With the latest Smart TV models, users no longer need to use external media boxes to “stream” their favourite movies, series and music through the TV. One product that offers great content without the need for a set-top box is the Samsung Smart TV.
Samsung’s Tizen products are fast and adaptable, but users need to install various apps to get the right experience of the great features of the TV. Samsung Smart TV apps are readily available on the Samsung Store, where you’ll find a diverse selection to give you exactly what you need. New apps are also being added all the time. Here we’ve put together a selection of 10 apps to help you enjoy your Smart TV to the fullest.
Netflix is a world-famous online video “streaming” service. It has remained at the forefront of the industry since it introduced the concept almost 10 years ago. Netflix has an impressive selection of all sorts of current series and movies. The company has also invested heavily in producing its own exclusive productions, including the political drama “House of Cards” and the comedy sitcom “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. If we talk about the amount of content, then Netflix is the biggest “streaming” service currently available. Unfortunately, available content is also dependent on the region. Content available in the Czech Republic may not be the same as content available in the USA. Netflix is also a great place to start if you’re new to video streaming services.
Another amazing app that offers a lot of TV content is Amazon. The offer has grown in recent years and currently offers several exclusives such as the alternate history thriller “The Man in the High Castle” and the comedy-dramas “Transparent” and “Catastrophe”. Amazon also offers a lot of content from other providers, but as with Netflix, the local offer is different from the foreign, so it’s hard to specify. One of the Amazon Prime Video benefits is the ability to check available titles before creating an account - unlike with Netflix. Full list of titles for Amazon Prime is available to check directly on Amazon’s official website, so you can see if you like something before paying.
Previously, Hulu offered two types of service. The first was free and contained a limited offer and ads among the “streamed” content. The second featured an expanded offer, but still included ads. In November last year, the company finally introduced the next level of its service, allowing you to enjoy expanded content without ads. As a result, the service is finally able to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime. Hulu lags behind Netflix and Amazon Prime, and the service’s exclusive offer isn’t nearly as great. However, it still offers some interesting titles. Another catch is the small amount of content that shows ads even on the most expensive account possible.
The BBC’s iPlayer app is only available in the UK and allows you to “stream” high-quality TV and radio programmes or films. You can see some of the best shows the BBC has produced in recent years, including “Doctor Who”, “Sherlock” and “Luther”. Although the BBC only makes programmes available for 30 days after they are first broadcast, iPlayer features one of the widest available offers among “streaming” services.
Now the BBC has got its iPlayer, Channel 4 has come up with its “streaming” service, too. The All 4 app provides content from Channel 4, E4 and their other productions. Apart from the content, the big difference between All 4 and iPlayer is that the more popular shows are placed here without time limitations. If you want to sit down and watch every episode of the amazing “Peep Show” that has aired since it was first broadcast in 2003, you can.
This isn’t a video “streaming” app, it’s a gaming app that lets you play lots of PlayStation 3 games on your TV. The processor on Samsung Smart TV is not designed for demanding games like “Assassin’s Creed”. The app “streams” games directly from Sony’s servers, so the game doesn’t run on your TV’s processor. So, if you want faster games to run as well as they would on a normal console, your internet connection speed matters. If you want to use the app, you will need a game controller.
HBO Go and HBO Now are apps that are currently only available in the US. The apps offer “streaming” of HBO shows, led by classics like “The Sopranos”, “The Wire” and the more recent “Game of Thrones”. HBO has the largest selection of classics among the series on offer allowing it to successfully compete with other “streaming” services. Many of HBO’s best shows, such as “Game of Thrones”, are also available on Amazon Prime Video. However, you have access to everything immediately after it airs only on HBO’s apps. So, if you want to “stream” a new episode of “Game of Thrones” on TV on the day it’s released, you’ll have to pay for HBO Go or HBO Now. HBO Go is only available to people who have paid for standard HBO TV, while HBO Now is available to everyone, whether they pay for premium channels or not.
We assume you know what YouTube is right? What you may not know is that YouTube has evolved dramatically in recent times. Remember the place where you could share all sorts of amateur videos, whether they were of kittens or people falling off skateboards? YouTube has grown a lot in recent years. Today, we can find everything there from comedy and reality shows to documentaries. YouTube also has a variety of movies that you can rent for 30 days or buy outright.
If you have quality audio equipment for your home cinema it would certainly be great if you could also play music at home and not just “stream” video. Spotify is probably the most popular and largest music streaming service available today. It has over 30 million songs in its database. Spotify is available in two versions. The first is free but contains ads. The other, a subscription service, is ad-free and offers higher quality.
VUDU is a service available only in the US that only allows you to buy or rent movies. They often hold discount events on their website where you can get what you want at a fraction of the price. The price of renting a film is on average one-fifth of the purchase price. Vudu has a much smaller library compared to Netflix, but it often offers movies as soon as they are released - unlike Netflix, which tends to have older movies in its library. The best use for VUDU is to use the service as a complementary app to Netflix and Amazon Prime
