UK movie streaming services
BBC iPlayer
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer
Rating: 10/10
The BBC show programmes that they believe you should watching rather than what is popular on commercial stations. Free for licence payers and futures excellent quality depending on your device. The BBC uses h264 encoding with a bit rate of 3.2Mbps/3500Kbs at 25fps and 192kbps audio to produce high quality video at 720p or 1080p. That means the picture quality is pretty good. iPlayer apps are available for a wide range of devices, including Xbox, PS3, Xbox One, iPad, Android, Windows 8 tablets, PC and Mac.
Amazon Prime Instant Video
www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonInstantVideo
Rating 8/10
While the BBC provides plenty of UK viewing, to get a more American fix; Amazon provide HD streaming of TV series, cartoons and movies. The collection does sadly includes allot of poor quality “American rubbish”; however there are some good titles and plenty of good stuff for kids. You can view the service from a limited amount of devices including Playstation 2 or 3, some DVD players or you could hook up via a computer to HDMI. Amazon Prime Instant include LoveFilm as this service has been bought by Amazon. For a monthly fee of £5.99, Amazon Prime Instant Video members can:
- Enjoy unlimited instant streaming of over 15,000 movies and TV shows
- Watch anywhere, anytime with unlimited access throughout the UK
- Watch exclusive hit TV shows before they air on British TV
For an annual fee of £79 (that works out £7.12 more per year than above), Amazon Prime members can:
- Enjoy all the benefits of Amazon Prime Instant Video (listed above)
- Borrow books from a choice of over 500,000 titles from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library
- Unlimited, Free One-Day Delivery on millions of items
