How I Downloaded a Movie to My iPad at the Airport in 5 Minutes

Digiboo: Download a movie to your iPad at the airport

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Usually, when I travel by airplane, I load up my iPad with a couple of rented movies from Amazon Instant Video. That way I can watch the videos during my flights without the need for any type of Internet connection.

SEE ALSO: Rent Movies on Your iPad to Make a Boring Flight More Entertaining

But on a recent trip with my family, I was pressed for time before we departed and didn’t have time to download any movies to my iPad. No problem on the outbound trip as we were all tired and slept most of the flight. But on the return trip, my kids and I were thinking a movie would help break up the trip, but with no internet connection it was not possible to use great streaming sites like this list of Couchtuner alternatives at Digitalconnectmag.

Digiboo

Digiboo to the Rescue

That’s when a Digiboo kiosk in the Houston airport caught my eye. The display boasted that you could rent a movie to watch on your device without the need to download anything. This is huge because downloading a movie can take anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes over a fast Internet connection and that’s in the comfort of your own home. Using the almost always slow free airport Wi-Fi, you might as well forget about it.

I noticed the kiosk had USB connections on the front so I was guessing that’s how it transferred the movie once you rented or purchased it. Turns out, I was half right.

Digiboo 1-2-3

I went ahead and browsed the movie selection at the Digiboo kiosk with my kids and we finally agreed upon a movie. After I paid a $3.99 rental fee, the display prompted me to select what type of device I would be watching the movie on. I selected the iPad and it gave me instructions on how to download the movie to my iPad using a Wi-Fi connection provided by the Digiboo kiosk.

Wait, what? I thought there was no downloading.

Some Devices Download, Others USB

Turns out that’s kind of misleading. If you aren’t watching on a device that supports a USB connection, you still have to download your movie using the free Digiboo app on your device. However, if you are using a USB-supported device like a laptop, you could download the movie to a USB thumb stick or USB hard drive and then connect that device to your laptop to watch the movie.

Digiboo app

At this point, I was disappointed as I didn’t think there would ever be enough time for me to finish downloading the movie before we had to board our flight. In reality, I had more than enough time.

That’s because the Wi-Fi connection provided by the Digiboo kiosk was extremely fast. So fast in fact, that I had my entire movie downloaded in less than 5 minutes!

All said and done, the process was easy and painless and I would use Digiboo to rent another movie on a future flight. I would, however, still like to try the USB option just to see how that works. Maybe next time.