Thursday, March 28, 2024

Disney+ is here: All the news, shows, movies, launch issues and more

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Finally. The most aniticpated streaming service is here. Home to not just Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the Pixar franchise, but TV networks like FX and storied series like The Simpsons. Oh, and all the Disney movies and TV shows you could ever want to watch.

Welcome to Disney+.

This is the future of video for Disney. Anything and everything that falls under the Disney umbrella — and make no mistake, it is a huge umbrella — will go through the Disney+ app, on whatever platform you wish to watch it on. If that sounds impossibly big, well, you’re right. But Disney has done well to pave this road with the also extremely successful ESPN+, which also is owned by Disney and runs on the same technology. (In fact, Disney bought the company that built the streaming side of things.)

So with all that in mind, here’s everything you need to know about Disney+.

A magical streaming service

Disney+

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$7 a month at Disney+

This is the streaming service you were looking for

Catch your favorite Disney classics along with great shows from Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, available on pretty much any device you have at home.

  • When and where Disney+ is available
  • A great price, a better bundle
  • One account for the whole family
  • What devices you can watch Disney+ on
  • How many movies and shows does Disney+ have?

When and where is Disney+ coming?

These are the confirmed countries in which Disney+ is launching in 2019:

  • November 12: United States, Canada, Netherlands
  • November 19: Australia, New Zealand

Disney plans to launch Disney+ globally in dozens of countries over the next two years, and it gave a tentative timeline in April 2019. These dates are very vague and subject to change because media and streaming laws vary from country to country and need to be navigated and negotiated by Disney’s fleet of lawyers before Disney+ can launch there:

  • March 31, 2020: United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain
  • First half of 2020: Other western European countries
  • First half of 2021: Eastern European countries
  • Throughout 2020-2021: Asia-Pacific countries
  • First half of 2020: Latin America

There are differences in available content between countries — for instance, French law forbids theatrically released films from being put on a streaming service in that country for three years, so don’t expect to see Avengers: Endgame on Disney+ in France until 2021.

How much does Disney+ cost and can I bundle it with Disney’s other services?

The pricing of Disney+ varies a bit from country, but in all of the countries where Disney+ is launching, you can save yourself a few bucks by opting for the annual billing rate rather than the monthly billing. One account can have up to four streams going at one time and up to seven profiles on the account, so you probably won’t need to shell out for multiple accounts in one family.

United States $6.99 $69.99
Canada $8.99 CAD $89.99 CAD
Netherlands €6.99 €69.99
Australia $8.99 AUD $89.99 AUD
New Zealand $9.99 NZ $99.99 NZ

Disney also has a bundle option that gives users Disney+, ESPN+, and ad-supported Hulu for $12.99 a month. It gets a little complicated, but the short version is if you have separate accounts on each of the three services you can link them together in a sort of virtual bundle via a single address, and then credits will be applied to bring the cost down to the bundle price. You should still be able to keep the various Hulu add-ons like Hulu with Live TV and Limited Commercials via this method.

Disney offered a 33% discount on a three-year subscription to D23 members back during and after the D23 Expo in August that has since closed. You had to pony up for the entire three-year subscription upfront, but you essentially paid two years to get one free, so for die-hard Disney fans, this was an excellent deal.

  • Want the best deal on Disney+ today? Here are your options

If you have a Verizon unlimited plan, you can get a year of free Disney+ thanks to a promotion it’s calling “Disney+ on Us. You can sign up for your free year through Verizon’s website, and if you’d already taken advantage of the D23 three-year subscriptions, congratulations, you can stack promotions and get four years for the price of two. Oh, how I envy you!

Parental controls, concurrent streams, and device limits

As stated above, you can have four streams going at once on one Disney+ account and as many as seven user profiles, which should be enough for most families. Disney+ is a family service, and as such, parental and data controls are paramount. Disney+ has profile-based parental controls to help keep children out of some of the service’s more mature content.

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You can download any and all the Disney+ content you want for offline viewing, but only on up to 10 devices per account. For a single user — or even a couple — this shouldn’t be a problem, but families will need to be mindful of how many devices they download content on.

  • How to download videos on Disney+ on Android

There is no device limit for streaming, only for downloaded content, so this means that most families shouldn’t run into problems streaming their favorite movies at home even if they hit the offline limit.

What platforms does Disney+ work on?

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As you’d expect of a streaming platform with Disney behind it, Disney+ is available on a wide variety of platforms:

  • Android phones and tablets
  • Android TV devices
  • Amazon Fire TV devices
  • Google Chromecast
  • Apple iOS phones and tablets
  • Apple TV
  • Desktop web browsers
  • Xbox One
  • Playstation 4
  • Android-based Sony TVs
  • Samsung smart TVs
  • LG smart TVs
  • Roku

What content does Disney+ have right now

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Disney has prided itself on its Vault of extensive content for decades. While the Vault strategy was starting to decay in the digital age, Disney+ will reap most of its rewards by hosting most of the Disney+ vault as well as an impressive array of content from Marvel, Lucasfilm, Fox, and National Geographic. At launch, Disney+ has about 500 films and over 7,500 TV episodes, including most of films in the Marvel Infinity Saga and Star Wars Skywalker Saga.

  • Every movie available on Disney+ in the US
  • Every TV series available on Disney+ in the US

Bugs, glitches, and overloaded servers: Dealing with Disney+ launch day issues

I’ve been waiting a decade for an all-in-one Disney streaming experience like Disney+, and considering that Disney+’s servers have been taken to the absolute limit today, I know I’m not the only one. We expect issues with every service at launch, especially for something as highly anticiapted as Disney+. Some users have seen issues downloading the apps, others are seeing timeouts while trying to sign up for that delectable Disney+/ESPN+/Hulu bundle, and most have just been experiencing issues with the servers while trying to binge all our favorite new and old shows.

  • Are you having trouble downloading the Disney+ app on Android?
  • Get the latest on overloaded Disney+ servers
  • Seeing Error 83 on your Chromebook? Here’s why and how to get past it

A magical streaming service

Disney+

disney-plus-logo-3uqa-3uqa.png

$7 a month at Disney+

This is the streaming service you were looking for

Catch your favorite Disney classics along with great shows from Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, available on pretty much any device you have at home.

What to get after Disney+

Disney+ is just one of the major digital platforms Disney is serving up in this new streaming era. It’s the largest, for sure. But it’s also just one part of the puzzle.

Have a look at ESPN+

If nothing else — and if you’re a sports fan of any kind — you also should consider a subscription with ESPN+. It runs on the same underlying platform as Disney+, so you’ll be pretty familiar with how things work.

And as for the content, well. If you thought there was a lot of sports of TV, wait until you get a look at ESPN+. Yes, it’s got live sports. All kinds of live sports. It’s got college football games that you can’t find on TV. It’s got a huge amount of college basketball. It’s got a smattering of NHL. It’s got boxing and UFC — in fact, you have to have ESPN+ if you want to watch pay-per-view UFC events — and rugby and cricket and … you name it.

And then there’s the matter of original content. Think Peyton Manning was resting in his retirement? Not quite. Peyton’s Places is keeping him plenty busy. Plus football coach Les Miles has a show, you can find the irrecplaceable duo of Boomer and TJ — and so much more, right there on ESPN+.

And, yes, you can watch ESPN+ on your TV, too.

More sports!

ESPN+

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$4.99 a month

Watch it all

ESPN+ is the perfect companion to Disney+ if you’re a sports fan. There simply is no limit to the off-TV games you’ll be able to watch, plus tons of original content.

And don’t forget Hulu

The third arm of the trifecta is Hulu, which also is controlled by Disney. It’s where you’ll find all the on-demand content you’ve come to know from that service, as well as original shows like The Handmaid’s Tale.

And perhaps more important for Disney’s purposes is Hulu with Live TV which, as the name implies, gets you live (and local) television alongside all that other content.

Stream this

Hulu

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From $6 a month

The full Hulu experience is expansive

Hulu becomes even more appealing when it gets bundled with Disney+ and ESPN+ for just $12.99 a month. Still to come is how much extra Live TV might cost under that plan.

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