BFI Player

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!

The BFI Player app is, unfortunately, plagued by issues that make it almost unusable. Despite a decent-looking user interface, the experience of actually playing rented or purchased content is frustratingly inconsistent. Casting, for example, was riddled with errors. On numerous occasions, I encountered issues when trying to cast content—either it wouldn’t start or, after watching for an hour, it would suddenly stop casting altogether. Switching to AirPlay didn’t improve matters, as it presented its own set of problems. I tried casting to Chromecast, which eventually worked after multiple failed attempts, but not without the AirPlay functionality cutting out beforehand. Even trying the BFI Player app on my Samsung TV was a disaster. The app wouldn’t play the movie at first, and when it finally did, fast-forwarding more than a minute caused the app to crash every time. To add to the frustration, the app failed to sync my progress across devices, so I had to manually scroll through the timeline to find my place. Moreover, the lack of an option for offline viewing is a major downside. You’re forced to have a stable internet connection to watch anything, which makes it highly impractical for anyone with inconsistent internet access. In the end, my experience was overwhelmingly negative. Unless absolutely necessary, I will avoid using the BFI Player app in the future. This time, I only used it because the film I wanted to watch (I Am Love) was unavailable elsewhere.

I’m new to the BFI player app. I was a little sad that there wasn’t and Apple TV app under which misunderstanding I subscribed. But so far my experience of airplay beaming from my phone to the apply tv works well enough. It’s also let me find more Mark Jenkin films so just for that I’m happy. Anything else is a plus. I really enjoy ‘Mark Kermode introduces’ too. I get the occasional stop due to the app reporting I’m logged in twice (I’m not.) But this is fixed by stopping g and starting again, and that puts my back where the film paused. Irritating, but not the end of the world. My impression is that the BfI are actively doing their best to give users a good experience without the limitless resources of Netflix and Disney. And for the most part they deliver to goods. (For some reason Apple won’t let me tap a star. So 4 stars. Looking forward to adding a fifth. )