Since there is little to talk about NTEK these day
Post# of 4205
FWIW, here are some bare facts:
Ultraflix has available for streaming, as of Feb.14: (apologies for possible counting errors): 263 titles, for a total viewing time of 186 hrs 7 min.
Of this, mainly the short titles, a handful of concert/music titles and all of the “Rally” and “Ultra Destination” titles is free content, for a total of 38 hrs. The remainder is PPV, from $9.99 down to $0.99 per title.
Of the 263 titles, 201 are “Platinum”, 31 are “Silver” and 31 are “Gold”.
“Platinum” is native 4K content, “Silver” means content upscaled from HD (1080p), “Gold” is scanned 35mm or Imax film (into 4K).
There are 24 studio films, of which 17 are in native 4K (three are less than 15 min long). Seven others are scanned (Gold).
The vast majority of UF content is in native 4K (Platinum)
Except for:
- All Imax films, which are scanned (Gold), so should actually be as good as native 4K.
- All Iron Dragon films, which are upscaled from HD
- Half of the music/concert content that is upscaled from HD, some of the 4K native titles are free though (Muse-Madness f.e.)
- A handfull of “action sports” titles that are upscaled. They are actually the ones that are ppv, but they are also the longest.
Let's hope that the 50 new titles coming each week, as confirmed per latest SHL, start coming, because they are late already. The last new ones (only 8 Imax titles) where added Feb. 2nd.
I was told by IR that they have the claimed 900 hrs of content, but that the delay is caused “by the massive size of the content and multiple codes”.
I presume native 4K shouldn't create much of a delay as it doesn't need the amount of treatment as scanned content before it can be put on the UF servers.
Can we conclude from this that most content in the pipeline are older 35mm studio films, Imax or HD material ?
Then who pays for this extensive conversion work, in addition to the license fees ?
Could this be the real cause of the delay ?
Still it doesn't justify the discrepancy of what UF claims to have available for streaming, and what's actually available.
For those that think this is basher talk, please do not bother to respond if you have nothing else to write than insults. (Also not on the “moran” board).
For those that want to verify my numbers, be aware that some titles appear in two categories. F.e. 4 of the 5 titles in “Drama and Comedy” appear also in the “Movies” section.
Have a pleasant Presidents Day.