Each week, DT’s newest show, Between the Streams, is your guide to all of the hottest, most important, and (of course) dumbest new developments in streaming and entertainment to recap the week that was. (You can also add us via RSS, iTunes, or Stitcher at the links above to take BtS on the road!)
Oh boy, Captain America: Civil War is a big movie! Did we say big? We meant giant! This week we’ll be talking about our take on the new film (or at least the one of us who saw it will), and how it brings the grandeur of superhero spectacle to epic new levels, while simmering in a way that isn’t expected from these types of team-up films. Also, how the hell did they keep track of a dozen superheroes?
And that’s just a bit of what we’re touching on.
We’re also talking about the all-but-sure choice for the forthcoming young Han Solo flick from Disney, Alden Ehrenreich. While it’s a daunting task for anyone to take on, let a lone a relative unknown, we’re discussing why this young actor may well become a familiar face in Hollywood in the next few years, thanks in big part to a break-out performance in the Cohen Brothers’ Hail Caesar.
Also, are you on the live internet TV bandwagon yet? Because it seems almost every tech company in the streaming realm (outside of Netflix and HBO) is too, including the latest new offerings from YouTube and Hulu, both of which are expected to make their arrival in 2017, for a price point of around $35-40. However, while it’s exciting to see TV go portable, outside of a few authenticated apps, just how desirable will these new services be? They’ll have fewer channels than cable, the same commercials, and a price point that may be hard to stomach for cord cutters who already have at least one or more commercial-free streaming services loaded with gobs of shows to explore.
We’re putting that question to you, our audience.
We’re also talking about Warcraft from director and David Bowie heir, Duncan Jones, and more.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?