If you’re a documentary lover, you should consider MagellanTV, an excellent on-demand video streaming service. For one low price, you can watch thousands of documentary films and docuseries on everything from nature to history to art and much more. Best of all, many of MagellanTV’s titles are available in stunning 4K resolution. The streaming service also supports offline downloads on mobile platforms and doesn’t show ads, but we would like to see improved accessibility options and platform availability.
What Can You Watch on MagellanTV?
MagellanTV is home to more than 3,000 high-quality documentaries and series that span nearly every topic. New programs arrive on the service every week, too. You can browse the site without subscribing and watch a five-minute preview of any documentary you choose.
Among MagellanTV’s excellent titles is Life Is One: Growing Up Sunbear, the story of three bear cubs and their journey from life in captivity to living in the wild. There are also curated documentary sections for 4K space films like Hubble Eye in The Sky 4K, a beautiful exploration of how the Hubble telescope changed the way we view astronomy and the universe. The library also includes true crime films and series, such as Customs, a reality television show that follows Customs Agents in the UK who work to stop smuggling operations. You can even put together a stay-at-home travel guide with programs like Germany From Above, Spain From Above, and Italy From Above, which explore some of each country’s most exciting destinations from a bird’s eye view.
MagellanTV does not produce original series or films. Instead, you get access to independent, educational, full-length documentaries you’ve likely never seen before, collected from broadcasters around the world like the BBC. Many of the documentaries feature narrations by experts like Waldemar Januszczak, the famed art critic who lends his voice to The Impressionists series. If you’re looking for blockbuster documentaries and docuseries narrated by celebrities, try Netflix or Hulu.
How Much Does MagellanTV Cost?
MagellanTV costs $6.99 per month, but you can also pay on a quarterly ($17.97 every three months) or annual ($59.88 per year) basis. The service offers a free seven-day trial.
For comparison, Editors’ Choice winner Kanopy is free, so long as you have a library card or a valid university email address. Both CuriosityStream and PBS Documentaries also undercut MagellanTV’s price at $2.99 and $3.99 per month respectively. You do have to pay for CuriosityStream’s $9.99-per-month plan if you want 4K content from that service, however.
MagellanTV is cheaper than most mainstream streaming services, however. Hulu‘s ad-free plan is $11.99 per month and Netflix’s Standard tier is $13.99 per month. If you want 4K Netflix content, you have to pay for its $17.99-per-month Premium tier. Other dedicated movie streaming services are significantly more expensive than MagellanTV. Mubi and The Criterion Channel, for instance, both cost $10.99 per month.
Kanopy isn’t the only free video streaming service, but it offers the most high-quality documentaries and films of any of them. Another Editors’ Choice winner, Peacock, includes lots of mainstream movies and network TV shows—some of them documentaries.
MagellanTV is available on mobile platforms (Android and iOS) and media streaming devices (Fire TV and Roku), but that’s it. MagellanTV is missing support for Apple TVs, Chromecasts, and game consoles. PBS Documentaries is available on many more platforms, because you subscribe to it through Prime Video.
Web Interface
Signing up for MagellanTV was very straightforward. I provided my account and payment details, chose a plan, and immediately got access to MagellanTV’s free trial period.
MagellanTV’s web interface is easy to navigate and each section of the main page highlights a different genre. At the top of the page, there’s a navigation bar to help you narrow down your search and find what you really want to watch. The site also includes regularly updated and interesting articles about every topic from cosmology to technology.
If you need to take a break from a film, the service keeps track of where you left off with a Keep Watching feature that’s similar to the one that Netflix offers. You can also rate each program, as well as add movies and shows to a watchlist. Unlike with Shudder and Mubi, you cannot leave comments on what you watch.
If you ever want to cancel your MagellanTV subscription, the process is painless. Click on the profile icon in the top right corner of the website’s home page, scroll down to the Membership section, and click the large, blue Cancel Subscription button. To resume your subscription, click the blue Resume Subscription button.
Mobile Experience
I had no trouble downloading and signing in to the MagellanTV app on my iPhone running iOS 14.4. The mobile interface looks just like the website, with a dark background and colored thumbnails. I like the Related Content section on each video’s landing page that recommends other films and episodes based on the content’s genre.
As mentioned, MagellanTV enables you to download movies and shows so you can watch them wherever you don’t have a stable Wi-Fi connection. You can choose to download films and episodes in full HD (highest quality), HD (medium quality), or SD (low quality). For reference, I downloaded a 38-minute title at the highest quality in one minute over my home Wi-Fi connection (450Mpbs download). If you’re streaming or downloading video on a mobile device, make sure you are using a Wi-Fi connection or have an unlimited data plan; streaming video uses a lot of data.
Playback Experience
MagellanTV’s playback interface is a bit bare-bones, but functional. Aside from the standard playback and volume controls, you can toggle closed captions and select the streaming resolution. Other services, including IFC Films Unlimited and PBS Documentaries (both of which are Prime Video Channels), feature the IMDb-powered X-Ray overlay which lists cast information and other tidbits about a film or episode.
Some of MagellanTV’s older documentaries are not available in 4K, but most of the newer ones are, including those with sweeping overhead shots of locales and stunning views of space. The playback audio quality sounded crisp, too. Apple TV+‘s series and films are also all available in 4K.
For reference, I tested MagellanTV’s streaming performance over a Gigabit Ethernet connection and a Wi-Fi connection on mobile. I watched a documentary called Toumai: The Oldest Living Ancestor without any problems. I also seamlessly resumed playback on my mobile phone partway through the documentary.
MagellanTV supports five simultaneous streams per account, which is excellent. Kanopy technically offers an unlimited number of simultaneous streams per account, whereas PBS Documentaries limits subscribers to three concurrent streams. In the future, it would be nice to see something similar to the watch party features that Netflix, HBO Max, and Hulu offer.
Accessibility and Parental Controls
MagellanTV offers closed captions on every documentary I tried, but most are English-only and, unlike with Amazon Prime Video, you can’t adjust the font size or color of the captions. None of MagellanTV’s titles currently support audio descriptions for the visually impaired, something that Apple TV+, Netflix, and Prime Video all offer. Neither Kanopy nor PBS Documentaries support audio descriptions. This is an accessibility feature that we appreciate, and we definitely credit services that add it to their offering, as HBO Max recently did.
The content offered on MagellanTV rarely goes beyond a G parental rating. Nonetheless, there are no parental control options and there isn’t a way to create multiple profiles per account. Disney+ enables you to create up to six profiles per account and restrict any of them to content suitable for children. Kanopy has a dedicated section for kids, too.
MagellanTV and VPN
A VPN can keep your information private while you browse, and unlike some other services, MagellanTV works just fine over a VPN connection in my tests. I connected my devices to both US- and Japan-based ProtonVPN servers during my review period and encountered no problems streaming content from the service.
Even if you find that your VPN and video streaming service work without issues for now, that’s no guarantee that they will in the future. We recommend you choose a VPN based on other factors such as trustworthiness, value, and security features, instead.
Discover New Documentaries
MagellanTV is a great value for documentary lovers looking for educational, informative, and entertaining fare. With thousands of films to choose from, you are bound to find something that is worth the price of a subscription. The service’s support for 4K streaming, offline downloads, and five simultaneous streams per account is impressive, too. Some drawbacks of MagellanTV are that it doesn’t feature a ton of well-known films and docuseries and is not available on as many platforms as competitors.
Netflix continues to be our Editor’s Choice winner for on-demand video streaming with its robust library of originals and movies. Hulu is also a great option for its combination of an immense on-demand library and live TV offerings. CuriosityStream and Kanopy are both Editors’ Choice picks for the trove of documentary content they provide at an affordable (or free) price.
