JioHotstar Reviews

I was watching this movie Iss pyaar ko kya naam doon in Africa and when I came to the UNited States I tried finding a place where I could watch it took over a year to know about Hotstar. I was so happy that I was finally gonna be able to finish watch it cause am obsessed about that show. If I can tell am their number one fan. But what did I get instead, a big fat disappointment. Am so disappointed with Hotstar right now. I subscribed and everything but when I put on the show to watch it, it was in Hindi and I can’t understand Hindi. But I thought it might have subtitles in English. But there was no option which means no subtitles. Hotstar am really disappointed in you guys. Y’all got ma hopes up that I can finally watch the show. And then y’all disappointed me. Y’all made lose hope. Y’all thought me a lesson anyway, never get your hopes cause you might not be happy about the results.

Googled for apps streaming game of thrones, Hotstar site came up. In their website they didn’t mention a word about the content not being available in US till I subscribed for a year. JioHotstar itself has several issues like-
1. Gets stuck in the middle of a movie. Will have to exit and relaunch the movie to continue.
2. Much slower than Netflix.
3. There is no way to search with combination of filters like language, artists, genre, etc
4. Popular in lists stay the same and I have to scroll for several minutes to see something I have not seen yet.
5. Tons of tamil movies in hindi dubbed versions, but no originals
6. Tons of old flop movies
7. Search results display programs that say content is not available in my country after clicking on it 🤦‍♂️🤮

Overall, I would be really happy if I could get at least half of what I paid for a year in refund and you can cancel my subscription (used only for a month).

I have purchased the hotstar through apple in app purchase and got charged the same to my credit card, however in hotstar app, the screen still asking me to select the plan and pay for it , I registered using Facebook account and calling to hotstar service on call and Facebook both are zero level helpful .

They said they don’t see my email if registered or payment made from apple and apple asking me to contact JioHotstar provider , I’m sure this is problem with hotstar, as I never have apple payment with any other app . Please help

If you ever had problem with the hotstar working, do not expect help from
Customer service. They have hired most unhelpful agents who do not understand how customer service works and means. I lost of password and requested to reset giving them details about my account including purchase history, credit care information, my personal details but they said they can’t help if I cannot retrieve my personal email to which the password was going to. Unfortunately, I used an old email which I don’t use it anymore and don’t remember password, they said they will not provide me the password or reset link despite of all the credible information. It was disappointing. I have $99 subscription with them. Ultimately I was able to retrieve my old email password and access the us hotstar account else I would never be able to use $99 account.

I am extremely disappointed that Hotstar chose to add advertisements on subscriptions. The reason given is also poor - “ads are placed to allow hotstar to offer such prices”. I would gladly pay more to have an ad free experience, and in fact, I did pay more. I have a subscription that started Nov 2019, which promised an ad-free experience. I understand if I choose to renew I would be bound by these new terms, but in my situation, I am not getting the services I subscribed to in Nov 2019.

This is n extremely poor move on Hotstar, coupled with a lack of notice to their subscribers. I will definitely not be renewing after my subscription ends if ads continue to be offered to subscribers.

I subscribed to Hotstar to watch one of the popular tv show from the starplus - Yeh Ristey Hsi Pyaar Ke. The show is so popular, but the channel is still ending the show abruptly based on Barc ratings. If the online TRP is not considered, why do I need to waste money and time on the shows that Hotstar is telecasting? I saw fans are trending for the last one week and asking for an extension—still no one care. StarPlus has given rights to HotStar; nevertheless, they don’t have control over the channel decision. Being a loyal viewer of the good show like Yeh Rishey Hai Pyaar Ke, I am so disappointed. I am sad that such a good show ending abruptly. Anyone watched Mishbir (shaheer sheikh and Rhea Sharma) can understand the disappointment.

Recent update in app removed highlights while watching a WC2019 match.. it really doesn’t make any sense.. it doesn’t give an user to go back and see what or how wickets fell etc,, even earlier that was one step better.. now it’s no point having a mobile app.. it should let users go backwards, rewind and start from some point..it should not make us wait until the game gets completed..

Developer responded stating there is a technical issue.. but it is not fixed and it’s more than 4 days. If it is for World Cup, it should’ve been taken in priority and fixed by now.. when premium is charged, service also should be at premium level..

At the beginning I liked JioHotstar . I upgraded to premium last month cause of it. But this month, after my subscription renewal JioHotstar started giving me error message every time I tried to watch a video. Contact their support team Tuesday. They told me to delete JioHotstar then redownload it, so I did. When I signed back in I was asked to upgrade again even though I already paid for this month subscription. I gave them my contact details and they keep telling me they are trying o contact me when I never received any call from them. It’s been over 3 days. They are ripping people off by taking their money and then stopping their subscription. Don’t waste your money.

I just don’t understand, I have Disney+ subscription and Hotstar is owned by Disney. I still have to pay for this separately in USA, while in India you can get Hotstar + Disney in half the price of what only Hotstar subscription cost in the US. The fact that Disney has decided to not integrate its services in US like it has done in India makes overall experience bad for consumers, and I can’t find a good reason to recommend JioHotstar or service to folks in the states. Until Disney corrects its dark techniques to rip off customers, I’ll be staying away and will advise my friends and families the same.

Why the hell would you have 4+ ads on a single 20 minute episode when I have a premium annual membership?

To the developer response - That’s freaking dumb! What do you mean competitive? You have an extremely limited catalogue outside of India and you are charging $8+/month for premium. Disney+ is almost half of that and has UHD content! Hotstar is try to make as much mullah as it can and being competitive is just a bad excuse. The viewer experience is severely degraded! I don’t even want a single advertisement when I have dropped $100 on an annual subscription!

I would never ever buy anything from an advertiser that advertises with you!

I purchased JioHotstar in USA and content is great but JioHotstar features are horrible. It never saves continue watching for me: the choices are randomly saved like things I was watching a week ago. Even as I am watching the show...pause for a call and come back, my episode is gone. I have to start all over again. Search the serial, look for episode and then fast forward to find the point where I was at. Absolutely frustrating experience every single time. Compared the continue watching capabilities of Netflix and Prime this is pathetic. Please improve this. If it wasn’t for amazing content I will not use JioHotstar .

30 sec ad which can’t be skipped every time you switch between channels is definitely not considered limited advertising. It’s just ruining the viewing experience. At least add a skip button.
To developer who responded it as limited advertising: Please do this and let me know if it is limited advertising:
open republic live, open NDTV live, open TV9 live and repeat. Please notice how many time you have to wait for ad to finish before watching actual content. Would you personally pay and use such an app?

We signed up on JioHotstar just to watch live cricket. It runs well with nice HD quality videos but that doesn’t happen all the time. Mostly it will either have connection issues or just will keep jumping around the screens, so, you cannot even watch the whole over. Sometimes it will have chromecast connection errors. I believe their only priority is to show ads and not live cricket. Willow was much better, I hope these big companies realize that spectators want to enjoy the shows without ads chopping them down. Hotstar, if you cannot take care of live telecast at this magnitude, please give the rights back to Willow so we can enjoy the sport!

Hi first i love the platform. My family is enjoying it.
But i found 1 big problem. We are watching on mobile date like most of the Indians. And we get like 2GB data per day but while watching video if we forget to change video quality then the 2gb data finishes of in 30 minutes. So the question is why do we need to change the quality setting in every video. If there is quality setting in SETTING for every video then it would be nice. Thanks

Good:

1. All available shows are in HD.
2. Streaming on Apple TV and iOS app are very good
3. Live cricket telecast on indian matches
4. Allows 2 screens at the same time

Bad:
1. Higher subscription fee for no much content. You will feel disappointed when you find there is no live tv streaming and you cant find all your favorite shows,particularly if you come from YuppTV.
2. Apple Tv app keeps asking to activate JioHotstar every day, which is really annoying.
3. Program organization is not so user friendly and frustrating. You have to go through bunch of useless programs to find one or 2 shows that you watch. It would be great if programs can be filtered using date and have a section only for latest ongoing shows.
4. Shows won’t get added immediately after telecasted in india. Programs are available only after a day (after 12 AM EST)
5. Not all shows from star are available to watch. Particularly the international format shows like big boss. This is a deal breaker.

I really do enjoy Hotstar in America. I do however need the subtitles because I don’t speak the languages/dialects. That’s the only drawback for me. Sometime I have to wait 24 hours for the subtitles to be added to the episodes or some older movies were never linked to subtitles. Anupamaa and Shaadi Mubarak are my favs this year. What is strange to most people I know is they are surprised that a African American middles age woman only watches movies from India. So thank you. Hope you add new movies more often. Tanaji was amazing!

I have cancelled my subscription and I still keep getting billed! I try and log in to cancel again it says that account not found. Plus I am in india and getting charged the US fees . I wish someone will look into and address my concern without me having to keep paying again and again. Very disappointed!

Having issues streaming from iphone 6 safari to apple tv.
Streaming using hotstar app freezes the screen regularly.
Contacted support regd. This and they had no clue about this issue. Told me that they will check with technical team and give a call within 24 hours but i never received a call from hotstar.

They sent me an email with an offer for yearly subscription for $60 and then the website cannot take my payment and so I can't avail the offer. I call their help desk phone number and the guy is less than helpful and just kept repeating the steps of clicks I have to do to sign up. Such liars and thugs!!! Never buy this!!!

I use to like JioHotstar a lot. But recently they are getting worse. They don’t upload their shows on time. Daily shows are not even available after 24 hours of the telecast. I think they should focus on consistency rather then advertisements. I think we should go with some other alternative..

I am extremely disappointed that Hotstar chose to add advertisements on subscriptions. The reason given is also poor - “ads are placed to allow hotstar to offer such prices”. I would gladly pay more to have an ad free experience, and in fact, I did pay more. I have a subscription that started Nov 2019, which promised an ad-free experience. I understand if I choose to renew I would be bound by these new terms, but in my situation, I am not getting the services I subscribed to in Nov 2019.

This is n extremely poor move on Hotstar, coupled with a lack of notice to their subscribers. I will definitely not be renewing after my subscription ends if ads continue to be offered to subscribers.

Hello hotstar,

Few things needs to be addressed immediately,

1. Bring shows like big boss to US, this is a paid subscription, stop saying we don’t have rights. If u don’t have rights for certain programs then why did u ppl launch hotstar in the US. It is half baked even after 7 months.

2. Need a Samsung smart tv app. Small organization like Yupptv, willow has smart tv apps why not u? It will take less than a week to develop a app if u have a good developers.

3. Bring the shows to US on the same day and not the next day. My friends and I feel that INDIA FREE HOTSTAR is much superior than US PAID HOTSTAR. Need subtitles on every content you provide.

I hope you guys take this seriously. In this piracy world it very easy to watch illegally but I respect the content makers for their work. It’s easy to use VPN which some ppl do but don’t make us do the same. Again it’s high time you need to bring changes or else goodbye very soon.

Thanks,
Dinesh

It took forever for hotstar to release in the US. I get it, rights and all, its difficult. But the platform is not user-friendly. I cannot resume a movie if I close JioHotstar . Have a recently watched or at least the last watched section so that its easier to go back to what I was watching. Arrange the episodes by date and not by name, episode 11 is after episode 1 which does NOT make any sense. Its a good platform with a lot of good content but it needs to be more user-friendly.

Hotstar is the best thing on earth and especially for people that’s love star plus shows bc ima a dieheart fan and even if you aren’t you will get interested very soon like my cousin did just saying JioHotstar is amazing and I love it and it’s a great deal for the price and it has rly great quality and when the new episodes come they are never like never late I love hotstar so much💝💞💓💗💖💘💕❣️❤️

Worst customer service in my view. Too much to say, but I don't want to waste my time, it is not worth it. Stay away from this outfit and you will thank me for it.

unable to get subtitles no option given

Just install 29th Jan 2021 hotstar from starhub and today 6th days not able to watch star vijay.I install this for my mother she is 88 years old not easy for her age to use the remote control to search becoz eye sight very poor. Starhub tie me down with 2 years contract.Who can help me in this matter i need help.