Forum - View topicAmazon streaming review
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3652 |
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Now that we've had the first season where Amazon could credibly be considered to have a simulcast lineup, I'm wondering what folks who bit the bullet and paid for Anime Strike think of it.
On the positive side: Amazon's player can be more responsive than Crunchyroll's, responds to keyboard controls like CR, and it's not Flash. It also just works, which sounds like faint praise, but when I think about the terrible days of Funimation streaming, it's still worth mentioning. On the negative side: While $5 a month isn't terrible, hiding Amazon Strike behind the Amazon Prime system certainly hurts. It tends to take a minute for the player to figure out the connection is good enough to handle good streaming quality, seemingly ignoring the quality setting you pick. Even their not-full-screen player is full-screen within the browser. I hate having all the video controls within the frame, and if you're the fidgety-type, like me, having the screen dim every time I mouse over is not pleasant. They don't really have a broadcast schedule. I had to look up on ANN when shows would premiere, and even then delays happen and times shift without warning. Unlike with CR, there's no system for informing users about any of these changes or delays. I certainly don't appreciate having to see an ad for Anime Strike when I'm watching a video I can only see because of my active Anime Strike subscription. Some of their translation work leaves a lot to be desired. Overall, it's a perfectly good way to get simulcast anime, if you can afford it. I still would rather watch any of their shows on CR, but it's not as bad as I had feared. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
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Interesting, thanks for the review, Yttrbio. I don't believe AP video streaming is available in Canada yet or if it is, I don't think Anime Strike is available (I could be wrong). In any case, for me it doesn't matter. I have no intention of subscribing to Prime.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18175 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I ended following (for review purposes or personal interest) the bulk of the AS shows this season. My thoughts on comparing AS and CR:
In CR's favor, its picture is immediately at full quality. AS's player pixelizes for as much at 10 seconds when you first start up or make a big jump. (If you move back and forth after playing the episode through once you generally don't have that problem.) In AS's favor, it can be played directly on a smart TV without needing mirroring or plugging in your laptop. CR hasn't supported smart TV apps for at least a year now. I've generally found AS's player to be a little more stable as far as consistently maintaining a connect is concerned. Also, you can pause that for hours and generally can resume immediately, wheres you'd have to reload if you tried that with CR's player. CR has the edge on Web page set-up. |
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Cam0
 Posts: 4888 |
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The Anime Strike thing isn't available in my country but Amazon Prime is so no double subsciption but the anime catalog is a bit smaller. I tried it for free a few months ago and I watched Scum's Wish on it. I basically had some of the same impressions as Yttrbio did. The player was responsive and the site was fast. But, yeah, I hated that it took ages for the player to figure out that my connection is good enough to handle good quality. Had to start every episode looking at potato quality for, I dunno, like 30 seconds, maybe?
One weird thing was that a random Scum's Wish episode didn't have English subtitles for some reason. It wasn't available as an option and the episode had been out for like a month at that point. Probably an isolated case but it was really annoying as I was forced to watch that particular episode through other means. Then the next episode had English subs like it's supposed to. Weird. But I don't think I plan on paying for a Prime subscription any time soon. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
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Just signed up for Amazon Prime's free 30 day trial yesterday as a Canadian customer. For a fun-filled description of some technical issues and my experiences with Amazon's help team, go here:
Apparently, Franz Kafka Runs Amazon's Help Desk Cam0 - I wonder how rare the problem you ran into with there being no subtitles for an episode of Scum's Wish really is. I ran into the exact same issue with episode 2 of Love and Lies. I was told the problem is at Amazon's end, not the viewer's. I wonder how many more times this has happened/will happen. And for those who don't have the patience or desire to read through my screed let me ask: has anybody else had a problem with getting their subtitle preferences to "take." I tried setting mine through my account settings, but they didn't "take." I can, however, change the subtitle options right in the video itself. Anyone else having this situation? |
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Cam0
Posts: 4888 |
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Well that's... worrying. Oddly for the Scum's Wish episode only the English subtitles were missing. The options for subtitles in like Spanish, German, Chinese and whatever else were still there. Just English was mysteriously missing. I wonder if that happens with other languages. Your customer service experience was hilarious. And I can't comment on the subtitle preference thing. I just went with the default ones if I remember correctly. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
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At least that eppie of Scum's Wish had some subtitles. Episode 2 of Love and Lies has none. You get the Japanese audio and that's it. So useful for AP's non-Japanese customers.
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Yttrbio
Posts: 3652 |
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Fascinating. Down here in the States, I had the Love and Lies problem at first, but it was more like they just didn't load them on the video and they eventually got added that day.
I didn't even know there was a subtitles preferences in account settings. I set them in the video directly, and the preferences stayed for all the videos I watched later. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18175 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I had no problem with the English subtitles for ep 2 of L&L.
That being said, Amazon episodes going up on first availability without the English subtitles has been an occasional (though thankfully rare) problem - and yes, I'm excluding cases of user error, such as forgetting to turn subtitles back on if you turn them off to take a clean screenshot. (This doesn't automatically reset when you start a new episode/title.) I've never seen that be an issue past about 12 hours after the episode is first posted, though. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
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So bizarre. Just checked and my Love and Lies episode 2 still has no subtitles at all. And as I mentioned in the Retail thread, I was told that the problem was on Amazon's end, not mine.
Another weird thing is that as a Canadian AP member, I notice that the anime titles being offered keeps changing. There were a bunch of titles (not from this season) that were there when I first joined (the Nanaho titles, for example) that are no longer there. Then Made in Abyss which wasn't there when I joined suddenly is now. For how much longer, who knows? This "now they're here, now they're not" thing is disconcerting. That's probably not an issue for US Anime Strike customers, I wouldn't think. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18175 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Oh, I notice this with anime titles on Netflix. There, though, it's an issue of the titles still being there but not always displaying in certain views. I wonder if that might be the case with what you're experiencing on Amazon. And the L&L thing has to be a Canadian issue, as there's not a problem on the U.S. side. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
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@ Key - I keep tabs on my AP titles via the Anime category in my browse page. However, whenever I see a title disappear or wonder if a title is "hidden," I use the search function. When the search function doesn't return any hits for that show, I have to assume its not on the site at all as opposed to hidden somewhere.
What's so strange about L&L being a potentially Canadian issue is that there is no dedicated website for Canadian AP video. Our videos show the www.primevideo.com address which - I assume - is the same thing that US customers see. |
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Yttrbio
Posts: 3652 |
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No, primevideo.com in the U.S. just directs you to amazon.com, which is where I watch the shows.
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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It's interesting reading other people's experiences with Amazon Strike since I'm about to get it myself. I already have prime, so what's an extra $5 to me?
I'll definitely post my experiences here once I've used it for a bit. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23749 |
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Please do. Now that I've had a bit more experience with AP/AS videos, I have to say I'm pretty happy with the playback. Visual quality is good (at least to my middle-aged eyes) and there is no issues with a lack of smoothness or suddenly stopping, etc. I like being able to pause just by using the cursor in the middle of the screen (I watch via my Mac hooked up to my TV screen, so I have to use my laptop controls).
As I said in the relevant series discussion thread, just being able to watch Made in Abyss properly is worth the $79 annual fee for me. (But I'm also watching Princess Principal, Altair: Record of Battles, Vatican Miracle Examiner and Love and Lies.) |
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