StreamFab Wake-Up Call: Competitor Gaining Ground

[Cats4U]

They do the same thing with DVDFAB. The DVDFab all-in-one had been the same, you get what was available at the time of purchase. Its not just a StreamFab thing,.. its a FAB thing...

Yeah, I didn't know that at the time I first purchased StreamFab. I had only purchased DVD Passkey before that. I only learned of StreamFab's ludicrous Lifetime AIO lies when they came out with a new module after my initial purchase of it. That's when I went through the fine print and found out I was snookered.

[jpp72]

This thread just keeps getting more interesting.

[weavermovies]

Well I Don't Know the Competitor you guys are talking about !!!

BUT Fab has their Programs out there UNDER Different Names !!!!!!

SO Be Careful !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This thread just keeps getting more interesting.

[KidJoe]

I had to buy a second lifetime license for the other guys' disc program. I know we can call it a technicality, it changed names, well, sort of. But their price was always fair, even for getting a new license.

That is the only reason I started with FAB products to be honest. When that all went down, I purchased Passkey... and later DVDFab 10, and some of the modules like DRM Remover for iOS, Enlarger AI, Cinavia Remover, etc.

So it took a lot to overcome that license invalidation for me to trust them to by their stream downloader. BUT with SF not having 1080p HBOMax and theirs having 1080p HBOMax that quickly, I took the chance because 1080p HBOMax was that important to me.

Little did I know at the time that StreamFab had their own sleeziness going on with regards to their "Lifetime All-In-One" plan.

They do the same thing with DVDFAB. The DVDFab all-in-one had been the same, you get what was available at the time of purchase. Its not just a StreamFab thing,.. its a FAB thing... I had upgraded to DVDFab AIO a while back and as I look at my DVDFab 12 now, I see "Complete your AIO" for $69 for 6 new products.... (oddly only 4 on on my license list in the app with status of "Buy with discount"... 4K Recorder Copy, 4K Recorder Ripper, Blu-Ray to UHD, Smoother AI, so I'm not sure how they come up with 6 )

That being said... Yes, when DVDFAB Downloader came out, they did make it seem that you would get ALL NEW modules as they are released in the future if you purchased the DVDFab Downloader. So that was miss leading. Thankfully they grandfathered early purchasers, and although I don't get the "adult" type download modules for free, and I don't really care about those, I do get the others on the VIP tab for free.

[Dula87]

I have lifetime licenses for both. Each has their unique benefits and drawbacks. My MAIN issue is with SF I have to buy a SECOND license to use on my windows machine. The Mac version, which when I purchased a Mac was my daily driver, is awful. Rarely updated and always laggy. Doesn’t have the DRM MPD module, etc. I paid a pretty steep price for my original license and that just miffs me to need to do it again for Windows. The competition allows any platform. Yes, they were originally Windows only, but recently released Mac and it works just as well if not better than Windows.

[jpp72]

I am sure it was a financial decision but also a confidence one. They know they are good at adapting to the DRM changes and they probably have a threshold where they see a certain amount of new sales and when it dipped below said threshold, they pulled the trigger on adding new downloaders. Furthermore, all these streamers probably share the same type of DRM protection so they feel it's a good risk to take.

I also wouldn't put it past them to just declare something uncrackable if it ever came to a point they can no longer adjust to the DRM changes. If WOW stops working, they can just say it's uncrackable and proof is the competitor doesn't even offer it.

If nobody else was doing Max, StreamFab could pull off saying 720p is best that can be done. It's already the case for AppleTV+ @ 480p. We are savvy users who know all about torrents and newsgroups so we can clearly see that it is possible to get 1080p and 4K for AppleTV+

[Cats4U]

I may be wrong but they have a very big German following, they have a German sub-forum that looks very busy. Plus the fact that Austrians and other countries over there use the German providers a lot. Of course, I do not know this for a fact, but it makes sense.

I can understand the pressure they are receiving from the German community but so was there great pressure from Peacock fans. That didn't stop the stalling of the inclusion of Peacock until they found a loophole around their own policy by this talk of a consortium. I've got to be honest that I had no idea what consortium he was talking about. I really don't follow streamer news outside my own country. A quick check on Google seems to show that Peacock is now available as of January in limited Europian countries on Sky and NOW. Still, that means you would have to go through those services to get it, meaning using Sky (WOW?) and NOW logins. To get Peacock directly using its own login and its DRM keys you'd still have to use a VPN and connect to the US. So, it seems they had the ability to give the people Peacock all along but stalled it because of their policy until a loophole came along. Now, it seems they just don't care and will add streamers as they see fit. I see them trying to monetize the extra streamers sometimes in the future by creating another level of lifetime all-you-can-eat resulting in great outrage again by the users.

[ord1117]

Well I Don't Know the Competitor you guys are talking about !!!

BUT Fab has their Programs out there UNDER Different Names !!!!!!

SO Be Careful !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cats4U]

I had to buy a second lifetime license for the other guys' disc program. I know we can call it a technicality, it changed names, well, sort of. But their price was always fair, even for getting a new license.

That was one major factor in my choosing StreamFab over the competitor. For anyone not familiar with this they can get a summary of the competitor's sleezy history on Wikipedia and much more complete articles all over the Internet. Little did I know at the time that StreamFab had their own sleeziness going on with regards to their "Lifetime All-In-One" plan.

[MrGrackle]

The other main issue is financial. Between the totally outrageous price for StreamFab you've got the ass-backwards policy of promising Lifetime All-In-One and it just being one big lie. If they were located anywhere but in China they would be brought up on charges by their host country for fraud. I'd be a little worried if I was one of their affiliates.
. . . More to follow. Got to go now.

I had to buy a second lifetime license for the other guys' disc program. I know we can call it a technicality, it changed names, well, sort of. But their price was always fair, even for getting a new license.

Good point from KidJoe on the Watch list of each provider. But as far as speed, I have not noticed any negligible difference between the two, could be my location and connection.

Another positive: when all the providers update their DRM, Streamfab usually is faster to the punch, except of course implementing Max.

Regarding 1080p clarification, why won't a show like Elena of Avalor Season 3 download in 1080 but something much newer, Encanto at Hollywood Bowl does. Regardless of the source of this bonus feature though, who cares? You still have to implement the process and produce files on your hard drive, a posting somewhere with a list of keys is absolutely useless to the laymen. One would hope they add more keys as time goes on.

[Chameleon]

I may be wrong but they have a very big German following, they have a German sub-forum that looks very busy. Plus the fact that Austrians and other countries over there use the German providers a lot. Of course, I do not know this for a fact, but it makes sense.

[Cats4U]

And I would much rather that fix bugs and enhance existing downloaders than add any other downloader modules.

Looks like the competitor is not learning from StreamFab's mistakes. They just added the small German streamer, Joyn, 7 million subscribers. Joyn follows another German streamer, WOW (Sky Deutschland), at 4 million subscribers and theCW, a US streamer, at unknown subscribers.
Netflix has 238.39 million subscribers according to Wikipedia. HBO/Max is 96.1 worldwide subscribers. Other worldwide are Disney+ at 146.1, Hulu at 48.3, Amazon at 200 million, Paramount+ at 60.7, and finally Peacock at 22 million.
Peacock is interesting because the competitor's previous policy was not to add any new streamers unless they were worldwide. Peacock's addition was delayed by many months due to that policy. But to quote Angry Fox, my name for the head honcho there, "Peacock is joining a consortium of other providers, if we are going to implement it, it will be for all regions, not just one. We do things the right way not the fast easy way. When and if it comes everyone will be able to enjoy it." And so it was eventually added. Now it looks like they are doing an about-face and are adding in whoever the developers feel like adding. In my mind this is a big misstep that will require them to hire additional developers to keep pace with the new additions demands. Things are not bad now, we have luckily been in a quiet period, but when the inevitable DRM changes come (probably all at the same time) they will be scrambling and the complaints will follow. StreamFab users know this scenario very well and it will be worse still with all the new expansion they have done since the last DRM crisis.

[Mike_M]

Indeed..... this is an interesting thread..... very much so.....
and I almost weighed in with thoughts I've had for quite some time.....
but then decided..... better to allow my second favorite quotation to dictate instead.....

"Not only to say the right thing..... at the right place.....
but far more difficult to leave unsaid.....
the wrong thing..... at the tempting moment!".....
George Sala

*****

KidJoe (excerpt from post in this thread)...

And I don't use Max in SF because it doesn't do 1080p, where as the competition does. And let's not forget, I only purchased the competition in the first place because of Fab's slowness fixing the loss of HBOMax after DRM change a while back.

*****

:-)

Mike

[Chameleon]

Posted by jpp72
I too am totally a fanboy. I am not bashing StreamFab. I have stated many times why I prefer StreamFab to the competition. But, I want to keep them on their toes because some bugs have gone unaddressed for far too long. And also some very legitimate feature requests that can be implemented way faster than adding a new porn module.

Would you call not having 1080p in a major module a bug? Please don't tell me about SF having 1080p in Disney, those are all old keys, I even saw them posted on the internet. Try and download anything 2023 in 1080 from the SF Disney module. Even when Max was HBOMax in the USA, I couldn't get 1080p on newer stuff that is now old stuff and still can't get 1080p. Ever since I found out about the so-called competition, well let's just say, I bought it.

[KidJoe]

.....I am going off track here. I just want StreamFab to know that the time to rest on their laurels is over and they need to be set priorities and communicate them with us.

The forum's topic prefixes haven't been updated since January 18th and the post describing what they are working on hasn't been updated since June 18th.

I Agree completely.

And I would much rather that fix bugs and enhance existing downloaders than add any other downloader modules.