MagellanTV Documentaries 12+

FFW & RW are such a hassle

I’m watching it on my iPad and if I stop watching and restart the show; it just restart from the beginning. If i fast forward ; I have to guess where I was before and just move the dot instead of having an image of where in the show I am while moving forward or backwards. It will be ideal if you add button for us to do so, if they can add a 15 second forward or backwards button. And for the app to open at the shows you are currently watching where you left off…. Not at the beginning. I love the shows… but not a Danny of the app at least of the iPad

Developer Response ,

We appreciate your feedback. We recognized the bug impacting the app saving your last viewing session, and this is fixed. The app should start a partially watched film where you last left it now. We're sorry for that inconvenience. We're working on the quick FF/RW feature now, and hope to have that for our members soon.

iPhone Airplay users: BEWARE (no subtitles)

First, I want to thank the Magellan customer service rep (Nancy) for her courtesy and professionalism. A full refund was granted along with the promise of a subscription extension had the technical problem been solved.

If you are like me, away from home for a long period of time, caretaking for elderly loved ones, without Wifi, but relying exclusively on an iPhone and an excellent-performance Unlimited 4G wireless plan...then Magellan might not be for you.

You’re fine if you choose to watch everything on your iPhone screen; subtitles display if you request them. But if you attempt to Airplay (via Apple’s Lightning-to-Digital adapter and an HDMI cable), you won’t ever see subtitles. (You’re fine with Airplay if video and audio w/o subtitles meets your needs.)

It was explained that lack of subtitles using Airplay is a limitation imposed by one of Magellan’s technical partners, and there is no estimated fix time.

As I explained in an earlier review, I’ve used about two dozen iPhone streaming apps, and nearly all of them support Airplay (key exceptions being ESPN and Peacock). But Magellan is the ONLY app supporting Airplay that doesn’t support subtitles via Airplay. One might guess that Magellan’s subtitling support is something fancier than most apps, of marginal value, that cause the bigger problem encountered here.

The service is great but...

The iOS app itself crashes when trying to watch any video, from any category. It works great on the computer, or when watching through a browser, but outside of that there is absolutely no way to watch. And good luck getting it to stream an entire episode on the TV version of the app, it is just as buggy with constant freezes and no resume playing function.

Outside of the app issues, the service is absolutely great. The documentaries are informative, and very different from the normal barrage of trash on Network and Cable TV. Some may be a bit dated, but the information is still relevant, and can usually generate a chuckle when looking back at the awful styles we wore back then. Ick.

All in all, the service itself is worth 5 stars as soon as they can fix the issues with their apps on all platforms.