Should you subscribe to the Vi Movies and TV App?

Vi Movies and TV is an Indian video streaming and video on demand platform owned and operated by Vi (Vodafone and Idea). It is a one-stop entertainment destination for Vi subscribers to enjoy over 50,000 hours of content, with more than 470 Live TV and News channels, 8500 movies and TV shows, across 13 languages (English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Bengali, Oriya, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu and more).

Available on: Android, iOS and web

Download and onboarding experience: The size of the Android app is 23 MB and the download and onboarding experience is smooth. Login with a Vodafone or Idea mobile number is needed to view the content on the app.

Subscription Plan:

Different Vi Movies and TV subscription plans are offered with multiple prepaid/postpaid Vi plans. The subscription plans and the benefits offered with the Vi Movies and TV subscription include the following:

What to expect:

The content sections available in the app are Home, Movies, Premium, News and TV. Multiple widgets are provided, which simplifies content discovery.

Content from a number of popular platforms like Viacom18, Lionsgate Play, Shemaroo Me, SunNXT, Hungama, Discovery, Yupp TV etc. are available in the app.

Without subscription to the Basic/Classic/VIP plans, the content is limited to few Live News Channels like Public TV, NTV and Manorama News.

The Live News channels include CNBC TV18, NDTV24x7 and Zee News. Multiple Regional News channels and few foreign news channels are also provided.

Popular Live TV channels such asColors HD TV, MTV and Zee Cinema are also available on the platform.

The premium content available with the VIP plan includes Hollywood blockbusters.

The option to rent popular movies is also provided.

Maximum of 4 languages can be selected in the language preferences.

Design and experience:

The design is neat and simple with plenty of widgets in each of the sections like Recently Added, Top Movies, Popular Originals, Popular International Shows etc.. The black background color makes the content stand out and the grey and white text is clearly legible on all screens.

The quick filter option to select Languages and Genres is provided in the Movies, News and TV sections.

I watched the Telugu movie ‘A1 express’ as part of this review.

The show detail page has the following information:

• Release Year
• Runtime
• Language
• Genre
• Like
• Download option
• Add to watchlist
• Share
• Brief description of the movie
• Cast names
• ‘People also watched’ section

The standard features available on the video player include:

• Forward/rewind by 20 sec
• Enable/disable subtitles
• Change video quality
• When a movie is playing, screenshots cannot be taken.

Search:

1. Recent and trending searches are shown before a search keyword is typed.
2. Voice-based search is available.
3. Search results are shown in multiple sections - Movies, TV Shows, Live TV, Videos

Pros & Cons:

Pros

1. Wide variety of content across 13+ languages.
2. 470+ Live TV and News Channels.
3. The app’s sections are classified into widgets for various themes, making it easier for the user to choose content.
4. One account can be accessed on 2 and 3 devices with the Classic and VIP plans.
5. Option to download content and watch the same offline.
6. Option to cast to smart TV is available.
7. App supports split-screen mode and floating window as well.

Cons

1. Only Vi subscribers can enjoy the content on the platform.
2. Details of the cast for shows/movies are not given.
3. No critic/user ratings to help users choose a title.
4. The app has several bugs on iOS devices and the screen orientation constantly glitches
5. The response time of the UI is not up to the mark

Why should one subscribe?

1. Content from multiple OTT platforms like Lionsgate Play, Shemaroo Me, SunNXT, Hungama, Discovery etc. are available in a single app.
2. The option to watch Live TV across 470+ channels.

Rating:

Based on the user experience, the pros and cons, the rating given to Vi Movies and TV is 7 out of 10. Having a Vi Movies and TV subscription is recommended for anyone who has a Vodafone or Idea number and likes to watch movies and shows in English and other regional languages. Content from multiple OTT platforms can be enjoyed in a single app.