This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Amazon's $99 per year Prime subscription includes a diversity of digital services beyond gratis two-24-hour interval shipping. One is its Prime Instant Video streaming video that, like Netflix, offers a option of movies and TV shows. For a while at present, and different Netflix, Amazon Prime number customers have been able to download and watch videos offline — but simply if they either had an Amazon Fire tablet or bought or rented a movie.

amazonprimedownloads_1

While Amazon's complimentary Prime Instant Video library is smaller than Netflix'due south library, the former visitor had two big wins this week. First, it retained the license to the massive Epix video library that Netflix will lose at the end of the month. This includes relatively recent striking movies like Star Trek Into Darkness, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Second, and more importantly, is that the company now lets you download some Prime Instant Video movies and Television receiver shows for offline viewing on Google Android and Apple iOS phones and tablets.

I decided to give it a shot and come across what happens. Here's what I found after downloading and trying out the new Amazon Video app for Android on a Nexus 6 phone.

First, there doesn't seem to be whatever visual cues on the Amazon app's home screen to identify which Prime Instant Video movies or Goggle box series are available for downloads. However, the videos I picked were all available for gratuitous download.

Adjacent, I took a look at the app's settings. The first thing I did was to select "Wi-Fi Only" to prevent accidentally called-for up my cellular data. Next, I selected the SD (Standard Definition) Download Quality to reduce the size of the downloaded file.

amazonprimedownloads_2

If a video is available for free download, you'll come across a "Download" button under the the light-green "Sentinel At present" button. The video tin can exist started and played before the download is actually complete. Once the video download finished, I set my phone to airplane mode (all radios turned off) to test offline viewing. The app showed me what y'all see in the above screenshot, letting me know that I had 76 days to view the moving-picture show while offline. And this shot clock doesn't start ticking until a video is really started in offline mode.

While I approximate that the offline period depends on what kind of license is attached to a video, even 7 days should be enough for most business and vacation trips that may include disconnected times while in a plane, railroad train, or bus. Plus, this clock is turned off once connectedness to the Cyberspace is reestablished.

The particular movie I downloaded to test was 1 60 minutes l minutes long. The Standard Definition version clocked in at 606 MB, and after can be deleted from within the app to free upward space. Expect an Hard disk video of the same length to be much larger than this.

amazonprimedownloads_3

All told, the movie played back every bit intended. I did find TV shows have a slightly different visual interface. Each episode has a download icon (a downwardly-pointing arrow) to betoken episodes available for offline viewing.

And then far, Netflix has non responded to Amazon's offering of a long-desired feature to be able to download thousands of videos from a fixed price library. It may experience its prime-time traffic dominance tin let it ignore this latest evolution. Earlier this year, Sandvine reported Netflix accounted for 36.5% of meridian evening hours Northward American Cyberspace traffic. Amazon and Hulu deemed for one.97% and 1.91% of the traffic, respectively, by comparison.

If Amazon'south new feature attracts plenty of its customers (similar me) to take a closer look at its library, Netflix, with its soonhoped-for-reduced movie content, may all of a sudden feel more pressure as customers turn to Amazon and other streaming video service providers in increasing numbers.