Android based device & free SWA TV

Last trip my wife took along her Android based device and tried to use the free TV from Dish on the SWA flight. It didn’t work. Error message was: “video format or mime type not supported”

She has been doing some research online but with conflicting solutions.

She has installed: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alldigital.android.dti.onboardplayer&hl=en

But reviews are mixed.

She also installed:

http://www.mydish.com/support/dishanywhereapp

The problem is we can’t check these until we are on the plane and would like to know ahead of time if either will work. Her iPad was like three keystrokes and everything worked, but this is an Android mini and she likes it so much better because of how light it is and wants to leave the iPad at home.

Anybody have a for sure solution?

 

I cannot answer directly, but you might also want to have FireFox on the tablet it might help out as well.

 

No I don't have a sure solution.

SWA free TV worked easily on my wife's Iphone 6 plus but didn't work on my Galaxy S5. I'm a techie guy and it irritates me every time I see SWA saying how easy it is on their commercials. In preparation for my next flight on SWA I installed Dolphin browser. I suggest you install it too. Don't know if it will work but Firefox and Chrome didn't work on my Galaxy. Dolphin is supposed to support Flash so it might work.

 

Joe:

On the iflyswa web page I found this but don't know that it answers the question but if it does maybe someone can explain it. good luck....(have the same problem with my Kindle--nice screen....but my phone works until the battery says uncle)


https://www.southwest.com/html/customer-service/faqs.html?topic=inflight_internet_once_onboard&question=supported_devices


TV and Movies
Laptops
Operating System: Windows 8; Windows 7; Windows XP; Windows Vista; OSX 10.6.X; OSX 10.7.X
Browser: Internet Explorer 7.X (or higher); Firefox 4.X (or higher); Google Chrome 18.X (or higher); Safari 5.x (or higher)
Plug-In: Adobe Flash Player 10.0.22 (or higher); ViewRight1
iOS Mobile and Tablets
Operating System: iOS 4.2 or later
Browser: Safari 5.x (or higher)
Plug-In: Onboard Player app available for free from Apple App Store
Android Mobile and Tablets
Operating System: Select devices supported at this time
Browser: Firefox 4.X (or higher)
Plug-In: Adobe Flash Player 10.0.22 (or higher); Onboard Player app available for free from Google Play Store

1 Only available for download while inflight, free to download.

At the website it has points where you can click and it will take you to the download I assume.

 

I have Androids and have not been successful with SWA Dish yet. I got a Galaxy 4 recently and will try it this weekend.

I also have done lots of internet searching on this in the past, and my conclusion was there was no "good" answer except "use an Apple product".

I think to be safe I would suggest bringing both the iPad and the Android this trip.

 

Dolphin browser worked in the past for me (it does freeze up here and there).

I recently installed older version of flash (11.1) and will test it out on my next flight. Supposedly it allows you to use the regular browser for SW streaming.

 

A bit "off-point", but threads like this are one of the many reasons I love VMB!

 

Of the apps you list:

The first one isn't going to work - its more for getting blocked content, which isn't the problem your wife is experiencing.

The second app is a maybe: It looks like it should work, being an official Android app by the provider. However the "maybe" part is that it won't let you piggyback on the SWA account and you would need to have your own Dish account. Since you are saying that you can't test it out until in flight I would suspect that you don't have a Dish account (otherwise you just load it up, log in and test away).

As for the problem your wife is having: as said, its not "blocked content" (which is what the first app is for) and instead its because the videos being streamed are Flash and Android can't play Flash videos any more (used to be able to, but the two companies had a falling out and Adobe decided to stop supporting Android operating system).

There are websites out there that will say they can show you how to play Flash on your Android device or use their app and it will, but I haven't seen one that actually works.

The good news for "in the long run" is that more and more sites are switching their online video players away from Flash so you will be able to play almost everything eventually on your Android device, just maybe not the SWA free TV this trip.


If you do torrents what you can do is download the TV shows off the internet using torrent file sharing sites and programs and then copy them to your tablet/phone and watch using a video player - thats what we do and you can find pretty much every TV show on the internet nowadays, even ones from other countries not normally shown in your market.

 

I tried downloading everything suggested on board and nothing worked. The newer Android devices don't have Flash because Adobe doesn't support mobile devices anymore. I tried every work around and can't get Flash to work on mine. The free Beats music stream worked at least!

 

Installing Adobe onto an Android can be done, I did it about 18 months ago and have the technical acumen of a chimp. I used the following link and watched a couple of YouTube videos:
http://www.androidcentral.com/how-manually-install-flash-your-android-device

 

You could also try flash Fox app.

 

Last trip, I installed the dolphin browser. It worked. Chrome didn't.

 

Hi Joe, What version of android is the device?

4.1 is useless.