If you like British television, especially BBC and ITV shows, BritBox is worth considering. BritBox provides a wealth of British programming, is reasonably price, and has no commercials. Regrettably, it does not support user profiles or the downloading of shows for offline viewing on mobile devices. We also don’t like that streaming resolution is cap at 720p on the web and mobile devices. You may not care about these restrictions because, as with most video streaming services, the streaming content is the most important factor to consider.
Which Shows Are Available on BritBox?
BritBox is own jointly by the BBC and ITV, so it makes sense that many of the available shows originate from those two networks. Channel 5 programming is also available, and a representative assure me that Channel 4 programming would add in the spring. Similar to Netflix, Acorn TV offers a library of British television shows, but it also draws from other regions, such as mainland Europe and the Oceania. Other, more popular services also provide British programming. For instance, Hulu has been expanding its library of britbox promo code programming, Amazon Prime is home to the most popular British series, Downton Abbey, and Netflix has The Crown and The IT Crowd. Even though there is some duplication of content, each of these services offers unique programming that may appeal to British television viewers.
Many viewers tune in to BritBox to watch classic episodes of their favorite British shows like Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Doctor Who, Midsomer Murders, and Vera. The drama and mystery genres are round out by shows like Jonathan Creek, Prime Suspect, Shetland, Silent Witness, The Victim, and Wallander are just a few of the comedies available on BritBox. A few examples of documentaries and lifestyle shows are Harbour Cops, Newscast, Murder, Mystery, and My Family, Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs, Spring watch, This Farming Life, and Winter watch. Some of these shows can consider genre-bending.
Agatha Raisin, Doc Martin, Finding Joy, Foyle’s War, Hamish Macbeth, Hidden, Keeping Faith, Line of Duty, Midsomer Murders, and The Detectorists are some of the most watched shows on Acorn TV.
Film buffs may disappointed to learn that BritBox does not provide any full-length feature films for streaming (though I did find some longer specials). It’s true that Acorn TV offers a few movies, but I didn’t recognize most of them. The best movie streaming service available today is Netflix.
Pricing and Availability
The cost of BritBox is $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year. A valid payment method is require to sign up for the service’s free 7-day trial. The monthly cost of the service is less than that of many competitors, but it is still more expensive than some alternatives. Despite its limited content selection, Apple TV+ is one of the cheapest services we’ve reviewed at just $4.99 per month. Both the ad-supported Hulu and CBS All Access plans cost $5.99 monthly. At the same $5.99/month, Acorn TV is a steal. Disney+ is price similarly to BritBox, at $8.99 per month, in line with Amazon Prime Video and Netflix’s Basic tier.
A full live TV service will cost you an extra $20 per month. Check out our comparison of sports streaming services, and make note of those that offer international channels, like Sling TV and fuboTV, if you’re interest in watching sports from the UK, like Premier League matches.
BritBox can viewed online, on the Apple TV (4th Generation or Airplay to older models), Chromecast, and Roku, and on mobile platforms like iOS and Android. Smart TVs from Samsung, Panasonic, and Vestel all support BritBox as well. BritBox, on the other hand, does not support consoles like the Xbox One or the PlayStation 4 through the availability of native apps. BritBox’s availability via Prime Video Channels and Apple TV Channels subscriptions increases its device compatibility.
Currently, the service is only accessible from within the United States and Canada. Several more countries now have access to Acorn TV than ever before, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden. In addition, both Apple TV and Prime Video can now be obtained in a much wider variety of stores.
Web-Based User Interface
There were no hiccups in performance during my time with BritBox, and the website has a nice, minimalist design. The palette of the elements is a cool, soothing assortment of blues, whites, and grays. I also like that the user interface is not too cluttered. Drop-down submenus let you narrow your search to a specific genre from the main menu, and dedicated sliders let you narrow your search to a specific season of a show. BritBox’s insistence on repeated password entry before granting access to sensitive areas of your account (like parental controls and billing information) is a major annoyance.
BritBox’s top navigational bar features the standard “Home,” “Explore,” “New,” “A-Z,” “Help,” and “Search” options in addition to a “User Account” button. You can manage your watchlist, account information, and parental controls from the account submenu. Later on, I talk about features like the watchlist and parental controls. Account information is where you can make changes to your contact information, such as your email and password, as well as access other features like your subscription information, billing history, and the option to sign up for BritBox’s newsletter if you signed up for the service online (which is enabled by default).
The homepage features a slideshow of featured programs at the top, with additional content sections listed below. There are many different types of content on BritBox, such as Mysteries, Comedies, Dramas, Documentaries, Lifestyle Shows, New Releases, Most Viewed, and All-Around Favorites. Whenever you find a show you’d like to check out, all you have to do is click on its thumbnail to read a synopsis, pick an episode, and add it to your watchlist. BritBox provides a synopsis, air date, episode length, parental rating, and information on closed captioning and high definition availability for each episode. However, smart TVs are the only ones that can stream in full high definition (1080p). Similar to Acorn TV, BritBox’s web and mobile streams are severely limited to 720p.
Choose a genre (Drama, Mystery, Comedy, Doc & Lifestyle) or a show (Now, Midsomer Murders, Classic Doctor Who) from a dropdown when you click the Explore menu item. In contrast to what I had assumed, the shows featured in the Now section are not currently airing but rather have recently been added to the library. Good Morning Britain was the only show I could find that released new episodes on a daily basis during the testing period. Other shows in this section mostly advertised upcoming episodes in 2020, while others promoted episodes from 2019 or even earlier.
Each category page features a slideshow with thumbnails of featured shows, with a list of additional shows arranged alphabetically below. It would be helpful if there were more ways to narrow down results (like by when it was first released or whether or not it was rated for children).
BritBox’s entire catalog can be found in the site’s A to Z index. Choose an option beginning with a specific letter to sort the results alphabetically. Due to the vastness of the library, I would once again like to see improved filtering options. The Help tab provides a lengthy textual FAQ/answer database. In comparison, other services have a more streamlined system for categorizing content and providing supplementary visual guides. The font is extremely tiny and challenging to read. BritBox’s search function is extremely fundamental, and it only allows you to look up show titles. The search for genres, specific actors/actresses, or keywords returns no results. Yet it does provide suggestions as you type, unlike Acorn TV’s tool.
Appropriate for Mobile Devices
After downloading and installing BritBox on my Google Pixel 3 running Android 10, I was able to log in with no problems. Mobile app users will recognize the same design aesthetic from the desktop site, and will have full access to their accounts. The app’s navigation menu can be accessed from the top left corner. At the top of the screen are four icons labeled “Home,” “Watchlist,” “Full Listings,” and “Premieres,” with a further two lines of navigational options below (one for featured collections and one for genres).
The show’s detail page is nearly identical to what you see on the web, with some enhancements. On a mobile device, tapping the Read More button, for instance, displays the full cast list. A feature that I particularly appreciate is being able to quickly access content by clicking on an image preview in any of the major categories. This only loads the details page in BritBox’s web interface.
Repetition During Playback
The pop-up, static nature of BritBox’s default video player on the web is annoying. From a user experience perspective, the pop-up is annoying because it constantly obscures the show description and the Add to Watchlist button. It’s strange, though, that you can still use the rest of the interface while it’s showing up. BritBox needs to improve the design of its windowed mode playback.
Furthermore, the media player’s controls are unremarkable. Only the Closed Captioning (CC) options are present in addition to the usual play/pause, volume control, progress indicator, and full-screen button. You can only adjust the font size with those options. More control over caption settings, such as font style and color, is available directly in the Acorn TV player.
The lack of fast-forward and rewind buttons on BritBox’s playback screen is a major inconvenience. You can skip ahead or rewind an episode by dragging the progress bar, but you won’t see previews of the individual frames as you go. In addition, the playback resolution is not adjustable. Play, pause, rewind, and fast-forward controls are typically located in the middle of the screen on many other services as well. As a result, pausing a video on BritBox does not involve clicking the screen (though double-clicking does open the full-screen view).
As is to be expected, mobile devices are particularly vulnerable to these restrictions. Similarly, the mobile apps’ volume bar does not function independently of the system volume; tapping that control brings up the regular system controls. There should be no need for a volume control, in my opinion.
Both the 200Mbps download speed of my home Ethernet and the 5GHz Wi-Fi in the PCMag office were put to the test with BritBox (15 Mbps download). Over both connections, I had no problems watching streaming episodes of MI-5 and Springtime.
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Functionality and Ease of Use
The inability to download shows for offline viewing on a mobile device is a significant shortcoming of BritBox. Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu (commercial-free), and CBS All Access are just some of the popular video streaming services that allow you to download shows and movies (Ad-free). Nonetheless, five simultaneous streams is above average, and BritBox supports it.
Most shows on BritBox have closed captioning available, but the only adjustment you can make is to the font size. Audio Descriptions, which provide verbal descriptions of on-screen events and settings that aren’t obvious from the dialogue alone, aren’t supported by any shows either. Audio Descriptions are available for a variety of shows on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV.
It’s a shame that BritBox doesn’t let you create profiles, but at least the service can guess what you might like and suggest shows like that. The accuracy of its personalized suggestions, however, may be improved with the aid of profiles. Additionally, user reviews of shows and movies are available on Shudder.
Click the user settings cog, and then choose the Parental Controls menu item to configure BritBox’s parental controls. A 4-digit PIN is then create. To modify or alter the restrictions, enter this code. Then, choose a TV-viewing classification (content up to the ratings in the category are appropriate). Television ratings are broken down into several different categories, such as General (TV-G, TV-Y, TV-Y7), Mature (TV-PG), Teen (TV-14), and Adult (TV-MA and NR).
However, there is a drawback to this method: those limitations will be imposed on each and every user of the account. It stands to reason that a parent would want to access content on BritBox that would be unsuitable for their children. Again, profiles would be useful in this situation. The majority of the services I’ve reviewed for streaming videos also include parental controls. Since different profiles can have different limitations, Netflix’s implementation is excellent.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) and British TV
A virtual private network (VPN) can shield your online actions and, in some cases, unlock region-locked content. Due to the fact that the version of BritBox I tested is currently only available in the United States and Canada, users from outside these countries may want to try spoofing their location in order to appear to be connected from within those countries.
I connected to a Mullvad VPN server in the United States and tested streaming from BritBox on both a desktop computer and a mobile device. My test Android device and my personal computer both worked fine for streaming videos.
The Best of British Television, With a Few Catch-Ups
The fact that BBC and ITV shows are available on BritBox should already have the service on the radar of anyone interested in British television. Also, the cost per month is quite reasonable. Its technical abilities, however, fall far short of expectations. To give just a few examples, it’s missing mobile offline downloads, user profiles, and some fundamental playback controls. Check out Netflix, the service chosen by our editors as the best video streaming platform because of its extensive list of features and widespread audience appeal. If you’re looking for a live TV streaming service, we recommend YouTube TV and Hulu.
PROS
- Affordable option for watching ITV and BBC shows online.
- No ads.
- Aids for keeping the kids in check.
- There are five active channels at once.
CONS
- There is currently no mobile support for offline downloads.
- Streaming resolution is cap at 720p for the web and mobile devices.
- Inadequate media player controls.
- Users are not profile.
