Disney first impression what does the new streaming service offer

Disney's own streaming service “Disney” is finally available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We've been watching the service for a week now. That's not enough for a final conclusion, but what we noticed and whether Disney might be something for you, we want to try to clarify in this first impression.


Disney

Disney is on the one hand more than the name suggests, but still less than the Walt Disney Company as a whole has to offer. The video-on-demand platform offers lots of Disney content as well as films, series and documentaries from Pixar, Marvel, National Geographic as well as a large part of the “Star Wars” universe and 30 seasons of the “Simpsons”.

Go directly to Disney's subscription offers

Disney “Plus” or rather Disney “Minus”?

Anyone who approaches Disney with the attitude that they can simply see everything that the “House of the Mouse” has produced in its almost 100 years of company history will be disappointed. As is usual on other streaming services, the content seems to be rotating here too, which means that new content is added every month on Disney, while other films or series leave the service temporarily. Disney is therefore an extensive, but never a complete Disney archive.



For example, there is currently the live version of "Aladdin", the cartoon from 1992 and its second successor on Disney. However, "Dschaffar's Return" or the series are not available. This can almost be seen as a trend in the Disney cartoon series of the 80s, 90s and early 00s: For almost every nostalgic highlight on Disney there is another series that is simply missing. While "Chip und Chap: Ritter des Rechts", "DuckTales", "Disney's Große Pause" and even insider tips like "Gargoyles" are available in the stream, other series like "Captain Balu - and his daring crew", " Hercules ”,“ Pepper Ann ”or“ The Dinos ”.

In addition to the Disney content, this also applies to the other areas. Anyone who has made a note of Disney, for example, to "get through" all the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has to live with a few gaps. 20 of the 23 MCU films of the first three phases are currently being offered. The Universal movie "The Incredible Hulk" and the two Sony-produced "Spider-Man" films are currently not on Disney. Fans of the green giant and the friendly spider man will still get their money's worth. There are several cartoon series and films with the two popular superheroes on the streaming service.

With the takeover of 21st Century Fox, Disney can also show the “X-Men” film series on Disney - but here too with some cutbacks. Due to the self-imposed restriction on "family-friendly content", the first eight "X-Men" films are included in the offer - the "Deadpool" parts or "Logan - The Wolverine" will not be on Disney in the future due to their age rating be visible. In general, films that are only released for viewers 16 years or older are taboo for Disney.

Functionality - well stolen is better than ...

At the start of a service, you can always expect a few dropouts, as this is where the server is exposed to a particularly high load. Disney did well here at the start in Germany. In the first week we could only note a short picture dropout, in which suddenly only the sound continued to run for a minute. Otherwise there was a short re-buffering 2 to 3 times during prime time in the first two days. Nothing that spoils movie enjoyment.

As far as operation and various settings are concerned, Disney clearly had Netflix as a model - that's good and bad. The offer on the homepage is as opaque as that of the competition. Films and series are sorted into randomly appearing categories - in some cases this can lead to duplications and many films and series cannot be found at all without a direct search.

On tech news , the settings for language and subtitles have been copied well. So you can switch between the dubbed versions during playback and the subtitles can also be switched on at any time. Disney is not getting off to a perfect start here either.

For example, there are some films that are not available in the OV, but only with a German soundtrack. For most people this may be more of a luxury problem in this country, but it becomes really problematic - as is so often the case - with the subtitles. In some cases there is content that does not offer any German subtitles and adjustments for better readability are currently only possible in the browser. This means that people with hearing impairments can only really enjoy part of the streaming catalog.

The matter