Cravetv.caReviews 467

I've been signed up with CraveTV for about a year now, since Netflix began blocking access to most of its catalogue for Canadians. Crave's selection of movies and shows is rather spotty. I stay signed up with them mainly because they carry all of the Star Trek shows (even the animated one) and Discovery. But, no Star Trek movies, and their entire movie collection leaves a LOT to be desired. Overall, their library is pretty puny especially when it comes to movies. They carry NO horror content at all.

Where CraveTV totally falls flat on its face is in the apps they provide so that viewers like me who don't have a cable subscription can still watch. The first problem is that they're only compatible with two types of device: Samsung SmartTV (but only 2013-15 versions) and Android/AppleTV apps. The Android only works with Chromecast.

Problem Number Two is - the apps SUCK. On my SmartTV, I can't pause or fast forward shows, which is a huge problem if a) I need to go to the bathroom or leave the room; b) the program freezes or the internet connection lags, both of which happen numerous times while watching one (1) hour of programming. The fact that I can't even pause playback, much less fast forward, rewind or stop is simple bush-league programming, obviously by chimps being paid in bananas.

The picture is terrible for the first 10 minutes of watching every program. It's like watching from the bottom of a swimming pool. Sound is even more of an embarrassment, and this goes on for the whole time I watch. I have to crank the volume up full blast to hear dialogue because the sound is like having my ears stuffed with mud, and then when music or sound effects occur, my speakers are blasted out. I miss a lot of important dialogue and even have to watch a show more than once to pick up what they're saying. I have a 5.1 surround system, and never have sound issues with any other input - just Crave. Another problem is that the app disables the Samsung sound settings while I'm connected to Crave, so I can't even try to make adjustments to improve the sound.

Connectivity is another horror show with CraveTV. As I mentioned before, the connection drops continually whether I use Wi-Fi to the TV or an Ethernet cable (I'm using the cable right now). The app locks up so badly that I have to unplug the TV from the wall and plug it back in to reboot the TV so I can restart the app. I've tried restarting the TV, restarting the modem, nothing stops the connection drops. The wi-fi to my laptop is on the whole time CraveTV is throwing its dropped connection tantrums. There is nothing wrong with my Rogers cable internet connection. There is nothing wrong with the internet connection to my TV, I've tested it infinite times. I went through all of this with a CraveTV rep, he knew less about troubleshooting than I did, and kept insisting the problem was either my equipment or my fault.

At first I thought all these problems were due to my TV Smart Hub software. After spending 2 hours last night trying to watch one entire episode of Star Trek, this morning I started looking into getting a Chromecast to see if it would help. Thank goodness I went in to Google Play first, to check the reviews of the CraveTV app used with Chromecast. 90% 1 star reviews, with all the same glitches and problems as I've been having with my Crave app for Samsung Smart TV! A lot of customers got so fed up they cancelled their subscriptions, only to come back a year or two later because they wanted to watch "Crave only" content like ST Discovery - and find that NOTHING has changed!

Clearly Crave's many problems are due to the fact that they chose to pay chimps in bananas to write their apps, instead of springing on human programmers. And based on the hundreds of angry bad reviews and complaints from customers, they know about these problems and have been refusing to do anything besides collecting people's money anyway and ignoring these issues. Oh, and blaming the customers and their devices for the lousy service instead of admitting it's a problem on their end. Much as I'd love to say "avoid these losers like the plague", they know that they have their audience by the short and curlies since Netflix went downhill, so they have no reason to show any loyalty or respect to their customers much less FIX THE PROBLEMS!