Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, WOW and Co: If you like spending your evenings in front of the TV, you're spoiled for choice. Many providers are crowding the market, offering exciting movies, series, and documentaries to film and series junkies for a small monthly fee. But the range of TV entertainment is diverse, and it's rare to find everything you want to watch on one streaming service or platform. So, should you subscribe to a second or third service? And if so, which one? In this blog post, we want to briefly compare the three most popular streaming services. We will also show you two possible alternatives for enjoying a cozy TV evening (or afternoon) with good programming outside of streaming service offerings.
How many streaming services are there? A comparison
In addition to the aforementioned Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and WOW, there are numerous other streaming services and portals such as Joyn, RTL+, Magenta, DAZN, Apple TV, Paramount+, Sky, Zattoo, Waipu, and many more. Some of these are
- Live TV streaming services like Joyn (ProSieben-Sat.1 Media Group) and RTL+ (RTL Media Group)
- Sports streaming services like DAZN and Magenta
- On-demand streaming services like Apple TV, Paramount+, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and WOW (Sky Ticket)
But these are by no means all the services you can subscribe to. Even YouTube offers selected movies, series, and original productions that are available on demand for purchase or by subscription. In the following overview, we will focus on the three most popular on-demand streaming services in Germany – Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney Plus – which are also the three largest streaming providers worldwide.
1. Netflix: The mother of all streaming services
Netflix is considered the mother of all streaming services and has become an indispensable part of countless households worldwide. In addition to third-party productions – well-known old and new blockbusters and cult series from all genres – Netflix now also offers numerous exclusive original productions (Originals), which you can only stream on Netflix. Some of these Originals have even been represented at the Oscar awards, sometimes with small successes. Important: New content is released every week – but sometimes third-party productions are removed from the catalog without warning.
Popular exclusive series on Netflix
House of Cards, Money Heist, Stranger Things, The Witcher, The Umbrella Academy
Subscriptions / Price
With every subscription, you get unlimited access to all content. Since November 3, 2022, another tariff has been available on Netflix in Germany: the option to watch Netflix with ads. Intended for beginners. There are currently four different options for video streaming subscriptions:
- Basic subscription with ads: 4.99 Euro
- Basic subscription: 7.99 Euro
- Standard subscription: 12.99 Euro
- Premium subscription: 17.99 Euro
All subscriptions can be canceled monthly. In addition, most movies and series can also be downloaded and watched offline. Only the newest subscription, Basic with ads, does not support offline viewing.
Image quality and parallel streams
The image quality on Netflix also depends on the subscription. For both Basic subscriptions, the resolution is limited to HD. The Standard subscription offers Full-HD streaming, and the Premium subscription even allows Ultra HD (4k) streaming for movies and series. With the Basic subscriptions, customers can only stream one movie at a time. The Standard subscription allows two devices, and the Premium subscription allows four devices, where users can watch movies simultaneously. Standard and Premium are therefore suitable as family subscriptions, as family members can consume different content at the same time. The Basic subscriptions only work on one device.
Netflix for Kids
Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig, Dragon Riders, and Co: Netflix also offers an extensive and good program for young viewers.
2. Amazon Prime: The streaming service of the largest internet retailer
Prime Video is the streaming service of the internet retailer Amazon. Useful side effect: Those who opt for Amazon's streaming service enjoy additional benefits beyond video streaming, such as free shipping on all orders and access to the music streaming service Prime Music. Similar to Netflix, Prime Video offers a mix of third-party and original productions, with Amazon Prime focusing its Originals on series rather than movies since 2019. Here, quality over quantity applies. Amazon has also produced top Oscar-winning films. Minor drawback: Many films and series that are free at a certain point can become chargeable at any time. On the other hand, Amazon also has older films, film classics, and off-mainstream films in its catalog. Many customers looking for entertainment outside the mainstream will find a large number of films, including classic titles with lesser-known names, directly here.
Popular exclusive series on Amazon Prime
The Rings of Power, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, The Boys, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Fleabag
Subscriptions / Price
As of September 15, 2022, Amazon Prime has increased its prices. Currently, there are two options for subscriptions:
- Monthly subscription: 8.99 Euro (student subscription: 50% cheaper)
- Annual subscription: 89.99 Euro (student subscription: 50% cheaper)
- Individual rentals and purchases of films and series are also possible. Strictly speaking, however, this is not a subscription.
- Individual rentals and purchases of films and series are also possible. Strictly speaking, however, this is not a subscription.
Unlike Netflix, a subscription only gives you access to a specific selection of films and series that Amazon generally provides. With Amazon Prime, you can always subscribe to additional channels within your subscription and book additional special interest channels. Popular, for example, is the "StarzPlay" channel (further, usually even more current cinema films and series), which you can add to your Prime Video subscription for an additional €4.99 per month. There are also channels that show sports events or content specifically for children. All additional channels can be tested for free – and canceled monthly. Offline use of films and series on Amazon Prime Video is possible with appropriate hardware and software (e.g., Fire Tablet or Prime Video app for Windows 10).
Image quality and parallel streams
You can play three streams in parallel using the same Amazon account – two if it's the same content. The image quality can be selected before streaming. Most of the time, SD, HD, Full-HD Stream, and Ultra-HD Stream for film and series are available.
Amazon Prime Video for Kids
Amazon also has a large selection of movies and series for young viewers. Most of what the regular Prime Video subscription offers, however, is less known or a bit older. For an additional €4.99 per month, you get the Amazon Kids+ channel (€7.99 without a basic subscription). In addition to other popular and well-known series for children, it also offers games, audiobooks, audio plays, and learning apps.
3. Disney+: The newcomer with animated, Star Wars, and superhero stories
Disney Plus has been available on the German market since March 24, 2020. The core consists not only of Disney's own productions, including numerous of the most beautiful Disney animated classics, which Disney had previously withdrawn from other streaming platforms. All Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel titles are now exclusively available only on Disney Plus (as a reminder: Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm now belong to Disney). Today, Disney produces elaborate series, documentaries, and films that seamlessly connect to the stories of the Star Wars saga and the Marvel universe and continuously expand upon them. This is one of the main reasons why Disney, as a relatively young streaming service, was able to grow so quickly and become so big, as the service exclusively holds some of the great and best productions in its portfolio. In addition to this mainstay, Disney+ also offers many great documentaries from National Geographic, as well as the "Stars" channel since 2021, which further complements Disney's offering with additional series, films, and documentaries.
Popular exclusive series on Disney+
The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Subscriptions
With a subscription, you get unlimited access to all content. Currently, there are two options for the subscription:
- Monthly subscription: 8.99 Euro
- Annual subscription: 89.99 Euro
Movies and series can also be downloaded and watched offline on Disney+.
Image quality and parallel streams
You can play four streams in parallel with a Disney Plus subscription. Most movies and series are available in Full HD Stream and Ultra HD Stream.
Disney+ for Kids
Due to its multitude of animated films, Disney is optimally suited for children, even if not all animated films from Disney and Pixar are directly intended for children. However, with classics like Winnie the Pooh, Gummi Bears, or Maya the Bee, Disney Plus offers enough content for even very young viewers.
Streaming alternatives: When one service is no longer enough.
Streaming services have been on the rise for years and are successively replacing linear TV. So what to do if you've already watched all interesting and somewhat interesting content with your provider and nothing new is coming? Take out a second subscription and pay the costs? Cancel the old subscription and take out a new one? These are certainly two good options. But there are other ways.
With the help of onlineTV and MOVIEJACK, there are also two tools from our company that can help you get good content and good quality for exciting TV evenings (and afternoons) for a long time – and much more cost-effectively, especially since both tools only need to be purchased once and not paid for monthly. A tempting offer, because after that, series enjoyment is free.
At least I've been doing this for over a year now, and after canceling my streaming service, I haven't subscribed to a new one – and haven't renewed the old one, to this day. The decision was certainly very individual and very smart for us, but for everyone, it would come down to a test.
Options with MOVIEJACK: Good children's series available for download
Sure, with a streaming service, it was a bit more convenient to get series for our son. But with the YouTube downloader MOVIEJACK, there's a good alternative for us here.
Even if not every children's and animated series is available as a complete episode on YouTube, there are still channels and playlists where you can find full episodes of children's cartoons. All the better that precisely the series our child currently really likes were among them (Superwings, Grizzy and the Lemmings, Jan & Henry, for example). With a little searching, you can quickly find a link (a playlist) where all (or many) episodes of a season are available. We simply copied this one link into the top line of MOVIEJACK, and the YouTube downloader did the rest. An extremely smart app and a great feature.
Overnight, all episodes of the favorite series were on the hard drive – as mp4 and as mp3. And all files without YouTube advertising. For longer car journeys, the content goes onto the tablet or into the car radio; in the afternoon, after kindergarten for example, via SD card to our TV set. Our son, at least, didn't even notice that we no longer have a streaming service for his series and is completely satisfied with the selection and image quality that MOVIEJACK offers. Both are very good, after all.
Even on YouTube, you can find everything that makes children's hearts beat faster. With MOVIEJACK, everything lands on your own hard drive overnight.
And another plus: What we couldn't find as a TV episode on YouTube was often available as an audiobook. Thanks to MOVIEJACK, these were also quickly on our hard drive as mp3s with just a few clicks. Another one of the many functions that is extremely smart and important. And if the TV time is exceeded on a given day, there's now enough content to listen to.
Options with OnlineTV: The PC becomes a second TV set with even more good programs
OnlineTV is also a kind of streaming service. Not an on-demand streaming service like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, and Co., but a live TV streaming service – or, to be precise, software that upgrades your PC, laptop, or Android device into a live TV streaming service.
Since the beginning of 2023, the software has been available in the current version 19 and offers approximately 180 TV programs via a uniform, clear interface. These include:
- Over 60 TV channels from Germany – all well-known public broadcasters as well as streams from private channels
- Over 70 TV channels from other countries such as Austria, Switzerland, but also from England, Italy, France, USA, Turkey, Ukraine ...
- Over 50 more online TV streams from other countries worldwide
How did onlineTV manage to replace our streaming provider?
Quite simply: We are a 3-person household with only one television for "linear television."
We actually only had an on-demand streaming service because we only have one television and didn't always want to agree on a TV program on some evenings. The solutions at the time were:
- Something on demand from the streaming service, we always found something we both wanted to watch there.
- One person watches something on TV, the other watches something on demand via PC (LAN) or smartphone – for example, a series.
For everyone who uses their streaming service in this or a similar way, onlineTV is therefore a very good alternative. Because:
- With almost 200 programs, it offers a significantly larger selection of content than we get via our TV. With 4plus, ORF 1 and ORF 2, or the niche channels "Lego Channel" and "Welt der Wunder," we quickly found new favorites among the approximately 150 newly added programs. We can almost always agree on one of them.
- And if we can't agree on a linear TV program with about 200 channels, we simply watch in parallel: One person watches something from the traditional selection on the TV set, the other watches something from the new, somewhat more extensive selection with onlineTV 19 - and then via PC or tablet.
Image: Found eight new favorites from a selection of approx. 200 programs (German and international). There is always something interesting to find here, and we hardly miss our streaming provider anymore.
And since both our TV set and onlineTV have a recorder, or a recording function, if necessary, we both watch something that is not live. This works with onlineTV 19 as well as with our integrated hard disk recorder on the TV set.
Access to every media library
And for the absolute emergency, we would also have access to currently 24 media libraries via onlineTV 19 – including a convenient search function. But tapping into these via the app has rarely been necessary so far.
We did the test for a few days and, thanks to onlineTV and MOVIEJACK, hardly missed our streaming service and have been saving the monthly subscription fee ever since. So to speak, we have a free flat rate for current and good entertainment, and this is always on demand on any device.
Attractive offers for both apps
Of course, both apps presented here have their price. Nevertheless, from time to time you can find good offers online where you can save up to 50% on the purchase of both tools. Users who receive the Engelmann Software newsletter probably know what we are talking about. In addition, the previous year's version is sometimes available completely free of charge.
