Amazon Prime Video will start showing ads on January 29th

Did a little digging and found that PlayOn can't record live events. Bummer.

Yes if there weren’t multiple services that I use PlayOn for then I would likely be going the credits route as well.

I don’t currently have a Windows machine either so never really considered the Home option but may spin up a Windows VM soon and give that a 2nd look. I love the Channels integration for PlayOn Cloud and that I don’t have to do anything to get content into Channels. But in addition to the “show subscriptions” feature, Home also adds some services that are of interest to me Apple TV+ (dropped it after the price increase) and Starz.

I may look into some of the competing services too but I have a level of trust with PlayOn since they have been around and seem fairly responsive ec.

PlayOn reliability is about 70%. It's annoying when you are halfway through a video and then discover it's got issues. They are good at crediting you yet why do we have to go through this? Furthermore, I don't trust PlayOn with my Amazon Password. I don't care about giving them streaming service passwords as nobody is going to order goods with them. I have the same concerns with other services connecting to Amazon. We watch a decent number of Amazon videos so the cost of the commercial free service makes sense for us. It might not for others.

Wow Im glad you pointed this out! Thank you!

I've not seen this. I use PlayOn a fair amount, everything from PlayOn Desktop starting in 2015 to PlayOn Cloud and most recently PlayOn Home. I was trying to remember if I've ever had a failed recording, and maybe I have had one here or there over 8 years -- but nothing on the order of 3 out of 10.

Obviously we all need to do what we're comfortable with in this area, but with 2-step verification enabled that reduces the chances of a hack of PlayOn resulting in someone buying a gold bar on Amazon before you know what's happened. :slight_smile: Probably worth mentioning too, that this would mostly be a concern with PlayOn Cloud -- much less so with PlayOn Home.

I'm with you on this one. And I might add, that if one has the Amazon Prime Store Card there's a 5% cash back on all goods where Amazon is the seller. For me anyway, this will pay for my annual prime membership and will easily cover the new commercial-free upcharge in just the first few months of the year.

That sounds frustrating. I’ve literally never had this happen. Been with them ~2 years now and record ~20-30 shows a month. But if 30% of your recordings have issues and they can’t find a permanent fix then I’d definitely find another solution.

You have clearly had better luck than me using PlayOn. I hope mine improves.

I don't give a hoot if somone compromises my PlayOn account as there is nothing to steal there except a few recording credits. The login protection is to protect them. My concern is with there systems being compromised and then the perp gets my Amazon credentials which must be reversable as PlayOn uses them to log onto the service.

Yes, the combination of the already good prices on Amazon and the 5% cash back is a wonderful value.

That's what I was referring to regarding a hack on PlayOn. So let's say that happened, and someone did get a hold of your Amazon credentials. If you then received an OTP on your phone that you didn't initiate, wouldn't you then change your Amazon password before any harm was done?

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Not when I'm out hiking in a dead zone.

OK but then the hacker wouldn’t be able to proceed with the login either, that’s what two-factor-authentication and the OTP are all about.

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Nothing is bullet proof just makes it more difficult to hack

There are several methods to bypass one-time passwords (OTP)1. These include:
Brute force attack: The attacker can use a number of random pins of the same length and try them one by one.
OTP getting leaked in response
OTP bypass through response manipulation
OTP bypass by entering alphabets instead of numbers

...and in the unlikely event anything like that ever happened, at the very least I'd get emails and/or texts about the orders, and/or the unexpected change of Amazon account information, and I'd (eventually) be able to reverse the orders.

I also have very effective fraud protection by way of my credit card that is attached to the Amazon account.

YMMV of course but I'm willing to take this informed risk.

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Agree Extra long passwords many Characters along with OTP ... and a notebook for passwords... For your loved ones if you expire while watching Amazon Ads.

As Far as the ADS go they don't bother me ... Heck have you seen Youtube lately the ADS are longer than the Videos.

You don't use AdGuard for youtube. Stop watching YT commercials.

Lifetime AdGuard is $20. I havent been banned on YT yet even with their new anti ad blocker policy

Edit: YT on browser is better then YT app. Ad-blocking more reliable. Plus Tabs. I need to open 80 tabs of videos i am not going to watch.

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Hi. You might look back into Playon Home. They have upped the video quality to 1080p for recordings using Playon Home. They were offering a special for $27 a year. Not sure that is still the cost. Full price is $39.95 for a year. Can still record from all the same sources as Playon Cloud.

I was spending a fortune buying credits using Cloud to record programs and movies. If you have a streaming service with ads, the Playon Home will record the episodes and skip the commercials when pulled into Channels. Just recorded the entire season of a couple of my favorite sitcoms. Went off without a hitch. Getting signed into the streaming services was a little tricky at first.

This may be old news, but thought I'd share since you mentioned the Cloud service.

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If it wasn't for the savings on shipping on amazon I would be cancelling Prime altogether. Honestly there is only a couple shows I watch on there so I guess I will "pony up" when new seasons drop for one of them and just buy a box set for the other and call it a day. Glad I am beginning to buy my content on physical disc and setup a channels server

Which Service you know does not have ADS ... Netflix went to Ads and some others we either have to pay not to have them or live with them... At lease with Amazon I get free delivery and %5 cash back on purchases.

i had worse luck with the desktop app. was batting 50/50 on a computer that just ran playon.

switched to cloud and havent had an issue over hundreds of recordings.

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Vote with your wallet. I ain’t paying for ads nor am I continuously going to pay close to $20 for a subscription with my viewing habits (don’t watch too much). I would rather pay a $100 once for box set for the show that I can get and only subscribe for single months when a show I want to watch is available on a streaming service.

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I cancelled Prime a year or two ago and I have things shipped weekly and still don't pay any shipping costs. I think my orders have to be at least $25 to $35 which matches my typical ordering methods. If you must have stuff in a day or two, then I guess you'll have to use a Prime sub.

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