A few months ago OSN launched a video streaming service similar to Netflix called ‘Go’. For just $10 a month you get access to a large library of movies and TV shows which are all available to watch at any time from your desktop or your mobile devices.
I found out about the service today and after playing around with it for a few hours I liked it, even though I don’t have a use for it.
The service isn’t anywhere near perfect but it’s a good start nonetheless. I have two main issues with ‘Go’, the first is the limited library. In the TV shows category they only have 15 shows, all old seasons which most of us have watched before. I compliment them on the fact they have one of my favorite shows ‘Boss‘ available but that show got canceled like 2 years back. The movies category is a lot better just don’t expect any of the latest blockbusters. Their movie section actually reminded me of Blockbuster back when I used to rent videotapes from them in Canada. Once I would be done watching everything in the top 20 I would wander randomly around the store looking for old classics I might have missed out on. Groundhog Day, Good Morning Vietnam, Top Gun, Medicine Man.. all classics available to watch along with other more recent hits. If only they would allow us to sort through the movies by release date, it would make things a lot more practical.
The second issue I had with ‘Go’ was the quality of the video stream. I’m on a 10Mbps connection and I had difficulty getting a decent quality stream going. They don’t even let you control the quality of the video, they do it automatically for you based on your current speed so if your connection is fluctuating so will the quality of the video. One minute I’m watching a clear 1.3Mbps stream a few seconds later it drops down to 300Kbps, then back up to 800, then back down to 500. It’s really irritating and I wish they had an option similar to YouTube where I could choose the quality, hit pause and let it buffer up a bit and then hit play. On my iPhone things were slight better just because the screen is smaller so compression artifacts didn’t show as much.
On the plus side $10 a month is pretty cheap and I loved the fact I could play anything I wanted instantly. Even skipping randomly into different sections of the movie was fast. On the iPhone you could also leave the app while watching something and when you come back to it, the app will remember your last position and continue playing from where you stopped.
As I mentioned in the beginning, it’s not a bad start for a service that just recently launched. You don’t need to be an OSN subscriber to sign up to ‘Go’ and they also have a 7-day free trial so you could give it a spin before deciding if you want it or not. Here is a link to their [Website]
Thanks Sara
38 replies on “Go by OSN – A Netflix for the Middle East”
Thanks for the update I feel deprived not having access to orange is the new black, love your information shares
OSN suck big time. Nothing can be compared to Netflix, especially those money-suckers “OSN” who keep raising their prices every few months for a service that is offered almost free elsewhere in the world. Get one of those DNS services and view different regions of netflix to get the best of it.
I remember paying comcast something around $60/month and that included 20 MB internet PLUS over 200 channels!. This was seven years ago btw. Now I bet it is even cheaper
Comcast is TERRIBLE btw and was voted the worst company in America
I’ve been an OSN subscriber for a few years now and i didn’t get any price increases. I pay around KD9 for my OSN subscription which is fairly reasonable for what I get in return. Cable also isn’t free in the US and $10 a month for Go is a pretty good deal.
Also I wasn’t comparing their library size to netflix I was comparing the service which is similar.
What about censorship? Are movies and TV Shows on “Go” censored? If they have censorship they will cut more than half time of most TV Shows from HBO and SHOWTIME so it’s pointless to pay for this service… We already pay to KNCC for this! 😀
OSN doesn’t censor anything no. Game of Thrones was completely uncut and I imagine if anything would be censored it’s that.
There was a Renly Baratheon scene in season 2 that was cut on OSN. Not sure if there are more scenes that were censored, because I watched the rest of the show on blu-ray
I know what scene you’re talking about and it was definitely uncut, I watched the show on OSN and on torrent up to season 3. Recently they had GOT Seasons 1-3 up all at once (one of the cooler things OSN has done) and it was uncut from when I used to torrent it.
Also are you watching it from Kuwait? I remember Du in Dubai making a really big deal about not allowing nudity on the show and they cut off the OSN broadcast in the middle of an episode
etisalat* There! FTFY 😑
It’s Abu Dhabi, du did quite to the contrary.
Makes your whole preceding-replies about OSN, quite suspect — to put it charitably.
The worst thing about GO is that they usually only have recent episodes up, so if you decide you like a show halfway through the season you can’t catch up and just end up torrenting it as usual.
How ironic is that 😀
I am a big fan of VOD platforms and can see this transforming the way we see television in the near future. Would be very interesting to see who will be the Netflix of this region, but it is clearly not OSN. There are 2 vod platforms who are trying hard to please us all, Icflix out of Dubai are concentrating on indian/arabic content and has a poor product or app. Telly out of San Fran are concentrating on Hollywood hit movies and Tv shows and have a good product , i liked the social engagment element where you can like/comment on movies, in addition to that they have some rare content such as a remastered version of the complete Sienfield TV show subtitled in arabic. I can see Telly being the Netflix of our region soon as i have recently heard they have already started getting producers together to have exclusive shows .
Damn first time I hear of Telly. The internet in the region is generally a bit crappy for streaming to legally take off yet I feel like.
I think icflix is on the way to becoming the region’s Netflix, it’s definitely the closest thing so far. They have Hollywood, Bollywood and Arabic and a free app for basically every device like tablets and TVs.
They don’t have a poor product at all, I’ve been a subscriber for over 6 months now and their library is getting bigger and better every month with a lot of cool shows like Nat Geo shows, Hemlock Grove and The Listener. For 29dhs/month, I think it’s a great way to always be able to always have something to watch!
Well I’m trying to find out more information on their website but unless I sign up with them I can’t see anything. Any company that forces me to sign up just so I can get basic information of their services isn’t a company I want to join.
FYI I am on my phone, not sure it’s the same from a desktop browser
Nop it’s not the same. I use it on the desktop and I mirror it to my TV using Chormecast. Absolutely love it!
Ok the people who are promoting icflix must work for icflix because compared to Go by OSN they have a worse selection of titles. Lots of B-rated stuff.
Yup I was right, two icflix employees here pretending to be customers, Amy and Marina.
Oh by the way this is the telly platform just incase
(30 day free) app store purchase subscription
http://www.telly.com/plus
And you can also give this a try (7 day free) no app store , must enter c card
Icflix
http://www.icflix.com
Thnx for the links!! Telly is amazing … Im binging now:p
By the way, the icflix free trial doesn’t need a credit card and there is an app for basically every platform – andriod, iOS, windows…
I tried OSN Go and found the app to be clunky. Not much in terms of variety or selection. Seems to be an afterthought for OSN who are busy ripping people off on their pay tv service
Netflix has some anime titles. Go by osn has no anime series titles such as attack on titan,cowboy bebop,death note,code geass & etc. Because Osn are not true fan of anime or because it’s japanese. Also korean or japanese drama with subtitle are pretty hard to understand. I don’t get it. Crunchyroll has some anime titles including the latest ones.
Yeah but netflix has been out for years, Go is just a few months old so wouldn’t be fair to compare libraries.
Crunchyroll actually buys ME rights though, and Netflix doesn’t. You can get Crunchyroll and legally watch a bunch of shows here, although the selection definitely isn’t perfect since they only tend to get worldwide rights on the latest shows. I can watch crunchyroll on an apple TV without fiddling with stuff, Netflix needs me to pretend I’m in the US through a VPN, and Netflix will often block popular ones so you can’t use them anymore.
Try Popcorn time is free and convenient but you need a high-speed internet and chromecast support!!
https://www.time4popcorn.eu/
I got Go on my iphone and tried connecting to the TV screen via Apple TV. didn’t work.
Airplay you mean? It might be intentional, I’ve found a bunch of these apps will disable airplay because they want you to use the Apple TV version/receiver. In one case the app is free with ads on iPhone but needs a paid subscription on Apple TV, and it disabled airplay so that I would be forced to get the subscription version. You can always hook up a laptop with HDMI and do it that way.
They would have to make an app for Apple Tv, gaming consoles, etc.. for me to care
OK I was right, the two people here posting about icflix actually work for icflix thats why they are promoting icflix.
The person posting under the name Amy is actually the Digital Media Manager at icflix
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aminasaadaoui
while Marina is the Marketing Specialist at icflix.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/marina-begovic/65/2aa/852
Not cool.
Hahahahahahahhaha at least change your names
First of all, you have no right to display that information. As a blog manager, you’re the only who has access to my email address and you have no right to make it public. Now please delete that comment where you show my Linkedin profile and respect your users’ privacy.
Firstly I did not make your email public and secondly I didn’t even use your email account to find out you work for icflix. All it took was googling marina icflix to find her LinkedIn account (first result back) and from there I found yours.
If you don’t want people to access your LinkedIn information then you should choose to make it private within LinkedIn.
btw I just checked and your email isn’t even listed in linkedin, it gives a “Sorry, no results containing all your search terms were found.” error….
If I wanted to share my Linkedin information, I would have posted it. This is so unprofessional from you to do that!
Actually it was unprofessional of you not to disclose you were icflix employees and instead pretended to be satisfied customers.