6/17/2017 0 Comments Area 51 Netflix StreamingWhich streaming service deserves your cash? Netflix or Amazon Video: Which is the best video streaming service? The world is in love with streaming. No longer are the walls of our living rooms lined with DVDs and Blu- rays, as our film and TV needs are now fulfilled by video- on- demand services. The two main purveyors of this kind of internet- based entertainment are Netflix and Amazon, with its Prime Instant Video service. But with only so many hours in the day, deciding which of these two streaming giants are worth signing up for has become somewhat of a challenge. With that in mind, we've taken a closer look at both Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video to find out which comes out on top. Related: Stranger Things season 2. Netflix vs Amazon Video - Pricing. One point to get out there first of all is that both Netflix and Amazon Video offer free trials. Netflix gives you a free month while Amazon offers a 3. Prime membership, getting you access to the online catalogue of films and TV shows, free speedy postage from Amazon's retail side, access to an Kindle e. Book lending library, as well as the Amazon Music Prime streaming service. Students can get a 6- month trial of Amazon Prime. Just head over to the website and click on the section that asks whether you're a student to sign up. Anything we talk about here you can check out for yourself through those trials. Try now: get you 3. Netflix . Amazon tends to big- up its . You'll find that there's a . This still doesn't seem to be available in the US, though. Netflix's standard service starts at . We wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless money really is very tight indeed. A far better starting point is the . There's also an . Of course, you'll need a compatible 4. K TV to use the latter. Related: What is 4. Sometimes it may not be enough to just watch a streaming video while it is broadcasted. Maybe you are in a webcam session with your colleagues or better-half and want. Your Netflix queue is about to undergo its monthly shakeup. With each month comes the extraction of TV shows and movies from the Netflix library — a harsh reality.
K and UHD? None of these plans comes with any extra commitment, but with the Amazon annual deal you pay for the whole year up- front. Make sure you cancel your Prime trial before it ends unless you're happy to pay out. Read that last sentence again – it's important. Amazon Video isn't just a pure all- you- can- eat video streaming service either. There are also options to rent and buy titles, featuring some films and TV series that are a little bit newer than the core selection. Netflix, conversely, is a pure subscription service, with no extra charges to pay even if you wanted to. While discovering more movies and TV episodes at your fingertips sounds like a good thing, more often than not we hear complaints from Prime Instant Video customers saying they searched for something and found it, only to discover it's not included in their subscription. It's a strange matter of perception - Amazon actually gives you more choice than Netflix, but by mixing in standard rentals with 'free' content, it can feel like you're being fleeced in comparison to Netflix's more limited service. Netflix vs Amazon Video - Supported platforms Most current Smart TV platforms support both these services, but if you're wondering about your own TV, it's best to check on its app store if there is one. Netflix support is significantly better in some areas. For example, Netflix has been available for Chromecast for ages now, but we're still waiting to get an official Instant Video app. However, you can use the Chromecast's browser cast function to throw Amazon Prime Video from your laptop or smartphone browser onto your TV. Related: Chromecast tips and tricks. It's a similar state of affairs with Apple's revamped Apple TV. It shipped with Netflix app support, but not Amazon Instant Video. There have been claims that Amazon is set to launch an app for the Apple TV some time soon, but for now it's just another compatibility win for Netflix. There is an Amazon Video streaming app for both Android and i. OS, and both now allow you to stream video over a mobile network connection (which the i. OS app didn't used to support). However, you need to download the Android app from the Amazon Appstore, not Google Play, and for some reason need to have the Amazon store app installed too. Given that you pay for Instant Video, needing to have the whole Amazon app suite on your phone seems pretty rich. One plus that comes with having the i. OS app is that you can stream Amazon content to your Apple TV. Simply start the show you want to watch on your phone or tablet using the app, and tap the Airplay button to cast the show to Apple TV. One standout feature of Prime Instant Video is the ability to download certain films and TV shows onto your Fire tablet, Fire phone, and Android/i. OS devices for watching offline. While not all titles are available, there's a good amount of content which you can download. This is something that Netflix doesn't currently offer. Related: Best movies on Amazon Prime Instant Video. Things are definitely improving for Amazon Video users in terms of compatibility. A case in point is the popular Roku family of media players, which has added Amazon support in recent months. Of course, while Amazon's platform support is improving, Netflix is already pretty much flawless. There's no problem at all getting your Master of None or House of Cards fix, regardless of your chosen media streamer. Netflix can be streamed freely using Wi- Fi or a mobile internet connection with Android phones and i. Phones alike, just like with Amazon. There are simply fewer hoops to jump through than with Amazon. Netflix vs Amazon Video - Which has the best films? As of the time of writing, the UK version of Netflix has 3,0. New on Netflix UK website. Amazon Video UK has 1,8. Amazon site. These numbers vary slightly according to the third party source you consult, so we only use this as an approximate guide, but Netflix appears to have an edge in terms of pure numbers here in the UK. In the US, things appear to swing the other way, with Amazon having a couple of thousand more than Netflix according to Just. Watch. For both services, our American cousins have a much richer library of content to pick from by a factor or two or three. There is often surprisingly little overlap in these services' film libraries, presumably because each works to get a certain degree of exclusivity, especially with titles it thinks might act as a draw for new subscribers. Related: Best TV shows on Amazon Prime Instant Video. Want to check the movie list out for yourself? Amazon offers its own library browser as part of the Amazon website, but Netflix doesn't. As standard you can only check out the Netflix library if you login. Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't ways to check out the library. There are numerous sites that let you do so, several of which we've mentioned above. Flix. Search is another good universal one to check out. To offer a slightly more concrete test, we checked out the top 2. IMDb top 2. 50 films list, leaving out multiple from the same film series and the original Star Wars films. Blame George Lucas)Related: Best movies and documentaries on Netflix. We've run this test before, and last year found that Netflix UK and Netflix US performed equally well, and that both did better than Amazon Video UK and Amazon Video US. This time around, Netflix US and UK performed the best, followed by Amazon UK and Amazon US in joint last. But what's most notable here is how poorly they all did. Netflix UK and US won with 3 out of the top 2. What's clear is that neither of these services should be your first port of call if you're a film buff in either the US or UK. Neither gets anything approaching first pick when it comes to the latest films, of course, with rental services still understandably given priority. But it seems even the older, more established films aren't trickling through like they used to. We'd guess that this is as a result of both services opting to focus on original TV and movie content rather than chasing after film licenses quite as much as they used to. Indeed, with awards- tipped Beasts of No Nation, Netflix has taken a bold step into producing its own movies. It's got movie studios and theatres running scared, but it's very good news for the customer. Related: Netflix tips and tricks Netflix vs Amazon Video - Which has the best TV shows? The roll call of TV shows runs like the movie line- up. Once again, the US versions have a much better line- up than the UK side. However, Amazon Video seems to have a wider array of UK curiosities than Netflix. Shows like Downton Abbey can be found on Amazon's service but not on Netflix. This disparity used to be a lot more marked, though. For example, Doctor Who used to feature on Instant Video but not Netflix. Now it's on both, but strangely you'll have to pay to rent anything other than season 7 on Amazon. And those UK curiosities are generally found towards the bottom of the . That means high- quality dramas with serious- ish themes, if you're not familiar with the network. Shows such as the House of Cards remake, Bloodline and, more recently, Narcos can stand up to any show produced by one of the major TV networks, while Daredevil and Jessica Jones are building a gritty shared comicbook universe that's way beyond anything made by The CW. On the less serious side, Netflix is also behind the animated comedy show Bo. Jack Horseman, as well as achingly hip Aziz Ansari comedy Master of None, and the Judd Apatow produced Love. Amazon started off its original programming with a much lighter touch, but also made less of an impact, with comedy shows like Betas and Alpha House. However, it has stepped up its game considerably, and has taken a little more of a Netflix- like approach. This arguably started with the high- quality comedy- drama Transparent, which won a Golden Globe award for best TV series (comedy/musical). More recently we've seen the acclaimed dystopia of The Man in the High Castle, and the perfectly pitched '8. Red Oaks. Amazon takes a slightly less focused, more blunt- force approach to obtaining original content than Netflix.
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