Once it’s installed, choose a movie, select TeleParty, tweak some features, and start sharing an invitation. Then, start watching your faves with your friends, and chat about it right from the screen you’re using. To use Netflix Watch Party, find the content you want to share, click Watch Party, invite your friends and then you’re good for chatting and watching together. You can only have a maximum of seven people sharing a given stream, and international sharing isn’t allowed. Additionally, unlike most other watch parties, there’s no option for text chat—participants are only able to select emoji reactions while watching. The GroupWatch feature is available for almost every single platform that currently supports Disney+ (from smart TVs to mobile devices). However it currently will not work on PlayStation 4 or on select Roku devices. Watch Party is available in most web browsers and Fire TVs. The Prime Video app for mobile devices supports Watch Party chat, so you can interact with other viewers on your phone while watching on another device. Up to 8 people can join a Hulu Watch Party, including multiple users on the same account, and playback is synced for all 8 people. There’s also an option to chat as a group while the watch party is in progress. To host a Watch Party on Hulu, find a title with the Watch Party icon and select it, choose Start Watching, then invite your friends and you’re all set. The service includes user-generated videos, it can be used on mobile devices, and it’s Facebook-simple to use. However, users are limited in the content they can share with others, and they cannot watch content from outside services. Still, if there are Facebook videos you and your friends enjoy, this is a decent solution. To start a Facebook watch part, click in the What’s on your mind text box as if you were writing a post. Then select the three-dots > Watch Party. Next, choose what you want to watch and share it with your friends. The crown jewel of the Scener product, however, is the ability to voice, video, and text chat alongside whatever movie or show you choose to watch. Nothing can replace a real theater, but Scener comes in a close second, which is probably why the company bills itself as the Virtual Movie Theater. To start using Scener, you have to install the extension and then select Create Private Theater. Select your options for services and what to watch, then add friends and start chatting. There are some drawbacks, however. While TwoSeven’s free tier does support a lot of services, you’ll have to become a Patreon subscriber to use it with Hulu or Disney Plus. You’ll also need to sign up with Patreon to use Screen Share. And unless you’re using Screen Share, everyone in the watch party will need to have their own access to whatever you’re watching. So if you want to watch something on Netflix, everybody needs to have their own Netflix subscription. If you’re watching something on Disney Plus or Hulu, all participants will need to have a Patreon subscription to TwoSeven. You can share downloaded videos without these restrictions, so if you own any digital copies of a movie or TV show, there is a workaround to watching with friends. Once you create a TwoSeven account you can share the Watch Now URL with as many people as you want to get started. Text chat is supported, and if the linked videos use timestamps those are also included. What’s more, you can set up a queue of multiple videos that will automatically play when each video finishes. Meaning you won’t have to find something else to watch after the current show ends. Currently, Metastream is only available for Firefox and Chrome, so other web browsers won’t work. The downside to this is watch parties hosted by free accounts will encounter ads, and what’s available to share is somewhat limited. While premium accounts do have more sharing options, streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus aren’t directly supported. Watch Together works with a lot of different platforms, too. Everything from Android and iOS to smart TVs and video game consoles are supported. And once you set up a lobby, all you have to do is wait for everyone to show up before you start, so there’s no need to worry about synching the video. Once playing, anyone participating can also control video playback. However, Plex Watch Together doesn’t offer any chat options. And if you want to invite someone to join, you have to be friends with them first. So if you aren’t already friends in the app, you’ll need to jump through a few extra hoops before you can add them to the group. Once you’re ready, find the video you want to share and select More, then choose Watch Together to open a lobby. After that, you just have to start inviting people to join.
