You’ve subscribed to Amazon Prime and you’re ready to buy your first movie.
But you might have some questions about the process and how it works. What happens when you buy a movie on Amazon Prime?
For example, how long do you have to watch content?
This is a tricky question because the amount of time you have depends on the content you’re downloading or streaming.
But, the above is just one question and you probably have many more! So, let’s find out everything that you need to know about purchasing movies on Amazon Prime so that nothing gets in the way of your relaxing movie time.
Contents
How To Find Movies On Amazon Prime
When renting or purchasing a movie on Amazon Prime, you’ll have to access the Amazon Prime app on your device.
Once you’re on the homepage, you’ll instantly see a range of content that’s available for viewing. You can also make use of the search bar to find a specific TV show or movie that you want to see, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
When you have found a movie or show you want to watch on Amazon Prime, you’ll click on its title. This will display a page that shows you various information pertaining to that movie or TV show, such as its user rating, release date, and runtime.
There’s usually a preview button you can use if you want to check out a TV show in more detail. For movies, you’ll be able to watch a trailer so you can be sure if it’s something that interests you before you make a purchase.
Interestingly, there are also user reviews available that you can check out. You will be given movie and TV show recommendations based on what you watch, to further fine-tune and improve your experience.
Do You Own Movies You Buy On Amazon Prime?
When you buy a movie on Amazon Prime, it might feel like you own it, in a similar way to how you used to purchase DVDs that were then yours. But this is not the case.
After purchasing a video on Amazon Prime, you do not own the movie or show. Rather, you’re paying for a limited license to use for on-demand viewing. This viewing can be done over a certain period of time.
You only have 30 days to start watching the content that you’ve rented. If you don’t do so after that period of time, the rental will expire and you won’t be able to find the content.
When it comes to streaming, you can stream and restream any video included with Prime or Prime Video. Once downloaded, you’ll have 30 days in which to start watching the video and once you start watching it you’ll only have 48 hours to complete it.
On your mobile, the same rules apply. You have 30 days in which to start watching the content and then once you start it, you have to finish it within 48 hours.
How To Download Content For Offline Viewing
Although the above-mentioned facts are a bit of a bummer, the great news is that you can download content for offline viewing.
To download content, you will need to make use of the Amazon Prime Video app on your device. Once you’ve found the title you wish to download, you will choose where to save the download.
These downloads can be viewed offline, which comes in very handy if you’re in a location where the internet speeds are not that great. Note that you can watch content offline in a variety of ways – you’ll need to make use of an Android, iOS, or Fire tablet device.
How To View Your Video Content
How to view what you’ve purchased on Prime via your mobile:
- Open the Prime Video app on your mobile device, and click “My Stuff.” This should be located at the bottom right of the screen.
- You’ll see “Purchases” on the top of the screen, which will feature a list of all your rented and purchased shows and movies.
How to view what you’ve purchased on Prime via a web browser:
- How you can view what you’ve purchased via a web browser is a little bit different, but still easy. Simply go to the Prime Video website and open it. On the top of the page, you’ll see links and one of them is “My Stuff.”
- Click on that, then click “Purchases & Rentals.”
Note: If you don’t see the “My Stuff” option on your device, you’ll see a “Purchases and Rentals” option straight away, so click on that.
How To Purchase And Rent Content On Amazon Prime
Earlier, we mentioned that you can both rent and purchase content, but how? It’s actually a really easy process.
Some Prime titles can be purchased or rented but you have to do both through the Amazon website as well as through the Prime Video app on supported devices.
- Once you’re logged into the app, you need to browse the variety of content that’s available. You can also make use of the search feature if there’s a specific title you’re looking for.
- Once you’ve located what you want, you’ll see that there are purchase options listed for it.
- From there you can select if you want to rent or buy the title.
- You’ll probably also see that there’s a “more” option. This offers you options for purchasing content in different playback qualities.
How Much Does Buying And Renting Movies On Amazon Prime Cost?
If you want to purchase a movie on Prime, you’re looking at paying between $7.99 and $19.99.
The price varies depending on how recent the movie is and whether its quality is SD or HD. When it comes to renting movies, you’ll expect to pay between $2.99 and $5.99.
Are There Free Videos Available?
Sometimes free videos are available, but these usually take the form of a promotion or they come with ads. They are only available for online streaming and you can’t download free content.
When streaming free videos, you’ll be able to stream a maximum of three videos simultaneously with the same Amazon account. Although you can’t download them, they might be available to buy or rent via Amazon Prime Video.
What About Making Backups For Your Content?
If you’ve downloaded content from Amazon Prime to your device, you might be wondering if you can make a backup copy of it.
Well, you sort of can, simply because of how you can download the content to two devices. However, that’s the maximum amount of devices that you’re allowed to have the same content on.
Can You Record Content On A Third Party App?
There’s a way around the issue of purchased movies only lasting for a specific period of time and how you can’t always have a backup of content in the way you might like.
An app called PlayOn allows you to record TV shows and movies from Amazon Prime (and other platforms). These files that you record are yours, and the benefit is that they will still stick around in your library even after you no longer subscribe to the platforms.
If you choose to record content that you’ll save in the cloud, you will have to pay $45 for 365 recordings. If you want to save the content to your desktop, it will cost you $69.99 for a lifetime’s worth of unlimited recordings.
How To Get Even More From Amazon Prime
Once you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can get a variety of other content on your device, but it will cost you.
These subscriptions for various types of content include a CBS All Access subscription (which costs $5.99) and a Cinemax subscription ($9.99). Others you can get include PBS Masterpiece ($5.99), Starz ($8.99), and Showtime ($8.99), as PCMag reports.
Related Questions
Can you enjoy movies on Amazon Prime Video without a Prime subscription?
You can watch content with Amazon Prime Video, but it will cost you $8.99 per month.
How many devices can you stream to at the same time?
You can stream movies and shows on up to three devices, but you can only stream the same content on two devices simultaneously.
Conclusion
If you want to buy movies and TV shows from Amazon Prime, you might assume that you will own them after downloading them, but this isn’t always the case.
In this article, we’ve looked at what it really means to rent or buy content from Amazon Prime.
