For several years I have been trying to watch movies and TV shows officially. To do this, I regularly subscribe to popular streaming video services and force myself to use them. Nevertheless, today I cannot say with certainty that the experience of communicating with them was really successful. The situation is steadily improving, but the convenience of official viewing of video content still leaves much to be desired. Each site has its own tangible limitations and misunderstandings that you have to put up with. Moreover, the business is unlikely to be limited to one single subscription to any streaming video service.
The sites offer a limited number of content
It directly depends on which studios they have partnerships with.
If you have never subscribed to popular streaming video services, first it is important to understand that none of the sites offers viewing of absolutely any content. Each of them has certain close partnerships with some of the studios, but not 100% with all. For example, Netflix branded films and TV shows, which continue to gain popularity, can only be officially watched as part of a subscription to this particular service. Moreover, within the framework of this service there is also other content for which you will not even have to pay extra. But it is presented selectively.
Streaming content may appear in scraps
You found the first season of an interesting series on streaming, but the second may not be available
By “snippets” in this case, we mean the selective provision of certain content. According to personal observations, this is especially true for Netflix. The service acquires content that is potentially interesting for its users from studios, but does not always do it in full. For example, within the framework of the service, it seems that the Russian TV series “Method” is presented, but not the whole, but only the first season. Apparently, the owners of Netflix decided that the ending of the detective story would not be as popular on the set, so they ignored it. Of course, this clearly spoiled the overall experience of using the service.
Not all content is available as part of a subscription
Some films, like it or not, will have to be purchased additionally
When subscribing to any streaming video service, be sure to consider the fact that, in addition to the basic subscription, there are also additional payments. For example, TV shows can be included in the declared value, but films are not. In the same MEGOGO, some pictures can be viewed if there is a subscription of the maximum level, and the rest are available only for a fee. But Apple has a division into Apple TV with the ability to buy or rent a movie, as well as Apple TV + with branded video content created by the order of the company – the latter is included in the subscription framework. In general, everything is not as simple as it could be.
There is no complete translation for many films and TV series.
Even popular movies and TV shows are often only available in English.
New Netflix subscribers will surely be pleased with the wide variety of branded shows, purchased from third-party content studios, as well as partner videos that are included in the base access fee. However, joy can quickly be replaced by disappointment due to the lack of translation into Russian. For example, when I started watching the mini-series “Lupine”, it was only available in French (original) and English, and Russian appeared quite recently. We can say that the picture is simply very fresh – well, why then, within the framework of the service, the film “The Naked Truth” is presented without a Russian translation ?! The question is rhetorical.
The sites do not offer Russian translation options
In most cases, localization is available only from one studio.
It would be strange if things turned out differently, but when you subscribe to any of the streaming video services, not everyone really thinks about it. Yes, it is important to understand that on official sites there is no choice of a specific localization. This is especially critical for classic films that have been released a long time ago. For example, when trying to watch the 1994 film Forrest Gump on Netflix, many will be surprised, because it has a completely unusual Russian translation. As practice shows, everyone got used to the localization of NTV, but the service offers another option, which I personally have not yet been able to identify.
Not all content can be viewed officially with us
It’s a pity, but many popular services do not pay attention to post-Soviet users
Yes, it is important to understand that there are quite a few interesting series that are not so easy to watch officially on the territory of post-Soviet countries. This, for example, applies to the latest Marvel projects that come out as part of the streaming video service Disney + – this applies to WandaVision, Loki, Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Once the same could be said about HBO series, but in Russia they eventually began to appear on the pages of partner platforms like the same “Okko”. In the 21st century, when the world is ruled by globalization, it is generally very strange to mention that a certain service may not be available in any country.
Some services have device restrictions
On a computer, they offer to watch movies and TV shows through a browser
In the end, it’s also important to understand that popular video streaming services also have gadget restrictions for installing branded clients. For example, I myself cannot install the same Netflix on a MacBook, so I have to use it through a browser. With Apple TV +, everything is much more critical – it can be preinstalled on new TVs, but to watch branded films and series on not the most recent ones, you will need to additionally purchase an Apple TV set-top box. It’s a dubious pleasure to surround yourself with auxiliary gadgets when the whole issue could be solved programmatically.
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