…use one interface of my choosing on all of them?
Back in the “bad old days” when we still used physical media, like BDs, DVDs, videotapes, and LaserDiscs, we had complete and very precise control over the media: we could advance frame-by-frame (in most of them) or jump from chapter to chapter. And in whatever device you used, hitting FF or REW behaved the same way, no matter what program you were watching.
Now, in the wonderful world of streaming, every channel has its own interface, and we only have the roughest control of where in the program we are. Hit the FF or REW button on one and you move a few seconds. On another channel the same button push moves you halfway through the show. AFAIK, there are no chapter markers on any, or any way to move exactly 30 seconds, or any other specific interval.
The search function is different on each one. On some it’s an alphabetic grid, on others its a different alpha grid, and on yet others it’s a QWERTY layout. The captioning button is in a different place in each one. And so on and on.
WTF?
Why can’t I select among any number of competing UIs, the way I can select a keyboard app for my phone, and let that same app interface with *all *of the streaming channels’ back ends to give me something like the control and consistency I have when I play DVDs? (I will leave out of this discussion the question of buffering delays, although why couldn’t our devices, in theory, download the whole show into volatile memory, so we weren’t at the mercy of the head-end servers and our local Internet connection speed?)
Obviously, as with practically every question in the world, the real answer ultimately comes down to money. Presumably, each channel has designed its UI to meet its specific needs, which are primarily financial, not based on customer satisfaction. And undoubtedly there would be concerns about security and hacking.
But does anyone here know enough about the technology of streaming head ends to tell me whether, in theory, at least, there could be the sort of universal UI on the client side that would let users have a consistent interface and level of control across multiple streaming channels?