I'm posting this here because I'm trying to decide who to use for Movie purchases that will work mostly with my Xoom tablet, but also with the other devices I have (Macbook, Plex, etc). Obviously iTunes is out because it DRM's everything so it can only be viewed on their devices, which looks to leave Amazon or Google. So the criteria I think most people would want are: A. cross platform - Whatever you would rent and/or buy your going to want to be able to view it anywhere, whether thats your tablet, your computer, or your TV. 2. Offline viewing - I'm a big fan of using the cloud, but sometimes you don't want to blow the data or you don't have the data like on a plane. Being able to download the rented or purchased material to my tablet for the trip is a definite plus.
So Amazon: It works on my Roku so if I rent/buy something I can play it from the cloud. But there is no App for the Android devices so my only option there is to stream it through a web browser. I tried pulling the Kindle Fire app and that doesn't work (crashes when you click on a title). You can use their ubox application to download the movies, but I have no idea what format they are in so would the downloaded movie be something I could copy to the tablet?
Google: No TV shows, but I can rent the movies directly down to my tablet. Also I can mark them for download and queue them up for trips. So definite plus there. The problem is there seems to be no way of actually getting it to the TV. Same issue with Amazon, I don't know what format and/or DRM is involved so can I copy the downloaded file somewhere and have my Plex server push it to the TV?
This seems to be a really big hole in media viewing. I hate to say it but Apple has it all worked out as long as you use their stuff. You can rent/download from their cloud to your Macbook/iPad/iPhone/AppleTV. You can push content wirelessly from any of their devices to their AppleTV and it's pretty seamless. But I don't have an iPad and really don't want to get one so has anyone figured this out how to work? I don't want to buy a Google TV just to push movies purchased from Google to the TV, but I'm willing to settle for buying from either Amazon or Google as long as the movie is in a file format that I can play on whatever I want to play it on.
So not only would I appreciate the help, but I bet anything posted here might help out quite a few others who are struggling with the same questions.
I hope to hear from people soon.
Regards,
--Aric
So Amazon: It works on my Roku so if I rent/buy something I can play it from the cloud. But there is no App for the Android devices so my only option there is to stream it through a web browser. I tried pulling the Kindle Fire app and that doesn't work (crashes when you click on a title). You can use their ubox application to download the movies, but I have no idea what format they are in so would the downloaded movie be something I could copy to the tablet?
Google: No TV shows, but I can rent the movies directly down to my tablet. Also I can mark them for download and queue them up for trips. So definite plus there. The problem is there seems to be no way of actually getting it to the TV. Same issue with Amazon, I don't know what format and/or DRM is involved so can I copy the downloaded file somewhere and have my Plex server push it to the TV?
This seems to be a really big hole in media viewing. I hate to say it but Apple has it all worked out as long as you use their stuff. You can rent/download from their cloud to your Macbook/iPad/iPhone/AppleTV. You can push content wirelessly from any of their devices to their AppleTV and it's pretty seamless. But I don't have an iPad and really don't want to get one so has anyone figured this out how to work? I don't want to buy a Google TV just to push movies purchased from Google to the TV, but I'm willing to settle for buying from either Amazon or Google as long as the movie is in a file format that I can play on whatever I want to play it on.
So not only would I appreciate the help, but I bet anything posted here might help out quite a few others who are struggling with the same questions.
I hope to hear from people soon.
Regards,
--Aric
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram