I have a netflix account and a smartphone. My smartphone hits its data cap at 2.5GB a month, after that it is throttled. Netflix on the lowest quality setting uses 0.3GB an hour, so after 8 hours I will have hit my monthly cap.
However my home internet is pretty nice, I get about 25Mbps (not that most sites upload that fast but still) with no data cap.
I was wanting to legally download movies and TV shows on my home internet, put them on my phone so I can watch them later, then delete them when I’m done. Doing so means I don’t have to worry about burning through all my bandwidth by streaming videos. So far the only ways I have found to do this are by downloading video podcasts, but most of those seem to be news shows.
It’d be nice if netflix had this option of letting you download a few hours of video on wifi, then having it automatically delete within 48 hours or so so you don’t run into any 3G phone bandwidth issues, but I don’t think they do that.
Are there any other options aside from video podcasts?
Well, the Tivo Stream sort of does what you’re talking about, though I believe it’ll only do it with stuff you record and/or actually download, like from Amazon (and even that’s spotty - there’s a disclaimer on the Stream that it doesn’t let you transfer copyrighted materials, and I’m guessing a lot of what you might download from Amazon is copyrighted).
Of course, it wouldn’t work with Netflix, because you’re streaming it, not actually downloading it.
I’d rather not use sites where you have to rent each movie individually, at $1-3 each that will add up fast. I’d prefer either a free site or a site like netflix with a low monthly fee.
Convenient? But it’s about as far removed as possible from the way the filmmakers intended for you to experience their work . I don’t think I would feel like I had really seen the film if I had only watched it on a phone screen.
I’m not 100% certain, but I believe that with Amazon Prime you can download to certain Kindle products. Superscription is about $70 per year and you’ll need to spend about $200 on a Kindle product.
There are some free aps that will let you download youtube clips, that can be converted to phone quality.
And lastly, there are usenet groups that have a more modern day version of file sharing. There is both legal and illegal content on them, so you need to be careful what you do.
No, no 100% legal way to do this. I know Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon are all about protecting their content and go to great lengths to prevent any unauthorized capture.
Every way that I can think of involves breaking encryption or removing the copyright protection that is embedded into the video stream. Can’t say it as I’ll get in troubles.
I’ve had success converting DVDs to mp4 format, then loading the file to my iTunes and from there to my iPhone. It takes a long time to convert the DVD, though.