4 ways I keep watching TV when the internet goes down

A minor memory that’s stuck in my head is a day when, many years ago, the internet in my apartment went down for several hours, what felt like the whole day. At some point, I was so desperate for entertainment that I binged most if not all of the behind-the-scenes extras in the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition box set. I did enjoy them — but I would’ve rather watched under different circumstances, and I was just about done with Tolkien by the time the internet came back.

You can, of course, whip out a Blu-ray or DVD of your own when you lose internet access. In this piece though, I’d like to share some of the other ways you can keep watching TV on the big screen when your ISP is having trouble, or perhaps you’re waiting for them to hook you up in the first place. Movie night can still be a go — just be warned that some options involve being prepared ahead of time.

Tethering your TV to your phone

A risky maneuver

Often, the first thing any of us do when landline internet goes down is retreat to our phones. Sometimes that involves streaming video. When it comes to anything more involved than YouTube, though, I’m with David Lynch — it’s a sub-par way of experiencing things. The difference between a 6-inch screen and a 60-inch one is dramatic, especially if you want to share a movie with someone.

The most direct way around this is turning on your phone’s personal hotspot. In Android 14 or later, there should be a Hotspot button in the Quick Settings swipe-down menu. If not, you’ll have to tap Edit in that menu and drag the button in. iPhone owners should go to Settings -> Personal Hotspot and toggle Allow Others to Join. Note that while Android may allow you to set up a hotspot without a password, that’s a terrible idea for both security and bandwidth reasons.

On your TV (or media streamer), go into its Wi-Fi connection options, select your phone, and enter the password you set earlier. It should connect in a moment. Make sure you have your router’s login handy, because you’ll need to switch your TV back to landline internet once service is restored, unless it’s normally hooked up via an Ethernet cable anyway.

There are some potential pitfalls with tethering to your phone, the first being your cellular plan. If there’s a data cap, streaming video is a quick way to blow through it, particularly at 4K resolution. Some carriers are also stricter about tethering than others — so if your plan doesn’t include much or any tethering data, you could run into throttling or extra fees. Lastly, there’s a chance that streaming quality will default to “mobile” quality. That could reduce you to 1080p, 720p, or even 480p resolution. 1080p should look fine on a modern TV, but anything less will be disappointing.

A replacement for subscriptions

This option requires the most preparation ahead of time. I’ve got a more elaborate guide to the process, but to start with, you’ll need to collect movies and shows on your computer, whether that means ripping them from Blu-rays and DVDs, or sailing the seven seas (ahem). You’ll then need to organize them properly, possibly onto an external hard drive, and import them into media server software like Plex or Jellyfyin. These platforms let you serve up video to devices on your local network, and in some cases remotely (when internet access is working).

Honestly, collecting media tends to be the most tedious part, especially if you’re ripping discs and you’re new to the tools and specs you need to use. But there are a lot of other factors you need to consider, including the huge amount of space videos can consume. Some people also prefer to use a dedicated media server rather than their Mac or Windows PC, since otherwise a library will become unavailable when the computer is powered down.

On your computer or otherwise, you’ll also need to spend some time tweaking the server software. Partly this is for personal preferences, but you may need to adjust for network performance, and enable options that permit the software to work entirely offline. You’ll also need to check whether a client app is available on your TV, and can likewise operate without internet access.

Connecting your phone directly to your TV

Clumsy, but better than nothing

If you like the idea of using your phone’s internet access, but hate the idea of having to change Wi-Fi settings on your TV, you may be in luck if you have a USB-to-HDMI (or for older iPhones, Lightning-to-HDMI) cable or adapter. This will project anything running on your phone, so there’s really no limit to what you can stream so long as you’ve got the necessary app.

This option is further down on the list for a few reasons. First, it’s a little cumbersome — even if you have the right accessories, they may not be long enough to reach from your TV to your couch, in which case you’ll have to get up every time you want to play, pause, or skip around. Also, because your phone is being mirrored one-for-one, you’ll need to rotate it into landscape mode, and turn on Do Not Disturb to block notifications. The biggest concern may be quality, since (as mentioned) some carriers impose resolution limits on mobile video, and your phone and accessory combo may not support HDR or even 4K.

Speaking of which, it’s important to know which versions of HDMI your cable, adapter, and/or TV port are equipped for. For maximum quality, everything should support HDMI 2.1 or later. HDMI 2.0 is potentially fine, but you may not get the best possible refresh rates and HDR standards. Top-flight hardware supports 4K at 120Hz, and dynamic HDR standards like HDR10+.

Loading videos onto a USB drive

Brute-forcing a media server

In an age when many of us depend on services like Netflix and Disney+, it can be easy to forget that every smart TV includes an app for USB media playback. That means that if you’ve got an offline video library like the one I discussed earlier, you may be able to skip setting up media software, and just copy some or all of those videos onto a USB drive you can plug in at any time.

There are some caveats. I’d generally recommend using an external SSD — while some stick and thumb drives are fast enough, they’re unlikely to have enough storage, considering that a single 4K movie can consume dozens of gigabytes. On the speed front, I’d recommend buying a drive with USB 3.1 speeds or better, even though your TV might be limited to USB 2.0 or 3.0. When you’re copying hundreds of gigabytes off a computer, USB 2.0 is lethargic.

It’s also extremely important that your drive be formatted for a filesystem your TV can recognize, and that the video files you have are supported as well. Check your TV maker’s website for details.

Almost as important is naming and organizing files properly. The USB media apps on TVs tend to be very simple, unable to auto-detect movies and shows and sort them in a way a service like Plex can. So if you’ve got a file just named “dune.mkv,” you won’t be able to tell if you’re about to watch the 1984, 2021, or 2024 movies. Subtitle files need to go in the same folders as the videos they’re for, and you should definitely spend time sorting TV shows into both folders and subfolders. Season 3, episode 8 of Twin Peaks, for example, should probably appear as something like TV Shows -> Twin Peaks -> Season 3 -> Twin Peaks S03E08.mkv if you want to be able to find it quickly.