Netflix, Hungama and others: Streaming sites to help you get over cricket blues

During the recent Asia Cup 2016, India had three back-to back wins, adding to the enthusiasm of the cricket-crazy Indian fans. And, most of us (read me) have witnessed this frenzy at home as well. Not everyone is as crazy about cricket! And after a long day at work, the last thing on your mind is a cat fight for the TV remote. Thankfully, smarter devices these days come to your rescue with some smart alternatives. In fact, the cricketing season is actually giving users like me the time to watch interesting episodes and movies that have long been due. Shalini Dixit, a 27-year old Mumbai-based Digital marketing executive has tried to get the grip of the remote quite often. Recently, it was the South African series followed by Australian series and now the Asia Cup. She seems to be taking advantage of the recently launched Netflix and keeps herself immersed in the gripping How To Get Away With Murder that she has been reading rave reviews about. Streaming is convenient, but then bandwidth could get equally challenging. Pune-based Suchi Shukla also took to catching up with political sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine since the rest of the house is glued to TV watching cricket.  Netflix entered India lately and offered a one-month trial version followed by packages starting at Rs 500 for the basic package. For HD quality, one needs to pay Rs 150 additional amounting to Rs 650 and at Rs 800 you get Ultra-HD. Netflix brings some of the Hollywood series and movies, along with some Indian content. You can either download the app on an Android or iOS device or access the same via the web version. Rachita Bose is a home maker and doesn’t fit into the avid cricket club as her husband and daughters. While the rest of the family enjoy matches, her daughter has introduced her to Bigflix that she is now using to watch all the Bollywood masala movies she has been fond of. From Ram Lakhan to Singham, she has been busy catching up with the Bollywood flicks. BigFlix also offers a subscription that starts at Rs 99 for a one-week trial version to Rs 1799 for a year. It also easy to access on your on Android as well as iOS device. There is a similar story back at Anuj Sharma’s place, wherein the rest of the family loves cricket while he enjoys watching football with absolutely no affinity towards cricket. Anuj stays hooked to BoxTV, and has been making up for the time his family is busy with cricket by watching “I know what you did last summer”, reminiscing some college days movie-night memories. Jinal Shah, an aspiring MBA student has been using multiple streaming platforms to watch content of her choice, mostly available free. These days, she gets away from the cricket blues with Hungama by watching some of the latest flicks. She also catches some of the Bollywood movies on Spuul.  There’s no dearth of content on  Hungama. It’s loaded with Bollywood content and includes several regional movies as well. It has an interesting section called short films. An unlimited movie account with Hungama will cost Rs 249 per month. On the other hand, Spuul has a neat mobile apps ( Android and iOS) that let you navigate, discover and watch content on-the-move. Vinaya Soman, a Bangalore-based techie sings to a similar tune. It’s between the matches that she opts for some of the classic Byomkesh Bakshi episodes available to stream on YouTube. She not only finds it a great way to catch up with some childhood memories, but also the convenience of watching them on her smartphone, even in the kitchen as she prepares a meal. YouTube is a great away to discover content and Sydney Dias who works at a Pune-based techie said he loves looking for short yet interesting documentaries on YouTube. Mohini Raul, a banker, who cannot let go off the evening TV time due to daily soaps that she has been watching for months has taken a different route. She has got her husband glued to Hotstar that live-streams the latest cricket matches, keeping the TV time free for her daily soaps. Some other streaming services include ErosNow, DittoTV, Myplex, among others. Movie steaming on desktops, apps offering compressed versions and so on are now seeing more prominence. People are gradually moving towards these services, however, we are still a long way to go. One of the main issues still says the network, speed and prices.