The new Watchever main menu.
Conclusion
Watchever has a redesign behind it: We look at the innovations in the practice test. In January 2013, Watchever was the first pure flatrate video store in the United States and excited so much. With Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, however, there are now strong international competitors who have passed the ambitious offer.
The reorganization of Watchever has been on display since the beginning of October - at least in parts of the offer. First, the video store offers a completely new look in its web menu interface on the PC. Instead of film covers, Watchever now shows on a dynamically designed page single film and series highlights on larger surfaces, in which some sections of the movies start as soon as the mouse pointer on it. The compilation of these contents follows recommendations, which Watchever generated from already seen films - Netflix and their preferences algorithm salutes. Not that an evaluation of the own preferences and those of the community at Watchever would be new - a list with personal film and serientipps offered the site so far. Only this was not so dynamic built up and between other static film lists rather hidden. See the original test of 2013.
Lesetipp: Watchever in the test
Watchever has now also introduced user profiles to the very personal homepage. As with Netflix, several users can store their names, which then always see a personal homepage, depending on personal favorite films and series.
In the other menu levels under the main menu, Watchever sorts its contents in channels. The offer differs according to series, films, children's program, documentations, entertainment and music, there are in each case several channels. However, they do not follow classic genres, but rather film types or serial productions. There is, for example, an Arthaus film channel, one for "Mad Movies" and one each for BBC, ABC and CBS series. Only below this channel level is sorted content, thus according to adventure, drama, crime and other genres as well as in editorially designed groups such as "literary films". As a half-time film and serial cameraman, I found myself quite quickly in this structure, but I really do not care whether a series of ZDF Enterprise or ABC, as long as their plot captivates me.
Lesetipp: Netflix in the test
If you have selected a specific title, then it's a picture-wise: the respective title is announced with a full-screen, crisp scene picture, from here just a click on the middle play button, and it starts.
The navigation opens up straight away, but the structure I consider personally for a bit too complex, too much for connoisseurs. But maybe that's how it should be, because Wachever's strength was from the beginning the large collection of films from the classic Hollywood and the author cinema - from current art house to Hitchcock classics, Marylin Monroe and Woody Allen to Charlie Chaplin. To such film beads, the new design with sleep-proof security results.
Basically the new way of the menu would be predestined for the smart TV, but there they have not so far. Watchever has announced the launch of the new design and the new menu structure on the PC and on the Apple TV 4 streaming box and then gradually introduce it on all other platforms. The version for Apple TV is structured in the same way as on the PC, but is oriented in the design to the Apple presets for the box and thus looks simpler than the PC variant.
In the current film and serials on Watchever has not done much too much since the relaunch - apart from the monthly additions and disposals of titles. It is interesting to note that Watchever film classics such as Pulp Fiction and From Dusk till Dawn and the cult show Breaking Bad will be discontinued at the end of October. In classics as well as in really good offbeat series, Watchever was already strong, now these contents have an even more distinctive place in the offer and seem to be present in some places also more abundant.
And what about picture and sound? This chapter can be dealt with very briefly: the quality of the streaming quality has not improved in the new edition of Watchever. As in previous streaming tests, the data rate of the offered films in SD as well as in HD quality is still comparatively low. The image resolution suffers especially in scenes with fine details or close-ups of backups under the economical use of bits and bytes. The skin in faces is often flat and masked, where, for example, in Netflix or Maxdome, it shows or shows at least single pores or dimples. Also in the sound is saved: Watchever offers stereosound, no 5.1. Again, the three competitors Maxdome, Amazon and above all Netflix are significantly further. Together, the four services have at least the fact that they stream more and more content into the original language and save the current playback position of a movie - even if you look at a title on another device than before.
Although the reworking of Watchever is purely structural and visual, it has nevertheless paid off in order to emphasize the content of this video store. However, the whole thing is only right when the relaunch is also implemented on smart TVs and tablets. In the known weaknesses of the offer, above all the medium-sized image quality, the makers should also finally make a high-pressure, so that the otherwise really worth seeing video store is not completely dependent on max cathedrals and the great US competitors Br>
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