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Friday, June 1, 2018

Easy way to download video from streaming sites

For a long time I've never quite gotten why people would want to download video from streaming video sites to their local machine. Netflix has always added new content over time and it was more than enough per month to keep me on as a subscriber. Most sites also allow you to download videos for offline watching when you're on a plane or offline. Recent trips for work and a family vacation showed me exactly why you'd want this. While some sites like Netflix let you download videos, not all do. Also you can only watch the videos in the Netflix app, not move them over to a PC to watch on a bigger screen. In other scenarios you might not have unlimited data to stream video while on a trip. Or you're in your late model car with a infotainment system that will play video files for your kids but you need the files on a thumb drive. For years I've known of this product, but it wasn't until recently that I figured out I needed it. The product is called "PlayOn". You'll need to get the pay version as the free version won't download video. How this works is you install the software, and then plug in your various streaming service username and passwords into the "PlayOn Configuration" app. When you run the main application you'll be able to search through your various streaming services and "record" your videos. I say record and not download as this occurs in real time. A 30 minute video takes 30 minutes to grab. You're not going to download all of Netflix in a week, but you could grab the latest episodes of your favorite shows the night before a long flight or drive and copy them to your phone or a thumb drive. Like most things I'm sure there are people who abuse this software. You should be aware that your username and actual name are recorded at the beginning of everything you download. This should only be a problem for you if you were going to illegally share your recordings. If this sounds like something you're interested in here's the link to their site: https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=1110020&u=1800307&m=29751&urllink=&afftrack=