Utterly hopeless
Impossible to sign into, couldn’t find the film I know is on the player, another Saturday night ruined. Website everything about BFI is terrible. By their own staff admission.
tvOS version broken
Thought it was too good to be true -the very buggy TVOS version was recently updated and although it looks nicer the actual player was completely broken. Every time you try to play any content it comes up with an ‘oops’ message. I’ve paid for a subscription I can no longer use. Please sort it out.
Excellent service, almost good app
A great selection of films for a good price compared to other streamers. However the app (iPad) looks and feels good, but small basic interface problems make it worse to use than it should be. Why is there no option to ‘continue watching”? Unless I’ve missed the feature (which would also be a big problem!), whenever I have to come back to an unfinished film later on I have to search for for the film again or scroll through the whole watchlist to pick up where I left off. Less of a problem but when adding something to the watchlist the icon should change to show that it was successfully added, but on this app I get no feedback until I press the button several times. It would be good to have films I’ve watched show that they’re “Completed”, and some sort of watch history would be a great additional feature. I feel like the MUBI app gets so much of this right in comparison, which is a shame because my initial feeling is I prefer the selection on the BFI.
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Support
The content of the app is very good. Support was a bit slow in responding but all is resolved now satisfactorily.
Abysmal app
Such great films but the app is abysmal. Continuously getting the “device limit reached” error message when using Airplay, and when using Chromecast films fail to load and crash the app. These issues were meant to be resolved with update 5.2 but if anything it’s now worse!
What’s the point in paying for a subscription when you can’t even watch the films? Will be cancelling my subscription.
What’s the point in paying for a subscription when you can’t even watch the films? Will be cancelling my subscription.
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Great films / terrible app
Love BFI and everything they do, however the app is infuriating at times - both on iPhone and on firestick…. Please sort this out
Unpredictable with Chromecast
Streaming via Chromecast often stalls. Had to give up watching a film this evening 15mins in, and watch something on Mubi instead. Others have commented similar — needs to be sorted.
Patchy performance
So my review is not about the BFI or the quality of the films; that's not in question at all. My problem is the performance of the app. It's so very patchy and often doesn't stream properly, especially to Chromecast. It's really frustrating because this is my only way that I can actually watch stuff. I wish that this would be fixed. It makes me want to have to cancel my subscription, which I've had for a couple of years now.
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“Your device limit has been reached”
No it hasn’t.
Stop whining
I know it’s irritating there isn’t a dedicated app but holy balls just mirror it to your tv y’all are stupid or summit
Great films, terrible app.
Film selection is great. But the app is dreadful.
Great choice
Excellent value app for both up to date films and all those amazing classics from former years
Excellent App
Really like the iPhone App and the App on my Sony tv… be great if Virgin Media could develop an App for their tv box. Great films for streaming. Big fan now!
BFI player currently service unavailable
Says it all.
Excellent films but glitchy app
I’m writing this in the hope it can help the tech team improve. I’ve only recently got the app on my smart tv, and as much as I love the films, the subtitles sometimes get stuck-as in the same words will stay up long after the dialogue has continued. I often have to start the film again and fast forward back to that point.
Also, the app doesn’t have memory of what you’ve watched before, or mark your spot if you want to come back to it, again you have to forward to your spot which is very tedious. I know the app is in its infancy so really hope these issues can get sorted quickly because I really love the films!
Also, the app doesn’t have memory of what you’ve watched before, or mark your spot if you want to come back to it, again you have to forward to your spot which is very tedious. I know the app is in its infancy so really hope these issues can get sorted quickly because I really love the films!
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Downloads.
Great app and great content for the price point…. Really annoying that you can’t download a film to watch during a flight etc on Apple.
Doesn’t work
Every time I’m chrome casting to my tv and I put the subtitles option the app stops working
A truly superb film catalogue!
The BFI player app gives subscribers access to a superb catalogue of excellent, curated film. I signed up to a trial in 2020 and carried on subscribing for 4 years, only pausing due to financial constraints. I consider this app an essential part of my film education and enjoyment for the past 4 years, giving access, as it does, to a wide array of film across both time and space with many films from across the ages and a wide range of international directors works being featured here.
The negatives? Well, for me the scrubbing / timing IS a bit weak… especially as we have all been spoiled with apps that have multi-million £££ development budgets (Netflix/amazon). There doesn’t seem to be a pick up from wherever you last left off. But the worst thing about this app is the damn white line that (on iOS) is permanently ON the bottom of the SCREEN the whole time! Other video apps don’t do this, I have written and complained but had no truck with it.
Apart from that, BFI themselves are incredibly responsive, and replied immediately whenever I had any query about the subscription or the service. Overall, I’d say this was truly a world class app with a world class team supporting it. Bravo!
The negatives? Well, for me the scrubbing / timing IS a bit weak… especially as we have all been spoiled with apps that have multi-million £££ development budgets (Netflix/amazon). There doesn’t seem to be a pick up from wherever you last left off. But the worst thing about this app is the damn white line that (on iOS) is permanently ON the bottom of the SCREEN the whole time! Other video apps don’t do this, I have written and complained but had no truck with it.
Apart from that, BFI themselves are incredibly responsive, and replied immediately whenever I had any query about the subscription or the service. Overall, I’d say this was truly a world class app with a world class team supporting it. Bravo!
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BFI Player
I’ve rented a film which I cannot watch. I cannot find it in the BFI TVOS app nor will my computer or phone mirror it to the Apple TV. No idea what to do next but it would appear I’ve gambled and lost!
great films, but wrong about devices
There are a lot of outstanding films available on the BFI player. There was a problem with English subtitles to films in English not appearing - subtitles are essential to the hard of hearing - but this has cleared up recently. There is still a problem with a pop up appearing, usually every five minutes, stopping the playback claiming incorrectly that 'Your device limit has been reached'. It has to be removed and the film reset, including subtitles. I have not seen any film unaffected by it. There are other error messages, but they are infrequent.
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