Video entertainment includes movies and series, regardless of how they’re delivered. While movie theaters used to dominate movie delivery, that’s no longer the case. Television sets still dominate the delivery of series, but they will eventually lose that battle. Streaming video is where everything is headed, that isn’t already there.
Movies
At one time, the only way to watch a movie was to go to a movie theater. If you want to watch a movie when it’s first released, going to a movie theater is still the quickest way. If you’re willing to wait a few months, there are easier ways to watch it.
Premium streaming video services will eventually show every movie ever made. Unfortunately, you have to subscribe to more than one service to see everything you want to watch. If you’re willing to wait even longer, you can watch those movies on the free, ad-supported streaming video services.
Series
With broadcast television networks, very few series last for more than a year, and even less for more than two. If you think American television networks display too many advertisements, at least they’re limited to around 20 minutes per hour. Filipino television network advertisements take up to 40 minutes per hour. I know because I’ve timed them.
Many new series are developed for premium streaming video services. The services I know that do it are Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu (owned by Disney), Netflix, Paramount+, and Prime Video (Amazon.com). I’m sure there are more that I don’t know about. Some are even developed for the free, ad-supported streaming video services.
Some channels, like the SyFy channel, produce their own movies and series and aren’t tied to specific video streaming services. There are more, but SyFy is the only one I can think of at the moment.
Other Streaming Video Services
There are other streaming video services that aren’t designed exclusively for movies and series. YouTube is one example and TikTok is another. They’re ad-supported and very popular. I block YouTube ads on my laptop computer. If I use my mobile web browser instead of the app, I can block them on my phone as well.
My Internet service, which is a fiber connection up to 600 megabits, is constantly saturated by nieces and nephews watching videos or playing online games at all hours of the day and night when they’re home. I have no idea how anyone could spend that much time staring at any type of screen.
My Video Choices
I don’t own a television set, and I probably wouldn’t watch it very often if I did. Like many others, I watch most videos on my phone, but not a lot of movies or series. When I watch movies, I prefer to watch older movies that I’ve never seen. I missed a lot from the 80s and 90s, while I was in the military.
My eyes are getting weaker. Watching videos on my phone is something I started doing to make me tired enough to sleep, and why I watch them after I go to bed. I imagine I’ll stop watching them altogether eventually.
Image by Claudia Dewald from Pixabay