It’s Thanksgiving week, which means it’s time for many of us to head home to see our relatives and do our usual round of holiday tech support. With that in mind, I thought I’d put together a handy dandy little script to help you answer all of your relatives’ (and less tech-savvy friends’) well-meaning but slightly exhausting streaming questions.
What’s the Difference Between TV and Streaming?
This one comes up a lot, and not just from your great-aunt. While the literal definition of television programming does technically mean that all streaming is TV, that’s not quite the case. Broadcast and cable TV remain just as they were, but streaming encompasses both film and television. That includes new movie releases that debut either directly on streaming or simultaneously on streaming and in theaters. In fact, Apple TV+ won Best Picture in 2022 with the streaming original CODA. It all comes from your TV, but streaming has basically flipped traditional distribution models of both film and television on their heads, for better and worse. Your great-aunt won’t care, but if you do, I’ve already gone long on the ways that streaming is broken and needs to change.
How Do I Get Sports on This Thing?
This is a long, involved answer, but for the purposes of distracting your sports-oriented relatives so the more complicated conversations that have become synonymous with Thanksgiving dinner can be avoided, Hulu is going to be the best overall pick for “getting sports on this thing.” Hulu with Live TV has the best mix of original programming and live sports, including ESPN, FS1, BTN, CBS Sports Network and more. They’ll even have the NFL Network and NFL RedZone next year! That might not solve your current Thanksgiving woes, but do your future self a favor.
Why Can’t We Just Watch TV Anymore?
You can… [ominous voice] for a price. Streaming platforms may have been going hog wild with the price hikes lately, but they’re still cheaper than the traditional cable that Mom and Dad (and yeah, ok, me) currently pay for.
Why Are All These Channels So Expensive Now?
A loaded question if I ever saw one, one that I went deeper on in my piece on why Netflix’s price hikes are only part of the problem. Short answer? Because CEOs are greedy. Longer answer? Because making art is expensive, server space costs a lot, and all of these corporations decided that they needed their own streaming services despite the fact that Netflix lost buckets of cash in its first six years as a company. Many of the newer platforms are in steep deficits, and they’re reacting to that while desperately trying to hit profitability to please shareholders. Hence, price hikes.
Why Isn’t My Favorite Show on This Platform I Have?
Unless it’s produced by Disney — who owns too much of Hollywood — you can bet that your favorite show has since changed platforms several times over the years. This is loosely tied to the last question in the sense that both traditional studios like Disney and Universal and streaming platforms are licensing out their shows and movies more and more as they balance the need to retain subscribers with diverse revenue sources.
Yuck, this was supposed to be a fun article. Sorry for the inside baseball. But maybe grandpa legit wants to know, and now you have something else to talk about!
Why Do I Need Multiple Apps to Watch All My Favorite Shows?
Take the last two answers and moosh them together into a response that they will react positively to so that you can get to the pumpkin pie faster.
Why Did You Kick Us Off of Your Netflix Account?
Repeat after me: I didn’t, Mom. Netflix started cracking down on password sharing and now anyone who doesn’t live in the same house as me can’t use my account anymore. They did it because art costs money. And because they’re greedy. But this one was kinda mostly that art costs money. Could you pass the potatoes, please?
Why Is My Favorite Show Delayed for So Long?
Oh boy.
We’ve got multiple levels of truth here. A choose your own adventure, if you will. I don’t know your life, and the goal here is to avoid landmines, not step on them.
Technically true but not the reason: TV shows take more time to make now, so they’re just making extra sure that your favorite show rules next year.
True and to the point: Because the Hollywood strikes went on for so long, during which time your favorite show couldn’t be written or produced.
And for the inevitable “why should actors and writers be paid so much?”: They are not paid “so much.” The CEOs are paid “so much.” The writers and actors are asking for a reasonable sum for their craft. Since you’re already in the trenches, you can tell them that we’ll likely see the same thing when the animation guild’s contract expires, and they deserve the money just as much as their live-action counterparts.
Where the Heck Do I Find Thanksgiving Classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles?
I’m so glad you asked. Every holiday season should include Planes, Trains and Automobiles. (Even if some confuse it for a Christmas movie.)
The path of least resistance is watching it on Paramount+ if you subscribe to the platform. If you don’t, you can add it through your Prime Video subscription, or add Showtime to your Hulu, Fubo TV, YouTube TV, etc. You can also just, y’know, rent it if all that seems like A Lot™ to deal with while you’re neck-deep in turkey and beer.
How Do I Turn Off Motion Smoothing on My Parents' TV?
Sorry, y’all, this varies from TV to TV. But, if you google the model and “turn off motion smoothing” you can usually find the steps pretty easily. Make sure you do it while your parents are distracted so you don’t have to play 20 questions, and remember that it’s sometimes listed as “motion interpolation” or “TrueMotion.”
Godspeed.
Amelia is the entertainment Streaming Editor here at IGN. She's also a film and television critic who spends too much time talking about dinosaurs, superheroes, and folk horror. You can usually find her with her dog, Rogers. There may be cheeseburgers involved. Follow her across social @ThatWitchMia
