Foxtel has announced Presto, a $24.99 a month movie-centric streaming entertainment service. How does that compare with Foxtel’s existing Play offering and the rival services from Quickflix and Fetch?
Presto will officially launch “later this year”. The first version will only work on PCs and Macs; Android and iOS tablet clients are promised eventually. You need a connection with a download speed of at least 3Mbps.
For your money, you receive on-demand access to Foxtel’s seven main movie channels: Movies Premiere, Movies Comedy, Movies Drama/ Romance, Movies Thriller/ Crime, Movies Action/ Adventure, Movies Family and Movies Masterpiece . It’s a no-contract deal, so you can drop out whenever you like. For some new release movies, you’ll have to pay additional fees (an arrangement that already applies to premium titles on standard Foxtel).
How does that differ from Foxtel Play, the company’s previously-announced streaming service? The short answer: Play is much more flexible but rather more expensive.
A basic Play package costs $25 a month, and the movie ‘bundle’ which adds movie channels is an additional $25 a month. That costs more, but Play includes nine movie channels versus Presto’s seven (it adds Showcase and World Movies to the mix), and supports both live viewing and on-demand content.
Play is also available on selected smart TVs, which doesn’t appear to be an option for Presto. As with any streaming service, you’ll also need to watch your data consumption. Play is unmetered if you’re a Telstra ISP customer; we’re guessing the same will apply to Presto but are waiting for Foxtel to confirm this.
Quickflix remains potentially cheaper than these; it’s $14.99 a month for the most basic package). It’s also more flexible in that you can access both DVD and download titles, though the range on offer varies. Fetch TV is more difficult to compare; it’s cheaper ($10 a month with most ISPs), but offers far fewer movies in its free tier.
The main point? There are plenty of options in Australia for streaming movies. I’m sure some people will continue to insist that only Netflix will do, and others would rather that Foxtel offered a sports-only bundle, but the market is evolving.
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Comments
6 responses to “Foxtel Presto, Foxtel Play, Quickflix, Fetch TV: How Do They Compare?”
Stupidly expensive.
Netflix – US$7.99pm
Hulu Plus – US$7.99pm
Unblock.us – US$4.99pm
Total – US$20.97pm
Using today’s exchange rate, that’s AU$22.30pm
I dropped Foxtel because it was costing me over $100pm. I now have far more choice.
Presto is a still-born.
This is exactly what I have, and it suits me great. No way would I be handing over my hard earned cash for any of the current Australian offerings.
As a note, the correct link for Ublock.us;
unblock-us.com
The former takes you to a script clone site that pops a bad WOT rating.
hi Jason. I am all new to this and would like to seek your kind advise on setting up Netflix @ home. i have a 150gb adsl2+ from internode. if this ok and if I would like to have Netflix, does it mean I need hulu plus & unblock-us.com?
Netflix FTW, not a day goes by in our household where it doesn’t get used. Worth every penny.
“I’m sure some people will continue to insist that only Netflix will do, ”
Well, the bar has been set (it’s clearly not an impossible target to achieve) and none of the above offerings want to even compete on content, let alone price!
I won’t try to deny or argue to the contrary that the Australian on-demand services are “evolving” because the fact is that they are.. but they are still well and truly in their infancy at this point. These are the first offerings.. the trials.. to see how good or bad the uptake is, much like with 3D tv’s etc. There’s still a long, long way to go for the Australian-side of the industry.
Netflix doesn’t have an unlimited supply of movies and TV shows.. there are quite a number of shows or movies that I have expected to be on there that are not.. but for $8/mth + $4/mth for VPN, which I use at other times as well.. I can’t really complain. $12/mth is half that of this latest offering and still cheaper than the Quickflix offering and there are NO additional premium services to pay for. Having said that, none of the Australian offerings provide unlimited supply of movies and Tv shows either.. in fact, they are a bit lacking by comparison.
As @stevothedevo says, the problem is not that it’s not achievable but that the providers aren’t even coming close to competing with Netflix/Hulu.. just like many of the big networks in USA a few years ago, they are still holding on to the outdated business models.. they’re trying to do what was already done rather than doing what is really needed to be done and keeping up with the rest of the world… much like our NBN..
Would have been much more useful to include Netflix and Hulu Plus in the comparison…