Neon going from mediocre to piss poor

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Neon going from mediocre to piss poor

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sen8or

1787 posts

Uber Geek

#3168883 6-Dec-2023 14:42

Rushmere:

Earbanean:

Just use a geo-unblocker and get Max (formerly HBO Max). Better content, sound, picture resolution,...

I've been very tempted by HBO Max. They did say over a year ago that they were planning on launching in NZ, but I haven't seen any updates on this for a while.

Do you have any issues with payment, i.e. do they accept a NZ credit card?

Best discussed in the unblocking sub-forum, if you don't have access, request it from admins

Rushmere

354 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3168885 6-Dec-2023 14:49

sen8or:

Best discussed in the unblocking sub-forum, if you don't have access, request it from admins

Thanks for that, I didn't know that existed!

heapsort

245 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3168906 6-Dec-2023 16:57

Does cancelling Neon retain access until the next billing date? If so, I'll do it ASAP. If not, I'll wait a couple of weeks.

Rushmere

354 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3168908 6-Dec-2023 17:05

Their website says “Your Neon plan automatically renews each calendar month. If you don't want your plan to renew, you can cancel your plan in My Account”, which suggests it continues to run until the end of your current subscription.

I’ve still got plenty I want to watch, so I’ll continue for now. I get it a couple of dollars cheaper through Spark, but haven’t heard from them yet about what the new price will be.

TinyTim

1042 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3168919 6-Dec-2023 17:34

Yes, it runs to the end of your billing month. (We cancelled last month.)

TinyTim

1042 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3168920 6-Dec-2023 17:41

Reports say Netflix earns more from ads on its cheap plan than subscriptions, so it's expected they too will try to get more people watching ads, by both increasing subs on the top plans, and then... by adding ads to the premium plans. Sweepstake on when that will be...?

heapsort

245 posts

Master Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3168928 6-Dec-2023 18:18

TinyTim: Yes, it runs to the end of your billing month. (We cancelled last month.)

Thanks, I just cancelled ours.

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pristle

158 posts

Master Geek

Subscriber

#3169089 6-Dec-2023 23:30

Groucho:

Should have anticipated there being a catch for them taking months to fix their Android TV app to be responsive... again.

Looking at their post at https://www.neontv.co.nz/changes-2024 other than price there's stuff all difference between the 'Basic with Ads' and Standard plans except you pay for no ads. I don't really care about their 'on-pause' ads, Netflix already do this with self promotion and if you pause it generally means you're not watching. Credit for not interrupting movies to show ads on the Basic with Ads plan.

TVNZ streaming app has been doing this for a couple of years too.

What I did learn today was that there's a 'basic' plan.

pristle

158 posts

Master Geek

Subscriber

#3169090 6-Dec-2023 23:34

I too got the email of the pending increase. My first thought when I read the ads being introduced was "Is Sky trying to claw back what they lost through the dismal Android rollout? How many client did they lose I wonder?"

sen8or

1787 posts

Uber Geek

#3169118 7-Dec-2023 08:00

pristle:

TVNZ streaming app has been doing this for a couple of years too.

Difference being TVNZ is not a subscription service, is completely free to stream their content. I don't object to their use of advertising revenue to pay for content, I also don't expect the quality of their service (video quality / sound quality) to rival a subscription service. For Neon, there really is no excuse to not support at least 5.1 sound, 4k I can sort of understand (although most other SVOD providers have some 4k material).

jonathan18

7413 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#3169128 7-Dec-2023 08:46

sen8or:

pristle:

TVNZ streaming app has been doing this for a couple of years too.

Difference being TVNZ is not a subscription service, is completely free to stream their content. I don't object to their use of advertising revenue to pay for content, I also don't expect the quality of their service (video quality / sound quality) to rival a subscription service. For Neon, there really is no excuse to not support at least 5.1 sound, 4k I can sort of understand (although most other SVOD providers have some 4k material).

This absolutely.

Every time I think about signing up for Neon I check in to see whether they've joined the 21st century with quality audio (and ideally picture) and each time I am disappointed but not surprised they've failed to.

With a price increase AND introducing ads AND a failure to improve the quality, they've ensured they'll never get a cent of my money. Must look into HBO Max a bit more, as HBO content is one of my main reasons for wanting to subscribe.

Caketiger

69 posts

Master Geek

#3169202 7-Dec-2023 09:47

I would also be interested to hear from anyone using HBO Max - or I think it's now just Max - if that is allowed on here.

jonathan18

7413 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#3169206 7-Dec-2023 09:50

Caketiger:

I would also be interested to hear from anyone using HBO Max - or I think it's now just Max - if that is allowed on here.

@Caketiger: We're encouraged to take discussion of such things to the private forum! You'll see it's right at the bottom of the page at https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp but you'll need to ask to be given access. I dug around for recent posts on this in that forum but didn't find them, so assume the means are pretty much as the earlier posts cover.

MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#3170539 11-Dec-2023 09:59

Nope. I have one more season of Sopranos to go then we're ditching Neon. I'm not paying to watch ads. I could do that for free on YouTube, TVNZ OnDemand or 3 Now. The only things I'll really miss are Outlander and house of Dragon.

I recently ditched Prime Video. The content I can stream for free without ads was rather limited and not that good. Amazon's interpretation of the Wheel of Time for example was hopelessly bad.

So ... we're down to Apple and Disney in our household.

Mike

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