By: ANTHONY AYALA
Staff Writer
@bman4ever92
It is clear that the future of content delivery is streaming. On Sept. 15 Warner Bros. threw their hat into the ring with the Beta launch of DC Universe, their own streaming service. With the launch of this new platform we wanted to take the plunge and find out if you should spend the $7.99 a month or $74.99 a year.
DC Universe is a platform where fans of the comics, movies, and television shows all have something for them. Currently in Beta, not all of the intended content is available on the platform, with new additions happening weekly.
As of right now there are only two exclusive shows on the platform, “DC Daily” and “DC Universe Presents.” There is a forum for users to discuss all things DC and exclusive giveaways and items available in the shop. There is an Encyclopedia to learn about characters and a news section where articles are posted. Warner Bros. plans to officially launch on Oct. 12 with the premiere of “Titans.” Warner Bros. promises something new every week.
DC Daily is released every weekday and is made up of three segments. First is the news, where host Tiffany Smith will share breaking news in the “DC Universe.” Additionally Hector Nevarro gives the viewer a bit of background information on a piece of television content available on the platform.
The second segment is an interview with one of the artists that have or are currently working with DC. Kevin Conroy, who has played Batman for nearly 25 years, George Perez, a prolific writer and artist at DC Comics, and artist Ming Doyle, who recently worked on “The Anatomy of a Metahuman,” were some of the subjects.
The final segment is a discussion hosted by John Kourounis and comprises a mix of changing participants. Each day the group analyzes one story from the DC Universe catalogue.
“DC Universe Presents” is a series of shorts that give the viewer a bit of behind the scenes or contextual history for a story within the DC Universe. Whether informing you on the stories from the making of Michael Keaton’s Batman or the impact of Geoff Johns “Green Lantern” comic book run, new and old fans alike will be able to jump into the stories this show features.
It is clear that Warner Bros. primarily focused on their tablet and smartphone app as well as their website in the development process. These two points of access have been bug and crash free. However their apps on streaming boxes like Apple TV and Google Chromecast have not been as stable. The apps have failed to launch on occasion and had to be reinstalled.
Additionally, while you are able to access all the content available to you from the web, smart phone, tablet the streaming boxes struggle to. They lack the “see more” button. As a result a user would need to look up the show, comic, or movie and search it in the app to find it.
Unfortunately, this does not resolve all the issues as even this method will not always pull up all the available episodes. I encountered this problem with “Batman the Animated Series.”
While the DC Universe platform is limited in the content it currently offers there is a good amount of exclusive shows on the way to the platform. Live action shows “Titans,” “The Doom Patrol,” “Stargirl,” “Swamp Thing,” as well as animated series like “Young Justice Outsiders” and a Harley Quinn show are all in the works. By 2020 Warner Bros. plans for more than one new episode a week of their exclusive shows. However there are some bugs that need to be worked out if you plan to use the service exclusively through a streaming box.
