ABC Player app available for Kindle Fire HD allows watching of full episodes of favorite ABC shows
The ABC Player app allows you to watch, from a selection of the most recent episodes of almost any ABC show (primetime and daytime), full ABC shows you may have missed or want to re-watch.
It says that you can find episodes "by Most Popular, Most Recent, and Evening vs. Daytime" (I've not found this search function -- please let me know if you find it) and can pause these, with your place saved for resuming from that point later (this does work).
Closed captioning is available (though I haven't seen this yet in a couple of shows I chose to watch). There are no easily findable settings for this. There is a version for iOS devices, Hulu (which I subscribe to and there ARE closed-captioning features in those) and iTunes and it could be that some of these features I haven't found are in one of those and ABC's product marketing is confused about what is available for Kindle Fire HD. This app does not work for my other, earlier Samsung devices with older Android systems.
On my personal listing of devices I own, it is shown as NOT working for the Original Kindle Fire while OK with my Kindle Fire HD7 and my Kindle Fire HD89. My guess is that it wouldn't work well if at all with the 2nd Generation non-HD Kindle Fire, but the Product Description page doesn't say anything about that, unfortunately. Let me know, if it does work for that, but it is a more limited device in memory-management and in storage space, so I'm doubtful, and it's not an HD model (I don't know if they scale down for Standard Definition).
From the Product Description:
"...View full-length episodes of Modern Family, Grey's Anatomy, Revenge, Once Upon a Time, The Neighbors, Good Morning America, Jimmy Kimmel Live and more..." as well as Nashville, Castle, and Body of Proof. Also included are ABC News shows and daytime shows like The View, The Chew and General Hospital.
NOTE AND MORE CAVEATS - These are in HD, and viewing on mobile devices may give problems, from what I have noted with any HD streaming, when HD owners are using DSL rather than cable modem systems. DSL's average speed is 6 to 10 times slower than what is doable from cable systems like Cable and RR, from what I've experienced on friends' Internet streaming connections, and HD streaming just needs more speed and robust connectivity. DSL hosts do offer higher tiers of speed but at higher pricing.
I would NOT download the app if you have DSL rather than cable.
I even wonder if a problem exists with Android devices that have only 16 GB of storage space and a fairly filled storage area. The number of people for whom this app does not work or works badly outnumbers the number of people who have no problems with it.
I watched a full 50-minute episode of the amazingly amoral Scandal with no glitches at all and with HD quality. Others experience lower-quality video on their systems though, so be forewarned that it may not be ideal on some devices depending on streaming-connection or maybe a too-full device when using an app that may be just too bloated and using a lot of memory to do what it does.
At any rate, so to speak, the app is Free to try, and you can remove the app if it doesn't work well on your Internet connection but you'd probably need to reboot or reset (via a 20-second power button press and then a press to restart), if the app just stalls for you on tv episodes, as it did for many who gave it low marks.
An aborted show like 666 Park Avenue still available for 2 more days usually does not offer the unaired shows some have hoped would ultimately air, in this case to explain some of the weirdnesses in the storyline, but I just found out about the ABC app itself (released March 2013) from a Washington Post TV Column on ABC putting online, and on some mobile devices, "unaired episodes of 'Don't Trust the B---" as they put it. This one is a show I didn't watch after the first 15 minutes, not that I'm fussy about my TV viewing.
The added draw is that with this app you don't need a Flash player app plus different web browser as some of us have used on the Kindle Fire (doable with the Dolphin web browser -- see step-by-step guide to install Flash at How to install Flash Player on Kindle Fire HD, with more info at Getting NON-Amazon apps).
Before this app was made available, we've been able to view all these (with the steps in those article-guides at http://abc.go.com -- which ABC has now redirected to a longer URL). BUT since any Kindle Fire HD can use this app, that more-arduous process is not needed for ABC shows.
However, I don't see similar apps for NBC and CBS or PBS right now, so the Flashplayer-install info just mentioned is given in case you want to watch similar material on the other network channels.
In the meantime, Amazon Prime Instant Video program offers quite a bit, as you'll have seen if reading the Amazon pages or this blog.
Current Kindle Models, worldwide for reference, plus free-ebook search links.
NOTES on newer Kindles.
Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers. Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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Thanks for the article. ABC Go offers some great shows and of course the ABC live feature. If you don’t live in US, you can use UnoTelly or similar tools to access it in your country.
ReplyDeleteChevyLin,
DeleteThey just call it WatchABC now... and it's been unstable ever since they added that option to 'Share' the video segment we're watching. Now I use HuluPlus more for Full Episodes as a result, as we have to listen to 4-5 ads with WatchABC and if it crashes (too often now - Nov-Dec 2014) when you get back on we have to get those 5 ads again and then even then, it crashes. But Live works well for me and is a boon.
Thanks for the feedback :-)