TV Now being tested: Premium content for RTL fans in three subscriptions

Free, premium and premium + subscription instructions

On TV, you can now watch shows like "Bachelors" in front of everyone else. The paid version provides a perspective on the future. In our test, we tell you what the three subscriptions "Free", "Premium" and "Premium +" offer you.

table of Contents

1. Comparison of three subscriptions
   

2. TV fees now
   

   1. Free for spring 2020
      

3. TV payment method now
   

4. RTL media group broadcaster, including media library
   

5. App for Android, iOS and other devices
   

6. Announce download and original sound
   

7. in conclusion
   

Now, more and more people own a classic TV with cable plugged in. No wonder, because TVs connected via the Internet have many advantages. Therefore, you can stop the current TV program at the best live TV provider, and there is no need to take a shortcut in terms of picture quality.

TV Now provides a truly unique selling point. With RTL Group's streaming service, you can watch some episodes of the successful series a week in advance. This includes the German dating show "Bachelor". The rich media library and live TV functions should complete the product, but not every user has the same range of functions.

Comparison of three subscriptions

Since April 2020, you have to choose between three subscriptions on TV immediately: free, premium and premium +. To preview the next episode of some shows, you need at least a premium subscription. The functional distribution is as follows:

Subscription prices naturally vary. If you want to use more features, you must also spend more money.

TV fees now

If you are already convinced of the "free" subscription feature, then you are in luck. Because you can use the subscription completely free after creating a user account. Unlike Joy of ProSieben, it does not provide live TV streaming. You must spend at least 4.99 Euros for this.

You only need to pay an extra 3 Euros per month to provide RTL content for both devices. In principle, this gives you the opportunity to share your TV Now account. However, under the general operating conditions of TV Now, it is prohibited to distribute live streams or content to third parties. The RTL team has not yet answered the question of whether it is possible to share accounts with family members. For example, Sky regulates the sharing of an ordinary account. However, you can access certain offers for free.

Free for spring 2020

Because in the spring of 2020, RTL will temporarily provide various contents for free. TV Now provides various live TV channels for you to watch for free. In addition, you can see more on-demand displays than before. Because "Now TV" will present various series of free seasons, such as Shitt's Creek or BH902010. It remains to be seen how long you can use free content.

TV payment method now

After TV Now ’s 30-day trial period, the service will charge you less than 5 euros per month. This way you do n’t have to order transfers every month, you can choose a different payment method. Therefore, you can use credit card, direct payment or PayPal payment.

For each payment method, payments are made on a monthly basis, so the service does not provide an annual subscription. Although you need to pay a certain monthly fee when you sign up for a premium account, you must still keep the ads. For on-demand content, the content is limited to short advertising clips before the broadcast. This only applies to Premium + subscriptions. If you watch the live broadcast of the current TV show, it will also show the TV commercial slot.

RTL media group broadcaster, including media library

TV Now's channel range is limited to RTL media groups. This means that you will not watch public TV channels such as ZDF or ARD on the portal. The live streaming of available channels is also limited to users with advanced access rights. If you do n’t want to spend money on TV Now, only certain contents of the media library are available to you.

All in all, you can open 13 TV channels with advanced access and immediately open the advanced channels of TV +. In the overview article on TV, we now reveal the complete list of channels. Compared with alternative products such as Zattoo, the channel range is very limited. With these channels, you have more than five times the number of available channels as public or international channels. So now on TV, you have to make drastic cuts.

I can't record my content through TV Now. To do this, you must resort to alternative methods such as Save.TV. The service allows you to store programs in cloud storage for up to 100 days. This means you can also record content that will not end in the broadcaster ’s media library in the future. For channels included in immediate TV, manual recording is not absolutely necessary. The media library is sufficiently up-to-date for this. In our tests, we were able to find records of the entire program, or at least find the most interesting excerpts of most programs.

App for Android, iOS and other devices



On your PC, you can simply use an Internet browser to watch TV Now. In our tests, it was easy to operate through the Google Chrome browser, although we found that the colored and slightly overloaded pages were a bit confusing. You can use your own application on your phone or tablet. In the TV Now Premium app, you can see a navigation bar at the bottom of the screen, which can be used to switch between live TV and the media library. In addition, you can see the watch list of the program and buttons for other functions here.

In addition to the basic settings, you will also find that video quality is an additional feature. It can be adjusted at four levels in the premium subscription. Therefore, you can play in high-definition streaming through the "very high" setting, which according to TV Now uses 600 megabytes every 10 minutes. If you are watching a mobile network while on the road, this setting will attack your mobile data. For this, you need to adjust the quality so that the application only needs 40 MB per second. This is possible, but pixelated video is not pleasant in the long run. Advertising content is also broadcast in high resolution.

Download TV now • 11,257 downloads

In addition to setting the video quality, you can also add subtitles to the program. Although this option is always displayed, we cannot find anything actually available. If you are hearing impaired or want to hear programs in a quiet environment, the filter option for programs with subtitles will be very helpful.

Announce download and original sound

With the launch of TV Now Premium +, RTL also announced that certain content will be downloaded by the end of 2020 at the latest. Therefore, you can also watch Now TV on buses and trains. In addition, there is an option to switch to the original sound of foreign language content. Therefore, you can watch America's favorite TV shows with original sound.