Brief Comparison of Various Streaming services currently available in India - Part 2

Continuing from Part 1, In this Part 2- will try to provide details for Hotstar, Sony Liv,

Hostar
Platforms on which it is available: Android, Android TV, iOS,  Google Chrome Cast, Amazon Fire TV,Web
Type of Content: Owned by Star India, Hotstar has access to all of the Star India content including Live Sports, content on demand from most of the TV channels from Star India, and lot of movie content that Star India has bought the rights. Also streams some Web Series in English and Hindi which is available only on Hotstar Platform. So in terms of Regional content this one will be leader in the pack.

Streaming Options: SD, HD (1080p). One can choose to stream the content in various options like 480p, 780p. 1080P
Currently does not seem like 5.1 option is available in terms of Audio.

Subscription Fee:

• Has Free and Premium options
• One can watch Live Sports (with few minutes delay) and also watch many of the movies without subscription
• The episodes from Star India channels with slight delay can be watched in Free subscription
• Quality of streaming even with Free subscription is great
• With premium subscription, one will get access to HBO, Show times library. and Live Sports without delay, and most of the episodes are available at 6 PM that day
• In Free subscription - Advertisement will get displayed in between the shows, but Premium is AD free
• Premium option is available in multiple options,
• 199 INR per month, 999 INR per Year
• 299 INR per year for all Sports

Overall Rating:  

• With the amount of content they provide, definitely one of the Streaming Services one must have access to
• In terms whether one can live with Free subscription or should go for subscription, it would depend on individuals taste of content. If one wants access to New movies sooner, and want access to HBO, Shot time library - then it is worthwhile to subscribe to this, else one can live with Free access

Sony Liv
Platforms on which it is available: Android, Android TV, iOS,  Google Chrome Cast, Amazon Fire TV, Web
Type of Content: Owned by Sony Pictures Network India, like Hotstar has access to all of the Sony Picture network channels in content including lot of Live Sports, content on demand from most of the TV channels from Sony India, and lot of movie content that Sony India has bought the rights.

Streaming Options: SD, HD - HD quality is OK and not great as compared to Hotstar and other streaming services
Currently does not provide 5.1 audio

Subscription Fee:

• Has Free and Premium options
• One can watch Live Sports (with few minutes delay) and also watch many of the movies without subscription
• The episodes from many of the Sony Channels with slight delay in free subscription can be watched
• Quality of streaming even with Free subscription is quite OK
• In Free subscription - Advertisement will get displayed in between the shows, but Premium is AD free
• Premium option is available in multiple options,
• 99 INR / month
• 199 INR / 6 months
• 499 INR / Year

Overall Rating:  

• With the amount of content they provide, definitely one of the Streaming Services one must have access to
• In terms whether one can live with Free subscription or should go for subscription, it would depend on individuals taste of content. If one wants access to New movies sooner, and want access to some of the Live channels then it is worthwhile for one to go with may be 6 months subscription
• If one just wants only Live Sports content, one can live without subscription and just use free access

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Brief Comparison of Various Streaming services currently available in India - Part 1

In India various Streaming Services is booming and helping the consumers watch Quality on-demand content, with less Advertisement intrusion. The increase in consumers subscribers is resulting in more Web Series getting produced by Netflix, Amazon as well as the leading Television producers like Balaji. This is also resulting in leading movie directors like Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane directing a popular Web Series Sacred Games. This also featured leading actor Saif Ali Khan acting in this series. So overall I am very happy with Quality of Content, Quality of Streaming we are getting from these various Streaming Services.

Below I am trying to list down various Streaming Services currently available in India and provide details on the type of content, quality of streaming, Subscriptions fees etc offered by these providers, to help you in deciding to choose the right Stream Services that you should probably subscribe to watch the various content.

I will write this over multiple parts with first part dedicated to 2 leading Streaming Service providers globally Netflix and Amazon Prime Video

Netflix
Platforms on which it is available: Android, Android TV, iOS, WebOS (LG), Tizen (Samsung), Google Chrome Cast, Amazon Fire TV, Web
Type of Content: English Movies, Hindi Movies, Regional movies including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Popular US based Web Series, and Hindi Web Series
Streaming Options: SD, HD (1080p), 4K (2160P) and Sound being 5.1 for most of the content
Subscription Fee: 

• First month is free
• Basic - only SD is available and 1 Screen with 500 INR / month
• Standard HD - 2 Screens with 650 INR / month
• Premium Ultra HD - 4 screens with 800 INR / month

Overall Rating:  

• Most expensive streaming services currently available in India
• Quality of streaming is great, and some content is available 4K HDR, Dolby Vision - so people with 4K TV can subscribe to Premium Ultra HD pack to watch the content in 4K
• Leading US Web Series content is available
• English movie content is lot better than the other competitors like the Amazon Prime
• Hindi and Regional content is also quite good
• Leaving aside its subscription fee, one of the streaming service one must mostly subscribe specifically if you want to watch good quality streaming content

Amazon Prime Video

Platforms on which it is available: Android, iOS, WebOS (LG), Tizen (Samsung), Amazon Fire TV, Web

Type of Content: English Movies, Hindi Movies, Regional movies including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Popular US based Web Series, and Hindi Web Series

Streaming Options: SD, HD (1080p), and some 4K HDR Content. Sound is 5.1 for most of the content

Subscription Fee: 

• Bundled with Amazone Prime subscription which provides one the access to Amazon prime Free delivery services, also free access to Amazon Music, and now New Prime Reading on Kindle
• Monthly 129 / month, Annual 999 / month

Overall Rating:

• With the amount of services Amazon Prime subscriptions provides and the price at which it is provided compared to its competitors like Netflix, Hotstar etc, I would say it is No Brainer  to subscribe to Amazon Prime
• Also unlike Netflix they provide Annual subscription which makes it more cheaper
• I have been subscribed to Amazone Prime for now almost 2 years, and the quality of streaming is as good as we get in Netflix
• Quality of content has improved over period of time. English movie content is probably lot lesser compared to Netflix, but India movie content including Bollywood and Regional movies is quite good
• Definitely one of the must subscribe Streaming Services currently available in India

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DTH vs subscribing to apps like Hotstar, Sony Liv etc

Couple of months back I renewed by Tata Sky annual subscription by paying 9K+ and immediately after that, I was thinking deeply did I do right by renewing the subscription or instead should I have subscribed to few apps like Hotstar, Sony Liv etc. Now after the latest saga of Tata Sky vs Sony as explained in my previous blog, I think this movement will sooner than later.

My Setup is,
TV - LG OLED 55 inch LG B6 (2016 model)
Sound - Denon Amp, Polk speakers 5.1 Setup
Android TV - Xiaomi Mi TV box
Internet - Act Fibernet 150 Mbps, 800 GB limit

With this setup, Internet speed and data limit is not a concern for me. I already hold Netflix, Amazon prime, ALT Balaji subscriptions and mostly watch movies, web series online. Only mostly Live sports and news I have been watching on Tata Sky.  I feel even If subscribe annually for Hotstar (999/year + Sony Liv 499/year, Zee5 499/year). This covers most of the leading entertainment, news, sports channels and works out lot cheaper than a DTH subscription. I understand in countries like US already people have moved from DTH, Cable and primarily using the Apps. In India too with the high speed internet and increased data limit, by next year few our us will definitely move away from these DTH and use these Apps which will save the cost as well and improve the quality of content we watch.

Other thing to watch out also will be Jio GigaFiber- if and when this hits the market across India - I think this will gradually kill the DTH market.

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Tata Sky and Sony channels mess from 1st October 2018

Most of the Tata Sky customers including me are a frustrated lot from 1st of October. This frustration level goes up specially if you are a Annual Mega pack subscriber, wherever we have paid 9K annual fee and are suddenly missing out on key sports channels like Sony Six HD, Sony ESPN HD, Sony MAX HD etc. I renewed my Tata Sky package couple of months back, and now I am repenting that decision. Some of this frustration from Tata Sky subscribers can be seen here

Whatever the issue between two major media powerhouses, they should have amicably solved this, and not made the subscribers suffer. Imagine if this had happened during the midst of any major sporting event like FIFA WC or the forthcoming India vs Australia series in Australia for which Sony is the broadcaster. I hope that Tata Sky and Sony resolves this issue soon - otherwise I think mainly it will be Tata Sky will be looser and not the Sony.

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Xiaomi mi tv box 3.0 - Setup and Review

Recently I purchased Xiaomi mi tv box - basically Android TV box to supplement my 55 inch LG OLED TV LGB6 (2016 model).  LG Tvs are SMART TV, and they come with WebOS and already had Netflisx and Amazon Prime, YouTube Apps. However they lacked something extra which I was looking at. I mainly went for Android box for following reasons,

1) Wanted Apps like Hotstar, Sony Liv - which was not available in Web OS
2) YouTube HDR support - LG B6 does not support HDR in YouTube due to hardware limitation and was looking for box that supports YouTube. Despite there are so many boxes that all claim to support to 4K HDR, there are not many that support YouTube 4K HDR including Apple TV, and host of Android boxes.  Hardware needs to need to support VP9-Profile2 Codec which is been used by YouTube for 4K HDR

There are 100s of Android boxes with low price to high price range, but even many of them were not having proper certificates. Read more on this here. Finally after lot analysis found Xiaomi mi tv box version 3.0 (International Mode( MDZ-16-AB) that met my requirements.

Setup
Setup was easy and stock firmware was Android TV 6.0. After the setup upgraded it to Android TV 8.0 (Oreo) and the upgrade was a smooth process.

Usage and Apps

Stock OS was coming with Netflix, YouTube, Google Play Store apps. So far have not tried Netflix app on this, as I have been happy with Netflix app on my LG TV (Web OS).

Installed Hotstar and Sony Liv and performance is quite good. Sports streaming like Cricket - there is bit of stutter, but I this is nothing related to the box or the Apps. I found the same performance issue even when I had tried the Sony Liv / Hotstar from the browser in LG Web OS. So seems like this is due to some settings in the TV.
Movie, Web Series quality is pretty good.

Installed ALT Balaji and in this also streaming quality is good.

Now the big one and one of main factors I had bought Xiaomi mi box- YouTube 4K HDR. The Stock YouTube App does not support this, and have to use Smart YoutTuve TV App for this.  This app will not available in Good Play Store, and you need to side load this app by downloading the apk file from here  and then use ES Explorer to install it. Once installed you will get launcher like below.

So far I have tried with 4K Alt, and 4K HDR works fine with this.  Confirmation for that Video plays in 4K HDR is that your TV should pop-up HDR icon, and this confirms that box is now streaming in 4K HDR

Also wanted to tryout Airte TV App as it is aggregating lot of other 3rd party sources like Alt Balai, HOOQ.
But there is major limitation with this.
1) When the App is installed it gets displayed in portrait mode. You need to install another app called Install The Rotation Screen Orientation App and set it to run in Landscape mode
2) Without mouse it is difficult to navigate in this app. You need to either connect mouse and use another app called Mouse Toogle App to use mouse in this app
3) Despite all this, the 3rd party content like from ALT Balaji , Hooq do not play on Android TV due to DRM issue. They seems to play only on Mobile Android devices

So at this stage not sure it is worthwhile to explore Airtel TV app on Android TV.

Other than - overall quite happy with the performance of this box so far, and is serving my need.

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