The new season of Game of Thrones is almost here and HBO is making it easier for people to check it out. Starting Thursday, Hulu subscribers will be able to add HBO and Cinemax to their package for an additional monthly price.
Getting access will not come cheap. Adding HBO and Cinemax will come with monthly costs of $15 and $10, respectively. Both of those are more expensive than adding Showtime and Starz. If you pony up the extra money for HBO, you also get access to the HBO Now streaming app, as well as a robust on-demand library of HBO original series and films.
In May, Hulu launched its $40-per-month live-TV streaming option offering more than 50 channels. HBO and Cinemax were originally left off the list of available channels, but now that is a thing of the past. If you are subscribed to Hulu’s live-TV option, you will be able to watch HBO and Cinemax live if you add the channels to your subscription. The deal will also bring a few other channels to Hulu, including HBO2, HBO Family, HBO Latino, HBO Comedy, HBO Signature HD, HBO Zone, MoreMAX HD, ActionMAX HD, ThrillerMAX HD, MovieMAX HD, 5StarMAX HD, and OuterMAX HD.
The king of cable TV has been loosening the cord since launching its stand-alone streaming service HBO Now in April 2015. But, last year saw HBOCurb Your Enthusiasm playing nice with the rest of the streaming world. In 2016, HBO was made available as an add-on for PlayStation Vue, SlingTV, and DirecTV Now. There have also been recent reports of HBO potentially being included in Apple’s perpetually gestating live-TV service.
HBO’s competition has begun to challenge it for its crown of king of TV. Netflix was nearing 100 million worldwide subscribers in late April. HBO is still more popular, boasting upward of 134 million subscribers. But, what used to be a case of David versus Goliath has now turned into Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant thanks to Netflix’s subscriber base more than doubling between 2013-2016. HBO is also removing its programming from Amazon Prime Video in 2018, after licensing the content to the streaming service in 2014.
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?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.