Available platforms: iPhone, iPad, PC, Mac
Accessed: iPad
When Presto goes live tomorrow morning for Australian consumers, subscribers will find that it’s a gorgeous, polished, and fully-formed platform that stands heads and shoulders above every other streaming media platform built for the Australian market. Which isn’t to say it doesn’t have some significant flaws.
The Presto offering is simple, offering subscribers on-demand access to all of the movies screening on the Foxtel Movies channels, along with live streaming of the Foxtel Movies channels. Foxtel Movies offers films from all the major studios and key independents including MGM, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Roadshow Films, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Hopscotch Entertainment One, ICON, Studiocanal and Transmission Films. As such, Presto’s access to films is wide in scope, offering a rich library of content to draw from.
At $19.99 a month, that sounds like a great deal, but is it worth the money? That may well depend on what you need from a service like this.
The Content
Presto is being launched as a competitor to all-you-can-eat movie services like Quickflix and Netflix. Due to the scope of Foxtel’s arrangements with all ofthe major movie distributors, the overall quality of the film library offered on Presto completely blows its competition out of the water. While Netflix, for example, may have some marquee titles made available on their platform, Presto has every major film release on its platform as it is made available on subscription TV platforms in Australia.
At launch Presto has 1511 titles listed across 10 genres. There are fewer than 1511 films, however, with some movies listed in multiple genre categories. 2 Days In New York, for example, is listed in both Comedy & Drama. As one would expect, there are more films that fall under broader categories like Comedy and Drama, but the smaller categories are not under-served.
Action & Adventure – 173 films
Animation – 42 films
Comedy – 309 films
Drama – 351 films
Horror – 88 films
Kids & Family – 92 films
Mystery & Crime – 133 films
Romance – 84 films
Sci-Fi & Fantasy – 56 films
Thriller – 183 films
The available films within the library are on a rotation that matches the films screening across the Foxtel Movies channels that month. So, for example, you won’t find Star Wars playing on Presto, but should it screen that month on one of the movie channels (entirely probable following the announcement last month that Foxtel had signed a content deal with The Walt Disney Company), it’ll appear on Presto.
So, what’s missing from Presto? Subscribers after world movie titles and art-house cinema are not catered for very well. On the Foxtel platform, foreign-language films are almost exclusively the domain of the SBS owned and operated World Movies channel. As Foxtel don’t have arrangements covering these films, they are not available on Presto. Niche art-house cinema has never been part of the Foxtel offering and as such won’t be found here on Presto. Those wanting smaller art-house films would be well-advised to instead look towards streaming services like Mubi.
If Hollywood cinema is what you are looking for (which, obviously, will be the majority of people), the Presto library is wide enough in scope to provide a very large selection that will enthuse most subscribers.
Design/Function
Presto is gorgeous to look at and very easy to navigate. The design team (who I believe are an in-house team at Telstra who were working off Ooyala’s products) have done a great job here.
A left-hand side menu provides quick access to search functionality, a category browsing/discovery tool, users personal watchlist, the streaming Foxtel Movies Channels, Community/Support, and a Settings button.
Pressing Discover opens a second side menu that allows users to browse by category, titles recently added, and curated collections.
When a title is selected, an right-hand sidebar opens, detailing the film with information like classifications, cast/director listings, year of release, running time, and reviews. Regular users of the SBS On Demand app will be familiar with this design approach. The reviews are of particular interest, allowing Presto users to contribute to the star rating, but also in that they pull data from the Rotten Tomatoes criticism aggregation site. Here they provide the overall score provided by critics and by the audience. What’s great is that even when the film selected on Presto is a complete turkey, Presto doesn’t hide that from the user. As seen below is the 8% Rotten Tomatoes score for the lousy film The Opposite Sex And How To Live With Them.
An odd quirk with the individual title listings are the recommendations provided at the bottom of the screen, advising users of similar films they might want to check out. Presumably the algorithm used to determine these could use some refinement. As seen below, often these recommendations are wildly inappropriate for the film title currently being looked at. One has to wonder how many people interested in Paul Thomas Andersons casino crime film Hard Eight would be interested in checking out Curious George.
Final Thoughts
Presto offers a very good library with a great UI. What’s not to love?
There are some glaring problems with the platform.
Standard definition movies. Consumers should be provided a choice on whether they want Standard Definition or High Definition streams. Restricting users to SD streams just because Foxtel don’t want to provide a better viewing experience on their low-cost platform than on their more expensive linear-streamed cable service just doesn’t cut it. Subscribers and Paul Rudd deserve better than this:
No TV programs on Presto reduces the value proposition for many subscribers. On demand access to movies is great, but TV is where it’s at for most consumers these days. The last 15 years have seen a dramatic rise in the quality of narrative TV shows while the movie industry has leaned more heavily on big budget tentpoles that rely more on spectacle than on solid storytelling. As a result, viewers are just as interested in TV as they are in films, if not moreso.From a practical standpoint a lack of TV on Presto means that subscribers will simply rely on Presto less often for their media consumption, thereby diminishing the value they see in Presto. Movies require a 2-hour commitment, whereas TV requires just 20 – 55 minutes depending on the show. Just how many films does one watch per month generally? Without TV content, that Presto churn rate is going to be higher than desirable.
Streaming Foxtel Movie Channels are the least valuable functionality on the app. With all of the Foxtel Movie Channels content available as on demand content within the app itself, there’s no point at all to waiting for a movie to start on the linear streamed movie channel.
Why wait until 11am to watch Gangster Squad when I can just search for it on the app and watch it now? The only possible reason is that the streamed channels are being used as a marketing gimmick to attract traditional viewers uneasy with on demand content who prefer the familiarity of a linear stream of content. This is more a sign of a lack of faith in the marketing than a requirement for the function.
Greater connected access would be nice. Currently Presto is only available on iPhone, iPad, and through computer browsers. While Presto will soon also be available for Android devices, it would be great to have access to Presto via video game consoles like Xbox and Playstation, or via connected DVD/BD players and TV’s. While some PC owners may have their TV’s connected to a computer tower or have a Macbook/iMac that can mirror a display on their connected Apple TV devices, the majority of potential Presto subscribers will find their access limited. It’s understandable that Foxtel don’t wish to canabalise their existing products by pitting Presto against them, external competitors like Netflix and Quickflix are available on pretty much every connected device out there. As good as Presto may be, its value is diminished by such restricted access to the platform.Reports indicate that Google Chromecast functionality may have been planned for Presto at launch. Should Google launch Chromecast locally soon, as rumoured, it would increase the value proposition of Presto dramatically.
Overall, Presto is an excellent product that is fully-formed at launch. Yes, it would be well-served to add some TV to the platform (the addition of Showcases HBO content would turn Presto into a must-have for many ‘cord-cutting’ TV consumers), and the SD picture quality leaves quite a bit to be desired, but looking beyond that, it’s pretty great. The movie selection is second to none and the ease of navigation makes finding a film to watch a pleasure. Presto exceeds expectation.
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