Downloading Movies to PC for offline veiwing

[jtwilber]

Help !

 

We've been doing short run RV'ing for a year in hope of someday taking a year off to RV. We have a TV with all the right jacks but have never figured out how to download movies and TV's to my PC laptop to play on the TV without internet. All the big players (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu etc etc) have mechanisms to play movies offline on iphones, ipads and android devices .(none of which have HDMI outputs to go to TV). I'm not looking to get things for free. I dont want to use DVD's. I just dont want to have to watch movies on an ipad when we have a nice big TV at the foot of the bed.

 

I know this group has answers. Can anybody help me ?

 

Thanks so much.

 

Jonathan

[coachmac9]

Been wondering the same thing!!! I have Amazon Prime and there are tons of old movies that I would like to download and watch when we have time or there is nothing good on...which is often!!!

[Selah]

Check out Apple TV. It will allow you to connect your PC to the TV wireless.

[AFchap]

Chromecast allows you to view your iPad, Android, or pc on your TV.

[Jack Mayer]

Chromecast allows you to view your iPad, Android, or pc on your TV.

Actually, I like the Microsoft wireless display adaptor way better than Chromecast. I own both, and have used both extensively. So for casting wirelessly that would be my recommendation. Assuming you have a W10 computer. Actually, with many newer TVs you do not need the dongle.....you can cast to any Miracast device directly from your W10 PC. No dongle required. It has worked very well for me.

[DuffMan]

The OP's key phrase was "without the internet". None of the above suggestions address that condition. The primary goal is to D/L the movie and save it to the PC's hard drive. How can that be accomplished?

[Hikers]

We have a Nexus 10 Android tablet that has micro HDMI out. We also have Amazon Prime and that has a lot of legal TV and movies that you can download to view later. I'm running the Amazon Video app on my tablet and using the HDMI cable to connect to my TV. This works great without any internet. *Note that you do need internet to initially download the shows but you can watch them later without internet. I haven't downloaded any movies for around 8 months so since apps change all the time you would want to double check everything before you spend a bunch of money on a new device.

 

I would think any Android phone with HDMI out and enough storage for your downloads would do the job. If you must download to your PC rather than a phone perhaps you could run Android on your PC in an Android emulator but I've never tried that.

[Hikers]

I just checked and I see a lot of recent negative reviews about the Amazon Video app. You will want to make sure that it runs on your Android device (that also has HDMI out) before you sink a lot of money into this.

 

Also, this is off topic and I know you don't want to use DVD's but we have discovered that many pawn shops sell DVD's for $1 each. We have built up a library and fall back on that when we have no internet.

[Yarome]

The primary goal is to D/L the movie and save it to the PC's hard drive. How can that be accomplished?

 

As far as I know, you can't D/L directly from Amazon to a PC. They used to have an application called unbox that would but it is no longer supported by Amazon. The only practical option is to do as suggested above with a hard wired or broadcasting device compatible with current amazon apps.

 

I almost fell into that trap. Even when you purchase video from Amazon it says you are buying, "streaming online video and digital download", but you have to read the fine print elsewhere to discover that the "digital download" is only available on certain platforms/devices.

 

I'm sure there is some workaround. When I was looking into it I had read in the forums about a couple of third party applications (paid) that would do the job, but I didn't want to possibly mess with my amazon account access and, to me, wasn't worth the hassle.

[Selah]

The OP issue is to display what he has already downloaded to his PC on his TV. The Apple TV does not require an Internet connection for that. It does requires a local network for that. Both Windows and Mac Mac this fairly easy.

[Hikers]

The OP issue is to display what he has already downloaded to his PC on his TV. The Apple TV does not require an Internet connection for that. It does requires a local network for that. Both Windows and Mac Mac this fairly easy.

 

Oh, sorry, I guess I misread the OP. I thought when he said "have never figured out how to download movies and TV shows to my PC" that he didn't have movies already on his PC.

 

If he already has movies on his PC then no device at all is necessary. All that is needed is an HDMI cable (assuming that he has a modern Windows PC with an HDMI out port). We don't use Apple computers so we have no idea what ports are available there.

[DuffMan]

Just found this software that captures streaming video & saves to your PC Hard Drive. As PC Magazine points out - be careful, if caught using it, NetFlix, Amazon, et al may delete your account so use a throw away account when using it.

 

http://audials.com/en/moviebox/audials_moviebox_windows_software.html

 

Has anyone had any experience with software such as this?

 

PC Magazine review:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410102,00.asp

[Hikers]

 

 

Has anyone had any experience with software such as this?

 

VLC media player is free and open source and I believe it can be used to capture video streams and save to your hard drive. I keep all of my stuff legal so haven't actually tried VLC for capturing video. I do use it for my default media player on Windows 10. I'm sure there are tutorials online that show how the capture process works.

[Hikers]

It does seem like a person should be able to save video content that they have paid for like Netflix and Amazon as long as they watch it during their subscription period and don't distribute it to other people. I'm not sure why, for the most part, they don't want us doing that, since it does seem like a reasonable and fair way to use a paid service.

[DuffMan]

It does seem like a person should be able to save video content that they have paid for like Netflix and Amazon as long as they watch it during their subscription period and don't distribute it to other people. I'm not sure why, for the most part, they don't want us doing that, since it does seem like a reasonable and fair way to use a paid service.

 

According to PC Magazine, it's a VERY grey area and tied into all the intellectual property rights between the steaming media purveyors and the studios. No one really knows what the answer is. Seems like a fertile area for RIAA to declare their own interpretation, declare any who capture streams to be scofflaws and start harvest their bank accounts. Hence the advice to use proxys and obfuscated accounts.

[jtwilber]

The OP's key phrase was "without the internet". None of the above suggestions address that condition. The primary goal is to D/L the movie and save it to the PC's hard drive. How can that be accomplished?

Thank you for redirect...

[jtwilber]

Just found this software that captures streaming video & saves to your PC Hard Drive. As PC Magazine points out - be careful, if caught using it, NetFlix, Amazon, et al may delete your account so use a throw away account when using it.

 

http://audials.com/en/moviebox/audials_moviebox_windows_software.html

 

Has anyone had any experience with software such as this?

 

PC Magazine review:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410102,00.asp

I may be wrong but dont you have to "stream" the entire movie to capture it.... kind of defeats the concept of grabbing a few shows and movies to watch on the road trip.

[jtwilber]

Its starting to feel like "Redbox" is the best solution. Maybe I should have kept my 8 track player too.

[DuffMan]

I may be wrong but dont you have to "stream" the entire movie to capture it.... kind of defeats the concept of grabbing a few shows and movies to watch on the road trip.

 

If I'm going into a no coverage area, why wouldn't I capture the entire movie to my Hard Drive? That's the whole point - capture the entire movie and watch it later at my leisure. Also if I have a slow connection I can set it to capture while I'm gone (or campground wi-fi middle of the night) and watch it later buffering free!

[AquaDawg]

Jonathon, probably the easiest way is to get a usb hard drive and download the video content to it from your laptop, and buy a MX-III android media player. The player connects to your tv via the hdmi cable. plug the usb hard drive into the MX-III and and you will be watching your program on your big screen. If you don't want to use a usb hard drive you can do the same thing with a micro SD card too.

https://www.amazon.com/Streaming-Mali-450-Miracast-XBMC-All-Entertainment/dp/B00MGPFT2G?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

[Jack Mayer]

Some people build little capture devices specifically to capture video content. These devices typically capture to an SD card, and use local wifi networks.....they just sit there and stream the content and record it. They are typically unattended and can sit for days capturing. Then the content is moved to another computer for viewing. The purpose of the device is to capture in the "background", where buffering,etc. is not an issue.

 

A typical scenario might be to place this little battery-powered device near an open wifi network and let it do its thing. Of course, you have to be a tinkerer and/or a real video "buff" to bother doing this.....

 

For software that can automate the process of recording what you stream take a look at Playon. (playon.tv) You still have to stream it, but it is a pretty flexible tool.

[NoDirectionHome]

 

 

It does seem like a person should be able to save video content that they have paid for like Netflix and Amazon as long as they watch it during their subscription period and don't distribute it to other people. I'm not sure why, for the most part, they don't want us doing that, since it does seem like a reasonable and fair way to use a paid service.

If you could save a movie to your hard drive, it would be for sale across America the next day for $1 per copy on DVD if not sooner. That's why. I used to be able to buy movies before they were in the theaters because they are using digital projectors and there's always someone that can be bribed to provide a copy. Digital copyright protection is a war with billions at stake.

[RV_]

I cut the cable and use only OTA (over the air) TV now. Attached to my main desktop AIO computer is a little $60 Hauppauge TV tuner, the single tuner Win TV 955Q It is totally legal to DVR OTA and your paid for content, otherwise why a DVR with Cable subscriptions? That little single tuner USB on my computer makes sense to us because we will watch it unless we are going to be out or in the LR watching another program that airs at the same time. So before I leave my office for the LR and the big screen I set up a record with just a few keystrokes and leave the computer on, and the tuner tuned to that channel with the record start and stop times set. It records it and later I just open recordings and click on it to play it. I do not keep them and delete them as soon as watched.

 

I can understand and use the open source free programs but they are daunting to beginners and for me I don't like bad burns or making coasters so I switched to saving my movies to an external hard drive and keep the original videos in the CD binder/cases. We took our entire CD music collection RVing before mp3s when we fulltimed for 7 years in the CD books like this: https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Nylon-DVD-Binder-Capacity/dp/B00DIHVMEA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465586617&sr=8-1&keywords=cd+storage+books I just take the jewel case apart and put the song list or cover art and contents behind the disk in the CD Binder. I used to donate the jewel cases to Goodwill but they don't take them anymore. Music CDs and DVD movies are 99 cents at Pawn shops and yard sales, BluRay movies are $1.99-$3.99 and I check them before I buy for playability in my car or on a player in the store if in a pawn shop.

 

You can also rip Redbox rentals in about 15 minutes using a legal copy program. I used and like 1 click DVDcopy: http://www.lgsoftwareinnovations.com/1clickdvdcopy.asp If you do not need or want to also copy to DVD then look at their DVD converter which is 10 bucks cheaper, and they even have profiles for common hardware. See it here: http://www.lgsoftwareinnovations.com/1clickdvdconverter.asp That takes your DVDs and converts them directly to the hard drive you choose.

 

Now this opens a bucket of worms because the video editing and open source crowd will jump in with all the text based free alternatives. Now to decrypt the copy you need a decrypter and the one that is made to work with 1 click is DVD43 is free here: http://dvd43.com/

 

It is legal to time shift under fair use and I used to copy DVDs to my hard drive that I rented and then would watch and delete. If I want to see a movie again I can stream it anytime and that is still cheaper than buying a copy and decrypting it. DVD 1 click can copy and decrypt an HD very good copy to your HD or a DVD in 15 minutes and it really is one click once you have your preferred defaults set.

 

I used to collect Music CDs and started to collect my backup DVDs but they take up so much room that I just got rid of them because I rarely watch a movie twice except maybe five movies.

 

Today no one really buys DVDs or other hard copies of music and movies. I buy new unopened BluRay movies and opened ones. They become my property and all rights to make a backup are there. As well, many folks do not use the digital copies in most BluRays today which also include a DVD for three discs. I buy them for from $1.99-3.99 from Pawn shops and Goodwill. Goodwill especially when they have a 50% off sale. Like my music CD (30k cuts and rising) collection I keep them in the 250-300 CD book holders and throw away the jewel cases. My music is all ripped to mp3's about 150GB of them. The CDs are numbered and databased and my music is on my phones and computers for my use only. I do not sell or give away any of my music or videos. I used to get folks asking me to b\"burn" them a CD or DVD with such and such songs on it and offered to write me a list. Talk about gall. See to make 60 minutes of varied music takes a long time to set up, record, and finalize! So I would tell them that I am retired from DJing, but if they want me to make them CDs or DVDs with the music they own I would be happy to at 90 dollars and hour. Besides they can go to the Pawn and thrift shops and yard sales to get their own media to own and legally play. If ever checked I have only the original media for my movies and music, or my Amazon receipts and account history. So I don't mind telling what copy and decrypter programs I used for legal backup programs even though they can also be used to illegally copy "borrowed" or rented movies, what each does with the information is up to each. As a Pro DJ for 20 years it was imperative I had legal copies and licenses for everything for my peace of mind as I DJ'd on Base and for police functions etc. as well as private parties weddings and clubs.

 

So if you are new to this the above paid and free programs are really easy, 1 click, really, and are fast. It takes about 15 minutes to burn a 90 -120 minute movie to the disk and faster to the hard drive. I use VLC to watch them. RVing you can HDMI cable to the TV or cast the movie, both very doable.

 

Hope that helps.

[AwesomeSauceDuo]

There are some sites, like http://www.fandangonow.com/ that allow you to watch movies offline. You download them to your device, and watch that way. You can also buy/rent from them when you are online.

 

There is also something like this for your hard copy movies: http://www.vudu.com/disc_to_digital.html

 

Hope this helps a little.

[jerryneal]

I tried the capture route. To time consuming and results can vary. I'll address that you don't have access to a router.

 

If you have movies on an iPad or Droid tablet, most support an HDMI adapter to connect to the TV. I have an iPad with an adapter and play download Amazon movies on the TV.

 

PCs are a different issue. I don't know of any services currently available that allow downloads for viewing. If you own DVDs, there are a number of good rippers available. I ripped a couple terabytes from my years of collecting and gave the disks to kids or friends. I have a HDMI port on the PC and connect to the TV. My ripper of choice is DVDfab. I've yet to find a DVD it won't rip. If you have a Windows 7 PC, you can view the library with Windows Media Center. Just point to the folder where the rips live and WMC will do the rest. Amazon has a WMC remote. No set up, just plug into the PC and it all works like a set top box.