While streaming video has loads of issues going for it, watching TV offline isn’t one in every of them.
Streaming providers like Netflix and Hulu don’t work with out web entry, and reside TV providers equivalent to Sling TV and YouTube TV include cloud-based DVRs that solely work on-line. Those necessities generally is a drawback for some potential cord-cutters, significantly those that don’t have quick, reliable web service at dwelling.
That’s what makes PlayOn’s new Android TV app so intriguing. With sure streaming units, equivalent to Nvidia’s Shield TV or the brand new TiVo Stream 4K, you’ll be able to document reveals from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and different streaming providers, then obtain them for offline viewing. It’s a intelligent approach to take care of web pace limits and nonetheless have lots to look at.
The solely drawback is PlayOn’s convoluted value construction, which may get costly shortly.
How PlayOn downloads streaming video
PlayOn has been round for greater than a decade, and I’ve coated it just a few instances on this column. Until now, I’ve largely targeted on its Windows software. For a one-time buy of $70 (and sometimes on sale for a lot much less), that software program helps you to document reveals out of your streaming providers onto a PC.
Not everybody has a devoted Windows pc, although, so in late 2016, PlayOn launched a cloud-based version of its service. Instead of constructing you document reveals by yourself {hardware}, PlayOn Cloud data applications remotely, then helps you to obtain them by way of its iOS or Android apps. You can then forged the movies to Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, or Fire TV over an area Wi-Fi connection.
PlayOn’s cellular app helps you to signal into streaming providers and handle recordings.
That strategy additionally had one drawback: Most telephones don’t have ample storage for dozens of flicks or TV episodes, so that you needed to preserve most recordings on-line till you wanted them. With the brand new Android TV app, you’ll be able to plug an exterior exhausting drive into your streaming participant, load it up with downloads, then watch them offline straight by way of your TV. PlayOn can document movies from greater than 20 streaming sources, together with Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+, HBO, Showtime, Tubi, and CBS All Access. (You nonetheless want to make use of PlayOn’s iOS or Android apps to signal into these providers and arrange recordings.)
I examined this on an 2017 Nvidia Shield TV with a 128GB thumb drive, and whereas the interface may use some polish, I used to be impressed with how the software program labored. PlayOn presents a easy, two-part menu, indicating which recordings are saved on-line with PlayOn, and which of them are on the system itself.
The PlayOn Android TV app can obtain recordings for offline viewing.
You can obtain recordings manually, set them to obtain mechanically, or schedule them to obtain throughout off-peak hours. The app mechanically makes use of exterior storage when obtainable, so recordings don’t eat up house on the streaming system itself, and it even has an choice to mechanically skip over advertisements.
PlayOn helps you to skip advertisements and schedule downloads for off-peak hours.
Once you’ve downloaded some movies, you’ll additionally see a “Home” tab in PlayOn’s iOS and Android apps, itemizing every thing that’s saved in your Android TV participant. Hit the forged icon on the top-right nook of the app, and you’ll stream movies from Android TV to different units equivalent to Roku or Chromecast over Wi-Fi, with no web connection required.
It’s additionally price noting that PlayOn’s recordings are saved as MP4 recordsdata, which you’ll freely entry by way of the Android TV file system. (They’re saved below android/media/com.playonrecorder.cloudapp on no matter storage drive you’re utilizing.) I attempted pointing my Shield TV’s Plex server to that listing, and was delighted to see all of PlayOn’s recordings present up in my media library. Combining PlayOn recordings with Plex’s over-the-air DVR may result in some actually fascinating potentialities.
Recordings are uncovered as MP4 recordsdata, which you should utilize as you see match.
There is one caveat to level out: All of PlayOn’s recordings max out at 720p. That’s not likely an issue for broadcast and cable reveals, however if you happen to’re hoping to document Netflix or Disney+ reveals in 4K HDR, you’ll be disillusioned.
The value is an issue
So what’s the catch? As I discussed earlier, all that cloud computing doesn’t come low-cost, so that you would possibly find yourself paying quite a bit to document a big library of flicks and reveals.
PlayOn prices for its cloud providers in two methods: One is predicated on the overall variety of recordings you create, and the opposite is predicated on how a lot information you retain on PlayOn’s servers at any time.
PlayOn’s $5-per-month plan, for example, provides you 20 recording “credits” per 30 days—with one credit score equaling a single TV episode or a complete film—and allows you to retailer as much as 100GB of video at a time. You can keep away from hitting the storage restrict by downloading movies and deleting them from the cloud, however the variety of credit per 30 days is absolute.
PlayOn additionally sells bundles of additional recording credits. A bundle of 100 credit, for example, prices $25, whereas 200 credit prices $40. You can both use these credit along side a storage plan or on their very own. In the latter case, you solely get seven days to obtain every recording earlier than PlayOn deletes them for good.
This is the form of factor that makes extra sense when you begin utilizing it, however PlayOn’s cloud plans are quite a bit to absorb at first look, and so they’re far more costly over time than PlayOn’s flat-rate PC software program. That’s why I’ve largely ignored the cloud part till now.
Still, I can see some situations through which PlayOn Cloud would possibly work out. Recording all 201 episodes of The Office from Netflix, for example, would price a bit of over $40 in PlayOn credit. That’s lower than half the value of the whole sequence on DVD, and it’d be cheaper in the long term than paying for NBC’s Peacock service, the place The Office is headed in 2021. PlayOn’s recordings are additionally yours to maintain ceaselessly, even if you happen to cease subscribing to the streaming service they got here from PlayOn itself.
In low-bandwidth situations, with the ability to obtain at off-peak instances might be important.
Besides, there some people for whom downloads are the one sensible possibility. If your web speeds are too gradual for streaming HD video, PlayOn is the one possibility wanting outright piracy that permits you to obtain first and watch offline later. Even streaming providers that assist offline viewing, such Netflix and Amazon Prime, relegate the function to cellular units, so you’ll be able to’t watch on a bigger display screen.
You might need to interrupt out a calculator and a spreadsheet to determine if PlayOn cloud makes monetary sense; but when it does, it’s a strong approach to document streaming movies for later.
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