Netflix or Viaplay

[PJG]

Using Netflix for about 2 years now. Content has improved quite a bit recently. There's still a delay in getting the most recent seasons of some TV series, no doubt due to the relatively low number of viewers/subscribers paying towards the costs of translation for subtitles. If you're new to it, you'll have a hell of a lot of choice of good films and series to watch, so you're unlikely to be frustrated by these delays and certainly no more than you'd have with other providers, given they also obtain very similar content.

I looked into viaplay recently and the movies/tv selection is broadly similar to netflix. On the device count limitation, Netflix don't impose that restriction. For them, they offer a multi-viewer subscription which uses concurrency (number of streams active at a point in time) to place a limit. I'm signed in on 8 devices at any time, but our 2 viewer limit only allows for, obviously, 2 active viewing streams. You can go with more or less, but you're not limited. I can view on my desktop PC, one of 3 laptops, 2 phones, a tablet or my apple TV etc.

For viaplay, the sports available (which caught my interest also) is not particularly impressive. The 30 per month sub excludes many of the premium events which remain as pay per view. If you really want a particular sports series/league, you'd be better off subscribing to an internet stream from that sports primary rights holder, such as NFL, NHL, NBL's own subscription services for access. In fact, if all you want is a regular 'fix' for a sport type by being able to watch a full game, most of those have a daily 'free' game requiring no payment and accessible online. That's certainly the case with the app on the Apple TV (the basic 70 euro one).

One thing that could push you to viaplay is the ability to download content for offline viewing. Netflix are now blocking proxies very successfully, meaning I couldn't even access local dutch content last month in Amsterdam, even though I'm a paid up subscriber, because the hotel use a proxied VPN service for all their guest/customer wi-fi service. That wouldn't bother me if I was going with viaplay as my service provider, assuming I'd downloaded a few things to watch before I travelled.

[foca]

I have been using Netflix for over 3 years now. The content is fine, but very much area restricted. For example in Switzerland one can see a third season of a show, while in Sweden and Finland only 2nd season is available. They only started to block VPN use recently (less than a year). Perhaps one should check other VPN services. But HMA is well known to them and does not work....

[diszno]

I think Viaplay is a no-brainer if you like to watch football. They have Champions League, Italian Serie A, La Liga, English Premier league... Basically everything you might want to watch. So all that makes it worthwhile for me. However, if I wouldn't watch football, then Viaplay wouldn't be attractive as I find the selection there for movies and series to be quite narrow. In fact, I haven't watched anything else on Viaplay besides football.

If you like tv shows, Netflix is definitely worth the money as it has soooo many amazing shows. HBO Nordic is another option as well.

So in summary, I wouldn't get Viaplay if it wasn't for sports as Netflix and HBO Nordic are better suited for tv shows and movies.