Disney+ is a subscription-based streaming service launched in the UK on the 24th March 2020. At first glance the platform seems solid with plenty of content from the likes of Pixar, National Geographic, Star, Marvel and of course Disney.
I’m a 50 something male so perhaps not the immediate target demographic that Disney are after, although National Geographic caught my attention with its wide range of nature content and Star means that some more mature content is available. To safeguard the young and prevent them stumbling across inappropriate content it is possible to restrict specific profiles.
It has a nice layout, but it takes ages to scroll through as there are many choices. After about an hour I had been through all the movie and series choices and added a few dozen to my watchlist for later viewing. One annoying thing is the repetition of content in different categories as you scroll through. An option to list everything available would help with this. Other options to view groups of content would be nice such as ‘List everything in date order’ or ‘List in order of release date’
Obviously, there is lots of family / child friendly content although it didn’t feel like there was a lot of original or new content but perhaps I’m just not in tune with the latest things.
There are lots of 4K things to watch including the whole Star Wars franchise.
It was good to find some series that I hadn’t finished watching on normal tv, like all episodes of Family Guy and Scrubs but I didn’t find any other series that I felt like committing to watching. Possibly Prime, Netflix, BBC iPlayer and the terrestrial on-demand services are better options for that. Also, there isn’t really any UK content. The NatGeo stuff, whilst fascinating and beautifully filmed is narrated by US voices, which is a shame for us Brits who love David Attenborough’s fabulous catalogue of work and Professor Brian Cox’s wonderful explanations of the world around us.
A nice feature is the extra content you get when choosing a title. As well as an episode listing (for TV series) there is ‘Suggested’ content for you and ‘Extras’ which features content normally found on bonus sections of DVD’s such as deleted scenes and special features. A nice touch. The ‘Details’ tab offers further information relating to the title you’ve chosen.
I like the idea of the ‘Group Watch’ feature, where content can be shared with up to 6 other subscribers at the same time. This is a nice way for family and friends to all view the same title at the same time from different locations.
I use Apple devices which need IOS 12.0 to play the app, so it isn’t compatible with older devices which has restricted my own watching flexibility. Also the ‘download’ option is only available for phones and tablets so I can’t download to my laptop which is annoying.
I think Disney+ will be good for a few movie nights stretched out over a year but it isn’t my first go-to option for daytime or evening viewing.