Aish, I have never got DF (not available in Europe), so I can’t say anything about their customer service or the streaming website or make a comparison with Viki.
But I quite remember that their farewell has taken everyone by surprise. There was no prior notification and subscribers just discovered it one day? I don’t remember, how was it?
I wonder how they dealt with their customers who paid for their service for a full year or the month. Did they get a refund?
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It was a hard, swift blow, let me tell you. Asian dramas are a niche market, but DF was doing well. All of its dramas were handpicked and professionally translated in both English and Spanish. These money hungry corporations, however, are never satisfied until they have a trillion users on their platforms. So one day Warner Bros. simply decided to shut down DF and create something else that would compete with the likes of Netflix and HBO. Screw the loyal fans!
Yes, refunds were given, but the pain remained.
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I have never understood why they shut it down and where they can find trillion users while excluding the Asian library… that is hard to do if they exclude. I think that Warner Bros owns HBO and HBO did add 2 Kdramas (Goblin and Saimdang, that we had on Viki), but we don’t know if they will add more dramas from their previous DF… Maybe because licenses expired or Netflix and Viki are on the place.
Edit: I don’t have HBO, so I don’t know what their library is. As HBO operates in many countries, the news of these 2 Kdramas were for the Philippines. I don’t know if they also made it available to some other countries or plan to do so for other countries as well.
BTW, I found this topic from 2 years ago:
People were mourning for losing their watchlist on DF.
"Kocowa:
- Fast professional subbing, The Ghost Detective is already up and fully subbed while the raw yet-to-be subbed versions aren’t even up on Viki
- It only has the big 3 as u/Jiuer9 mentioned, so popular shows like Goblin, Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, and Reply 1988 would have to be watched elsewhere. But if there’s a big 3 show that Viki didn’t get, you’ll likely find it here
- Even though they’re they big 3, their library isn’t all that robust with old stuff. You want KBS’s Boys Over Flowers? Nope! Also, they only have the most recent episodes of their variety shows
- It’s hella expensive at $69.99 per year, but yes, you can buy a day pass
- The site is really kind of crappy.
- While you can “favorite” a show, you really can’t build a watch list.
- If you’re trying to find a show you have to know the exact name they’re using. Sometimes there are alternate names, and if Kocowa isn’t using that particular name, you aren’t finding it. Example: Search for “Terius Behind Me” you get nothing, search for “My Secret Terrius” with two Rs, nope still not there, search for “My Secret, Terrius” with two Rs and a comma, well there it is! At least Viki or Dramafever would have the first two searches pop up with results even if they were primarily using the third name
- Are you someone who relies on screenshots to make notes for something like our Weekly Binge, DENIED! They DRM protect the stream (like Netflix does), so all you get is black when you try to screen shot
Viki:
- Big library, but some of it is region locked. The site has Mistresses, but not for those of us in the US for example. Also I feel like licensing is getting more competitive, so it’s harder and more expensive to get new stuff, but they have a lot of old dramas and they have a decent amount of movies.
- You can upgrade your pass to $99 per year to get access to Kocowa content, but it’s not going to be all Kocowa content. Terius, for example was licensed to DramaFever, so you aren’t going to get it here. Also Miracle That We Met for some weird reason wasn’t licensed to either Viki or DF, though it’s on Kocowa.
- You think you’ll get the benefit of Kocowa’s subs on Kocowa content? No! You still have to wait for fan subs. Last week’s Fox Bride Star are still not 100% subbed, but they’re fully subbed on Kocowa. Though, I think some networks might push their subs to Viki. There were some shows I watched that went from 0% to 100% in a blink. (Maybe MBC?) I remember My Husband Oh Jak Do and Goodbye to Goodbye get subbed like this
- So speaking of fan subs, some people love them (like me!) or hate them.
- Inaccuracies: unless your drama is new AND popular some inaccuracies in the translations will never get fixed. I’ve heard that some fan subbers just rely on Google Translate…
- Cultural context: some fan subbers go the distance and provide context in ways that the professional subbing sites don’t. For example:
- “I won’t give you an apology! I’d rather give you a basket of apples!” Some fan subbers will note that in Korean “apology” and “apple” are homophones, which is why it was funny. Professional sites will gloss stuff like that over
- “You expect me to wait for you like <insert some princess name here>?” Some fan subbers will note that Princess what’s-her-name was renowned for waiting forever for some XYZ reason, which is why the character said that. Professional sites, no way they’ll explain that
- Timed comments! Again, people love or hate them, or both
- The bad: People who insist on typing spoilers in the comments ruining the fun for everyone or people that say, “THIS GUY LOOKS LIKE JUNGKOOK BECAUSE EVERYONE LOOKS LIKE BTS, I LOVE THEM SO MUCH OMG!!” That guy looked nothing like Jungkook, go away, who cares.
- The good: “Hey that translation was wrong. It’s supposed to be 100 million won, not 1 million won” which makes a huge difference, like $100k vs $1k. Or people who will point out things that I didn’t notice, “Omg, guys, did you see that, the stalker was totally in the background” Or if a drama is particularly bad, some people make the funniest comments to make fun of it.
- Lists. You can make sooo many different lists, public or private. I created my own watch list instead of relying on theirs because I wanted to retain dramas that had lost licenses (their own watch list will drop them). I have watch lists that contain expired dramas (ones no longer licensed), watch lists specifically for web dramas or movies. You can create list of your favorites, lists of strong female leads, lists of dramas that contain people with blue hair, whatever you want!
- Generally the dramas will be unaltered, but sometimes they’ll go back in and replace music or cut scenes for some licensing reason, but I want to say it’s more rare here, unlike Netflix
- Browsing. Hey, you want to add all of Kim Sun Ah’s dramas that are on Viki to your watch list because you can’t get enough of her after seeing her precious self in City Hall, just click on her name and there’s a bio and list of her works.
Netflix
- The library is small, but they seem to be adding more and more content (much to my displeasure)
- They name things oddly. “Strong Girl Do Bong Soon??” Who else used that name?
- It’s hard to browse the content you’re looking for. Like if you browse under the category “Korean TV Dramas” not everything in their library shows up
- If they drop a show, it’s dropped from your watch list without you even knowing
- The subs are awful. One minute they’re at the top of the screen, on minute they’re at the bottom. They often switch the order of names around. Paging u/olddogma for her additional list of reasons why the subs suck.
- They replace music ALL OF THE TIME. I get it, music licensing (particularly in the US) is a pain in the ass, but it’s annoying.
- It’s more expensive than the other options at $11/mo, which sucks if all you’re after is Asian dramas and you’re paying extra just because they have New Girl which you’ll never even want to watch."
But they don’t say anything about the customer service between each website.
I also read that DF didn’t accept to make a partnership with Kocowa like Viki did in 2017, so finally, they would have lost their licences of the 3 bigs? It was already decided to shut it down then 1 year before they shut it in 2018?
I found more reviews for Kocowa website from 1 year ago:
“If you’re okay knowing there’s a limited number of shows you can watch then it’s fine. The problem I have is with the UI for the app. It’s absolutely terrible and everytime I see that there’s an update my heart sinks a bit when the description is only “minor bug fixes”.”
“I don’t like it. But on the upside, Viki is carrying more shows more quickly. I’ll always support them.
I think the thing that made me the most mad about Dramafever was the fact that they took my subscription money only to close the next day-and I couldn’t get a refund.”
“Kocowa is a pain to use, its hard to tell where I’ve left off and Chromecast hasn’t worked for weeks(how I usually watch) and the Roku app will suddenly close in the middle of an episode and not save your place. Lately the subtitles have been glitching at times as well and don’t show up for a minute here and there, they are fast with new content. I’m only using it right now for Terrius and will probably cancel when I finish. I’d recommend getting it through Viki for ease of use but you will be missing a few shows.”
Here on Googleplay store, Viki and Kocowa reviews: they kind of have the same reviews (about the same glitchs or complains…). For iQiyi (Cdramas), it is about the quality of subs:
Bad Kocowa reviews from February 2021:
“The application run behind other sound like advertising, and 1 times paid services but continue give advertising I don’t care am paid monthly so application is not working good is glitches”
“Cant even sign up”
Bad Viki reviews from Feb 2021:
“It’s recent update is full of bugs… While the watching show… Videos always glitch…”
“Much better buffering, thank you. Still flashing black screen. Now if you could stop it from switching to portrait and back while you are watching it (simple fix: have it autoset to landscape view when you press the play button), that’d be great…and still would like an option to download a drama to rewatch offline, but I know that is wishful thinking. Maybe an option to purchase the download version?.. :)”
Bad reviews for iQiyi from Feb 2021:
“When it comes to subtitles (especially English), it hurts my head. Whenever I see an error on the subtitles, it somehow confuses me with the flow of the story. Also, there are times that the timing of subtitle is off. In addition, it is truly annoying that in the middle of watching, there is a sudden ads. Can you please fix that? It is fine to watch the ads, but a pop-up ads while on the middle of an exciting moment really ruins it. Thanks.”
How was your experience with Kocowa?
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I had my entire day’s laugh here 
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We should make a collection of the best Timed Comments on Viki 
Some are hilarious.
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Well it wasn’t that Warners Bros shut down DF, it was because it was sold to AT&T.
" This week AT&T announced that they plan to shut down the Korean focused streaming service DramaFever. Founded back in 2009 DramaFever was acquired by Warner Bros. which was later sold to AT&T as part of the Time Warner merger. The service offered 13,000 episodes for just $4.99 a month.
“Today, Warner Bros. Digital Networks will be closing its DramaFever OTT service due to business reasons and in light of the rapidly changing marketplace for K-drama content, a staple of the service’s programming,” the company said in a statement Tuesday."
ATT said back then they wanted use the streaming platform for a future streaming service, I don’t think it has happened yet, lol!
I still prefer Viki in many ways! DF cust. service wasn’t also up to par and subs were somewhat different… one advantage was that is was faster subbed… Now there is Kocowa 
for Americas… their promise to expand to Europe has quite cooled down 
resource: cordcuttersnews. com
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Netflix’s customer support is similar good to Amazon’s. You can also have a real time chat with real humans at Netflix customer support.
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business reasons
Sheesh… 
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I gave up on my HBO subscription a long time ago. But I suppose it’s the same deal as with Netflix. Why have a dedicated place that’s costing you money and time, when you can add a few Asian dramas "for the fans” to your already popular service?! 
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Bonjour,
Viki est un super concept pensé par les créateurs, c’est à nous à nous familiariser et à accepter son fonctionnement tel qu’il est actuellement.
Je reste persuadée que les remarques sont lues, certaines tombent aux oubliettes et d’autres sont stockées pour être analysées, des changements et améliorations viendront plus tard.
Modifier un site ne peut se faire en un claquement de doigts, ni à chaque doléances mais ce site évoluera quoi qu’il arrive :clin d’œil:
There are some people who want to know what other people write so please use English… This is a general discussion, not a specific language discussion…
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Please excuse me, i’m translating the text into English.
VIKI is a great concept thought by the creators, it’s up to us to familiarize ourselves and accept how it works as it is now.
I remain convinced that the remarks are read, some are forgotten and others are stored for analysis, changes and improvements will come later.
Editing a site cannot be done in a snap, nor with each complaint, but this site will evolve no matter what
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it’s alright, we usually translate it using Google and answer back in English
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To be Viki-cheesy, I feel you, primo, regarding the value of the front liners in the Viki-verse who keep the good vibes going.
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Yesterday, I got a response by mail to an issue I contacted Viki about in August.
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If I count in base 10 or in base 2, that’s still a long time to wait for an answer.
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I cannot imagine the stress of being a Viki employee (in whatever physical location) and trying to make the Viki-verse work as a little income stream for the benefit of the Rakuten Viki hierarchy. Viki probably provides funds for postage stamps or whatever when you consider the total net worth and salaries of everyone in the home office.
Nevertheless, customer service. What a concept.
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Processes and procedures that at least mimic the concern of real people who really care. What a concept.
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One small detail that stands out as an item that could have had a banner on the home page . . . the fact that there are NOW three bars in the upper left-hand corner on the home page that allow Viki-ites to actually get to various parts of the website much faster than before.
But because of the lack of a simple notice about a simple change, everyone who is not a programmer or developer or an engineering student or grad student (well, at least people like me) probably spent three or four days wondering why they couldn’t get to the discussion board.
A simple notice. How much time and energy would that have cost?
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Respect and thoughtful treatment of all customers regardless of creed, color, or whining. What a concept.
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Not anymore.
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In all honesty, they do have to deal with everyone who migrated from Drama Fever. But usually, when your business is going well, you upgrade your services. I’m sure things will improve eventually.
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From where I sit, the swiftness of replies appears to have a lot to do with the status of various members of the volunteer community.
When I wrote back in August, asking about whatever issue it was, I had not yet started learning to do subs. Is there any non-subber who has been able to get a response from Viki on any issue in a week or less?
It would be interesting to discover that there are.
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The one and only time I sent in a support ticket, I waited and waited for a response and eventually gave up on the idea of getting an answer. SIX MONTHS later, I finally got an email. It included a few links to look into (which turned out not to be related to my problem in the slightest) and was informed my ticket was closed. That was it. I haven’t bothered sending in a ticket after that. I am not a contributor on Viki.
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Feel ya.
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