Stan, the new streaming service from a partnership between Fairfax and Nine Entertainment Co has finally launched in Australia. After a few weeks of trial subscriptions being posted out to early adopters (one of which was me!), the doors have finally opened for anyone to subscribe to the service. Stan is starting strong with a number of TV series available at this early stage, including: Breaking Bad, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Fargo, South Park, Hannibal, The Good Wife and more. The Breaking Bad spin-off, Better Call Saul, will be launched exclusively in Australia by Stan on February 9.
To start with, Stan will have just over 750 titles available to stream with the Stan team working on bringing more content to the service. Australian series available on the service include Ja’mie Private School Girl, Redfern Now, Underbelly, House Husbands and more. Additionally a number of BBC titles include Little Britan, TopGear, Spooks and The Thick Of It.
A monthly subscription to Stan will set you back $9.99 per month – with your first 30 days free. The service offers almost every title in full 1080p HD with 5.1 surround sound which is amazing considering the small internet pipes we’ve got here in Australia. Just incase you were wondering, Stan was originally called StreamCo – which is quite possibly the most least imaginative name ever. Luckily, they went with something different.
I’ve been using Stan for the past few weeks and must admit, I’m really loving the service. A huge plus is that I can create sub-accounts for each of my family members and allow them to watch content instantly. However, I have suffered from buffering and stopping issues which may be due to the service in it’s initial teething stages – however, I don’t experience these issues when using Netflix.
Stan supports Google Chromecast and Apple AirPlay right out of the box, making it super easy to get your content onto your TV. You’ll be able to authorise up to six (6) devices to a single Stan account (this includes Computers, Phones and Tablets) and once you reach that, you ‘ll only be able to replace a device with another once per month. You can create separate profiles for friends and family on Stan, meaning each person will have their own recommendations, history and list feature. There is a limit of three Stan sessions concurrently however – which is one more than Netflix allows!
Currently you can download Stan onto your iOS device and some Android devices being supported. According to Ausdroid, a number of Samsung phones and tablets are supported but Sony’s recent Z3 series, Motorola, HTC and Huawei devices are unsupported. This is apparently because of the DRM measures put in place and those phones cannot support the decryption of the content. However, the app can be installed on a Nexus 9 but no videos will play except through a Chromecast.
What’s your thoughts on Stan? Will you be signing up? Let us know in the comments.