Should you get a Voot subscription?

Whether or not one should sign up for a new OTT subscription is probably a first-world dilemma many have gone through in recent years. While each may have their own preferences and expectations from premium OTT platforms, some of the requirements/concerns are likely to be common. Does it have enough movies and shows to justify getting an annual plan or can you knock off the popular titles with a quarterly membership? Does it have a good mix of classics and new releases? Does it have movies of my favourite actor/filmmaker? Does it provide access to live channels and exclusive videos, apart from the catalogue? To answer these and other questions, here’s our review of Voot so that you can make an informed decision to sign up for a subscription.

Voot is a video-on-demand platform. Launched in March 2016, it is a part of Viacom 18 Digital Ventures, the digital arm of Viacom 18. It includes content in multiple languages like Hindi, English, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, and Bengali. It has a library of over 40,000 hours of video content that also include titles from Colors TV, MTV, Nickelodeon, and other Viacom18 channels, apart from a host of blockbuster movies and animated shows for children.

The OTT’s catalogue also includes ‘Voot Originals’ such as Arshad Warsi-starrer Asur and Shriya Pilgaonkar-starrer Crackdown. In Feb 2020, Voot launched a paid subscription service called Voot Select which provides access to their entire catalogue, which includes original series and some popular TV shows such as Roadies can also be streamed a day before they air on TV. The platform has around 1 million paying subscribers (as of March ’21) and around 100 million monthly active users.

Available on:

Android, iOS, Fire TV Stick, Web, App

Download and onboarding experience:

It’s a lightweight 20MB android app. The onboarding and login can be skipped in case the user wants to first scroll through the content. Though a login is required to play or download the content. The platform provides several login options from mobile number, email, to single click social login options like Google, Facebook and Apple.

Subscription Plan

Voot offers the following subscription plans under Voot Select.

Voot often has an offer on their subscription plans and the promo code can be found at their social pages. Do check it before subscribing, you may just chance upon an ongoing deal.

What to expect

Shows

Voot offers a long list of shows to watch from. All the seasons of the popular reality shows like Dance Deewane, Big Boss, Bigg Boss Kannada, Roadies, Splitsvilla are all available for free. Voot’s catalogue has the highest number of Indian reality shows among all OTT platforms. Many shows which were popular on TV such as Ashoka, Balika Vadhu, Naagin, Kaisi Yeh Yaariaan and even the older reality shows such as MTV Bakra are available for free on the platform.

Voot includes several original web series and in the past few years, series like Asur, The Gone Game and Illegal have been well received by viewers. The platform also includes a strong catalogue of international shows, which include Your Honour (starring Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston), Interrogation, Californication and Nancy Drew. Many internationally-celebrated reality shows are also present on the platform such Shark Tank, America’s Got Talent, Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown and MasterChef.

Shows and movies on the platform are slotted in the following genres: comedy, romance, mystery, mythology, crime and many more. And if regional content is what you’re looking for, this platform includes several popular regional shows in languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati. Certain daily soaps can also be watched on Voot 24 hours before they air on TV.

Movies

Voot has many movies to offer for both subscribed and free users as well. Many Bollywood blockbusters like Kapoor & Sons, Bajirao Mastani, KGF and Deewar can be found on the platform. It also offers several 90s hits like Majhdhaar, Jai Kishen and Andolan. Many award-winning short films are also available on the platform like Bouma, Glitch, Ishq ki Googly and Teaspoon. Voot also offers regional content from Kannada, Telugu, Marathi and Bengali cinema. Good collection of movies across several genres like comedy, action, horror, thriller and romance can be found on the platform.

News

The platform has a section for News and live news from News18 channel in 20+ languages including Hindi, English, Urdu, Marathi, Odia and Kannada. Various other recorded news shows and videos of trending and latest topics are also available on the platform in several regional languages.

Entertainment Channels

Many live TV channels across various regional languages can also be viewed on the platform such as Colors, MTV, Colors Cineplex, Comedy Central, Nick Jr and Voot eSports.

Voot also has a collaboration with Cult.fit platform. Many fitness-related videos from Cult Live like Yoga, Strength & Conditioning, Cardio, HIIT and Weight Loss can be found on the platform for free.

Design and User Experience

The design looks neat and clean. Voot’s dark theme colour on the background looks good, and the light colour text is clearly readable on all the screens. The properly categorised menu bar on the platform makes it easy for the user to start his search for the desired content.

Each section is further divided into widgets making it easy for the user to traverse to the content as per his choice and mood. The widgets under each section are of various varieties like different genres, languages and other useful (easy to choose from) categories like Trending, Top rated, All time hits, New and Blockbusters.

Each widget comprises a decent number of titles to choose from through a left-to-right scroll or an ALL page.

The featured carousel of latest episodes at the top of the Home (My Voot) page makes it easy for the users to choose a title without even much scrolling on the site.

The Language widget on the Home page makes it easy for the user to surf through all the content of their preferred language on the platform.

Overall my experience on the platform was effortless. The Load More on the pages works smoothly. The page loads are quick. The movie/show detail pages provide enough detailing about a title in order to choose or reject it as per your choice. The details like Language, Length, Genre, Release Year, Certificate and Description.

Each detail page comes with a “More Like This” section making it possible for the user to choose a title similar to the title he has liked watching previously. This feature comes very handy at times.

The video player is simple and easy to use with all the standard functionalities. The video quality (High, Medium, Low) feature comes very useful to the viewers with limited internet availability or speed.

In the app, content can be downloaded to save an offline copy to watch later. One of the useful cases of this feature is to be able to download a content while in WiFi network to watch later on mobile data or no internet or to watch your favourite content multiple times in the consumption of one-time download.

Pros & Cons

Pros

1. Extensive variety of content across 7 major languages.
2. Access to 45+ Live TV channels
3. Access to Live and trending News
4. Fitness videos from Cult.Fit
5. Popular Shows 24 hours before TV
6. Latest international shows
7. Widget layout making it easy to choose the content
8. Less subscription fee compare to other OTTs in the market
9. Wide range of Reality shows (Indian and International)
10. Availability and Sync across all major platforms (Web, App, Smart TV, Web app)
11. In the app, content can be downloaded to save an offline copy to watch later

Cons

1. No international movies
2. Limited sort and filter options
3. No critic/user rating to help choose a title
4. Cast and crew information is not available

Why should one subscribe?

1. The annual subscription fee is equivalent to a one-time multiplex movie ticket, and costs way less in case you order popcorn or coffee during the interval
2. Best choice in case you are a fan of reality shows
3. If you want a mix of web series and TV entertainment
4. If you are looking for an all-in-one OTT subscription (Movies, Shows, Daily Soaps, Songs, Cartoons, News, Fitness)
5. If you like watching classic content
6. It has content to offer for everyone in the family, that is, for every age group

Conclusion

Based on all the pros and cons, our verdict is 7 out of 10.

With the wide variety of content across genres, content type, languages, and age groups that Voot has to offer to its viewers, and with such a competitive subscription pricings - VOOT is definitely a highly recommended OTT for anyone.