Article by: Shalini Deb Roy, The North-Eastern Chronicle
Visual by: Manash J Saikia
The pandemic has indeed been a huge barrier for people who want to hang out and have fun with their loved ones, and while talking about entertainment the first thing that strikes the mind is ‘watching movies’ with friends and family.
Given such a situation, where the lockdown has been imposed on the countries, with rise in cases, one can’t go out for movies or invite friends to their home. But, even then one can enjoy their company by binge-watching their favourite movies, shows, or videos together on their smartphones, laptops, etc.
Some of the recommended apps that let everyone watch movies with friends online
Netflix
The first and foremost apps that is mostly used by people is ‘Netflix’ which is more precisely known as Netflix Party, the Teleparty Chrome extension. The app requires everyone viewing to be on their own Netflix account is pretty straightforward.
One can install it to the browser, go to Netflix, decide on a movie and hit the “NP” button on the extension. After that, one receives a link, which brings up the movie and a sidebar group chat.
For this purpose, everyone should have Google Chrome to use this as this is not a software, but a web application and available as a chrome extension. But, the best part is that other people don’t have to have google chrome or this extension, and they can watch on any device.
Watch2gether
This is the most popular and widely used app to watch movies with friends online. ‘Watch2gether’ comes with direct access to the room without any account.
One can receive pretty much every feature with the free version of watch2gether. For this, an individual needs to create a temporary username. and, Click on Create your room. After that one can perhaps get a chat screen to have a conversation, while watching movies together online.
This app further lets individual to invite their friends to their chat room to have a video conversation. This application gives the freedom to choose the music or videos from a vast number of video service providers with a single search. So this is considered to be so popular and handy because it is easy to use.
Hulu
Another application, Hulu offers up its own in-house way to watch together from a distance. It is popularly known as ‘Hulu Watch Party’ and is available up to 8 simultaneous users of Hulu (No Ads) and Hulu (No Ads) + Live TV accounts.
As in, everyone that wants to watch has to have their own profile on one of those higher-tier subscriptions. The subscribers who share an account can share with everyone using it as long as everyone’s got a unique profile created on there.
If that’s a reality for a group, all they have to do is hit the Party icon on the movie’s detail page and share the link. Then one will automatically receive the synced movie and the text chat.
Syncplay
The Syncplay is the handiest for watching movies online with friends and also just from the computer, being compatible with most of the video players out there. Everyone in the group have to download syncplay, and then they can connect.
This is an excellent option for those who want to share any video from their local drive. Moreover, it also supports synchronization with online video service providers like Netflix and Youtube.
Rave
The application, Rave which is available on both Android and iOS, allows the viewer to create synchronized watch parties where he/she can watch content from Netflix, YouTube, Vimeo, Reddit, Drive, and other websites together with their friends over the internet.
Furthermore, they can as well connect with their friends through chat and voice while binge-watching. There’s also an option to upload their videos to Dropbox and Google Drive for movie nights, followed by Rave DJ feature to create their own fusion by mixing music.
Amazon Prime
The most renowned application, Amazon has its own built-in “Watch Party” feature as well. However, it is limited to selected films, one can click on the Watch Party icon (next to the Watchlist button), select a username for the text chat, and get started.
Also, one can grab an invite link to share to up to 100 friends—as long as they’ve got Prime subscriptions.
Another purpose of these recommended apps, apart from just watching movie-shows together
It is often stated that each and every movie can have a different sort of impact on everyone, every viewer watches and presents a different perspective.
Thus, watching movies together can always contribute to productive discussions and viewpoints. And, given such a purpose the different online applications has proved to be beneficial as a mode of communication with the audience.
And besides this crucial situation, the various apps have also managed to provide a platform to people for connecting with their long-distance friends and relatives.
