Disney Plus will start streaming at midnight PT (but possibly even earlier)
The streaming service and its big-budget Star Wars series The Mandalorian will officially launch Tuesday.
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The original shows planned for Disney Plus include a big-budget Star Wars spinoff series, The Mandalorian.
Disney Plus is set to launch Tuesday, and die-hard Star Wars fans are counting down the minutes until they can start streaming The Mandalorian, the streaming service's big-budget spinoff taking place in a galaxy far, far away. But when exactly is the time to count down to?
Disney had at least two online countdown clocks ticking down to different hours recently, but the company said Sunday that Disney Plus is supposed to officially launch at 12:01 a.m. PT Tuesday. The service is launching in the US and Canada at that time. In the Netherlands, where Disney has been offering Disney Plus free as part of a beta test, the app will switch to requiring a subscription.
However, people who start checking for the Disney app before 12:01 a.m. PT may see it pop up sooner because of quirks in different app stores.
The Disney Plus app is launching across a bunch of different platforms, such as Roku, Apple's iOS and Apple TV, Google's Android and many others. Each platform has its different practices for rolling out new apps -- for example, some platforms plant a new app early in multiple servers across wide areas so that the program can spread out, or propagate, more quickly. Others don't. As a result, some platforms may start showing the Disney Plus app earlier than others
Your best bet to hear early word of where people are seeing the app appear may be Reddit. Both Disney Plus and The Mandalorian have subreddits, and the larger Disney subreddit has a Disney Plus launch megathread.
In addition to streaming on the web at disneyplus.com, Disney Plus should appear in app and channel stores for:
- Roku's boxes, sticks and TVs
- Apple TV, iPhone and iPad
- Phones and TVs running on Android operating systems, as well as Chromecast streamers
- Xbox One
- PlayStation 4
- Amazon Fire TV devices
Disney Plus, the company's $7-a-month streaming service, is perhaps the most high-profile example of traditional Hollywood reorienting to compete in streaming video against the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Apple. With tech giants pouring money into their own TV shows and movies and luring consumers away from traditional pay TV, Disney is aiming to pull all its content off other services and consolidate it with original programs on its own service.
After Tuesday's rollout, next up is a Nov. 19 launch in Australia and New Zealand. Much of Western Europe is getting the service March 31, with a wider international rollout to follow.
