Quickflix lets users buy TV shows,
including Game of Thrones

19

nedstark

blog One of the disadvantages of an online IPTV service such as Quickflix is that up until now, you haven’t been able to buy distinct television shows through the service to own permanently; users have only been able to get access to the shows they want if they’re paying a monthly subscription. However, all this is set to change, according to a media release issued by Quickflix today:

Quickflix has launched a new service offering, with a wide range of popular TV series now available to stream and own on an ‘electronic sell through basis’ via the Quickflix website or the Quickflix Samsung Smart Hub App. Customers can purchase and instantly stream TV titles to PC’s, Macs and initially, exclusively to selected Samsung Smart TVs, home theatre and Blu-ray devices. Hit series can be purchased by episode, starting from $2.99, or by season with a Season Pass. Customers do not have to be subscription members to Quickflix to purchase streaming titles to own.

Quickflix Chairman and CEO, Stephen Langsford, said: “Consumers demand instantly accessible current and recent TV series, and we’re delighted to be offering exactly that. We have access to an incredible range of programming and some phenomenally popular shows, and we’re working hard to make it easier, quicker and more convenient than ever to watch these.”

Mr Langsford continues, “Bringing this content to market in partnership with Samsung reflects our confidence in Samsung’s position as a market leading manufacturer of Smart TVs and connected devices.”

Evan Manolis, Head of TV Content, Samsung Australia said “We are pleased to bring more quality content to Samsung consumers with the launch of this service on Quickflix, initially available exclusively on compatible Samsung Smart TVs, home theatre and Blu-ray devices. This exciting addition to the suite of content on offer to Samsung consumers delivers an even richer experience across our devices and ensures our consumers can access the content they want, when they want it.”

Owners of selected Samsung Smart TVs, home theatre and Blu-ray devices can purchase TV series by downloading the Quickflix app from the Smart Hub on compatible devices.

Quickflix’s email on the issue this morning also included the following information: “This includes the entire series of Game Of Thrones Season 1, 2 and 3 (The final ep of Season 3 airs via QFX on June 11)”.

Personally, while I view this as a broadly positive move on the part of Quickflix, I’m not comfortable making a comment on how good this offering is until I’ve tested it out. Issues such as what technical format the TV episodes are in, whether they are HD (and which ‘HD’) and what sound format they use, what DRM has been placed around the whole situation and so on, are all important in this context.

I’m hoping to do a review of Quickflix’s IPTV services as a whole fairly shortly, so hopefully I’ll be able to go into a bit more detail then. I’m also planning to do a review of the quality of buying TV shows such as Game of Thrones through iTunes, so it’ll be interesting to compare the two platforms. In the meantime, if you have used this service from Quickflix, please feel free to post your thoughts below. It’ll be interesting to see what people think of it.

Image credit: HBO

19 COMMENTS

  1. Renai, I am concerned you are over-estimating the popularity of Game of Thrones. Yes, it is a good show but it Judge Judy, say, is five times as popular.

    • But how many people would pay to watch Judge Judy? Game of Thrones has seen its ratings continually increase, from a start of 2.2million viewers to around 5.2million now. For a premium cable show that is immense. Only the Sopranos (and Sex and the City I guess) really has outstripped that, and GoT is on a similar trajectory and exists in an era where there are actual competitors.

  2. When I trialed Quickflix and Netflix, the picture quality of Netflix was far superior. It would be nice if Quickflix has caught up recently.

  3. not HD as only .5gig files and a little pricey $3 a ep. when compared to bluray boxset

    • then I guess to be fair, you should compare the per episode cost of a season pass to the bluray boxset.

  4. Dearest greedy media cartel;

    Please clarify what you mean by “stream and own” as it relates to copyright law and digital rights managment

    Thanks

    Non samsung device owner and linux user.

    • As a Linux user you are stuffed. Quickflix uses Microsoft’s Silverlight DRM software. And Quickflix will be soon screwed by Microsoft when Microsoft drops silverlight.

  5. I’m enjoying streaming the small selection of HBO offering on quickflix and quite like the unlimited streaming and 1 dvd out at a time service for $15 a month. While on one hand I would enjoy streaming full HD resolution on the other hand my monthly download allowance would only last a week. I am content with resolution and download size. But please let me stream game of thones without buying it.

  6. Format matters. If it won’t work with Plex, I’m not interested. The moment someone releases a commercially-available media format that plays with Plex, they’ll get all my money.

    • I have to agree with you. Have Plex Media Server on my PC, have Plex on my RasPi, have Plex on my iPad, it all just seamingly integrates.

      Watched a movie the other day, turned on my RasPi, fired up Plex on my ipad, chose the movie i wanted, told the iPad to play it on the RasPi, done!

      The day the media people allow me to own a movie/tv series/tv show and consume it via plex, i’ll pretty much dump most of my bank account onto them.

  7. It’s a lie, you don’t own it. If you owned it, you’d be able to play it anywhere you like.

  8. If I was going to buy Tv shows or movies digitally there would have to be something special and unique about them. At the moment you can buy DVD/Blu ray sets for less and get the higher quality picture as well as owning the physical media. So far I don’t see the benefit except for a couple of BBC comedies I’ve picked up on Itunes for $12 during a sale (8 episode series) it doesnt seem good value. Although 1 thing to consider is when you pick up itunes cards for 20-25% off that has to be factored in to the price comparison.

  9. This could be a good thing, especially if they get the range that’s on the iTunes store. If they get the upcoming Breaking Bad on there quickly, I’ll be a very happy customer.

  10. Watching GoT in anything other than HD is like watching ABC Iview on a 27 inch monitor… no thanks to either…

Comments are closed.