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Post by ajk on Jul 25, 2017 16:14:47 GMT -5
hmmmm....This was posted yesterday on Variety's website: Korean Broadcasters Launch U.S. Streaming Service, Taking on Warner Bros.’ DramaFeverVARIETY Todd Spangler, NY Digital Editor July 24, 2017 | 06:00AM PT American fans of Korean dramas and K-pop are getting a new streaming-video option: Kocowa, a service launching in the U.S. from the three biggest broadcasters in Korea. Kocowa offers U.S. audiences access to a lineup of Korean TV programs from all three broadcasters — KBS, MBC and SBS — as soon as six hours after they’re broadcast in Korea. The service will compete primarily with DramaFever, the Korean-entertainment streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Launching Monday, Kocowa (on the web at kocowa.com) is available for 99 cents per day, $6.99 monthly or $69.99 per year; in addition, there’s a free option with ads that enables access to content within 24 hours of release. The service is launching from KCP Global, an L.A.-based joint venture formed in November 2016 by the trio of broadcasters. Shows on Kocowa include popular TV dramas such as “School 2017” (pictured above), “Into the World Again,” “The King in Love,” “Dear Fair Lady Kong Shim,” “My Father Is Strange,” and “The King 2 Hearts.” The service also offers 2016’s two most popular Korean variety shows, “Running Man” and “2 Days 1 Night.” “We are thrilled to bring the best of Korean TV to U.S. audiences with Kocowa,” KCP Global CEO Junsik Kim said in a statement. “We not only offer the best of Korean TV, we also offer it very fast, with very high-quality translations.” Over the 2017 Thanksgiving holiday, Kocowa subscribers also will have exclusive video access to the 2017 World Tour of top K-pop artist G-Dragon, titled “Act III, M.O.T.T.E” (“Moment of Truth: The End”), in North and South America. To provide Korean programs nearly simultaneously in the U.S. after they air, the company is working with a certified translation team that immediately translates the programs into English when the programs run in Korea. KCP using service providers for infrastructure management, billing and customer services, include Kaltura for the streaming video and Stripe for billing, along with others including Viki and On Demand Korea. KCP estimates that there are an estimated 35 million fans of Korean entertainment and pop culture globally, with 8 million “K-wave” aficionados in the U.S. Kocowa is currently available in North and South America. Kocowa, which stands for “Korean Content Wave,” is available on multiple platforms including PC, mobile and tablet. Later this year, the service also will be available to stream on connected TVs. variety.com/2017/digital/news/korean-streaming-service-kocowa-us-1202502916/--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Will be very interesting to see what happens with this--particularly with all those older historicals sitting around collecting dust. Here's the website: www.kocowa.com/Not a big selection on the site just yet; for now it's just the recent, popular stuff. But it's worth keeping an eye on. If nothing else, they stand to score points just on subtitles, judging from all of the complaints on DramaFever about subtitling. |
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Post by bird11 on Jul 29, 2017 13:10:34 GMT -5
HELP!!!! I am going crazy over this....two of my favorite shows "Return of Superman" and "2days, 1night" are no longer on DramaFever, so I decided to create an account on Kocowa so I could continue watching them, I thought it might be able to try it out and watch them with comercials. Well..... I tried to watch "ROS" and was unable to get any access (it seems like I will have to pay to watch this), so I tried "2d1N" and the subs appear to be awful! There are many times when people are talking and there are no subs on the screen and when there are subs they appear to be wrong(?)--- I don't know more than a few words of Korean-- but when they said someone's name and it doesn't appear on the screen-- I am confused to say the least...When I started to watch it asked me the name of my device and my son said I could type in anything so I did, so maybe that is the problem?  Why would I want to join this if the subs are soooo bad!?!?!?!??  Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.... (OK, so I calmed down and looked a little more and I was able to acess past episodes of "Superman" and the subs so far look good, so maybe it is just a problemw with "2D1N"??) There is only one episode of "2d1n" that I can access for free, so I guess I will have to just calm down and wait.........) |
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Post by ajk on Jul 30, 2017 2:14:12 GMT -5
Hi bird! This Kocowa thing is very new, like only a couple of weeks old I think. So there are bound to be some bugs and problems as they roll it out. You'll probably run into other things too, but they'll probably be ironed out gradually. All three of the networks have gotten together on this so they must be taking it very seriously...which hopefully will mean a good website in the end.
I'm glad you dived right in and checked it out. You're the first one of us to try it. Please do keep us posted on how you're doing with it and what you think of it.
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Post by jewel on Aug 3, 2017 10:08:50 GMT -5
HELP!!!! I am going crazy over this....two of my favorite shows "Return of Superman" and "2days, 1night" are no longer on DramaFever, Are you sure? Cuz I just looked them up at DF and they're both there for me... |
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Post by bird11 on Aug 3, 2017 17:23:32 GMT -5
Yeah- they are there, but if you go to the main screen it says "Where’s my 2 Days, 1 Night? Due to licensing issues, we are unable to bring you new episodes. We love 2 Days, 1 Night and hope to be back soon." (same for Return of Superman) And they are showing current episodes only-- and I think I was in the middle of a 2-part 2D1N, and the second part is the one with the messed up subs. The main "stars" where playing games and interacting with fans, and it was funny and interesting. So I guess I will have to skip that episode......So I am sitting back and waiting for more epsidoes to load-- it is just frustrating, that even though I am willing to sit thru commercials until I decide if it is worth joining--I have limited access to episodes of both of these shows. (and the next episode of 2D1N starts during the previous episode, the one with the bad subs, so I don't really know what it going on) Sooo not a complete loss, but I like watching these shows when I am on lunch at work because they are easier to watch/follow on my phone than something like "God Of War" which I watch on my laptop. (AJK, thanks for replying earlier and calming me down-- guess I was expecting perfection right off the bat!) I did find the latest episode of "Return of Superman" on KBS/Youtube, so that has made me happy.  (and since it says KBS I don't feel so guilty for watching it there) |
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Post by ajk on Aug 3, 2017 22:17:54 GMT -5
It looks like that's what they're concentrating on now--posting new episodes of currently running series, with a quick turnaround time to get the subs added the episodes posted. Not so much loading up lots of older series from their archives.
I just hope this doesn't tempt the networks to move to an entirely Internet or paying mode for their English-subbed series. Would hate to lose over-the-air entirely.
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Post by jewel on Aug 5, 2017 19:05:52 GMT -5
Yeah- they are there, but if you go to the main screen it says "Where’s my 2 Days, 1 Night? Due to licensing issues, we are unable to bring you new episodes. We love 2 Days, 1 Night and hope to be back soon." (same for Return of Superman) Ah. That's too bad... |
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Post by bird11 on Aug 22, 2017 21:20:08 GMT -5
Thought I would give everyone an update-- decided to load their App on my phone to see if I could watch the shows while at work-- and it does NOT work! Thinking I did something wrong I did a little searching on the App at the Google store and it seems that I am not the only one having this issue-- and many people have paid for accounts and can not watch the shows they want to watch. I get this is a new site and all, but to pull the plug on other site's ability to play the shows while they still are having issues is not very fair to those of us who love to watch these shows.......even if they solve their issues I will be very hesitant to have a paid account until I am sure they are a reliable site......not.happy.at.all.  |
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Post by ajk on Aug 24, 2017 1:40:36 GMT -5
Thanks for the update, bird! Wow that is not a good start for them at all. You'd think these people would have their ducks in a row and have everything working and ready to go BEFORE they launched the service. Very disappointing to hear that. Please do keep us posted.
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Post by bird11 on Sept 3, 2017 20:35:53 GMT -5
Soooo I was sitting here watching regular TV and thought I would play with my phone again. I was looking some of the programs listed as "free" on the app for this site and low and behold I was able to play the preview for Descendants of the Sun... so feeling positive I clicked on the first episode and nothing happens! I checked on my laptop and I was able to see a arrow, click on it and the episode started to play.... When I pull up the program on my phone, there is no arrow to click on, when I tap on the screen nothing happens, there is no indication that I need to click on something to start the show...... There was a comment on the app store that said someone deleted the app, and reset their phone or somthing like that and now the app works.... but I just don't know.....If anyone wants to suggest something, please let me know! Either I have no idea what I am doing (a possibilty) or this thing still does not work..... |
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Post by ajk on Sept 3, 2017 22:23:16 GMT -5
Wow, still not working correctly? bird this stuff should be made easy for everyone so if you're having trouble with it, don't let it bug you because it almost definitely is not you. This whole thing stinks of incompetence so far. Even the name--what a dumb name; people may forget how to spell it. Probably is not going to get a lot better any time soon. The networks may need to clean house and bring in some better people.
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Post by Knov1 on Sept 5, 2017 14:37:48 GMT -5
Soooo I was sitting here watching regular TV and thought I would play with my phone again. I was looking some of the programs listed as "free" on the app for this site and low and behold I was able to play the preview for Descendants of the Sun... so feeling positive I clicked on the first episode and nothing happens! I checked on my laptop and I was able to see a arrow, click on it and the episode started to play.... When I pull up the program on my phone, there is no arrow to click on, when I tap on the screen nothing happens, there is no indication that I need to click on something to start the show...... There was a comment on the app store that said someone deleted the app, and reset their phone or somthing like that and now the
app works.... but I just don't know.....If anyone wants to suggest something, please let me know!
Either I have no idea what I am doing (a possibilty) or this thing still does not work..... My suggestion would be to clear cache/data related to the app, uninstall app and then reinstall app. I've checked out the site. Seems like you have to be a paid member to be worth using. |
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Post by bird11 on Sept 5, 2017 23:25:54 GMT -5
First of all--- GREAT to hear from you Knov! Hope you are doing well
Thanks for the information, I am the first to admit I am not the best technical person when it comes to using my phone (I use it more to watch things than anything else!) So, I googled "How to clear my cache on my phone", followed the instructions, googled "How to uninstall an app on my phone" and followed those instructions, reset my phone......
AND still nothing! I get the drama "main screen" on my phone but when I tap on it nothing happens, when I click on a episode on my laptop it shows me an arrow to click on to start the show.
Now about being a member-- I think it is totally unfair to think I would pay for something before I have the chance to try it out (and some comments I have read said that they are paid members and it won't work for them either), I watched DramaFever for a long time before I decide to get a paid membership-- If I want to watch for free and suffer thru the commercials that should be my choice.
Finally, if I can watch an episode on my laptop as a unpaid member, why can't I watch it on my phone?!?!?!
Well, at least I can watch "Return of Superman" on KBS/Youtube.....so this itn't that big of a deal at this point....
Ok, now that I have vented, I will shut off my computer and go to bed, tomorrow is another day......
(it was still great to hear from you Knov-- so thanks!!!)
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Post by Knov1 on Sept 6, 2017 14:53:28 GMT -5
First of all--- GREAT to hear from you Knov! Hope you are doing well Thanks for the information, I am the first to admit I am not the best technical person when it comes to using my phone (I use it more to watch things than anything else!) So, I googled "How to clear my cache on my phone", followed the instructions, googled "How to uninstall an app on my phone" and followed those instructions, reset my phone...... AND still nothing! I get the drama "main screen" on my phone but when I tap on it nothing happens, when I click on a episode on my laptop it shows me an arrow to click on to start the show. Now about being a member-- I think it is totally unfair to think I would pay for something before I have the chance to try it out (and some comments I have read said that they are paid members and it won't work for them either), I watched DramaFever for a long time before I decide to get a paid membership-- If I want to watch for free and suffer thru the commercials that should be my choice.Finally, if I can watch an episode on my laptop as a unpaid member, why can't I watch it on my phone?!?!?! Well, at least I can watch "Return of Superman" on KBS/Youtube.....so this itn't that big of a deal at this point.... Ok, now that I have vented, I will shut off my computer and go to bed, tomorrow is another day...... (it was still great to hear from you Knov-- so thanks!!!) I looked into the app a bit more and seems like there's issues with both the apple and android version. Hopefully they get all the bugs fixed soon. At least the site appears to work, even if the free content is limited. If you're already a paid member of DF, I see no reason to give that up. Also, with the Viki Plus plan giving you access to all Kocowa content, that seems like a better deal to me. |
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Post by bird11 on Sept 6, 2017 21:33:06 GMT -5
Thanks, Knov for the feedback-- I was actually toying with the idea of emailing my daughter and asking her to download the app on her phone and she if she can get it to work--- but I really don't think the problem is with me or my phone. As long as I can find Return of Superman & 2days 1night on KBS/YouTube I am happy.....will keep Viki Plus in mind if I need to go there. With all the issues, I would have a really hard time giving my money to Kocowa, even if they fix the problems-- starting out with so much trouble does not give me confidence in their website..... Thanks again Knov and AJK for keeping me calm You guys are the best! |
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(and since it says KBS I don't feel so guilty for watching it there)
