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What’s The Difference Between Disney+ UK and NOW TV Sky Cinema Pass?

Now that Disney+ will be available in the UK, customers can stream their favorite Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars films all in the same place. Since there are many options of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and NOW TV — some streamers might be confused which is the best for them.

We compared the pricing, films, movies, originals, and features of Disney+ and NOW TV Sky Cinema Pass to figure out which is the best one for you.

Plans & Pricing

Disney+ at £5.99 a month (or £4.99 if you pre-pay for a year) after a 7-Day Free Trial is less than half the price of the NOW TV Sky Cinema Pass, which is £11.99.

Shows & Movies

While NOW TV Sky Cinema Pass includes some Disney movies including recently released films, Disney+ has a much more expansive library of Disney-owned content.

The one benefit to NOW TV Sky Cinema Pass is that includes movies from studios other than Disney, including movies from Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures. Also, as part of a deal to distribute Disney+, they will be included 21st Century Fox films like Terminator: Dark Fate.

But, Disney+ includes nearly the entire library of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars films, including the Disney animated library known as the Disney Vault. This means you and your family can watch movies like Frozen, Snow White, Aladdin, The Lion King anytime you want. You can also watch nearly every Pixar film ever made like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, Wall-E, and more.

The service also has 600 episodes of The Simpsons and a wide selection of documentaries and shows from National Geographic.

Disney has also created original series and movies for Disney+, like the first live-action Star Wars series, “The Mandalorian”, which was directed by Jon Favreau. They also have High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, based on the Disney Channel film, and the docu-series The World According to Jeff Goldblum — in addition to a few others.

Supported Devices

Disney+ and NOW TV have similar compatibility across streaming players, gaming consoles, mobile devices, and Smart TVs. The major exceptions are that NOW TV is not available on Amazon Fire TV or Android TV streaming devices.

Disney+ is available on Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Xbox, PS4, iPhone, iPad, Android, Samsung Smart TV, LG Smart TV, and VIZIO Smart TV.

Video & 4K Support

While NOW TV has HD of many of their titles, Disney+ adds 4K and Dolby Vision support of nearly 100 titles. As more new release content comes onto the service, expect the amount of 4K content to increase.

Audio & Dolby Digital Support

Most newer content on Disney+ is available in Dolby Digital 5.1. Most of the releases in 4K also have support for Dolby Atmos — which isn’t available on NOW TV.

Simultaneous Streams

Disney+ can be streamed on up to 4 devices at the same time, which is twice as many devices as NOW TV offers (2 simultaneous devices).

Offline Downloads

Disney+ is one of the most generous streaming services for offline downloads. Disney+ subscribers have access to unlimited downloads of shows and movies on the Disney+ app to watch offline later on up to 10 mobile or tablet devices.

NOW TV will let you download most on-demand shows and movies. You can watch each download as many times as you like for 48 hours after you start watching. You’ll need to finish watching within 30 days of downloading a show or movie. You can only watch that episode or movie one more time during that 30 day period.

International Access

In addition to the UK, Disney+ is now available in US, Canada, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, and Switzerland.

In all of those countries, you can watch anything available in the content catalog in that country (in addition to your offline movies). If you go to country where Disney+ is not available, you will only be able to access offline content.

While online, you can stream NOW TV in any EU country for up to 30 days. All your downloaded content can be watch in any country around the world.


Jason Gurwin has has spent the last 10 years in the technology, media, entertainment industries. For The Streamable, he specializes in all things media like streaming services, devices, and cord cutting.

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