TVmaze Premium

Thanks for asking! Check out the blog post at http://www.tvmaze.com/blogs/14/announcing-tvmaze-premium: Everything currently available on TVmaze will always remain free.

Also from the blog,

2. The exclusivity of Premium features can be temporary, meaning some features from Premium eventually end up being part of the free version.

3. TVmaze Premium's development DOES NOT exclude the development of free features.

4. Not all new features go to Premium first.

Read the blog to find out about all of the nitty gritty :)

I read the blog post. I noticed that there's a new weekly calendar. How is that different from features already available?

Here's a preview of the new weekly calendar: http://tvmazecdn.com/uploads/images/original_untouched/75/188689.jpg

You can read a description of the other premium features on the premium page :)

And then you can directly vote, select acquired/watched/ignore & comment

preview

Great Job on offering your new Premium services. I know you guys worked a long time and busted your tails on tweaking it and I hope it is great for all of us who sign up which I'm sure it will be. My 1st question as I most likely will have some others down the road I'm sure? When I sign up for one of these services how soon will my annual fee be deducted? I already thought of another one which is what are the different methods of payments will you be accepting? Credit, Debit & Pay Pal I assume maybe?

Anyways my 1st question is because I do not get paid again until the 3rd of October but I want to be one of the first to sign up do I have to wait to the 3rd to do this?

Thanks for your kind responses, Ron.

One quick question:

Is the read-write user API only for the user who buys the subscription, or could a developer buy a subscription to allow their users to integrate with TVMaze? (In the second case, a token would be passed along with valid username & password)

JAGUARDOG wrote:
Great Job on offering your new Premium services. I know you guys worked a long time and busted your tails on tweaking it and I hope it is great for all of us who sign up which I'm sure it will be. My 1st question as I most likely will have some others down the road I'm sure? When I sign up for one of these services how soon will my annual fee be deducted? I already thought of another one which is what are the different methods of payments will you be accepting? Credit, Debit & Pay Pal I assume maybe?

Thanks a lot! The fee will be deducted immediately when you subscribe. After that, you'll be billed again exactly one year later. Our payment provider Paddle accepts all major creditcards as well as Paypal. Be sure to check out the FAQ as well for a few more answers to common questions.

gazza911 wrote:
One quick question:
Is the read-write user API only for the user who buys the subscription, or could a developer buy a subscription to allow their users to integrate with TVMaze? (In the second case, a token would be passed along with valid username & password)

In the current API, you can only access users that have a premium subscription. The usecase you describe sounds very interesting, but it would require a different kind of payment model, probably based on the amount of users of your app. If anyone would be interested in this, do shout out. :)

Do you plan to give free premium for top contributors?

horizon wrote:
Do you plan to give free premium for top contributors?

If so, we most likely wouldn't comment on it publicly to avoid conflicts of interest.

Some of us don't use paypal nor cards. Maybe in future consider adding BTC ;)

vBm wrote:
Some of us don't use paypal nor cards. Maybe in future consider adding BTC ;)

Thanks, I'll pass on the interest! For the time being, I believe there are quite a few options for bitcoin-backed creditcards by now, like https://bitpay.com/visa/.

Hi David/Jan, bit sad in a way seeing another service turn into a paid one but as a developer myself I completely get where you're coming from - and more importantly, where you want to go with TVMaze so I'll be supporting you. My questions revolve around the API which I use for my own Windows 10 show tracking app (not commercial as yet, just use it on my phone, tablet and HTPC) but I've found it to be somewhat limiting as you can't write back data like shows watched etc to the site. Before I do sign up is it possible to get an idea of what will be in the paid "read-write" API? I'm assuming you have a feature list or road-map you'll be implementing - if so, any chance of posting so those of us who are here mainly for the API can see what we're going to get? And will there be varying levels of API functionality depending on the level you sign up for? i.e: will gold members get fancy APi features that the silver/bronze may not get (etc) or will the paid APi be the same cross all three subscription levels?

Thanks for the support!

We'll be publishing API documentation for the user API soon, and before the end of the preorder phase. I'll post in the API forums when it's live so you can all give your feedback before everything is set in stone.

On launch, it will support full (GET, PUT, DELETE) access to followed shows/networks/people/web channels; and watched episodes (acquired/watched/skipped). If there's anything else you'd like to see, do ask.

It's likely that there will be more differences between the plans in the future, but nothing has been decided there. You can switch between plans at any time, so that shouldn't be much of a problem.

Hey David / TVMaze team

I've been in love with the site for a long time and I was actually glad to see a premium option now, as this is a service I want to support.

But I'm very concerned to see the premium form is not using HTTPS. I was going to sign up for a gold account, but being prompted with entering CC details over plain text completely turned me off.

You can get free HTTPS certificates with Let's Encrypt (https://letsencrypt.org/). If you need help with this, feel free to email me (on my profile's email), I'd be glad to help.

Thanks for the kind words!

You can rest assured that all checkout screens/widgets exclusively use HTTPS. Sending creditcard details in plaintext would never pass PCI compliance. You can verify this in the developer console: all the resources loaded when you click the button are HTTPS. You could even take the (https://checkout.paddle.com/...) link, open it in a new tab and finish your checkout there.

Once premium is fully launched, adding HTTPS support is on the shortlist. Unfortunately, it's not just as easy as loading a letsencrypt certificate.

Good luck with the premium thing.

I have a concern "Everything currently available on TVmaze will always remain free" which would imply that if you don't subscribe, you become a walled website and that anything that would be added after the 26 would not be freely available ? Is that correct or is it just bad phrasing ? I believe washington post, Ny times, Variety tried that before and they gave up because people went elsewhere....

Tonks wrote:
Good luck with the premium thing.
I have a concern "Everything currently available on TVmaze will always remain free" which would imply that if you don't subscribe, you become a walled website and that anything that would be added after the 26 would not be freely available ? Is that correct or is it just bad phrasing ? I believe washington post, Ny times, Variety tried that before and they gave up because people went elsewhere....

Copying from my post above which is a copy from the blog post:

Jan wrote:
Also from the blog,
2. The exclusivity of Premium features can be temporary, meaning some features from Premium eventually end up being part of the free version.
3. TVmaze Premium's development DOES NOT exclude the development of free features.
4. Not all new features go to Premium first.

Let us know should you have any other questions regarding premium. But do read the blog post first. :)