Is it Worth the Buy – Disney+ Review

Disney Plus, a new subscription-based VOD streaming service introduced by the media conglomerate, Disney. Its release excited many moviegoers. Prior to Disney Plus, the company use to sell digital rights to already exciting VOD platforms. The service has been launched with 600+ movies and other titles to watch. However, it is presumed that within a couple of years, Disney Plus’s library will grow to a mammoth 7000+ titles to binge-watch. Presently it hosts a number of popular titles from Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pixar Studios, Star Wars Franchise, Classic Disney movies, Animations and Disney+ Originals.

Millennials are already enjoying the Disney+ Originals like The Mandalorian and Diary of a Future President and there is a lot of other programmings to watch if you are Marvel, Pixar, or a Star Wars fan. But is Disney Plus worth your money? Is the hype justified, can it compete with the biggest rival Netflix. Let’s check out with this complete review guide.

About Disney Plus

Disney Plus is subscription-based video-on-demand which is dubbed as the biggest rival to Netflix. Considering it just started its operations, the quantity of content is pretty much low but the quality it offers is very impressive. You get some of the hard to find movies on Disney Plus like Star War Series and the very popular Marvel Movies.

Since Disney bought Fox Studios you can expect a large number of movies from Disney and Fox. You get premium content from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox, and National Geographic, as well as original television series and films from Disney Channel, Freeform, and select titles from ABC Studios. It just costs $6.99 per month.

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Features of Disney+

• Simultaneous streams: 4
• Premium Movies from Disney, Pixar and Fox
• Regularly updated movies
• UHD Resolution Support
• Access to hard-to-find Disney and Fox Movies
• A promising alternative to Netflix
• Cheaper than Netflix

How is the User Interface of Disney Plus?

Disney’s user interface won’t strike anything unusual. If you are familiar with Netflix or other streaming services, you will perceive there is nothing ground-breaking about Disney+ interface. The content is sorted in sections, and row by row. A section Hit Movies is displayed at the top and Recommended For You section based on your watching behaviour follows it subsequently. And scrolling down, you will see many subcategories and genres.

Furthermore, there are entire sections for movie genres with options such as Adventure, Documentaries, Drama, Animation etc and also a search bar to find what exactly you are looking for. When you fire up Disney+, you are welcomed with the content Disney is trying to promote.

The logos of Disney‘s biggest production partners are flexed on the homepage. Logos are animated when hovering your cursor over them. The app and web are dark-themed, so no stress on your eyes. Disney does not have anything new, considering the user interface. Though, unlike other streaming services, you will find Disney+ filled with Marvel Heroes and Princess giving you more of Disney feel.

The Mobile App is pretty clean with basic settings during video play. You get to personalise the settings based on your viewing choice. Also, the interface looks smooth without any clutter.

Disney’s web interface contains every element to render a better user experience. Even though the web portal was lagging and taking forever to load for the first, it loaded pretty quickly on further loads, hope Disney finds a fix for this issue soon. Similar to the app interface, Disney’s web interface uses light background colours and light texts. Disney provides the menu items at the top to navigate. The menu contains Home, Search, Originals, Watchlists, Movies, and series.

Disney+ Settings & Preferences

Settings are accessible from the top right corner, where you can check out subscription details, change profile picture (options include Disney characters and animals from NAT Geo), and set autoplay preferences.

The Home tab displays content from Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, and horizontally scrolling you will get to see more sections such as Recommended For You, Originals, Out Of The Vault, Trending, Ultra HD and Extras. When you come across something which interests you, by simply taping the title, details will be presented on the screen. Here you will get a description, run-time, cast information, and ratings.

You can add the movie or tv show to your watchlist by pressing the plus button beside the title. The search feature is also noteworthy, to find something specific just place down the titles, genres, or characters in your queries. On select titles, Disney+ provides you to skip the intro.

Quality, Audio & Viewing Experience

Disney+ is available in 4K/HDR in limited regions. However, it will be available globally soon. Although this technology is not new and is offered by many streaming services, it is impressive that Disney+, home to old movies from the 1950s, can provide content to watch in 4K/HDR. That shows Disney+ broods on quality and user experience.

Although the 4K library of Disney+ is not as vast as Netflix’s, Disney shows commitment to increase its collection of 4K movies. You also can also lower resolutions if you want to save data or have low internet speeds. The service also auto-adjusts the video quality based on network speeds. You also get subtitles CC support for a number of titles.

Disney+ allows users to download shows and movies to stock content, to watch the content offline on the go. That means if you travel a lot and want to spend the time watching episodes of your favourite TV shows on Disney Plus, you can download all shows to enjoy. It also informs you whenever you are streaming content on your data rather than a Wi-Fi to make sure your data is not incidentally used.

Disney+ offers its growing library of content in 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Atmos with clear audio. Disney+ will automatically use the highest-quality audio your system can support. For a given title you can find Supported audio formats in the Details section.

Folks in Netherland who got the early access to the service reported some bugs. Users faced issues such as frozen screens while streaming, pause and rewind not working sometimes, clumsy UI, CC not synchronised, search not working properly and other minor issues. Disney later fixed these issues but still, there are device-specific issues reported.

Is Disney+ Available In my Country?

Disney+ is not currently accessible globally. However, Disney says they will be extending their service around the globe in the next couple of years.

Currently, Disney+ is available in the following markets:

• Netherlands
• U.S.A
• Canada
• Australia
• New Zealand
• United Kingdom
• Ireland
• Germany
• Austria
• Italy
• India
• Spain
• Switzerland

And for the rest of the world, Disney+ shared following timeline of rolling out their services:

• Eastern Europe at the start of 2021
• Latin America at the start of 2021
• Asia and Pacific’s country launches throughout 2020 and 2021

How Vast is the Library of Disney+?

It is quite vast and appealing, though not as enormous as Netflix’s. That’s quibble because Disney+ library has only 13-rated content. The impressive thing is, on day one, Disney+ provided 600+ content to watch, and since then, its library is expanding steadily.

After signing up you will be able to watch 500 movies and 350+ TV Shows, you will be greeted with the content like classic Steamboat Willie, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Bambi, Hercules, Peter Pan, Beauty And The Beast to all the way to latest originals include live-action Lady and the Tramp remake, High School Musical, Encore, The World According to Jeff Goldblum, Noell and most prominent The Mandalorian.

Star Wars films comprise Star Wars: Episodes I through VII, as well as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. You will find Marvel films, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Avengers: End Game, Ant-Man, Iron Man, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Doctor Strange, and Thor: The Dark World.

Some of the old movies and shows are remastered to be aired on Disney+, and there is a lot more to be annexed with Disney+ Originals in the coming years, I really have high hopes for WandaVision. It’s evident Disney will try every strategy to have a slice of share on the streaming industry which is strongly rooted by Netflix.

Disney will also shows extra content like bloopers, reeds, cut scenes and facts on select popualr titles.

Disney’s TV arsenal holds a combination of pre-existing shows and the latest hits. Some of the classic shows that Disney+ offers to its users include Phineas and Ferb, That’s So Raven, and The Suite Life of Zach and Cody. You get to watch all the seasons of The Simpsons! Marvel heroes, Disney Princess, Star Wars, and Simpsons all at one place, well, what more you could have asked for. Disney+ movie library does not win over Netflix’s, Hulu’s, or Amazon Prime’s library. However, if you like the idea of having Pixar, Marvel, Disney content at one place, then no doubt Disney Plus comes at the top.

Accessibility and Extra Features

Disney+ allows you to run seven screens, four simultaneous streaming, and ten connected devices, and that’s better compared to what other streaming services are offering. Netflix allows five, Amazon Prime two; Apple TV+ allows six different user profiles.

The company claims that its web and app interface supports text-to-speech tools and provides alternative methods to navigate the app. Disney+ lets you set subtitles and audio preferences directly from the playback screen on the web and smartphone app. Furthermore, the service supports closed captions and audio descriptions for most of the shows and movies.

Talking about parenting control, which is basically used to restrict kids from getting exposed to R-Rated content. Disney+’s parenting control is not as strong as its rivals Netflix and Hulu. The company doesn’t let you customize the restrictions; you just get to choose whether the profile is for a kid or for adults. Moreover, you can’t lock a profile with pin code, that means a kid can simply switch to other profiles without any issues. Disney said it will give more controls options for parental control soon.

As I said offline downloads available on Disney+ and there are no download restrictions on the company’s own content. However, Disney merely asks you to connect to the internet at least once a month.

What Plans Disney Plus Offers?

Disney+ is one of the affordable streaming services available in the market, it comes with a starting price of 46.99 per month, and if you want to save some money, you can get an annual plan that is for $69.99.

Compared with other platforms, Apple TV charges $4.99 monthly, Acorn.TV and Hulu Plus  5.99$  for their services. They are more affordable than Disney+, but again you won’t get the same content. Netflix and Amazon Prime are more expensive at 8.99$ monthly, while HBO NOW costs 14.99$ per month.

Disney+ offers a 7-day free trial though you need to make a card payment for verification. After the end of the free trial, you will be charged $6.99 in the USA, AU$8.99 in Australia, CA$8.99 in Canada, and NZ$9.99 in New Zealand. UK pricing has not been announced yet, though it is expected it to cost around $6 to $7. US-based users can have a package of Hulu / ESPN / Disney+ package only for $12.99 per month.

In India, the service is not launched separately but is combined with Hotstar and rebranded as Hotstar+Disney, it costs ₹1499/year. And offers all the Disney+ exclusive content.

What Devices Disney Plus Support?

Disney+ supports almost every up-to-date streaming compatible device. Browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox can stream the content on Disney+ web without encountering any problem. You can also get the app on your smartphone from the Apple store and Google Play store. Disney Plus didn’t overlook console users, PlayStation 4 and Xbox one also supports the service. Although, it does not seem like Nintendo Switch will be able to support Disney+ streaming any time soon. After an agreement between Disney and Amazon  Amazon Fire TV and Firestick users can stream Disney+ content on their devices.

It’s not just smartphones and PCs. You will be able to stream on TVs too, Nvidia TV, Android TV, Sony TV, Samsung Smart TV, Mi TV, OnePlus TV and other Smart TV’s can run Disney+ as sleekly as other devices. Furthermore, the WebOS platform has Disney+ app already. Other TV devices such as Google Chromecast, Roku also supports Disney+

Following is the list of all the platforms Disney+ supports:

• Amazon Fire TV
• Roku
• Chromecast
• iPad
• Apple TV
• Android
• PlayStation 4
• Xbox One
• iPhone

Disney+ allows you to stream content on four devices at the time.

Disney+ Streaming Overview

Here is a  short tabular overview of Disney Plus.

Conclusion

Disney+ came into the market with a lot of buzz and it is operating to its prominence. Disney is also working on a number of originals and Movies. Disney+ has a lot to keep you busy and entertained for a long time. The low price also makes it more appealing.

Should You Sign-up For Disney Plus?

If you have a family who cherishes Disney or are Marvel, Fox Studios, NatGeo and Pixar fan then there is no reason for you to look back. You can watch Star Wars, Classic Disney cartoons and more.

Disney will have rights over all the future content produced by it and its partners. Besides, Disney+ comes with affordable packages. Though Netflix and other streaming services provide you with more variety of content and R-rated movies, but you will surely miss premium content from Disney and its production partners.

I do understand how tempting it can be to get to choose what streaming service is worth, and there are plenty of streaming services out there, claiming they are the best in the industry. Disney+ offers a variety of content and easy-to-manage interface at an adequate price. If you are Disney Fan than Disney Plus is undoubtedly for you.