Best Movie streaming services in India
With the improved broadband and cellular data connectivity, movie streaming has become one of the booming opportunity for the software giants and entertainment houses. There are a couple of services that specialise in movie streaming. We will check out a few such top apps for your smartphone.
We are seeing movie steaming services growing at a fast pace in India. It has more to do with the technological advancement in the mobile data services. We have quite a big number of services that cater to the movie buffs. Many of them are optimised for slow network speeds as well. Check out the top five such streaming services in this article. Spuul
It is one of the first players to enter the movie streaming arena. The Singapore based firm has a good list of movies across different genres and languages apart from Hindi. 
It has a wide collection of movies and television shows in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Marathi among others. English movie buffs may have a reason to be disappointed. The service has no English movie collection. The collection of movies and shows is quite impressive. The app updates the content on a weekly basis. The free catalogue has a good collection of old Hindi shows like Malgudi Days, Dekh Bhai Dekh etc. 
The best part with the service is it lets you watch a few movies without registration. But the free collection does not have much good movies. A subscription fee of Rs. 300 per month will give you access to the entire catalogue on the app and website. The free catalogue is good enough to start with which has old TV series. It also offers you some recent releases. Spuul offers you three packages - Free, Premium and Special. The Special category features latest blockbusters on a Pay-Per-View basis at Rs. 60 per movie.
The streaming is quite smooth and free from buffering. It also comes with Resume option to start from where you stopped. Hotstar
Coming from the house of Star TV, Hotstar is the latest entrant in the streaming service. It streams a lot many TV shows from the Star network of TV channels. It also lets you watch movies. 
The unique feature that sets Hotstar apart from the competing apps is its pricing structure. It is completely free! Of course you will need to put up with ads to compensate it. You can watch the shows and movies without any need to register on the service. 
The collection of the service is quite impressive. You can have access to a wide variety of genres and languages to choose from. Apart from streaming content in Hindi and English, it also caters to a wide range of regional audience as well. 
The streaming quality is upto the mark. An innovative feature with the service is its ability to adjust the quality of the streaming based on the connection speed automatically. Which means you get buffer free best possible streaming depending on your connectivity.
They should actually consider adding content from other service providers than concentrating on Star network alone. That's the only issue with the app indeed. BigFlix
Big Flix is the biggest streaming service provider in India. As has been a regular feature with most streaming services in India, they too offer you a free subscription. They have a good collection of movies and shows in Hindi and English apart from a host of other Indian regional languages. 
The service lets you view a ten minute preview of a show or a movie without any need for registration. You can continue watching it after due registration. You can choose to either download, or stream the movie on their apps or via website. 
The subscription model needs you pay Rs. 249 per month for a wide range of content across genres and languages. You also have an option of renting the blockbuster titles at Rs. 49 if you do not wish to take subscription.
They have apps for Android and iOS. The service is also available through their website. Hooq
It boasts being the first ever Netflix kind of service in India. It is a joint venture between SingTel, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros., and has a plan to offer more than 10000 titles to Indian movie buffs. 
The user interface is much nicer and easy to use. The catalogue is impressive enough with content coming from Warner Bros and Sony Pictures. Tie ups with other studios and production houses are underway. There is also a genre named Door Darshan classics which contains shows like Nukkad. 
The service does not have a free subscription model, in a wide departure from what has been observed with most of the streaming services currently operating in India. You get a 14 day trial period to get used to it and after that you either take a subscription , or watch nothing at all. The service offers a subscription plan of Rs. 149 per month.Hungama
The truly Indian venture, Hungama has been a successful in music streaming arena. Now, expanding further, they have come up with a separate movie streaming service. Named Hungama Play, the service caters to Hindi, English and a wide range of Indian regional viewers. The collection is said to be around 10000 strong and has plans to come up with original content. 
The firm has made movie viewing a game. The so called gamification involves awarding points to the users for various activities on the app. The reward points so accumulated can be redeemed for digital goods and/or various prizes. This will go a long way in making users engage with the app more increasingly. 
Just like Hotstar, it also promises to offer Adaptive Streaming which means the service will identify the connection speed and stream the media accordingly. It means you will get buffer free smoother streaming. 
There are three subscription models on offer - Try and Buy which gives you a ten minute preview into the movie to take your buying decision, a Rent model gives access to your chosen content for seven days. The Subscription model lets you access the content for 30 days.Parting Thoughts
Well, that should not be the end of the road, right? Exactly. There are many more players out there. The likes of Sony Liv, YuppTV and BoxTV among others which are vying for the attention of the customers. As far as my personal preferences go, I prefer Spuul and Hotstar. Hotstar seems to be gaining much importance these days. What are your favourite streaming services? I would welcome readers to come up with their choices via the comments section here below.
Follow
Here is an update:
The world renowned movie streaming service NetFlix has entered India. The service has greater UI. It would definitely be a shocker for existing services in India. Hopefully, it will let the competing services to raise their level. However, as of now, NetFlix seems to lag behind in terms of content. It currently has just 7% of its US library. Also it is more expensive compared to the other services. The price stands right mow at Rs. 500 per month. If NetFlix adds more content - more presumably Indian content - it may have an edge over the competitors.