Aussie viewers now have plenty of TV and movie streaming options, but choosing one is almost as confusing as picking a phone plan. Content deals with movie and TV studios mean you won’t find all your favourite shows on one platform, and there are some restrictions on the number of devices you can stream to for viewing.
What is your preference?
We have had netflix for a year and presto for about 8mths and I am bored with netflix not enough content that I want to watch, IMO, but presto seems to have a greater density of programs I actually want to watch.
I’m a fan of Stan - they’re actually investing in new, original Australian content, which I think we need to support.
But also, I just like their library - UnReal is great fun, love going back to Will & Grace, Broad City and Inside Amy Schumer are great for the library and some great LGBTI content. Good mix for me.
I also enjoy Netflix, but we drop it every now and then for a few months until a Netflix Original comes out that I really want to watch.
Presto is hell. I signed up to a free trial and it refused to work on ANY of my devices. I was never planning on signing up and they charged my credit card a week early - so I ended up paying for a month of a service I couldn’t get working on any of my devices.
Although I prefer Presto’s content it has an annoying feature that it requires logging in almost daily and putting in a pin before every show, it is a real pain as it even has to be done if you pick the wrong episode and want to move forward to the next.
Whereas with netflix once you are logged in from a device it stays always logged in from that device until you actually log out,
no need to always use pin’s or logins.
Yes, I’m having the same problem with Presto, even having to log in more than once per day at times. Sometimes I’ll finish a 20-minute episode and have to log in again to watch the next one. Leave it idle for 15 minutes and it “has encountered a glitch” with a long alphanumeric code. Such a pain! We are getting it free at the moment as a perk of our (outrageously expensive) Foxtel subscription, but there’s no way we’ll ever be a paying subscriber unless it improves significantly before the end of this year and eliminates all its technical woes.
We have Netflix and Stan and are currently thinking about Presto as well. Frustrating that you need to sign up to all three to get the content you want to watch. I am particularly disappointed in Netflix - there’s not much we want to watch.
I’ve had Netflix for a while, since before there was an Oz version. On Oz Netflix, content is limited. On US and UK (accessed with an unblocker), there is at least 4 times as much content.
All this feedback shows the advantage of the new streaming world - there is no hardware, often no lock-in subscriptions, so we can all add and remove content libraries as we wish, based upon the content that currently appeals to us. We all have CHOICE, and that is what all of us here want !
For me, one company may have a number of titles that greatly interest me today, but after I have watched that content, there may be little left to keep me there, and my tastes aren’t always those of my wife, or my kids. So unless the stars align, I do expect that we will normally have more than one service subscribed at a time, but even then it is still cheaper than the basic Foxtel package of $25/m.
We finally have a good environment for watching TV and Video on demand, so there are no bad options as far as I am concerned.
I’ve had all three at various stages and found Presto’s application the must frustrating to use. It’s riddled with bugs, limits the number of devices it can be used on and costs a premium to the other two services.
Tried Presto, Netflix & Stan. Gets boring very fast even for the kids. But for me even though it’s a lot more expensive I love Foxtel. Especially for the sport. So I’ve got Foxtel & kept Stan.
We have stan and netflix. We stream both of them onto the tv with a chromecast. We only pay for the one screen with netflix so its pretty cheap that way. We had presto in the past and I found it had only a couple of show I liked and wasn’t worth it. They are both pretty good but honestly I can only watch so much tv and I probably watched it more when I first got it than I do now.
I have Stan and Netflix and use both on both web browser and via Apple TV.
I find Stan has better content for me overall due to having a better range of movies and the Australian content. It also seems to have a lot of kids’ content although not sure about quality or range.
Netflix is good for the Netflix originals but I harbour less goodwill for them because of the discrimination between regions. I do sometimes use the Netflix US library via an unblocker and it’s way superior particularly in terms of movies. I would definitely ditch Netflix before Stan for this reason.
I love Stan - any platform that works well 99% of the time and understands the value of fast-tracking is the one for me. There’s nothing like coming home to find the new UnREAL or iZombie is patiently waiting for me, legally and easily available.
I originally signed up at launch to access the sixth season of Community, and I’ve never had a reason to ditch the subscription. Plus, their film catalogue is surprisingly great: Aussie classics like Wake In Fright, ~proper cinema~ (hello, Fellini), and indie stuff I didn’t expect to see on a local streaming platform. Really solid and getting better all the time.
We have Foxtel although have downgraded from the Platinum package because of the cost. The system of separate bundles really irritates me because in some bundles there is only one channel I would watch so we don’t have it.
I used to use US Netflix via a VPN and loved it but cannot access it now they have become ruthless at blocking proxy access. I have found the Australian Netflix has insufficient content for me. Have only seen a couple of programs of interest on Stan and haven’t tried Presto. Reading some of the comments above makes me think Presto might be too painful to use if there are glitches all the time.
I have both Netflix and Stan (I refuse to give Murdoch any of my money, so will never have Presto or Foxtel) and am happy with both. I originally subscribed to Stan because it’s the only outlet in Australia for the Breaking Bad follow up, Better Call Saul.Subscribed to Netflix when it first became available, and also accessed the UK and US versions through a VPN.
I really don’t know why people whinge about the lack of content on Netflix AU as I find it has a better selection of recent (within the last decade) movies than either the UK or US versions. It lacks some of the TV shows on the others but since I have most of them on dvd anyway it’s no big deal.
I’m quite happy to keep both Stan and Netflix as between them “My List” provides enough content to never have to watch free to air ever again.
As far as the shows that are only available on FoxTel/Presto, well there’s always CouchTuner 
We rarely watch TV. When the NBN was connected here Telstra gave us a free Telstra TV device with 6 months free usage of Presto and 3 months free usage of Stan. By the time the free periods had finished and we were being charged $10 a month for one and $15 a month for the other no one in the house was watching any of it, so we cancelled both subscriptions.
We reluctantly signed up for Foxtel Play last week for $20 per month, which apparently will be reduced to $15 per month in December when they change their package options, just so the Mrs could watch the latest Walking Dead episodes before the online spoiler memes could ruin the show for her every time they popped up on Facebook.
I’m actually enjoying Foxtel Play more than I did with Stan or Presto. My only gripe is that you’re limited to 3 devices and we have a household that would benefit from having 6 devices, which would mean paying for another monthly subscription, which we’re not prepared to do. They should just lock it in to your IP address so the whole house can benefit, but then that wouldn’t mean multiple subscriptions for them.
Oh yeah, even though Telstra offers a Foxtel package involving a set top box and satellite dish they don’t include Foxtel Play on the Telstra TV device. We have to use our Playstations to get it onto the TV. Apparently they’ll be removing it from XBOX when the changes happen in December too, which will lose them a lot of customers.
I got a 30 day trial of Prime which included Amazon Video so not a just a week trial as placed in the review…
@grahroll, thanks for letting us know about the discrepancy. How did you find Amazon Prime trial, was the content worthwhile?
Yes I enjoy a few of the benefits ie the free to read eBooks ( the selection rotates), Amazon Video (some golden oldies and Amazon owned series etc amongst the regular fare), Free postage internationally and domestic once you get an entire order over $49, even if they post items separately to you as some are located locally now eg my last order 3 items each posted from various locations US, UK, & Australia all sent free as the entire order was valued over the amount but 2 items only cost about $10 each. The items must be Prime listed for the postage I believe, from their site is this:
" Prime Delivery
Get FREE Expedited Delivery on Domestic Prime eligible items in as fast as two business days AND Free International Standard Delivery on Prime eligible orders over $49 from Amazon US."
I got the trial when it was also offering the membership fee at $4.99 a month for 12 mths after free month ended instead of the usual $6.99. If I pay an annual membership I can also get a further saving of $0.88 per month. Again from their site:
“*After your free trial, Amazon Prime is just A$6.99/month. Until 31 Jan 2019, take advantage of an introductory price of A$4.99/month. Cancel anytime.”
“Save $0.88 over the next 12 months by changing to an annual plan.”
So far no bugs or issues with the service other than the NBN service which means the HD streaming can be hard at the peak evening hours. Unfortunately this is not a service that @gordon, other satellite users and Fixed Wireless people could even try to use regardless of peak or not…so unfair, and wrong. Amazon does allow downloading of the shows for offline viewing but it is not something I have used yet so not sure how that part works regarding what terms etc are in place.
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