Lightbox Trial
Thanks to Lightbox, I was invited to trial out their new TV streaming service. This is just like Netflix, except it is only for TV Shows, is only available in New Zealand and you don’t need to go through backdoor routes to use it. This is also a lesser version to a competitor service, Quickflix, because Lightbox does not currently have movies.
Lightbox shows are actually quite limited at the moment, since it only just launched. It does not offer movies, like some of their competitors do, whether you want to pay a premium or not. However it does offer some relatively new and latest TV shows for example, Orange Is the New Black. Meanwhile, over on QuickFlix, you have to pay a premium to watch this.
Lightbox is scheduled to launch to the wider public on Thursday 28th of August 2014, so my beta access will be ending today unfortunately.
The Lightbox website has a very simple UI and has three sections at the top of the page: TV, Kids and Watchlist, each self-explanatory. You can also search for a show to see if it is available in the search bar as well. The video player uses Silverlight.
When the service launches, it will offer customers a 30-day free trial and then $15 per 30 days thereafter. This is $2 more than Quickflix, for relatively less TV shows and absolutely no movie section at all.
Lightbox can currently only be viewed on your desktop or iPad, whereas on Quickflix, you can view it on certain Smart TVs, gaming consoles, PC and Mac, tablets and smartphones, Chromecast, and not to mention, TiVo!
The streaming picture quality on Lightbox will apparently adjust itself to what it thinks is right for your internet connection. There are no streaming quality options to select from either, so you will be limited to what quality your speeds can give you. As you can see in the above screenshot, the quality is not that bad.
Both Lightbox and Quickflix have a variety of kid’s shows as well, so kids can enjoy those!
So all in all, Lightbox is just another attempt at New Zealand’s online TV streaming industry. Quickflix is clearly better at the moment, probably because it has been on the block longer and that it has a lot more variety of content. Plus, if you are willing to pay a premium, you can even stream the latest, greatest shows on your computer. You currently don’t even have that option with Lightbox. I will be looking forward to what improvements Lightbox will make over the coming weeks!
