Christian
The moment is finally here. In previous articles I talked about the VidAngel service in general and then I went through the setup process and the filters.
You can find those articles here: VidAngel Review: Overview and VidAngel Review: Getting Started.
In this article I finally sit down to start using the VidAngel service.
I can't wait.
WHAT TO EXPECT
I will be testing out the VidAngel service with Netflix, Amazon Prime and Amazon video. I will also be trying out The Chosen and Dry Bar Comedy content.
As I mentioned in my previous article, VidAngel also includes a few Amazon Channels, such as HBO, Showtime, etc. I didn't test these "channels," but they work just like the rest of the content.
My testing for this article will cover a wide variety of content across the services including:
- Queen's Gambit (Netflix)
- The Walking Dead (Netflix) - Testing blood & gore filtering.
- Downton Abbey (Netflix & Amazon Prime)
- Chicago Med (Netflix) - I want to play this with the medical procedures filter turned on to see what happens.
- Billions (Amazon Prime) - Used this to quickly test swearing filters and it worked great.
- The Tomorrow War (Amazon Prime)
- Orange is the new Black (Netflix) - Using max filters to see what was left behind.
- Tiger King (Netflix)
- The Chosen (VidAngel)
- And many more ...
Basically, I'm going through a lot of pieces of content to see how filters work and also how viewing the content feels.
In some instances I will only test filters on a scene and in other instances I will block everything to see what happens.
NOTE: I listed some shows up above that I will be testing, but I am NOT endorsing watching any of these shows aside from The Chosen. I simply want to illustrate the diversity of my testing. And I wanted to give the filters and experience a real workout so I know if VidAngel really works and is potentially worth my $10 a month. Also in some cases, I'm just going to bring up a show I know is garbage to see what filters can be applied.
My go-to device for watching tv/etc is the Apple TV. While I suspect the viewing experience to be the same on any device, I will also do some tests on Android TV, iOS devices and other Android devices and I will note anything that I find that's different.
FINDING A MOVIE OR TV SHOW
Once you are ready to watch a movie or TV show, you will need to open up and use the VidAngel app as all of your available content will play through there.
You can browse content by service, by trending popularity and by genre.
If you know what you want, you can also just search for it.
Searching for content looks to be a little limited and behaves slightly different between my Apple TV and searching via the browser.
When I searched via the web browser, I could search for items with under 3 characters. For example, "t" or "ti" works. However, on the Apple TV, I needed at least 3 characters for anything to show.
Also the search results look to be limited to 5-10 results regardless of the search.
I searched for "ti" and got 6 results. But when I searched for just "t" I only got 3 results and these results where totally different. And what's funny to me is that a search for "abb" gave me 10 results.
If you're going to search for things you generally know the name for, such as "abbey" when you want "Downton Abbey," you'll be just fine.
It appears that there's enough ways to find content.
Speaking of finding content, you can browse by recently added, trending, content rating and more.
For popular, trending and recent content, you can sort in reverse as well.
For example: display the oldest content first.
All you need to do is go into a category, such as "Best of Netflix," then you can drill down from there.
Overall, I found this to a pleasant experience and it made it easier to find content to watch when I didn't know what I was after.
Once you are at a screen for a movie or TV show you're ready to watch and have your filters in place, you'll just need to wait about 20 seconds to 1 minute on average for the VidAngel service to verify the content.
So let's get into some of my actual testing.
CC: Closed Caption
If you're someone who needs Closed Caption or wants it, VidAngel's service has the potential to disappoint.
When testing on my Apple TV, I couldn't get any CC for the things I was watching. And that's too bad.
But when I tested the service via it's website in the browser, I got Close Caption to work. It did appear to get behind a few seconds as the show went on, but that could have been my browser setup and computer load contributing to that.
When I tried the service via the app on my devices, I also got Closed Caption to work.
Also another important note has to do with censorship (filtering bad words, etc). The Closed Caption feed won't be censored, which is too bad. First there are people who need Closed Caption and rather not read things they wish to filter out, but there are also households, like ours, that has Closed Caption on often and would rather not see the text of the things we are trying to filter.
Perhaps they have no technical or legal way to do this at this time, but I'd love to see this fixed.
If Closed Caption is vital to you for any reason, just be aware of these potential situations.
MY FIRST TEST
For my first test of the VidAngel service, I decided to checkout the first episode of the Downton Abbey series to see what filters were available.
What was interesting to me is how detailed some of the filters were. While browsing the non-graphic violence filters I found an instance listed that said: "A woman trips a man."
So of course I had to test this (about 40 min into the episode).
My first test failed to remove the scene, but it was my mistake. Once I fixed my mistake, the filter took hold and skipped the roughly 2-second scene nicely.
I learned that you can adjust filters on the fly, but you need to make sure you select the "SAVE" option after you make any changes.
Once I figured this out, all my test changes worked to perfection and I was able to watch this show with many questionable items removed.
NEXT UP: CHESS
Ok, it was time to challenge the service a little so I loaded up the first episode of Queen' Gambit from Netflix.
This show had 81 filters ranging from swearing to nudity to drug use, both legal and illegal.
If you're familiar with the show, it's a fictional story of an orphan girl who becomes a chess prodigy and lives a troubled life. It's full of drug use and questionable show decisions (example: showing the main character in a bra picking out an outfit for another time, which added nothing to the scene or show and could have been deleted).
I did two tests for this show.
In the first test I filtered everything but the drug use. Since drug use is a staple piece of context to the story and I don't have any previous drug use nor abuse issues (and believe the uses weren't celebrating the use of drugs), I was ok watching it at least for the purposes of the review.
In the second test, I turned on all of the filters. Obviously, there's going to be context loss, but I was just curious what the show felt like.
As I've said before, some shows and movies should just be skipped as no amount of filters will make them better for a Christian to consume and sometimes the amount of filtering needed will make the show or movie a complete mess.
With all the filters on, a fair amount of main character context goes away, but I think an adult can still infer some things based on what's seen. And no amount of filters would make this show appropriate for minors or someone with a history of drug-related issues.
Personally, I don't recommend the show. To me, the only interesting bits revolve around Chess, which is a game I like. The rest I could leave behind. But for the purposes of testing out VidAngel, it fit.
THE CHOSEN
If you're familiar with The Chosen, you might be wondering just what could possibly need filtering.
I was very curious as well.
Because VidAngel filters more than just swear words, violence and nudity, there are usually always things that could be filtered.
In episode one, season one of The Chosen the Romans order Nicodemus to the Red Quarter to exorcize demons out of Mary as she's causing quite the stir and they are going to use their "fire of fires" if he can't help.
This scene is one of things you can filter out. Granted, in this case, it will remove some context, which plays a part in the charter evolution of Nicodemus and also the character history of Mary.
The filter for this particular scene is under "OTHER ELEMENTS > OBJECTIONABLE / DISTURBING / SCARY".
I'm not sure if this scene here for being disturbing or scary (figured it's not objectionable). Perhaps a little of both.
The nice thing about these filters is that they generally have a good description with them when it's not just swear words.
For example, the description for this scene's filter is: "A Rabbi tries to exorcize demons from a woman and fails. Demons speak through her."
Another filter in the same category is: "A man spits on another man's feet."
So as you can see, it's not just crude, perverse items filtered, but all sorts of items.
And speaking of disturbing or scary content, I went over to the horror section of VidAngel out of curiousity. I don't watch these types of movies, but I was wondering about how high the filter count would be.
After a few minutes of browsing, I found several movies that had 300, 400 and even 500+ filters. Wow!
SHOW/MOVIE & PERFORMANCE SUMMARY
Rather than going through every movie or show I tested, let me just say that everything works as intended.
Over the course of many days I watched a lot of content while playing with various filters and I didn't run into any filter that didn't work.
I also made sure to test out content from all over the connected services (Amazon video, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Dry Bar Comedy and The Chosen).
As to the performance, it all worked very well. I was expecting a lot of choppiness, stoppages and so forth.
The main "issue" is just authorizing each piece of content before you can play it. The time it takes will depend on your Internet speed as well as the time it takes for the content servers to talk to each other.
After lots of testing, I'd say that the average wait time was 30-60 seconds.
A couple times my content paused, but this may have been my system and not something wrong with VidAngel. Either way I just had to hit play to get it going again. Given the rarity, it wasn't a big deal to me.
Other than that, it was smooth sailing.
THOUGHTS UPCOMING
With all of my setup and extensive testing concluded, it's now time to put my thoughts all together and decide if the VidAngel service is worth the money.
I hope you'll read the next and final article in this detailed review of VidAngel!
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS!