Because not everyone has unlimited data. It’s funny how the balance seems to shift in the world of cell phone and tablet viewing. Of course in the 2000s no one had enough bandwidth to stream. That’s why solutions like GenieGO were invented – to give you the ability to take programs with you. Then things shifted and people wanted to stream more. Services like Netflix and Hulu whetted the public’s appetite for having tons and tons of content available instantly.
However, not everyone has a data plan that really allows for that and eventually you started seeing Netflix and Amazon come around to let you offload some content onto your devices. Suddenly DIRECTV’s old GenieGO scheme didn’t seem so dumb, and in the meantime DIRECTV expanded it to let you quickly and easily transfer content from your DVR and watch it on the DIRECTV app.
Now, DIRECTV has taken yet another step. If you have purchased or rented content on your account, you can now offload it to your device using the latest version of the DIRECTV app for smartphones and tablets.
A lot of people aren’t aware that you can buy movies from DIRECTV. It’s been available for about six months but they haven’t really promoted it. It’s very simple, all you do is find a movie and if you have the option to buy, then it’s yours for as long as you have your DIRECTV account and will show up on any DVR you have from here on out. Now, you can also access that content online and offload it to your device for 30 days at a time.
The same is true of on-demand content. This is a great option for traveling, it means you can load up on content for the plane and not pay the ridiculous fee they charge for wi-fi.
I will say that while DIRECTV’s use of offloaded content still isn’t perfect, this is a great option. Content from your DVR is often not HD quality and sometimes the system gets confused and doesn’t allow you to offload something if it’s also available to stream from DIRECTV’s servers. But they do seem to be getting better and while –maybe– they should have nailed that part of it down a year or two ago, the good news is they are dealing with it now.
The DIRECTV app is available on your favorite app store or play store, for iOS and Android devices.
