Android Smart Phone

[Vangelis forthnet]

On Tue Jun 14 16:33:40 BST 2016, CJB wrote: 

> Is it possible to download programmes directly
> to an Android smart phone?

Hello Chris 

 If your question is really about the feasibility  
of installing GiP directly on an Android device 
and have the "iPlayer Recordings" folder 
configured on the Android device itself, 
then possibly the following Support Forum thread 
(dating from Jan 2015) could be of interest to you: 

https://squarepenguin.co.uk/forums/thread-337.html

You should be able to download the attachment: 

"get_iplayer_android.zip"

which apparently contains needed instructions - and no, 
that hasn't made it to the Forum Wiki yet :-(
Since I am clueless when it comes to Android, I am 
confident other knowledgeable list members can 
share their expertise/experience (if any) with running 
GiP on Android...

> Or is it best to do this on a laptop / PC first 
> and then copy said files to the phone.

 I guess this is what the majority of GiP users do. 

 And if you're also talking about video files, you'll have 
to take into consideration limitations pertaining 
to the AVC (h.264) profile of the video stream; 
though I can't say this with an acceptable degree 
of certainty, depending on the phone's processor 
and other hardware specifications, you may find that 
(flash|hls)hd (High at L4.1) and (flash|hls)vhigh 
(Main at L3.1) cannot be played back on the phone...
 File size is another consideration when it comes 
to video files, but with external "memory" (storage) 
cards becoming quite cheap, this is less of an issue...

Regards, 
Vangelis.