SBS On Demand review

Demand is only able to offer free streaming because whatever you watch is ad-supported. And the bad news is those ad breaks can be looong. How long? Try four back-to-back ads that collectively last two minutes, and that’s after an opening advert.

While it’s easy to appreciate the quality of the content available on SBS On Demand, watching a 22-minute episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine with two doses of two-minute ad breaks really does take the wind out of the comedic momentum of an episode, more so because it starts with 30 seconds of ads, too. Those 4.5 minutes of ads amount to around 20% of an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I strongly suggest using them for bathroom or snack breaks. Things fare better for hour-long shows, which only have one additional two-minute ad break.

Movies have the best spread of ads after the initial 30-second opener, with four ad breaks spread every 20-or-so minutes throughout the running time. But if you’re primarily watching shorter shows, expect to regularly notice the ad breaks.

You don’t have to scroll for too long to find plenty of quality movies to watch on SBS On Demand. You can manually search for something you know is on the service or, alternatively, use the categories at the top of the page to search by genre. The other option is an appreciated Netflix-like approach wherein movies are separated into meaningful categories as you scroll.

Up the top you’ll find recently added flicks before the scroll descends into general categories like documentaries or quirkier categorisations like ‘The Oscar Goes To’ for Oscar-winning movies. Scrolling through the full JustWatch range of SBS On Demand movies, there are loads of impressive popular titles at the top of the list of the 650+ options that were available at the time of review.

For instance, get your zombie fix with Train to Busan, watch one of the greatest time travel movies ever made in Predestination, or dive into one of Luc Besson’s best in Léon: The Professional. For those brave enough to match lockdown mood to their movie picks, there’s engrossing (albeit draining) drama to be found in Spotlight, Shame, Incendies, The Railway Man and We Need to Talk About Kevin. If you fancy a laugh, there’s plenty of options, including Bend it Like Beckham, The Death of Stalin and the swear-tastic In The Loop.

You don’t have to try something new to find a great pick, either. Revisit classics like the bloodthirsty Apocalypto, the criminally underrated Dredd or iconic martial arts flick Ip Man. The more you scroll, the more classics you spot, even outside of the current popular picks: True Grit, Flawless and Police Story 2, to name a few.

As you can see from the list above, that’s a mix of quality movies from home and around the world. While none of them are particularly big-budget Hollywood films, there’s enough quality in there to keep you constantly tapping that heart option and filling up your personalised favourites list.

Even for someone who watches way too much TV, scrolling through the popular JustWatch picks of SBS On Demand content starts strong but soon descends into unfamiliar territory. Still, there are some exceptional options to keep you entertained from 300+ options.

Have a laugh with Why Women Kill, new episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Orville or the loony Letterkenny. Alternatively, there’s quality drama to be found in The Handmaid’s Tale, Halt and Catch Fire, or Mr. Mercedes. If you want something in between, Donald Glover’s Atlanta deserves all of its buzz. SBS On Demand is also the place to go for iconic Nordic noir series like the ones that start with “The”—The Killing, The Bridge and The Machinery— as well as others that don’t start with “The” but do conveniently start with “B”, including Below the Surface, Beforeigners and Blinded.

This is also where you can find a whole lot of drool-worthy SBS Food content, which is definitely tough to look at when you’re trying to be healthy.

Even for someone who watches way too much TV, scrolling through the popular JustWatch picks of SBS On Demand content starts strong but soon descends into unfamiliar territory. Still, there are some exceptional options to keep you entertained from 300+ options.

Have a laugh with Why Women Kill, new episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Orville or the loony Letterkenny. Alternatively, there’s quality drama to be found in The Handmaid’s Tale, Halt and Catch Fire, or Mr. Mercedes. If you want something in between, Donald Glover’s Atlanta deserves all of its buzz. SBS On Demand is also the place to go for iconic Nordic noir series like the ones that start with “The”—The Killing, The Bridge and The Machinery— as well as others that don’t start with “The” but do conveniently start with “B”, including Below the Surface, Beforeigners and Blinded.

This is also where you can find a whole lot of drool-worthy SBS Food content, which is definitely tough to look at when you’re trying to be healthy.

For starters, SBS On Demand is available on an expected range of devices:

That’s a great selection of devices and means you should be able to stream SBS On Demand on pretty much whatever you like, even if you have older devices. Most of my review time was spent jumping between the Android app, Chrome browser and the Nvidia Shield TV Pro, the latter of which proved to be a godsend with the lower resolution.

Y’see, one of the biggest letdowns of SBS On Demand is that it maxes out at 720p streaming quality. While decent, 720p (HD) streams tend to suffer in the detail with more noticeable visual noise and less clarity than 1080p (Full HD) streams. Where the Nvidia Shield TV Pro proves to be a lifesaver is with its AI-powered on-the-fly upscaling, which makes a 720p stream look a lot better than what it looks like on a 27-inch PC screen (like the recently reviewed MSI Optix MAG274QRF-QD gaming monitor), even if it’s less noticeable on a smaller smartphone screen, like the Google Pixel 5.

You will notice a difference if you cast from a compatible mobile device to a bigger screen, though. And you definitely don’t want to stream at lower resolutions (see the table above), unless you’re desperate to preserve mobile data. Outside of that, the Android app understandably has a leaner design, but it also strangely swaps out the “TV Shows” section for “Programs”. It’s not a big deal, but it is an odd choice to defy consistency.

SBS On Demand is absolutely worth using. Even if it could benefit from a resolution buff and fewer ads on shorter shows—or at least more spread out to not disrupt the flow—SBS On Demand has a killer selection of movies, some quality TV choices (including big zeitgeist picks) and some great sports options, too. There are no big download requirements for the apps nor the shows you’re streaming, so you really should have it installed alongside other streaming services.