Quibi: Free episodes, prices, shows and WTF is a quibi actually

Quibi, a mobile-only subscription video service launched on April 6 in the U.S. and Canada, is an ambitious, risky, budget-priced bet on mobile video. With the support of all the major Hollywood studios and an apparently endless litany of movie, television, music and sports stars doing shows, Quibi is betting $ 1.75 billion on its extremely affordable short video service.

To attract people, Quibi offered an extended free 90-day trial, but today – Thursday – is the last day to get them. As of Friday, the free trial version of Quibi will be limited to two weeks.

To spark people’s interest in signing up while still qualifying for the 90-day trial, Quibi has released the first episodes of three of its series – The most dangerous game, The unknown and Dummy – Free to watch on YouTube. (The CNET story includes links to view the full episodes.)

By publishing full episodes outside of the app for the first time, Quibi wants to attract more people to the service with the extended free runtime. While it may seem like a money loss strategy, streaming services like Netflix and Spotify consistently report that the longer a person uses the service, the less likely they are to stop using it.

The full episodes on YouTube also offer viewers the first opportunity to watch Quibi’s big budget program on TV. YouTube offers apps for TV streaming on a variety of devices and smart TVs.

Quibi would be a risky bet even in normal times. But it also starts in the middle of the Corona virus Pandemic. The coronavirus, which causes the known respiratory disease COVID-19has changed the status quo around the world, blocked entire cities, states and countries, overwhelmed health systems and closed entire industries. Hollywood is no exception: cinemas are closed, film and television productions are interrupted and Big budget films are delayed Months.

People can see Quibi at home, of course, but Quibi’s bet on exclusively mobile short videos was based on the premise that people would devour these “quick bite” episodes on the go. But the corona virus has locked millions of people in their homes and suppressed the frequency of people being housed.

The Quibi leaders believe that people need short breaks to entertain. Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, who headed the Disney film department in the 80s and 90s and co-founded Dreamworks Animation, said the corona virus effect Quibi’s viewing habits are not necessarily an advantage or a disadvantage. It’s just different.

However, Meg Whitman, CEO of Quibi, former boss of eBay and Hewlett-Packard, said Quibi is ready to make changes if customers request it.

“If all of our users say,” We really want to see this content on our big screen, “we’ll develop the ability to do it,” said Whitman in an interview four days before the launch. She also said Quibi is ready to release episodes all at once like Netflix if that best suits subscribers’ needs. (To start, Quibi plans to release new episodes of each series every weekday.)

“We thought we could bring back some of the water cooler effect that was lost when viewers stopped synchronizing episodes,” she said. “But if our users say ‘we want to binge it’, we can just load everything on the first day.”

Now, more than three weeks after launch, some of these changes are becoming a reality. Quibi, which the company said it downloaded 2.7 million times last week, will add support for mobile phone occupation to TVs starting in May. Whitman also said Quibi has enough content to last through November.

But Quibi is also on the rise in the midst of a wave of new streaming services as technology and media giants shape the future of video. That means Quibi will compete for your subscription dollars against high-performance upstarts like Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus, Peacock and HBO Max as well as established players like Netflix. And of course Quibi meets a Goliath on YouTube, the pioneer of the online short video, which now attracts more than 2 billion viewers every month.

Still, Quibi believes that its unconventional strategy – very expensive, star-rich programs that are released in episodes of 10 minutes or less and that you can only see on mobile devices like your phone – will reach a sweet spot. It is also brought T-Mobile to offer on board free subscriptions to some wireless customers.

Quibi has recruited a who’s who of stars to work on its programming, including Chrissy Teigen, Lebron James, Dwayne Johnson, Reese Witherspoon, Chance the rapper, Kevin Hart, Jennifer Lopez, Idris Elba, Zac Efron, Tina Fey, Liam Hemsworth and man-woman combination Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner (but on different shows), along with tons of others. It is also attracted by well-known filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Antoine Fuqua, Catherine Hardwicke and Ridley Scott Make series.

Is Quibi worth your time and money? Read below what we know so far, but basically: if you sign up for a free 90-day trial in April, you can try it out for months to see for yourself without spending anything.

OK, WTF is a quibi?

Quibi with a capital letter “Q” refers to the service, and Quibi in lower case is the word that the company invented for its short-form episodes, each lasting about 10 minutes or less.

It’s a mashup of the words “quick bites” because the videos are supposed to be bite-sized videos.

But don’t pronounce the end of Quibi like the beginning of “bite”. If you can rhyme the word “alibi” with “quibi”, you are mispronouncing this invented word. You should pronounce the end of Quibi with a long e, like the end of “wasabi”. Obviously.

When is the release date?

Quibi launched on April 6th in the United States and Canada.

Quibi has not released its specific international expansion plans, but said that some other countries can get the U.S. ad-free version of Quibi if it is available on their app store without giving details. So if you live outside of the U.S. and Canada, search for the Quibi app on your Google Play Store and Apple App Store to see what’s coming.

However, Quibi’s officials have stated that Quibi was designed from the start to be a global service with global rights to stream its shows. The company simply didn’t specify any international expansion schedules.

What does Quibi cost?

Quibi’s cheapest tier is $ 5 a month and includes advertising. The ad-free tier is $ 8 a month. Quibi does not offer annual subscriptions.

Quibi offers free 90-day trial versions for people who sign up anytime in April. This can save you up to $ 24. You can unlock the trial version by downloading the app from the Quibi Website and registration for the service before May 1st.

Starting May 1st, Quibi’s free trial is limited to two weeks.

In comparison, Netflix – the world’s leading subscription video service that never advertises – offers its cheapest subscription for $ 9 a month in the US, one dollar more. Disney Plus costs $ 7 a month in the US without ads, a dollar cheaper. And of course YouTube is free with advertising.

When testing the Quibi app under embargo before the start, the commercials were so-called pre-roll ads that were played before the start of the show. And they were relatively short. Quibi has announced that the service will have approximately two and a half minutes of advertising per hour.

And T-Mobile offers a free subscription to Quibi’s ad-financed tier to wireless customers who have two or more lines in a post-paid plan in a deal called Quibi on Us. After a year of free Quibi, qualified customers have to decide whether Netflix or Quibi are included in their WiFi tariff for free – you cannot compensate for both. (The Netflix deal is worth $ 9 a month, compared to Quibi’s $ 5 monthly value.)

T-Mobile said that you must register by July 7th to receive the offer and that this applies to people with two or more voice lines at standard rates for Magenta and One, including taxes and fees – along with reduced first aid, Military and Magenta Plus 55 plans. Small business customers with up to 12 lines also qualify.

What devices can Quibi stream?

You can only view Quibi on mobile devices such as phones or tablets. No televisions. No web view. Basically, Quibi was designed so that it can only be displayed in an app on devices with screens that can be easily rotated.

Quibi offers apps for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android system. An app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is available in the Apple App Store, and you can Get the Android app in the Google Play Store.

Disappointed that you can’t see this on TV? CEO Whitman said Quibi is speeding up its work so subscribers can broadcast the service on television because so many people are stuck in the pandemic at home. This support should be available to some members from May. Casting is less user-friendly than dedicated apps for devices like Roku and Apple TV, which are popular methods of streaming to TVs. Before the launch, Whitman said the company was ready to extend device support to larger screens, such as TVs, based on data once subscribers can actually use the service.

What product features does the service include?

Quibi loudly advertises its mobile display technology called Turnstyle. This enables a program to react dynamically when the viewer switches between portrait and landscape format. This means that regardless of how you hold your mobile device, the video takes up the entire screen and is not minimized to a small area. For most shows on Quibi, this means that the program has been recorded and edited so that it will crop well when you switch to portrait mode. This is the most natural way to hold a phone screen.

However, some programs use turnstyle in a clever way: a thriller series called Nest shows the filmed action of history when you look at it in landscape format. However, if you turn yourself into a portrait, you can see what is happening during the story on the character’s device. When a character watches the camera entrance of their smart doorbell on their phone, you can either watch the actress react to the footage while she is sitting on the couch, or you can see in real time what she sees on her phone.

Beyond turnstyle, here are some of Quibi’s more routine product details:

• Quibi’s highest image resolution is 1080p, so there is no Ultra HD or High Dynamic Range format, which is very important for content you want to watch on a television. Like most streaming services, Quibi has a lower resolution ladder that changes dynamically to reflect the bit rate of your device.
• Quibi is intended as a personal service so that a single account cannot have different profiles for different viewers.
• Therefore, Quibi limits each account to a simultaneous stream. This is equivalent to Netflix’s $ 9 base account, but other services like Disney Plus can stream up to four people from a $ 7 account per month at the same time.
• Quibi has unlimited downloads to see everything on the service offline.

How does Quibi publish its shows?

Quibi has announced that more than 50 titles will be available at launch. Each Quibi series will release new episodes every day of the week until that series is complete – and some ongoing daily shows will also have episodes on weekends. CEO Whitman said that Quibi will not be rigid about this release strategy either. If subscribers show an appetite for binge, Quibi would be willing to cancel the entire season at once, similar to Netflix.

Quibi has three programming categories: Movies in Chapters, Unscripted and Docs, and Daily Essentials. At the start, Quibi will have the first three episodes of its series “Movies in Chapters” and “Unscripted / Docs” available for mini-binges. In these three categories, Quibi has announced that it will publish new programs for more than three hours a day.

Brand new series debut on Quibi every Monday. In the first year, Quibi will have 175 original shows with a total of around 8,500 episodes.

From the three categories, films in chapters are the scripted shows of the service, usually projects with a large budget and suitable talents. These are programs like Survive, a drama about a suicide who finds a new will to live after a plane crash, starring Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner. Another is Most Dangerous Game, a thriller that reinterprets the classic short story with Liam Hemsworth from The Hunger Games.

Quibi is making 35 of these films in chapters this year, and the company has announced that it will release a new episode of films in chapters every day on duty.

Unscripted and Docs are Quibi programs, i.e. non-written shows and documentary series. It includes a number of reality shows; Game shows and competitions; Talk Shows; Food, travel and cultural documents; and a variety of other genres.

Quibi has announced that it will release five episodes each day in the “Unscripted” and “Docs” categories.

After all, the company will drop 25 daily essentials every weekday. They focus on news and information, as well as lifestyle programs such as a daily horoscope, a summary of late night shows from the previous night, and meditation videos. These are also shorter than Quibi’s other types of programming; Daily essentials are five to six minutes. The company has partnered with NBC News, BBC, TMZ, Telemundo, Polygon and the Weather Channel to create and originally develop some daily essentials.

Daily Essentials will have new episodes at least every weekday. Some titles release more than one episode daily, e.g. B. NBC News snippets that land twice a day. and other titles will also release new episodes this weekend.

What can i see

CNET has a comprehensive list of Quibi launches.

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