Yet one other streaming service is upon us, however Quibi is nothing like one other Netflix clone. A mashup of “quick bites,” Quibi is the brainchild of former head of Disney and Dreamworks Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has raised $1.75 billion to launch some 8,500 epiosdes throughout 175 new exhibits within the first 12 months of the service (there are virtually 50 exhibits at launch). The twist is that the content material is supposed to be considered solely on telephones and tablets, and solely in small bites of 10 minutes or much less.

Quibi is providing a really lengthy free trial of its ad-supported model—90 days—after which you’ll elect to enroll in a subscription: $4.99 per thirty days with advertisements, or $7.99 per thirty days for an ad-free expertise. But you’ll want to enroll in the trial earlier than the top of April. Apps can be found for Android and iOS gadgets. T-Mobile prospects can get one 12 months of service without cost. No phrase if there will probably be a reduction supplied for annual subscriptions, however we do know that every account will probably be restricted to a single simultaneous stream.

One of Quibi’s flagship scripted exhibits is Most Dangerous Game, starring Liam Hemsworth, Christoph Waltz, and Sarah Gadon. It will run 15 episodes of 10 minutes or much less, which is in whole concerning the whole size of a function movie, besides that every episode is individually crafted with its personal little cliffhanger on the finish, to maintain viewers hooked.

It’s basically like a 21^st-century model of the previous Saturday afternoon film serials, with “cliffhangers” that had children coming again week after week to learn the way the hero survived that explosion within the lab or that fall down a mine shaft.

But Quibi’s most original and most attention-grabbing function is that it makes use of a handheld system’s rotating display screen, permitting viewers to observe their exhibits in both panorama (horizontal) or portrait (vertical) orientation. Each present is framed and edited each methods, and viewers may even flip backwards and forwards throughout a present.

The panorama view of Most Dangerous Game is extra cinematic, making use of the large, 1.85:1 facet ratio and unfavourable area to arrange visible conflicts between characters, or between characters and their environments. But portrait view can be helpful in that it acts extra like close-ups; it’s a lot simpler to see the actors’ faces and browse their feelings. On this present, the portrait views appear to consist merely of cropped panorama views—a lot the identical means that VHS tapes use to crop or pan-and-scan widescreen films for old style TVs—however in different instances, alternate angles are used.

Michael Brown / IDG

In one other of Quibi’s scripted exhibits, the teenager homicide thriller When the Streetlights Go On, the portrait photographs embrace full-length photographs of characters’ our bodies, from head-to-toe, whereas the panorama model frames them from the waist up. In many instances, viewers would possibly need to binge the exhibits twice via, simply to get a have a look at all of the alternate photographs and framing.

The firm offered reviewers with superior appears at a handful of episodes from 24 of the exhibits that will probably be out there on the service’s April 6 launch date, together with 4 scripted exhibits and 20 non-fiction/actuality exhibits earlier than the beta model of the app was out there, so I’ll assessment the app and the service basically later this week. You can see two images right here that my editor shot of the beta model of the app, which was made out there late final week.