Amazon Prime Video – offline viewing period
NoEntry2k
Posts: 14,985 Forum Member
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Has anyone else had issues with Amazon Prime Video’s offline viewing period?
I downloaded the entire season of a TV programme, 10 episodes, on my tablet for offline viewing. I was going on holiday involving a long haul flight so I thought I’d watch some episodes on the way and some on the way back.
On the flight on the way out I watched a few episodes and before I played each episode I was warned that once I start watching the episode it would only be available for a limited period after that point (48 hours I think). No problem, so I watched a few episodes.
On the flight back home – 14 or 15 days later, I thought I’d watch a few more episodes. However – I was told the offline viewing period had expired for every episode of that season so I couldn’t watch them.
Now I understand having an offline viewing period for the episodes I’ve started to watch or have watched, I was warned of that. But why does every episode of that season appear to have been included in that offline viewing period too – even though I never started to watch them?
Has anyone else experienced this or can explain it to me?
I downloaded the entire season of a TV programme, 10 episodes, on my tablet for offline viewing. I was going on holiday involving a long haul flight so I thought I’d watch some episodes on the way and some on the way back.
On the flight on the way out I watched a few episodes and before I played each episode I was warned that once I start watching the episode it would only be available for a limited period after that point (48 hours I think). No problem, so I watched a few episodes.
On the flight back home – 14 or 15 days later, I thought I’d watch a few more episodes. However – I was told the offline viewing period had expired for every episode of that season so I couldn’t watch them.
Now I understand having an offline viewing period for the episodes I’ve started to watch or have watched, I was warned of that. But why does every episode of that season appear to have been included in that offline viewing period too – even though I never started to watch them?
Has anyone else experienced this or can explain it to me?
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Comments
The first is the overall time limit they put on you when downloading a show episode to your device - which I believe can range from 14 days to a month from the day you download it.
The second is the 48 hour period you have to watch the show episode from once you start to actually view it.
This was my only conclusion too – there must be an overall expiry period, e.g. the episodes will be deleted (un-viewable) 14 days after you download them. But you’re not informed of this, only the 48 hour viewing period once you start to watch it, hence my confusion.
Please keep in mind I speak of no authority other than my own experience...
Firstly it depends on how long you’re going away for – or more specifically how long after you download episodes will you want to watch them. Going from the comments above it appears content has an automatic expiry of anything from 14 days or longer.
This would make sense in my recent experience as I downloaded all episodes a few days before I went on my 2 week holiday, and wasn’t able to watch them on the flight home (which would have been about 18 days after I downloaded them).
If you’re only going away for 7 days it sounds like you’ll be fine (just don’t download them more than a few days before you leave). If you’re going away for 14 days or more you might have the same problem I had on my return journey.
Secondly it depends on where you’re going on holiday – as you’ll probably need to be in the UK to re-download/activate any content available via your UK account. When I tried to watch new episodes on my return journey (about 18 days after I downloaded them) I got a message telling me to re-connect to the internet to make them available again. But as I was in the US whilst on holiday (and have a UK account) I doubt I would have been able to do this even if I had know to – although I can’t confirm for sure.
And finally, make sure you don’t start watching an episode if you don’t plan on finishing it within the next 48 hours. But that’s not really the problem we’re talking about here – we’re talking about the automatic expiry they don’t tell you about.
Trying to remember if I had this problem on holiday in the states which was 2 years ago, I don't think I did, but then I was using a fire tablet which was the only way off downloading Prime content at the time, maybe that made a difference?
Interesting, thanks, I wish I had known that whilst in the US this summer. I just assumed that because I couldn’t download anything from a non-UK IP address I also wouldn’t be able to reset the offline viewing period.