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Disney+ just nuked the group watch feature

davepoobond

davepoobond

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,875
www.squackle.com
some high up suit probably said "why cant they just press play at the same time"

and the programming nerds couldnt tell them why they had to spend time and money on the upkeep of a feature that made it easy to do something easy
 
LawfulEnder

LawfulEnder

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
523
I've done weekly movie nights with some of my best friends for years now, and this was a huge help to keep that going when everyone started to move away from the city we met in.

We'll figure something out. Still: it sucks to see a good feature go for seemingly no reason.
 
Fuzzy

Fuzzy

Completely non-threatening
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,561
Toronto
Bufbaf said:
As someone who never used it, why can't they just press play at the same time?
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Anyone watching could pause, rewind, or fast forward for everyone so everyone was always in sync. So if someone had to go to the washroom they could hit pause then start it for everyone once they got back.
 
TheFurizzlyBear

TheFurizzlyBear

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
3,706
Bufbaf said:
As someone who never used it, why can't they just press play at the same time?
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That sounds easy at the start then "oh, hold on, my kids crying" *everyone pauses at a different moment* "oh ok, lets sync back up" is not a fun experience. Sure it's "easy" to give a time stamp and to attempt to sync back up but it's tedious and annoying and will most definitely frustrate anyone used to using the feature
 

Dis

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,145
Bufbaf said:
As someone who never used it, why can't they just press play at the same time?
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As someone who was in a long distance relationship for 4 years before we got married and had to do that for a lot of that time, it isn't that simple. Sure we can go "3,2,1 play!" And press play but with the delay of voice connections on calls and also the issue of my wife's internet in the USA being dogshit compared to mine causing hers to pause for buffering now and then or one of us having to quickly pause to let a dog out or something in our houses, it quickly devolves into being more and more out of sync and it's not an ideal experience.
 
Bufbaf

Bufbaf

Don't F5!
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,602
Hamburg, Germany
Dis said:
As someone who was in a long distance relationship for 4 years before we got married and had to do that for a lot of that time, it isn't that simple. Sure we can go "3,2,1 play!" And press play but with the delay of voice connections on calls and also the issue of my wife's internet in the USA being dogshit compared to mine causing hers to pause for buffering now and then or one of us having to quickly pause to let a dog out or something in our houses, it quickly devolves into being more and more out of sync and it's not an ideal experience.
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Fuzzy said:
Anyone watching could pause, rewind, or fast forward for everyone so everyone was always in sync. So if someone had to go to the washroom they could hit pause then start it for everyone once they got back.
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Click to shrink...

TheFurizzlyBear said:
That sounds easy at the start then "oh, hold on, my kids crying" *everyone pauses at a different moment* "oh ok, lets sync back up" is not a fun experience. Sure it's "easy" to give a time stamp and to attempt to sync back up but it's tedious and annoying and will most definitely frustrate anyone used to using the feature
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gotcha gotcha. that all makes sense :)
 
FlexMentallo

FlexMentallo

The Fallen
Oct 29, 2017
1,111
Los Angeles
I was trying to watch Ahsokha with a buddy a week or so ago and the button was there but was not connecting then it was completely gone this week. So we are just doing Discord and a manual countdown to press play and I guess it works well enough.
 
ezidro3

ezidro3

Member
May 31, 2021
585
I guess their 'solution' is to tell everyone to use Apple's SharePlay instead but well... that's only Apple. Everyone else is shit out of luck for what looks like no reason
 
AniHawk

AniHawk

No Fear, Only Math
Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,024
you dont understand. it was groupwatch's responsibility to make mandalorian season 3 comprehensible and groupwatch dropped the ball.
 
Sawneeks

Sawneeks

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
6,947
Thank goodness I cancelled my sub. The last few times i watched D+ was because of this feature :'(
 

Dis

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,145
Kongroo said:
Don't care. Disney has the money to figure it out.
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Yep, totally agree. I believe plex have this as a feature? If that's the case then there's no doubt in my mind that Disney has the money, manpower and ability to have made this work without huge issues, especially as afaik plex is done based on normal people's internet speeds and not giant data centers of high speed internet where stuff is being pulled from.
 
Baji Boxer

Baji Boxer

Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,525
Benzychenz said:
This seems like a dumb feature to start with tbh.

You taking your eyes off the screen to text one another your live reactions or what? I'd save the texting for afterwards anyway in which case being a minute out of sync doesn't matter in the slightest lol.

I suppose with how often my ex and my sister etc sit on their phones during movies I can believe it though. Personally if I'm watching something my phone is down and out. Full concentration.
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If only there were methods to talk to people over long distance using your voice.
 
Auros01

Auros01

Avenger
Nov 17, 2017
5,776
I only tried it once and couldn't get it to work but I feel for those that used this on the regular. Seemed like a cool feature.

I don't really see the benefit of them removing it... what am I missing?
 

Deleted member 9241

Oct 26, 2017
10,416
Dis said:
Yep, totally agree. I believe plex have this as a feature? If that's the case then there's no doubt in my mind that Disney has the money, manpower and ability to have made this work without huge issues, especially as afaik plex is done based on normal people's internet speeds and not giant data centers of high speed internet where stuff is being pulled from.
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It does. It is called "watch together".
 
Minlow

Minlow

Member
Dec 3, 2018
314
I'm more baffled by the amount of people in here confused about how this feature works and what voice apps are.
 
brochiller

brochiller

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,225
This feature was great, what a boneheaded move.

Love when my services increase in price while removing features.
 
Daphne

Daphne

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
4,078
Such a shame to remove such a useful feature. For seemingly no reason too. Anyway, I use Discord to watch things with friends; it works pretty well.
 
Baji Boxer

Baji Boxer

Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,525
Auros01 said:
I only tried it once and couldn't get it to work but I feel for those that used this on the regular. Seemed like a cool feature.

I don't really see the benefit of them removing it... what am I missing?
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No idea.
"We're always working to deliver the best product experience on Disney+, and as part of recent updates, the GroupWatch feature was removed."
Is a really absurd way to communicate this too.

The main reasons I can think of to kill something like this:
1. They identified a major security issue.
2. Their implementation blatantly infringed on someone's patent.
3. They're going to reintroduce it at some point in the future as part of a more expensive premium tier.
 
Sign My Guestbook!

Sign My Guestbook!

Member
May 26, 2018
25,649
At this point I'm convinced that, after a little time, big companies kill everyone who knows how to make good product. It's like Logan's Run.
 
WhiteRabbitEXE

WhiteRabbitEXE

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,250
Arizona
Baji Boxer said:
No idea.
"We're always working to deliver the best product experience on Disney+, and as part of recent updates, the GroupWatch feature was removed."
Is a really absurd way to communicate this too.

The main reasons I can think of to kill something like this:
1. They identified a major security issue.
2. Their implementation blatantly infringed on someone's patent.
3. They're going to reintroduce it at some point in the future as part of a more expensive premium tier.
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"We're always working to deliver the best product experience on Disney+" is standard copy and paste corporatese found in basically all software update change-logs and communications.

As for the reason, probably literally just didn't want to pay to maintain the feature. A lot of times companies will internally justify these kinds of cuts with "based on an analysis of peer services, the industry largely doesn't offer this feature and we no longer find maintaining it to be financially viable".
 
darthbob

darthbob

One Winged Slayer - Shinra Employee
Member
Nov 20, 2017
2,128
Plex stays winning. Canceling my D+ sub after Ahsoka finishes, and probably not looking back anytime soon.

Fuck Iger.
 
jwk94

jwk94

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,606
Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,474
Kongroo said:
Don't care. Disney has the money to figure it out.
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Disney also has the usage stats of how many people use it and how frequently. So they can easily weigh what it costs to maintain it versus how many people get a benefit out of it. If not enough people are using it and there is a maintenance cost to keep it working, then it makes sense for them to not spend more money on it, especially when they're trying to pull in operating costs.
 
Iced_Eagle

Iced_Eagle

Member
Dec 26, 2017
1,032
My friends are so upset at this. We didn't bother storing our Disney moves on our Plex/Jellyfin server because the Disney+ implementation was fine. Time to rip those discs though I guess.

Absolute bonehead move.
 
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