Whenever I can’t schedule a movie night with friends and family, having an online watch party is my fallback. Most people have a computer or a smartphone, at the very least, which makes it easy to organize a watch party.
3Discord isn’t Just For Gamers
I don’t just use Discord to communicate while gaming; I also stay in touch with my family, my kids, and even use it for work. It’s a pretty nice multipurpose tool. The cool part is that it has a built-in way for you to stream your gameplay. As it so happens, you don’t have to stream gameplay—you may stream movies to your friends and family, too.
It also isn’t that difficult to get it running, though everyone will need tocreate a Discord accountfirst.
If you’re a viewer, all you need to do to join your friend’s watch party is to click on the Discord link they sent you. You’ll become a member of the server. To view their stream, join the same voice channel as them, which isGeneralby default.
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2Teleparty Makes Watch Parties Effortless
Before Teleparty became Teleparty, it was Netflix Watch Party, and it was limited to just Netflix. That’s no longer the case, and it now covers most popular streaming services. I’d argue it’s the easiest way to watch movies with your friends online due to how simple its UI and setup are. If I werepitting Discord against Teleparty, I’d choose the latter.
Unlike Discord,Telepartyis a browser plugin. It’s available for Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Opera, Android, and Safari. You install it in your browser, then do the following:
The fun part of using Teleparty is that you can discuss the movie right there and even send little emojis (just be careful not to cover the video). With a free account, you’re limited to text only, butTeleparty Premiumgrants access to video and voice chat.
1Apple SharePlay Turns FaceTime into a Watch Party
If you ever FaceTime with your friends, why not turn the next conversation into a watch party? It works very similarly to Teleparty, where everyone needs a subscription to the selected streaming service for the watch party. Like Teleparty, it also only supports certain streaming services,although most are popular ones, such as Disney+, Apple TV, Hulu, Max, and Crunchyroll (among others). Unfortunately, Netflix is not supported.
To run a watch party through FaceTime, call your buddies using the FaceTime app, then decide on a streaming service. verify everyone has it downloaded, then do the following:
Everyone involved in your watch party will have control over media playback, so be considerate. However, if you enable subtitles, it’ll only work for you. Lastly, if you’re having issues with an iMac or MacBook,there are some simple ways to fix SharePlay.
