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, (and HBO Go, I presume) etc. - no restrictions. No transcoding, no syncing - if it works on your PC, it works on an HTPC.

0: http://lifehacker.com/5936546/how-i-built-the-media-center-o...

ricardobeat5• 14 years ago

Yes, because downloading torrents + network share is just the same as streaming + airplay.

This guy already has a cable set top box plus an Apple TV that can stream from HBO and network sharing. Airplay is another matter, you can't mirror/stream from your mobile to your HTPC.

w1ntermute4• 14 years ago

> Yes, because downloading torrents + network share is just the same as streaming + airplay.

No, it's much better. It's free and completely automatic. Set up an RSS feed for your favorite shows and tell XBMC to monitor the download directories. It's a truly breathtaking experience.

> This guy already has a cable set top box plus an Apple TV that can stream from HBO and network sharing.

Compared to a full-blown HTPC, an Apple TV (or any other device without a full OS) is very limited in its functionality.

> you can't mirror/stream from your mobile to your HTPC.

Oh really? This article would beg to disagree: http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-mirror-your-ios-or-android-...

chucknelson• 14 years ago

I love how the first paragraph is basically "you can just pirate everything instead!" The second paragraph is a little more relevant.

w1ntermute4• 14 years ago

Actually, the main point of the first paragraph was that it is easy to build an HTPC, which can be used to avoid the incompatibilities that exist with virtually every non-PC device. The fact that it makes it downright simple to watch pirated content is just a nice side-effect.

The services mentioned in the second paragraph, such as YouTube and Hulu, often restrict access to certain content when accessed from non-PC devices. Using an HTPC solves these problems.

parfe• 14 years ago

I have a Galaxy S3. I bought an MHL -> HDMI adapter, hooked up to my tv and started up HBO Go for a test run. On Android they don't even bother with an audio only implementation. The app simply crashes.

Until this article I assumed the developer sucked. Now I'm not so sure the crashing is a bug.

MatthewPhillips4• 14 years ago

The iTunes screenshots don't show the AirPlay icon:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hbo-go/id429775439?mt=8

The conspiracy theorist in me wanted to believe they left audio in there just to advertise AirPlay support.

sofuture• 14 years ago

It's amazing that people are surprised at all when a combination of proprietary media-playback system don't work as desired.

No snark intended, I've just not ever had a good experience dealing with a single proprietary playback mechanism.

gizzlon• 14 years ago

Not even stand-alone players? My first one ever, a mid-range blue-ray player works fine. Other than that, I agree. Btw, the open source players (vlc, mplayer etc.) have been the best software players out there for the last decade.

rmc3• 14 years ago

Here here. This is exactly what 'Freedom 0' is.

eddieroger2• 14 years ago

Calling it broken is a relative statement. On a technical level, they had to do something to prevent mirroring from functioning as the article wants. So, they implement AirPlay, but audio only. But, I'd argue this works exactly as HBO wants it to, so it's not broken, it just doesn't do what you want it to.

HBO's business model isn't terribly friendly to watching their programming on a TV unless it comes via cable or one of their heavily licensed, and generally stationary, partner products. You are a lot less likely to take a Roku or Xbox to a friends' house to watch Game of Thrones, but you always have your iPhone. Of course you could have them over and this falls apart, but you could do that with their cable feed as well. They're trying to slow the bleeding since they can't stop it.

Domenic_S2• 14 years ago

> But, I'd argue this works exactly as HBO wants it to, so it's not broken, it just doesn't do what you want it to.

You're nitpicking. It's broken in the colloquial sense -- the app makes an implicit promise and then delivers only partway. That it was built to spec is immaterial; if the spec is "broken" (anti-user, antipattern, etc) it doesn't matter if you build exactly to spec... it's still broken.

eddieroger2• 14 years ago

No I'm not, and I think you are. Just because it doesn't do what you want doesn't make it broken. That's like buying a car, but being upset it can't drive distances with a flat tire. It's not supposed to do that, so other than a faulty tire, the car isn't broken. And the spec isn't either - they aren't being anti-user, because they don't have to release the app at all. I can come up with a dozen business cases for audio only (the iPad/iPhone speakers being mono only for one, being a crappy speaker for two), but they are interests to protect. This app is a compromise that you don't have to use, not meant to replace the television experience, but be an additional screen for occasional viewing.

ricardobeat5• 14 years ago

I'd say they are squeezing the wound, speeding up the bleeding.

brown9-2• 14 years ago

You are a lot less likely to take a Roku or Xbox to a friends' house to watch Game of Thrones, but you always have your iPhone

But if you have access to HBOGO as a HBO subscriber in the first place, you could just log in to the website on your friend's laptop (or Roku, or Xbox) and watch the same content that way.

jeffgreco• 14 years ago

Can you log into an unlimited number of Xbox Live accounts with one set of HBO Go credentials?

ricardobeat5• 14 years ago

Shouldn't the App Store approval process reject an app that does this? It must be violating some ux guideline.

Zelphyr• 14 years ago

Its tactics like this that are the reason I'm cutting the cord when my DirecTV contract is up in November. HBO has great content. Some of the best available in fact. But I refuse to give them a dime while they institute policies that actively diminish my viewing experience.

mortenjorck2• 14 years ago

This isn't just HBO Go, or even just third-party apps – first-party video playback on iOS will, depending on hidden flags from iTunes store purchases, arbitrarily disable video over AirPlay.

A friend and I found this out the hard way one afternoon when we decided to rent Ridley Scott's Alien, in anticipation of seeing Prometheus. He pulled up the store on his iPhone, found the movie, selected Rent: HD, and signed on to my wi-fi network, my Apple TV appearing on his iPhone without a hiccup. So far, pure Apple seamlessness – until he selected the AirPlay output. The audio played back over my speakers, but the video remained on the 3.5" screen.

Thinking resourcefully, I suggested he try AirPlay mirroring. This, at last, gave us the "fuck you, consumer" from the studio in explicit form: a message appeared on his phone saying the AirPlay display couldn't be trusted.

We both resolved never to use the iTunes store for movies again.

k2enemy• 14 years ago

The iTunes video store bs doesn't end with AirPlay. I bought a full season of a TV show through iTunes but can't watch it because the monitor connected to my Mac Pro isn't "trusted."

pwthornton2• 14 years ago

This isn't Apple's doing per se, but it sucks for consumers nonetheless. And people don't really care whose fault it really is. They just want it to work, and these silly restrictions put in place by old media companies are really making streaming video hard to love.

I was going to purchase the Jurassic Park trilogy on iTunes last week, but noticed that it is no longer available to purchase in HD. I have no idea why. Apple certainly would like to sell it to me in HD, but the movie studio must not really want to sell it that badly.

Maybe this is related to the blu-ray release. Who knows. Not my job to figure it out. So, I just won't buy it.

lukifer2• 14 years ago

Part of what (made|makes) Apple great is the willingness to say no to sub-standard solutions. I think they would be better off not selling content at all that doesn't live up to the standards of the ecosystem. Growing their content library more quickly doesn't help Apple or the content industry if it creates bad blood with purchasers.

rmc3• 14 years ago

Pirate it. You get a higher quality product.

jhenkens2• 14 years ago

This is why I don't get Hollywood and all of the cable providers. It isn't like pirating software, where it is usually an inferior product due to updates and the like. Instead, pirating video (movies and TV) is truly the best form of the product you can get. Music finally went the right way after a handful of years full of DRM - we can only hope the same will happen with video.

mortenjorck2• 14 years ago

Ironically, we just ended up not watching it that weekend, and as a consequence, we never ended up going out to see Prometheus while it was in theaters. Not out of spite or anything, just that watching the two movies in sequence had been our plan, and the plan had been broken. So the studio lost two sales resulting from a vain attempt to restrict one.

twoodfin3• 14 years ago

I understand your point that in an ideal world this would all be seamless, but why not just rent it from the Apple TV?

eridius• 14 years ago

I don't think that's a "disable AirPlay" bit. I think the HDCP protection between your AppleTV and your TV is broken. A lot of paid content will refuse to operate under those circumstances.

walterkim• 14 years ago

> a message appeared on his phone saying the AirPlay display couldn't be trusted

I got that when trying to mirror to my AppleTV when the TV wasn't set to the right input. Like eridius said, there is likely a problem with the HDCP protection being broken.

parasubvert• 14 years ago

It's funny you mentioned this, as I did the exact same thing. Except in my case, AirPlay worked flawlessly with Alien on my Apple TV.

I suspect the only difference is that I'm using the Canadian iTunes store. But I've also read in an Apple developer doc that all iTunes content is AirPlay enabled, that it cannot be opted out of.

I would highly recommend contacting iTunes customer service to get a refund on your rental, or at least some kind of confirmation.

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/

revscat• 14 years ago

OP seems like exactly the kind of customer that the cable industry would want to bend over backwards to make happy, not unnecessarily hamstring. He has all the devices and subscriptions he ostensibly needs, and appears to be a Good Cable Citizen. The fact that HBO feels it necessary to restrict him in this way smacks of hubris.

kingnothing• 14 years ago

Amazon Instant Video suffers from the same problem.

twoodfin3• 14 years ago

The difference with Amazon Instant Video is that it's trivial to find a plain-old TV-connected device that supports it. My year old Blu-ray player handles it just fine. It's not that different from NetFlix in that regard, except I suppose it's not available for Apple TV yet.

The only device designed to put HBO Go on your TV screen is, I believe, the XBox 360 when connected to particular cable networks.

js2• 14 years ago

The reason for this is that iOS allows an app to opt-out of video AirPlay, but not opt-out of AirPlay audio [1]. HBO has opted out of video AirPlay most likely to satisfy its cable provider partners who provide the vast majority of its income[2].

1. http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/AudioVi...

2. http://dcurt.is/hbo-forbes-journalism

fredwilson3• 14 years ago

aha. thanks for that explanation. makes total sense to me now. but they really shouldn't include the button if they haven't fully implemented the feature

mikeryan4• 14 years ago

This restriction likely comes from the studios which provide the content (these deals usually contain DRM restrictions on how the content can be distributed), not the cable operators.

MatthewPhillips4• 14 years ago

Likely comes from cable companies as well, they don't want you watching television except through their boxes (hence cableCARD never taking off).

pwthornton2• 14 years ago

I've written about the issues with HBO Go extensively. It's a terrible app that has a lot of promise, but it's really hampered by old-media ways of thinking about content distribution. The app is intended to be a second, third of fourth screen in your house, nothing more. That's not what the name implies, nor does that fit the reality of how many people consume content today.

You can't cache/download shows to use on the go, meaning that your streaming ability requires a connection and a good one at that: http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/14/game-of-thrones-loo...

Why is HBO Go not a to-go service? http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/10/why-is-hbo-go-not-a...

Here is a podcast discussing the issues with HBO Go: http://interchangeproject.org/2012/05/22/episode-38-to-go-or...

Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that HBO Go is a needless usability mess.

fredwilson3• 14 years ago

great stuff. i think as a standalone app, its is very well done. but as you say, the potential is so much greater and they have punted on almost all of that.

kin• 14 years ago

It's a streaming service, no streaming service offers to-go. Is there Netflix To-GO? No. But, I can connect to my hotel's wi-fi and stream their ENTIRE catalog of television shows. To me, that's even better than their TV experience on my STB.

jonaphin• 14 years ago

After many trials and tribulations (Apple TV + Airplay, Roku 2, PS3) the ONLY decent (read working) option was XBox 360 + XBox Live Gold + Comcast XFinity* + HBO Go App.

It does feel like I lost my soul signing packs with so many devils, but at long last, I have an HD HBO Go app running the way it ought to.

* Not all cable companies have a deal with HBO for HBO Go

fredwilson3• 14 years ago

wow. you really went through hell. respect!

rhizome4• 14 years ago

You are their ideal customer, and I wouldn't doubt that that network of requirements was mapped out in advance. "If all goes well, these X companies will get signups from HBO Go customers."

daveman• 14 years ago

It's particularly annoying that this prohibition is in place even though there are still other ways-- albeit less convenient ones-- to get the video streaming to your TV. For example, you can use a thunderbolt-to-hdmi connector (or VGA) from your laptop, and probably a 30pin-to-hdmi from your iPad (although I've never tried the latter).

So it's possible to still get the content to your TV, in a much less user-friendly (i.e. tethered) way. I know not everyone has these connectors, but since the ability is there, you'd hope they would just be gracious and allow for the better experience.

iopuy2• 14 years ago

Okay listen to this. HBO GO is only available to people with certian cable companies. I live in an apartment complex so i cannot changes who provides my cable. My younger sister has HBO GO app on xbox live and direct tv. I have knology, a non support cable provider while direct tv is. She gave me her direct tv credentials and i put them into mh 360 and it worked no problem, all it does is show a direct tv logo in the app itself.

MBCook• 14 years ago

Apartment complex exclusivity was re-affirmed as illegal a few years ago [1]. Of course if there is only one choice in the area, that's perfectly legal.

Does HBO Go work well on those device? I watched an episode of Newsroom using the HBO Go website, and it was a terrible experience. Ignoring the "sign into your cable company" thing, the video quality wasn't that great despite using tons of bandwidth. It stuttered but looked OK. On the other hand Netflix movies look much better and use less bandwidth. It's like they're still using the old Flash codec instead of MP4.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-uph...

iopuy2• 14 years ago

I have both Netflix and HBO Go on xbox 360 apps and the quality is identical to my naked eye.

britta• 14 years ago

If you happen to have a jailbroken iPad 3rd generation, iPad 2, or iPhone 4S, you can install UnrestrictPremium to work around this limitation: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/08/09/unrestrictpremium/

HBO No Go

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