Hotstar

Should you give Hotstar a shot?

First and foremost, I would like to inform you that streaming services in India are really affordable. For about $14.99 per year, you can get access to services like Hotstar and Amazon Prime. You can actively stream Hotstar from anywhere in the world if you know how to use a VPN or can ask for help to complete the purchase.

Even if you merely wanted to consume English material as a streamer, you would still get a fair share of the pie. You may stream practically anything, from popular TV shows like 'MasterChef Australia' to the currently popular 'Modern Family.' All of HBO's material is available, as well as unique National Geographic content.

User Interface & Design

If you compare the interface of Hotstar to Netflix or Hulu, you will be disappointed. You will feel better if you compare it to Amazon Prime Video. On a personal level, I like the UI, but as a frequent Netflix viewer, it irritates me at times.

The website has a simple green and white colour scheme throughout. At most, the design is modest. However, I enjoy how the content is separated. On Hotstar, finding entertainment is not nearly as difficult as it was two years ago. You may search for anything in the search field, and it does provide tailored playlists to suit your tastes if you are looking for a random viewing experience.

Simple UI with horizontally placed content, content title, and thumbnail. Banners on the site advertise a new material, most often live events. After that, you will see recommendation windows with album art from up to seven different shows. Below that is a personalized playlist divided into genres and content formats.

TV, Movies, Sports, News, and Premium are the five primary categories, with a search box on the right. A drop-down menu is available in three of the five primary categories.

• TV – A list of Star Network and Hotstar Originals television channels.
• Films – categorized into nine languages
• Sports - Football, Cricket, Formula 1, Badminton, eSports, Table Tennis, Hockey, Martial Arts, Athletics, Tennis, Kabaddi, Swimming, and Boxing are among the 14 subcategories
• News – Does not have a drop-down menu, but clicking it gives you access to global news from networks like Republic TV, India Today, Sky News, Bloomberg Quint, Fox News, and Aaj Tak, to name a few.
• Premium — Like the News category, the Premium category lacks a drop-down menu, instead offering a variety of premium content such as the 'Avengers Universe Playlist,' 'Freshly Added Movies,' 'Upcoming Movies,' 'Golden Globe 2020 Nominees,' and 'Trending This Month.'

The browsing category is represented by three horizontal lines on the extreme left. It opens a drop-down menu with options such as Home, TV, Movies, Sports, News, Premium, Channels, Language, and Genres when you click on it.

Content

Novi Digital Entertainment Private Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Start India Pvt. Ltd, owns the Hotstar app. For the past two decades, if not longer, the latter has been one of India's most well-known entertainment content makers. It is easy to see why this streaming website is popular in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, given its large content library of over 100,000 hours of programming.

Originals are Hotstar's most underappreciated offering. However, they fall well short of the high expectations set by Netflix and Amazon Prime Video Originals. 'AIB's ON AIR,' 'One Tip One Hand,' and 'M Bole Toh' are among the well-known originals. Its originals are not its strongest suit, and it is not a feature you would swoon over.

Hotstar does have one advantage: quantity. Not only is there expensive stuff, but there is also free content. The free content category includes some of the biggest Bollywood blockbusters, which has prompted customers to download this app. In recent years, Bollywood blockbusters such as 'Bajrangi Bhaijaan,' 'Jolly LLB 2', 'Golmaal Series,' and 'Bahubali 2' have captivated Indian audiences. For those looking for English-language TV shows and films, there are many to choose from.

Mobile/Desktop Experience

You can use both the browser and the app to access the Hotstar app. One feature of this programme that I dislike is that it does not support cross-device sync. As a result, you are unable to continue where you left off. Though the software is available for Android and iOS, its streaming capabilities are not particularly impressive.

Many Indians rely on a 4G internet connection with up to 1-2 GB of data limit to watch TV, and the majority of them have expressed dissatisfaction with the app due to its high data usage. The reason why 4K is not available in India yet.

Even if you wish to stream in 1080p over a 4G connection, the minimal limitation will make it difficult. As a result, the best quality for watching the stream is HD 720p. If you are watching it from outside of India, you will get Full HD 1080p streaming, which is the highest quality the app has to offer.

Hotstar's streaming strength is that it also enables 240p streaming. As a result, even with a 2G data connection, you may still watch the shows in poor quality. It contains a 10-second replay option, similar to YouTube, that you can use to fast-forward or backtrack your recordings. Captions that were not available in the beginning have now been added.

Plans and Costs

Here's where Hotstar takes the lead in India's online streaming market. Its price is comparable to Amazon Prime, which costs roughly $14.99 per year, but the amount of stuff you get is simply incredible. While most streaming services around the world charge between $8 and $30 per month, Hotstar charges just under $15 for a whole year of premium material. Is not it mind-boggling?

Not only that but, like other streaming services, it also allows you to cancel your subscription at any moment. You can also take advantage of a one-month free trial, which is typical across all streaming services.

Hotstar features a two-tier structure for plans and pricing: VIP ($6.99/year) and Premium ($14.99/year). The VIP plan gives members access to key sports content as well as a few Hotstar specials, whereas the Premium plan is an eat-all-you-can approach that gives members access to the full content catalog.

Source: Top Streaming Sites