Michael Grothaus 14/12/2016 - 2:55pm

Master Amazon Prime Video with these SIMPLE tricks and tips!

It’s no doubt that the king of streaming video is Netflix. But the company has had serious competition from Amazon and its Prime Video service in recent years. Matter of fact, depending on your location Prime Video might actually have better content than Netflix. As streaming video becomes even more mainstream, the two companies are locked in an epic battle for your living room.

And today the battlefield grew. Amazon has announced that it is now separating Prime Video from its Amazon Prime shipping subscription service and will be rolling out the stand-alone video streaming service to more than 200 countries and territories around the world.

To celebrate the expansion, Amazon is offering Prime Video to new subscribers for just $3/€3 per month for the first six months. After that the price jumps to a still reasonable $6/€6 a month. If you’re thinking of subscribing to Prime Video now that it's a killer deal, you’ll want to remember the following tips and tricks to get the most out of your newest streaming service.

Amazon Prime Video: Build Up Your Watchlist

Believe it or not, many people don’t know you can create a watchlist on Prime. A watchlist allows you to save movies and TV shows to a queue so you can quickly find later what you want to watch. Watchlists on Prime are actually more of a necessity than they are on Netflix because Amazon doesn’t have as many niche categories (like ‘coming-of-age animal tales’) as Netflix has. To add an item to your watchlist, just select it and then click the ‘Add to Watchlist’ button. You can add individual movies and TV shows or entire seasons.

Amazon Prime Video: Download Videos To Watch On The Go

This has always been one of the biggest benefits of Prime. Amazon allows you to download its content to your devices so you can watch them on the go even without an internet connection. Netflix has recently started allowing the same offline viewing, but Amazon got there first. To download a video to watch on the go, open up the Prime Video app on your device and find the content you want to watch offline and tap the download button.

Amazon Prime Video: Set Parental Controls

An important feature for parents, Amazon allows you to restrict the content it offers that your children can watch. Do to this, log into your Amazon Prime Video account in a browser and go into its settings to create a special five-digit PIN, which users will need to enter before they can view video content that has a rating limit that you can set.

Amazon Prime Video: Learn More About What You’re Watching With X-Ray

Amazon owns the most popular film site on the web: IMDB. The company has found a way to leverage the film information the site contains to offer extra content on Prime Video. Amazon calls this feature ‘X-Ray’ and it allows viewers to see information about the film, actor, or director of the content they are watching. X-Ray content appears on screen with the Prime Video and delivers facts and info that enrich a viewer's knowledge of the video. X-Ray can be accessed in various Prime Video apps depending on the platform.

Amazon Prime Video: Customize How Subtitles Look

Even if you aren’t hard of hearing, subtitles can still be useful (they make The Lord of The Rings trilogy much easier to understand, for example). Not many people know this, but Prime Video allows you to customize the way subtitles look. Simply go to your Prime Video settings page on the web to customize their look.

Amazon Prime Video: Disable Autoplay

Autoplay is a feature of Prime that automatically plays the next episode in a series or the next movie from your watchlist after the previous one has finished. It’s handy when you are binge watching a show, but can also be bothersome if you’ve left the house with the show playing. By the time you get back, Amazon could think you’ve binge watched more episodes that you’ve actually seen and make them as ‘watched’ in your account. To turn off Autoplay go to Video Settings > Player Preferences.

Amazon Prime Video: Add Additional On-Demand Services To Prime Video

Prime Video gives you access to Amazon’s catalog of film and TV shows, but the service also allows you to add on third-party streaming services to your Prime membership so you can watch all your content via the Prime Video app. Third-party services include ones like Showtime, Starz, and Comedy Central Stand-up.