Learning from the veterans
Source: Discovery+
There are almost too many streaming apps to choose from, but most of them offer pretty similar functionality. You may prefer catching up on the best Netflix original series or your favorite creator’s latest vlog on YouTube, but all the well-established streaming services share one common feature — the ability to download content to your device, for offline viewing. Discovery+ may be rather late to the party, but now it’s finally giving users in the US the ability to download shows to watch later.
Discovery+ has a wide variety of programming available for streaming, mostly drawn from the company’s TV channels. Now, viewers in the US can choose from over 58,000 episodes to download and later watch in places where they don’t have internet access — or when traveling to a country where the app doesn’t support downloading for offline viewing (via TechCrunch).
Discovery+ first tested downloads with users in Brazil before its US release. Stateside, viewers will need an ad-free plan to access the feature, which will show up as a small download button next to the title of the show you’re watching. Just like in-app downloads on YouTube, downloaded Discovery+ content will remain available on your device as long as you have an internet connection to renew them at least once every 30 days (for unplayed media). Once you hit the play button, the app gives you just 48 hours to finish watching that video offline.
Thankfully, Discovery+ gives you controls to change download quality and preferences for downloading over Wi-Fi. The service may be quite late to add this feature, but to be fair, Discover+ itself isn’t even two years old yet.
While we’re just hearing about this for viewers in the US, we have noticed that a support page on Discovery’s Indian website says the company is working on the feature, and it should be “available soon” on Android and iOS. Hopefully that means we’ll likely see a wider rollout of the feature soon.
