The Great Courses

This is my first time using Great Courses. I am thoroughly enjoying The Other Side of History. The lecturer is a very good Storyteller and keeps the subject matter very interesting. I do have a small concern about the buffering that goes on during the lecture but so far it doesn't seem to be continuing for an extensive length of time although it does happen fairly frequently. I will be considering other courses in the future.

I receive promotional emails that boast fantastic prices with courses that might actually interest, but when I click on the link I am taken to a page full of uninteresting courses that are much more expensive. Attempting to search for courses at the fantastic price from the promotional email by limiting the search results all harbor undesirable results. Searches within the app may boast something to the affect of 60 results, yet only 24 are displayed with no way to view the remaining 36 courses

The courses are great. The interface itself is a bit clunky. If you stop in the middle of a lecture when you come back sometimes it hangs up. When you have finished a course but go back to review some lessons it keeps taking you back to the final lesson.

Very nice app! The only drawback is that you can't buy courses from the app, only view the ones you already have, besides the free ones. It's very limited, although I'm sure it would be nice if you already had the courses.

Changing review again for the third time. More undefined error messages on the log in screen. This time a helpfull GC technical rep was able to clear the problem in short order instead of the original unknown error that took 3 months to correct.Thanks. The lessons continue to be good and streaming mostly reliable with few lock outs or pauses.

Not explanatory. Fortunately the answer was put out by the company when someone else complained. You gotta buy courses online via a pc at the site to play on the app. They range in cost. But there allegedly is another Great Courses App that is subscription based. But even though it has hundreds of courses, it likely doesn't carry everything. So we shall see. Uninstalling this application. P.S. You can also use a browser on a tablet or phone to buy.

A bit frustrating, but ok. I can find my classes, but not as easily as I expected. Finding the right lesson also requires some searching, especially if I go from one class to another. Lessons are great, though!

This is a life saver when I'm sitting in a doctor's waiting room. I usually try to find an electrical outlet to plug my phone's charger into because streaming videos is a bit of a power drain but I'll use my Bluetooth headphones and then I don't disturb others as learn.

Have bought several courses. All good quality. This time am reading the paperback that came with course if you buy the DVD...reading a chapter, then listening to corresponding lecture, and it is really enriching. Enjoying "Anatomy of Movement" right now.

Alas, this app is not available on my Nvidia Shield, and downloading the courses I bought (to use with Plex) is a huge pain in the rear. The courses are great, just like the name says. Now to figure out how to use them....

Overall, I am happy with the app, and desktop version. A wish list would be the ability to reset the completion records for a course, so the lectures can easily be rerun . Thanks for your response.

I heard about this from watching a YouTuber, Brew. I thought I could get behind this type of app and wanted to check out what they had. The free trial doesn't let you see their library but instead the a few things that the company picked out.. not paying for a service that I don't know I'd be getting.

I have been listning and viewing your courses over 15 years. Until recently I would always view courses on my portable DVD player. Now I stream them. What happens is the voice is out of sync with the mouth movements. About 3 or 4 times a sentenance will be repeated durning a lecture. When I complained to customer service I was advised to download the lecture to my device. I do this and there is no more problem. The problem still exists. My internet speed excellent. Can this be addressed?

Love that I can access all these courses on my phone and play as either video or audio; it's perfect for walking place to place or during a lunch break at work. It would be really cool to slide to/from the course guidebook chapter with each lecture while watching/listening; I like to review while I'm learning so it sticks better.

I couldn't get one particular lesson to play (it had played several times before). Other lectures were ok. In desperation I removed the app and reinstalled it, and lost ALL my downloaded lectures (on my microsd card). Ok, tough lesson! ☹️ However, even though I'm setting the updated app to save to the SD card, it isn't doing it. Also, I'd like to add my voice to those calling for better methods to rerun lectures. I have a 5 minute battle every time I try to replay any lecture. Thanks

A wonderful, stimulating, absorbing site. It opens up so many opportunities for further study and development. A great range of courses. I, and a neighbour, really enjoy joint study opportunities. 4 stars instead of five because some aspects of the course tend to be getting a bit out-dated. For example, the operation of the online course booklet is too cumbersome. You really ought to be able to jump straight to a page rather than have to go page by page from the beginning of the booklet.

The content of lectures across TGC is of course variable in quality, but I enjoy the ones I've paid for. This review concerns the app, however, which has frustratingly slow download speeds for lectures even with strong wifi connection. I recall it used to be faster. Also unable to exit the app with audio playing in the background, which really defeats the purpose of having an audio only mode (as opposed to audio + video). At least there are no 3rd party ads.

I used to buy the DVD versions of these courses, but lately I've discovered that it is more convenient to stream them, either using the website, or more often, this app. Either way, I always use Chromecast so that the course plays on my TV (I never view the course directly on my tablet). I've done this with other video apps, and this one is really one of the best. The only problem is that occasionally, if I pause the streaming, some sort of confusion occurs between the streaming (via Chromecast) and the app, such that the latter has lost contact with the former. This is obviously very frustrating. Either I want to resume playback, but the app thinks it's already playing or the reverse: I want to pause but the app thinks it is already paused. However, some other streaming apps (including the one for an extremely popular streaming service) are far worse in this regard. The Great Courses app usually works fine and I can live with the occasional hiccups. I realize that what I've described could be a Chromecast problem which The Great Courses has no control over.

Ok player, but has some annoying glitches. Often when I get to the end of a lecture, the app automatically plays the next one in the series...but doesn't move the time back to the beginning. So it ends up playing the very end of the next lecture and marking it as completed. There's also no obvious way to close it or dismiss its "app is running" notification: I have to use my phone's settings to force it to choose each time I finish using it.

It's handy as back-up access, useful when using a tablet which can't seem to cope with an external disk drive. Some documentation doesn't download though, and is awkward to use as a result. No jumping to a specific page, just turning one at a time for page after page; no keeping one's place in the background, because on return this app reloads and you're back to page 1 as a result. More thought needed there. (Should say I've not yet run the videos through it, simply been reading as preparation.)

The Great Courses Spanish app is great. It covers many topics and skills in each lesson. The teacher is clear and precise. He gives many chances for repetition by the student; however, I have one suggestion. Please have him slow down the timing of the student responses. I have much trouble answering his questions and repetitions in the time allotted. Even adding 2-4 seconds would help. Thanks

I use the app daily. I rated it at four stars because it seems to be limited to thirty courses total. My digital library has more. The problem is, you don't get to choose which courses the app has access to. Plus at least four of the slots are sample or trial courses of new subjects. I can access all my courses through the website. For five stars, if I'm going to be limited to only thirty slots, would require that I select which thirty!

It does work however two problems that I have with it the first being that it doesn't respond to auto-rotate settings on or off. It does its own thing. Second is that it is fairly bloated with a confusing UI. When I start it I expect to be taken to my courses not suggestions for something else to buy, etc. Unfortunately audible is now doing the same thing. It used to be a nice slick interface now it takes forever to start and when it does you can barely find the book you're listening to

Is easy to use, but there are new bugs every update. For example, downloading lecture sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. A 20 MB lecture shows up as only being three kB, and when trying to play it, the app just sits there. I've been using the app for 2 years. When network connection comes and goes, the app gets confused.