FAQ

About the Films

Just like our usual live film festival, each film has a specific opening time and date, so we release new films each day throughout the festival.

Films will be launched at the advertised date and time, you will not be able to watch before then, but you can buy you ticket ready for the event. You can then watch the film anytime after this date within the availability window – see How long do I have to watch my film? below. You must have bought a ticket for the film before the “Buy until” date.

You can buy a ticket for any film from now up until the advertised “buy until” date. Once this passes, you will no longer be able to buy a ticket for this film. If you buy a ticket before this date, you will have 28 days to watch that film from the date of purchase, regardless of this date.

Once purchased, you have 28 days to begin watching your film regardless of the buying cut off date advertised.

Once you have begun watching your film, you have 48 hours to finish viewing or watch again.

When you have bought a film it will be added to “My Library”. If you do not select the “Play Now” button, it will remain in Your Library for 28 days. When you do begin watching, you will then have 48 hours to finish watching or watch again.

Under the “Booking” drop down menu at the top of any page.

Unfortunately, due to international rights issues, films can only be watched in the UK.

Zoom in or out – this will alter the layout of text over background image, and should make the text more legible

Troubleshooting

Before watching your film, make sure you have closed other tabs on your browser which might be streaming content (such as ads) in the background, so that your internet signal is fully dedicated to streaming your film. Ideally, have no more than the tab on which you are watching your film open. Also turn off ad blocker, as this can intercept and slow down network traffic, and make sure your browser is up to date.

If there seems to be a communication breakdown between your tv and your device (for instance, the tv does not display the input source to which your laptop is connected), try switching off and rebooting both.

This might be a buffering issue, so first try the little ‘Rewind 10secs’ or ‘Forward 10 secs’ icons at either end of the progress bar at the bottom of your screen (you’ll have to move your cursor or touch your screen to make these appear).
If this fails, try rewinding by a few minutes by using the progress bar – move the slider back fractionally and wait for the stream to resume. Hopefully it will not freeze at the same point again!

You might find patches in the film where it momentarily hesitates, then picks up again. This is also likely to be a buffering issue, so see the solution suggested above.

We have found occasional issues with certain browsers. If you find the website is not recognising your login details, try closing your browser and reopening. If this does not work, try using an alternative browser. We’ve found that Chrome (for Windows and Mac), Safari (for Mac) and Internet Explorer integrate most seamlessly with our streaming platform. As a last resort, try restarting your device.

We have occasionally come across a user who has created more than one account. There is no advantage to this, and it might confuse the system. If none of the above helps and you are still experiencing trouble with your sign-in procedure, please contact us. We’ll investigate your account record and delete superfluous accounts if they are found to exist.

If you have used different browsers, or different versions of one browser (after updating, for instance), these will have registered as separate ‘devices’ on your account. There is a limit to the number that can be registered, and if you reach the limit this alert will appear. You can monitor your registered devices and delete obsolete ones yourself – go to ‘Signed in as (your name)’ top right of the screen and click on that to reveal a drop-down list of options. Select ‘My Devices’. You can the delete all devices except the one you intend to use.

if you have persistent problems which are not solved by the guidelines above please contact us at  enquiries@yourscreen.net.

Support Your Cinema or Film Society

Encourage them to get in touch with us via our partner screening site at: enquiries@yourscreen.net.

It will cost your cinema nothing to set this up and they will earn an income from every referral they make.

Please have a look at YourScreen, our Partner Site and get in touch via: enquiries@yourscreen.net.

 

Technical

You will need a broadband or fibre internet connection – dial up will not work.

You can watch on PCs running Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10.
Supported browsers: Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer or Opera. 

We recommend using the latest version of your browser as earlier versions may not be supported. Internet Explorer on Windows 7 is no longer supported. 

You can watch on Macs running MacOS 10.12 or later. 
Supported browsers: Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Opera. We recommend using the latest version of your browser as earlier versions may not be supported.

Yes, you can watch content using Chrome and this requires Android 6.0 or later. We recommend using the latest version of your browser as earlier versions may not be supported.

Yes, you can watch content using Safari and this requires iOS 11.2 or later. We recommend using the latest version of your browser as earlier versions may not be supported.

Check your minimum system requirements above. We recommend that you update to the latest version of your browser. We use adaptive bitrate streaming which means the streaming quality will automatically adjust based on your internet speed. For High Definition (HD) streaming we recommend VDSL, cable or fibre connections as we cannot guarantee consistent HD streaming on ADSL.

If your internet connection is poor or inconsistent you may experience problems during playback.

You can watch films on any television set with an HDMI socket by using a google Chromecast, available from £25 at:   store.google.com/gb/product/

chromecast. Some Smart TVs also have built in Chromecast functionality. You can also use Apple Airplay on compatible smart TVs or link your computer, tablet or phone to your television with an HDMI cable.

If you don’t own either of these devices, you may be able to use Miracast. Miracast allows most Android phones (virtually any non-Apple smartphone) and Windows PC’s to “mirror” their screens with compatible smart TVs and devices, including Amazon Fire and Roku devices. It will also work with Apple iPad/iPhone with 3rd party app support. The downside of Miracast is that, dependent on the hardware you are using, the results aren’t always as slick as Chromecast or Apple Airplay, so we only recommend this if neither of the others options is available to you.

You can Chromecast from a Chrome web browser on PC and Mac computers as well as Android devices.

Devices that are not up-to-date with the operating systems listed above.

The platform is also not compatible with Linux operating systems

©  |  Cheltenham International Film Festival  |  2023