Disney Plus glitchy experience

T

Thobee

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I have really been looking forward to the launch of Disney Plus in South Africa, but I must say I have been slightly disappointed by the experience so far. I have highlighted some of them below:

1. This one is a bit major. I can't stream some titles. I couldn't stream The Kardashians yesterday and it's the same today. The playback gets stuck at one part in the show and even after reloading the page/app it won't play past that point. I will skip forward, i play for +_ a minute and loads endlessly again. It is now happening again with How I Met Your Father tonight. It seems like the issue is linked to the content in the Star hub because I was able to stream Star Wars and Disney stuff earlier today. I can't confirm this though.
2. I keep getting signed out of my account, multiple times a day actually. I have seen tweets from people with the same issue. It's annoying because the login process means I have to get up and get my phone in another room if I'm trying to watch on my TV. Not to mention waiting for the SMS or even having to request a call if the SMS does not come.
3. Like some users, I was also logged into someone else's account on launch day however that seems to be fixed now and does not happen anymore. Which is great!

Other than that it feels like they are going for quite a soft beta-ish kinda launch or a slightly watered-down version of the western versions of Disney Plus. We can't download for offline consumption till June, the Groupwatch feature is not available for us, the video quality doesn't say 4K while I'm streaming 4K (on my smart TV), the video player is not smooth while scrubbing (when I go forwards or backwards 10 secs there is a delay), also there were titles missing on launch which have now slowly become available. Shows/movies do not disappear from you continue watching if you turn them off before the credits. The autoplay feature, which I think only became available today (and it is very similar to the one on Netflix), can't be turned off like on Netflix. I prefer it off in anticipation of me falling asleep while watching something. The package just seems half baked and still a work in progress and they just rushed to launch. Some of this is nitpicking, I know, but I think we have been spoilt by Netflix for years and these minor details become noticeable. I am hoping they see these issue too and it works much-much better by the time the December holidays comes around.
 
Ryansr said:
Do you think they use the same app as for international users?
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I found that if I'm using NordVPN and forget to close it, when I open Disney+, it prompts me for username and password again. Same happens on the Mi Box.

@Thobee , where are you getting stuck in Kardashians, I'll happily go test it from my side (UK)
 
As far as the Continue Watching feature is concerned the titles stay there even after watching them to the very end. Also titles keep disappearing from the Watchlist and go from being ticked to a + for some reason.
 
Bighit said:
I found that if I'm using NordVPN and forget to close it, when I open Disney+, it prompts me for username and password again. Same happens on the Mi Box.

@Thobee , where are you getting stuck in Kardashians, I'll happily go test it from my side (UK)
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Yes, that's bcs you might have to switch to one of the NordVPN obfuscated servers. Hoped that Disney would offer a different but good experience to Netflix.
 
Ryansr said:
Yes, that's bcs you might have to switch to one of the NordVPN obfuscated servers. Hoped that Disney would offer a different but good experience to Netflix.
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Netflix is still king simply because the user experience doesn't totally suck ass. You don't feel robbed paying for something that's just completely broken...
 
Ryansr said:
Yes, that's bcs you might have to switch to one of the NordVPN obfuscated servers. Hoped that Disney would offer a different but good experience to Netflix.
Click to expand...
You'll never find another streaming service that works as well as Netflix does in terms of performance. One reason is unlike other streaming services like Disney that uses external cdns, Netflix has a in-house content distribution network called Open Connect, responsible for serving 100% of thier video traffic, add to that a world class engineering team along with premium servers all around the world, theyve got a secret sauce that no other streaming service has hence why they're the biggest one in the world, the only other that compares is Youtube. Disney Plus South Africa was developed by the Hotstar India technical team which explains why its so glitchy, Hotstar is one of the worst performing streaming services out there and have been for years so I very much doubt the SA app will improve much in the future.
 
Addy0987 said:
You'll never find another streaming service that works as well as Netflix does in terms of performance. One reason is unlike other streaming services like Disney that uses external cdns, Netflix has a in-house content distribution network called Open Connect, responsible for serving 100% of thier video traffic, add to that a world class engineering team along with premium servers all around the world, theyve got a secret sauce that no other streaming service has hence why they're the biggest one in the world, the only other that compares is Youtube. Disney Plus South Africa was developed by the Hotstar India technical team which explains why its so glitchy, Hotstar is one of the worst performing streaming services out there and have been for years so I very much doubt the SA app will improve much in the future.
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Very sad to hear that. It is even more discouraging when you consider how Hostar has been doing this in India since 2020. I don't think I'm the only one complaining about how the South African mobile and Web experience is so technically glitchy and I hope to hear about other people's experiences too. Hopefully we get more representative reviews coming from MyBB and the likes.
 
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Addy0987 said:
You'll never find another streaming service that works as well as Netflix does in terms of performance. One reason is unlike other streaming services like Disney that uses external cdns, Netflix has a in-house content distribution network called Open Connect, responsible for serving 100% of thier video traffic, add to that a world class engineering team along with premium servers all around the world, theyve got a secret sauce that no other streaming service has hence why they're the biggest one in the world, the only other that compares is Youtube. Disney Plus South Africa was developed by the Hotstar India technical team which explains why its so glitchy, Hotstar is one of the worst performing streaming services out there and have been for years so I very much doubt the SA app will improve much in the future.
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That is why I am sticking to my US account for now.
 
Found this article on Saturday. Seemed A little one sided. Personally I’ve never used or even seen the US version of Disney+. So I have nothing to compare to.

Is ours truly that bad in comparison? I can see the issues he speaks about especially on my iPad. Last night I tried watching the “What If” Marvel series and episode 5 and 7 were actually missing (showed up this morning when I checked). I had the Dolby Atmos issues on my Apple TV (conencted via ethernet), sound continuously changing from LPCM to Dolby Atmos.

Can we be optimistic and say these are teething issues that will be fixed in the future?

Is there any reasons we didn’t get the US version of the app?
 
Lashie130 said:
Found this article on Saturday. Seemed A little one sided. Personally I’ve never used or even seen the US version of Disney+. So I have nothing to compare to.

Is ours truly that bad in comparison? I can see the issues he speaks about especially on my iPad. Last night I tried watching the “What If” Marvel series and episode 5 and 7 were actually missing (showed up this morning when I checked). I had the Dolby Atmos issues on my Apple TV (conencted via ethernet), sound continuously changing from LPCM to Dolby Atmos.

Can we be optimistic and say these are teething issues that will be fixed in the future?

Is there any reasons we didn’t get the US version of the app?
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Sure this was Multichoices decision because of their fear of account sharing and hacking, same reason they changed the stream limit on dstv to 1.
 
I use Disney+ on a Chromecast with Google TV and Atmos is non-existent. I only get DD+. Netflix sends me Atmos on the same device.

I tried the online chat and the rep told me outright that Atmos is not supported in South Africa. I exclaimed and he then said I should look out for all the new features in June. He also confirmed we do indeed use Hotstar here and not vanilla Disney+
 
1. Honestly, logging in with your cellphone sucks. It really does!
2. Profiles are fine, but I haven't found a way to switch between them like with Netflix.

As such, I haven't let the kids watch it because it's a bit of a royal mess. Unless I am doing something wrong?
 
I've be trying to get the Disney plus app on my xbox, but can't seem to find it on the Microsoft store, anyone else manage to get it going on xbox?
 
OhYeah84 said:
1. Honestly, logging in with your cellphone sucks. It really does!
2. Profiles are fine, but I haven't found a way to switch between them like with Netflix.

As such, I haven't let the kids watch it because it's a bit of a royal mess. Unless I am doing something wrong?
Click to expand...

On the LG TV App there is a tick indicator when you choose a different profile. When you're on a profile, to switch scroll all the way to the left, then click on the topmost option (My Space), then click on the profile I want in the right hand pane. A 'tick' appears on the active profile picture.

The ATV (4K gen2) app sucks balls!

Same procedure, scroll all the way to the left, then click on the topmost option, then click on the profile in the right hand pane. It's crap 'cos it doesn't give you a visual indicator that it's switched. I only know that it's switched 'cos when I scroll back to the left and click on the Home button, I can see that my last watched item appears when I scroll down in that pane (which is another bugbear - it should appear as the first line in my opinion instead of advertising other shows). Also, the ATV app doesn't present you with a "Series" and "Movies" button - there's only "My Space"; "Search" and "Home".
 
AfricanTech said:
On the LG TV App there is a tick indicator when you choose a different profile. When you're on a profile, to switch scroll all the way to the left, then click on the topmost option (My Space), then click on the profile I want in the right hand pane. A 'tick' appears on the active profile picture.

The ATV (4K gen2) app sucks balls!

Same procedure, scroll all the way to the left, then click on the topmost option, then click on the profile in the right hand pane. It's crap 'cos it doesn't give you a visual indicator that it's switched. I only know that it's switched 'cos when I scroll back to the left and click on the Home button, I can see that my last watched item appears when I scroll down in that pane (which is another bugbear - it should appear as the first line in my opinion instead of advertising other shows). Also, the ATV app doesn't present you with a "Series" and "Movies" button - there's only "My Space"; "Search" and "Home".
Click to expand...
Are you referring to the Android TV app in general or specific to LG?

I have the Series Movies and more on ATV.

Screenshot_20220523-185843.pngScreenshot_20220523-185824.png
 
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