Downloads

Downloads are for phones and tablets: iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets. Not TVs, which are always on a network, and not browsers, which have nowhere durable to put a 6 GB file.

They are part of the paid tier. Anyone with access to a subscribed server can download, whether they own it or you shared it with them.

Queueing one

Open a film or an episode and pick Download. A sheet asks for two things.

Quality:

	Roughly
Original	The file as it is, when your device can play it as it is
High	About 1080p
Standard	About 720p

The sheet shows an estimated size for each. Your device’s own limits are always the ceiling, so asking for Original on a phone that cannot play the source gets you the best it can play. Your choice is remembered on that device.

Subtitles: every text subtitle track is included automatically and you pick between them while watching. The picker here is for choosing one track to burn permanently into the picture. You want that for the picture-based subtitles that come off Blu-ray discs, marked (image), because no phone can render those as a separate track. Burning one in means that download has to be re-encoded, which takes longer.

On a show, Download season queues every episode at once.

What happens next

1. The server prepares the file. It makes one self-contained file suited to your device, and the row shows a percentage. This runs at a lower priority than live streaming, so nobody watching in the living room notices.
2. Your phone tells you when it is ready, even if the app is closed.
3. Your phone downloads it, with a progress bar. This continues when you lock the screen or switch apps, on both platforms, at home and away.
4. It plays with no connection at all.

You do not have to sit and watch the screen for any of that.

Watching offline

The Downloads tab holds everything on the device, with a line at the top telling you how much space it is using.

With no connection at all, open the app and it offers Browse downloads from the server picker. No sign-in, no session, no network. Just what is on the device.

Playback is the normal player. Subtitle and audio track selection work from the tracks inside the file.

Where you got to

Every second you watch offline is recorded on the device with the time it happened. When you next have a connection, it syncs back.

The rule is whichever is newer wins. So a position from a flight three hours ago never overwrites something you watched on the TV two hours ago. Finish a film on the plane, and it is marked watched everywhere by the time you are through customs.

Managing space

Swipe on iOS, long-press or the overflow menu on Android, then Remove from device. That deletes the local file, and it also tells the server to throw away the copy it prepared, so nothing is left lying around at either end.

How long the server keeps things

The prepared file on your server is a temporary artifact, not a second copy of your library:

• Once you have downloaded it, the server keeps its copy for seven days, so losing your phone or deleting by accident is a re-download rather than a re-encode.
• If it is prepared and never collected, it is cleaned up after seven days too.
• After that the row shows as expired, with a button to queue it again.

Nothing is ever deleted from your actual library by any of this.

When something goes wrong

	What to do
Downloads unavailable	The server has no active subscription or trial. Local watching is unaffected
Stuck at a percentage	Open the app. A stalled transfer restarts from where it stopped rather than beginning again
Failed	Tap retry. It resumes from the part already on disk
Expired	Queue it again. The server re-prepares it

Not here yet

• Automatic rules, like keeping the next three unwatched episodes of a show synced. This is the obvious next thing and it is on the list.
• Downloads on a laptop or desktop. Phones and tablets only.
• An admin view of everything the server is currently preparing and what it is using in disk.