Forum - View topicStreaming Service Choice
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Wandering Samurai
 Posts: 875 Location: USA |
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I am currently shopping around for which anime streaming service to subscribe to. My family currently shares a Netflix account, which does have great series but they are not so much up to date on most recent stuff. I've been doing some research and am not sure as to what I should do, so I'm hoping that concerns and/or questions can be cleared up here.
My understanding of the Crunchyroll and Funimation partnership is that CR will be sub only while Funi is moving more towards dub only. I am 99% a sub person so I'm going to expect that recommendations will come out towards picking CR over Funi in that aspect. The only thing I worry about is that the rumored quality for watching shows on CR isn't that great, and that things can really slow down and stuff. I also read about blackouts on the site. So I'd like some opinions on watching stuff through CR. Other sites I'm considering are Hulu and Amazon. I'm not too familiar with how their catalogs are and if they are the same as Netflix, then it kind of nixes the argument. However if their libraries are more extensive, then I would be considering them. I'm really wanting to watch Ancient Magus Bride this upcoming season, and with not too many places available to watch so far, kind of finding myself seeing no other alternatives. Any help is appreciated, thanks. |
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9835 Location: Virginia |
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The short answer is that as you are a sub fan and want to see The Ancient Magus Bride, your only option for the upcoming season is Crunchyroll. I have found their service robust and picture quality to be satisfactory. Any problems I had in the past were resolved when I switched to a higher speed internet service. I suspect that some of the problems you hear about are at the users end. Crunchyroll does have a large back catalog as well.
Crunchyroll is the only service I'm using currently. I'll let others chip in on the merits of other services. I will say this though, most shows are going to be exclusive to a single service. You may find yourself changing your subscriptions every season depending on where your must see shows are. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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I've been a Crunchyroll subscriber for years. I've watched programs on my computer connected to my TV, on computers with ordinary screens, on my PS3, and on my phone. I rarely have any issues with picture quality on any device. I think they may have separate servers for the PS Network app. Over the Internet at high-volume times, like after school and weekend mornings, there can be the occasional glitch which I don't see using my PS3.
I subscribed to Funimation for a while but dropped it once they concentrated on dubs. Like you I have a Netflix subscription, but I rarely use it to watch anime. I want to see shows as they air in Japan so I can discuss them here and elsewhere. I did watch all of Kuromukuro when it was complete, but when Netflix carried Little Witch Academia I'll admit to watching torrents rather than waiting for Netflix to package it up. Perhaps most of Netflix's viewers binge-watch anime like other programs, but a lot of us in the more active branch of the fandom want to see shows as they air. Since I was already an Amazon Prime subscriber for the free delivery option, adding Strike was not a big hurdle at an extra $5/month. This past season nearly everything I watched was on Amazon -- Made in Abyss, Princess Principal, Bahamut, Re:Creators, and Ballroom. The only show I followed on Crunchyroll was Sakura Quest. This season I have ever fewer incentives for watching Crunchy. CR tends to get most of the school/harem/ecchi type of shows which I generally don't watch. Amazon seems focused more on anime-originals and programming outside the anime mainstream. I'll keep my Crunchy subscription for a while still, but I might drop it if I go through another season or two with little there to interest me. Since I never watch dubs, I had little interest in Sentai's The Anime Network service. I doubt I'll be signing up for its successor, HiDIVE, either. |
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jdotaku
Posts: 32 |
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i try to support the industry as much as possible so i have netflix and hulu and watch anime among other things there
i love and have often subscribed to crunchyroll though not at the moment funimation i subscribed to a year ago and forgot about it honestly and it just renewed so... mostly a sub guy but sometimes dubs are nice for shows you lazily watch |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23761 |
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I currently subscribe to Crunchyroll, Funimation, HiDive, Amazon Prime and Netflix. Gun to head, if I was only alllowed to keep one, I'd keep Crunchyroll. I've been a subscriber for over 8 years and I think their playback is pretty good. The biggest problem I had with it was that at one time I had this issue where an episode would suddenly freeze and I'd have to hit the 1080p button to get the video going again. I haven't had that issue for quite some time. Obviously, your playback is going to be affected by the speed of your internet connection. As Alan45 pointed out, your preference for subs indicates CR is your best choice. They have the largest library by far and they get the biggest share of any season's new shows. Cost is very reasonable, too. I think it's $60 for a year?
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16935 |
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Depends on which plan you go with. For the basic "premium" membership I think it is $60. We're subscribed to the same ones you are Blood. I refuse to do Strike on top of Prime. I don't care if it's only $5 more. It's a matter of principle for me. Plus if you go with the "it's only $5" more idea then when they jack it up again with that same excuse and then again, and then again...you get the point.
Gun to head we'd keep Funi and Netflix. We can't keep up with new shows and we prefer dubs. They get the most of shows we want to watch and they have the better back catalog compared to HiDive I think. She loves her k-dramas and we like kung fu movies so gotta keep Netflix. Plus stand up comedy specials for me. Canceled my Hulu. Between Netflix and Prime it's not as if we have a problem finding something to watch. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23761 |
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@ Psycho 101 - yeah, not sure I'd spring for Anime Strike for $5 extra a month, either. As it happens, when you are an AP member in Canada, you get virtually all the AS titles for "free." YEAH, CANADA!!!
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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I currently subscribe to: Crunchyroll, Funimation, Amazon Prime (not Strike for reasons mention previously on this thread) which is about to end, and Netflix.
IMO, CR's player is by far the best. You can skip around inside of episodes quite easily and smoothly, and I personally rarely notice any quality problems. The exception is right after a popular episode comes out, the quality is often less for that episode, but after a couple of hours that goes away and it's fine. This doesn't happen too much anymore, but for a while it did. Funimation has lots of dubs, and I do like dubs, but I'm often not patient enough to wait for a dubbed version of something that is coming out, so Funi is best for anime that's already been completely released. Amazon's menu system is... not very good. Finding things is a pain unless you use the search function, but I do like to skim through the offerings to see if there is something that looks interesting: Amazon's player makes that tougher than it needs to be. Plus, you have to double check to make sure that you can actually watch something without having to pay for it, which I don't like. Oh... Amazon's player is HORRIBLE when it comes to skipping around inside of an episode. You move from reasonably small increments to suddenly 15+ minute time skips. This can be very problematic if you're wanting to skip something or view a specific scene, or go back to something you missed. Netflix's menu system is better than CRs, but still kind of a pain to navigate. Their player tends to be better, IMO, than Amazon's, though it does have some of the same issues, just much more manageable, for me anyway. Netflix has about the same amount of anime as Amazon, but Amazon's tends to be much newer stuff overall. Neither of them have as much as Funimation, and CR has the most by a lot. If I had to go for one, I'd probably go for CR. They've done pretty well by me over the years, and I like their player the best. They also have the largest library of anime. After that, I'd go Funimation, and then Netflix. The vast majority of Amazon's anime is part of Anime Strike, which is behind a double paywall: the Prime-only stuff is pretty scant. |
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