Kindle HD Fire to watch films

[dollydimple]

can anyone tell me if I would be able to watch films on this when i go on Holiday abroad? Both this and the Kindle fire can download films from Love film or whatever it is called but I am wanting something multipurpose when I am on holiday that I can read my kindle books on, email, browse internet and watch films on. If it does, I could leave my kindle keyboard at home and take this instead. I know I could take a small travel dvd player with me but just looking at ways to minimise luggage etc.

I don't understand all this techie stuff.

Thanks for any help.

 

[sublime]

Sorry to say that the films from Lovefilm can only be watched online, they can't be downloaded. This makes them a bit of a non-starter if you're paying for an internet connection abroad.

What I've done in the past is to collect up those free DVDs you get with Sunday papers and copy them to a portable hard drive to watch later on my laptop. [This is great when you get stuck in a hotel room where the TV channels are either nonexistent or just awful.]

I bought the 32gb Kindle Fire, and what I thought I'd try is to copy over a DVD or two to see how I get on. Most commercial films are large files, though, so they'll fill up your Kindle Fire's memory quite quickly, but our lovely forum member Jan pointed me in the direction of free compression software which reduces the file size by about half.

This was about 4 years ago, so I'm sure the compression software has developed - it might be worth a google to see what's around?

Meanwhile, I'll have a go at uploading some films to my Kindle Fire and let you know how I get on, Dolly. I'm aiming to just take my Kindle Fire abroad, too - I've been feeling like a small mobile branch of PC World as I clank my way through check in!

 

[dollydimple]

Thanks sublime. I must admit, I still don't understand about copying films and compression etc - sounds very technical to me. I would be grateful if you could let me know how you get on though.

At least you've enlightened me and I now know that I can't just download a film onto the tablet and save it for watching on hols. I get so fed up in the hotel when the only English programmes are sky news, BBC news and if I'm really lucky, the English film channel which tends to be Movies for Men.

Could films be copied onto one of those stick things or is that what you mean by a portable hard drive? My son despairs of me with technology lol.

Thanks again.

 

[Jabbathehut]

Sublime can I ask do you have the Fire or the Fire HD?

I've ordered just the basic Fire on the Black Friday deal on Amazon, not that I NEED it, I have my Kindle, I-Pad and I-phone

 

[sublime]

Sublime can I ask do you have the Fire or the Fire HD?

I've ordered just the basic Fire on the Black Friday deal on Amazon, not that I NEED it, I have my Kindle, I-Pad and I-phone

I bought the HD version Jabba, and don't feel bad, I have the whole gamut of electricals, too.

Three rang up today and said since I was 'a valued customer' [ie, I complained like merry hell last week about their rubbish Customer Services :angry: ] I was entitled to a Nexus/I-Pad as long as I signed up with them until the seas run dry/hell freezes over/sands run out. [Delete as applicable.]

For a second, I was tempted ...

 

[mediastar]

I have the 32gb Fire HD and it is amazing quality for watching stuff online, just watched the Dr Who minisode from Children in Need. I had a 10in tablet before (which stopped charging, just after the 3mth amazon warranty ran out AARGH) and I could never get Iplayer to work on it, so it is lovely to watch stuff on Iplayer on such a high quality screen!

 

[sublime]

Just a quick update, because I figured out how to transfer DVDs you already own to a Kindle Fire, so you can watch films without an internet connection.

Just before I go any further, if it helps, I'm running Windows 7 on my laptop, and have the 32gb Kindle Fire HD.

Here goes:-

1 Copy the DVD to the hard drive of your computer. I used Windows Media for this, all standard stuff.
The DVD will show up as a file in the 'pictures-video' section of your pc.

2 Use the USB cable to connect your Kindle Fire to your pc.
Click on the Windows icon, then 'computer', then double click on the Kindle icon to open it. Double click again on 'internal storage'. You'll see a list of the files that Kindle has, including 'movies'.

3 Drag and drop the DVD file to the 'movies' file. The DVD will copy over to the Kindle Fire, it takes a few minutes.

So far, so easy.
The next bit has taken me hours to work around...

When you go to the Kindle Fire and try to watch your film, it'll be impossible to locate it. In the 'Films' section of the Kindle, you'll be offered every commercial film under the sun, except the one you've just copied across.

What you need is an app.

I tried searching in the app store under 'personal video', as suggested by Amazon, and found several which could 'see' my video, but wouldn't play it.

Now, you might have to take a leap of faith, here... so proceed at your own risk.

On my laptop, I've installed the utterly brilliant, free, VLC player, which has got me out of so much trouble in the past by being able to play virtually any obscure bit of music or film I can throw at it.

The VLC player app for Kindle is free, but - and this is a big but - it comes with a shedload of BIG SHOUTY CAPITAL LETTER WARNINGS about installing it because IT MIGHT BE NOTHING BUT TROUBLE. So, I took a deep breath and installed it.

It works. I can play my video. Perfectly. It hasn't [yet] made everything else crash. I am a happy bunny.


PS I'll keep you posted - if you want to hang on before trying this out, I'll update this thread with any problems I find.

 

[dollydimple]

Thank you very much sublime for the update. It was very brave of you to install the VLC and I am so glad it hasn't caused you any problems.

I am thinking I might get the Kindle HD fire as it seems a nice bit of stuff. Thanks again and please do add any further updates.

 

[sublime]

Will do - but I'm glad to say that there are still no problems to report after adding the VLC player to the apps I've installed.

I like the Kindle Fire a lot. I wasn't too sure whether I'd get much use out of it but after only a month it's proved invaluable.

Oh - and if you're thinking of getting a Fire, DD, you might like to check out the Mifi deals which are springing up.

Mine came from 3 [I don't recommend them, though] it costs £5.24 for 1gb of use per month - about 100 hours of web browsing. I have a little gizmo about the size of a mobile phone to connect to the web when I'm out of range of a normal wireless internet connection.

 

[mediastar]

bought mine off ebay thirty quid less than amazon someone had received it as a gift it even had the receipt!