There were times when television was the only source of entertainment for any individual or family. An entire family would sit together during lunch, breakfast, and dinner just to watch their preferred shows together on a single television. However, the times have greatly changed in just a few years. Technology has significantly invaded our lives and it made better for few and worse for others. But since the rise of online streaming platforms, a major part of the audience has shifted to online digital content. Keeping this in mind, even the channels have adapted to the situation.
Hotstar is a reliable and preferred online platform which promotes Indian digital entertainment for its viewers. It was launched by infamous entertainment channel Star India and it has gained a base of 400 million viewership in just 4 years. It streams television serials, cricket matches, movies and foreign content as well, made available on Apple TV, Fire TV, Android, iOS and other web media.
You can watch any video available online in different preferential languages by its on-demand services. This article is a rundown of most common and essential questions that users have, especially when they have just joined the service.
Contents
Getting access to Hotstar: a web of content
Firstly, if you are wondering how to access the videos available for streaming on Hotstar, just follow the below steps and you should be good to go.
- Visit the website Hotstar.com
If you want to watch videos on Hotstar, you must visit their website at the first instance “Hotstar.com”, when you visit the website you will be directed to a page wherein all the videos streaming on Hotstar shall be available to watch. - Install the application
If you don’t want to visit the site, you can also have another option which is installing the app of Hotstar available on Google play store. It is an easier and feasible way since you will not have to open the website again and again to watch videos. - Click on ‘start free trial.’
The page that you see after visiting the website or opening the application shall be the content of Hotstar. On the left, a text saying ‘start free trial’ pops up in green colour, you have to click on it and you will be redirected to another page. - Sign up with email ID and password
Once you have subscribed for the free trial of Hotstar, you are required to sign up for your account by using your email ID and password that is to be entered in the boxes shown. Once you have entered correct email ID and password, another page regarding payment details shall open. - Fill in your payment details
Once the period of free trial ends when no cost is charged from its viewers, the account deducts the subscription fee from your linked bank account. For this, you have to enter your account details and choose your membership plan accordingly. As soon as all details are registered, you are good to go, you can watch anything and everything that you like.
You can get the Hotstar subscription through 3 different plans. One is a yearly subscription for Rs. 999, another one is a monthly subscription for Rs. 299 and the last one is VIP membership for all the premium content streaming in India at Rs. 365 only for a year. You can also watch shows flagged as Hotstar specials on the application falling under your subscription with original and exclusive Hotstar content. This was an initiative made by Hotstar to compete with its competitors in the online digital market.
Viewers face a lot of problems while they have signed in their account but cannot watch videos due to minor discrepancies. It may be forgetting the password because, in viewership of millions, it is nearly impossible that no one forgets their password. It may be a problem in watching the shows in preferred language because the platform is widespread with the diverse and varied subscriber base. Hence, to tackle all these minute problems, you can go through the stepwise process mentioned below:
How to Change Password
- When you visit the first page of Hotstar website or application, search the button for “sign in”, after you have found it, click on it and try signing in to your account.
- You may choose to sign in to your account by email ID of Gmail or Facebook address as well, which suits you the best.
- Signing in to your account shall show incorrect details of email ID and password, and since you need to change your password, click on “Forgot Password” popping up right below the columns of sign in details.
- Once you’re done clicking on “Forgot Password”, you will be redirected to a page where you have to enter your registered email address which is active and logged in at that time.
- When you have entered the email address, go to your Gmail account, log in (if the account is not already logged in), check your inbox. You must have received the instructions from Hotstar website through which you can reset your new password for the same account.
- Or you can also request “Forgot Password” from Hotstar and it will send you a new password which can be used easily to sign in to your Hotstar account without creating a new password.
However, if you have already signed in to your Hotstar account and you wish to change your password while being logged in, there is no method or solution available for that. The only thing to possibly do is to ask a question in “Help” block of “Settings” and request for change or recovery of password for the account.
How to change Language
Hotstar is not a platform that is bounded only on the souls of India. It has its wings widespread in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada apart from India. Hence the content on this streaming platform cannot be restricted in terms of language. To cope up with this problem, Hotstar has its content in different languages including Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Hindi, English, Bengali, Gujarati and Kannada.
You can search for shows and videos of different languages on Hotstar and watch them without any disturbance. Not only the languages, but you can also request for subtitles.
- Click or choose the video or show you wish to watch.
- Play the video and increase the size of the video to full screen.
- On the bottom right, you can see the sign of “Settings”, click on the icon.
- Click on “Audio language”, you can have many options of languages to hear the audio of the video, select your language and start watching.
- If you want subtitles of the video in another language, go to “Subtitles” and by clicking on it, you can choose the language of subtitle that you want to see.
In the sidebar at up left of “Home” page of your Hotstar account, click on 3 parallel lines and search for “Languages”, you can choose shows from any language to watch which would be available at that point of time.
How to change Region and Location
Since Hotstar is not just restricted to India, it has a viewership worldwide in different countries across continents, it is very necessary that it must have an option to change the location and region of Hotstar account. If you have logged in to your account in India and then travelled to some other country supporting Hotstar streaming, the account gets blocked. It shows “Hotstar is currently unavailable in your region.” But there is nothing to worry because unblocking the account is not a technical or time-consuming task.
If you are wondering the reason why it gets blocked, here is your answer. It happens because the broadcasters wish to extract the maximum amount of money from the content. So if you access your Hotstar account from a different country, you will get a separate welcome page or home page. This is because Hotstar will provide you with different content when you change your location or region.
Here’s a step by step process to change the region and location of your Hotstar account to get hassle-free viewing of videos from Bollywood and Cricket:
- Check for an IP address which is already situated in India. If you are unable to find it, just search for a proxy IP address on Google, and you must be able to find it.
- Once you have found the IP address, open it and use to log in or sign in to your Hotstar account and start streaming the videos.
- You can also connect to several VPN links and networks which can connect you to India even if you are not an Indian viewer. The VPN tunnels allow you to connect to VPN plug-ins and later log in to your account.
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How to change Video Quality
You can change the video quality of the video you wish to watch by either lowering or increasing the definition of the video. The process of changing the video quality is the same as changing the language of the video which can be accessed from the “Settings” toolbar in the video itself. The video quality on Hotstar ranges from High being 720p, Medium being 360p and Low being 180p, you can choose whichever suits you the best. You can change the video quality to “Auto” so that the quality of video gets set automatically as per requirement.
Do not forget to go through all the steps while creating your Hotstar account or facing any problems while signing in. Now you can watch videos online easily in a hassle-free manner. Happy watching.
