a mates asked me to have a look at his daughters fire tablet, as hes struggling to download videos for her to watch. as usual, it was “can you ask your singletrack mates” 😉

he doesn’t want amazon prime, but would like to download the odd peppa pig type video to keep her happy. amazon seem to have tied it up quite tightly to prevent this, they obviously want you to pay for prime.

its a 5th generation, and ive found the ‘enable from unknown sources’ hidden under security section and ticked that.

what else do we need to do now? download an app with kiddies video content? any suggestions?

thanks a lot

You can install google play on them,cant remember how (long time ago) from there, install the likes of VLC media player so as to play your own content (downloaded else where) and put on an SD card. Thats how my 5yr olds is set up… and buy cheap headphones… theres a limit to how much “Barbie Spy Squad” you can listen to!!!

Install a video player (vlc recommended above is good).

Download any content you like, then use the fire for kids app to make it available to the kids access area.

Open the content in vlc (note this isnt child friendly to navigate)

You can install google play on them,cant remember how (long time ago) from there, install the likes of VLC media player so as to play your own content (downloaded else where) and put on an SD card.

just googled how do do that, looks a faff plus mate says he doesn’t know if hes got a google account to sign in with (hes an appleboiiii)

Install a video player (vlc recommended above is good).

is there a way of installing vlc without google play?

also I don’t spose you can connect a fire tablet to a pc and use it as hard drive is there, so the pc can transfer video files over to play offline?

thanks

EDIT: looks like ‘vlc for fire’ is available from amazon, hopefully that’s the same app and will play 3rd party vids?

I copied all the DVDs etc to a memory card and bunged that in the fire. Still use vlc though.

mate says he doesn’t know if hes got a google account

Nothing stopping him getting one if he hasn’t.

EDIT: looks like ‘vlc for fire’ is available from amazon, hopefully that’s the same app and will play 3rd party vids?

Looks like it.

https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-android.html

You can also download the .apk (installer) directly without needing to go through the Store it seems, should the Fire version not be suitable for some reason.

From another thread, I think there’s a kids version of YouTube isn’t there? Maybe get the APK for that?

Nothing stopping him getting one if he hasn’t.

im a bit confused, what would google play actually bring to the party? the ability to download a suitable app? cos i think ive done that with vlc now havent i?

From another thread, I think there’s a kids version of YouTube isn’t there? Maybe get the APK for that?

im assuming then that you cant get youtube unless you have google play, but would he need it? he doesnt want to stream, these vids will be for when theyre on a plane or something to keep his daughter amused.

I copied all the DVDs etc to a memory card and bunged that in the fire. Still use vlc though.

thats more what i was thinking the answer would be altho i checked his tablet out and it doesnt have a card. he can get one if need be, but as i asked before, could you connect the tablet itself to a pc as a hard drive and copy files over?

thanks a lot

update to this, mate has now got VLC installed but is still not having any joy. he says VLC wont recognise the avi file hes downloaded. he tried installing an avi to mp4 convertor but that wants to charge him to convert and left him with half an mp4 file or something. he says both VLC and the stock video player recognise that small mp4 file, but not the avi.

is he doing something wrong? should VLC open and play avi files?

thanks