|
You know what would give me hope for FireTV boxes? Actually supporting the HDR that 90% of their original content has. Amazon might have more HDR content than Netflix and Vudu combined and none of their own hardware supports it.
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 03:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 16, 2024 12:05 |
|
|
Call Me Charlie posted:If you thought ever thought 'oh boy, i'd like one of these fire tv things but i really wish it was built into some garbage tv' Amazon has you covered. Are they garbage TVs though? Like 2 years ago my ex dragged me to buy a 4k Westinghouse TV at Walmart on Black Friday, it's tons better than my TV which I am perfectly happy with that I bought 10 years ago back when a high quality 720P LCD cost thousands, I'm pretty sure I paid around 2K for this TV, I think he paid like $300. Fire TV is a decent enough TV OS, especially with 3 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage. Short of LED array dimming, industrial design and OLED I am pretty sure most of the "garbage tv" companies are able to put a panel indistinguishable to most consumers from the high end of the top tier brands and the biggest thing that is left is not having a garbage OS which Fire TV arguably solves.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 03:11
|
|
|
I'm not too hot on smart tvs. I own a Sharp Roku TV and I'll give Roku credit for actually heavily optimizing the software after launch but it still has performance issues on UI heavy apps like Netflix. So even if you can trust a developer to keep the os up to date and within your specs for the life of your tv, which I wouldn't with Amazon, there's no guarantee that third party developers will do the same. There's also legit problem with 'smart' 4k tvs launching without support for HDR. - edit Oh hey, video of it in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPpe5e4OItE Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Jan 4, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 04:05
|
|
|
I'm never gonna get this UI update. Since I got mine on launch day I'm assuming I will be one of the last to get it. I wanna bitch about how it sucks like you guys 
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 18:26
|
|
|
Three Olives posted:Are they garbage TVs though? Like 2 years ago my ex dragged me to buy a 4k Westinghouse TV at Walmart on Black Friday, it's tons better than my TV which I am perfectly happy with that I bought 10 years ago back when a high quality 720P LCD cost thousands, I'm pretty sure I paid around 2K for this TV, I think he paid like $300. Historically Element, Westinghouse etc. were pretty much garbage. I don't know how true that is these days. In the past it was kind of like buying a Gateway PC rather than Dell. MOST tv's these days use the same panels, from the same companies and it's just presentation that is different. Westinghouse might use the same LCD panel as an LG, but only has 2 HDMI ports and a cheap looking plastic shell or something. For your average person it probably doesn't make a difference anymore. I probably wouldn't buy a polaroid brand though, just because.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 18:52
|
|
|
There's more to a TV than panel and smart interface. How quality are the components like power supply? Are they using a high quality backlight with a wide color spectrum matched to the panel? Is there any local dimming involved and if so, how good are the algorithms? Are the optical spreaders for the backlight uniform? How well does the TV deinterlace, upscale, or detect frame cadence? How fine grained are the picture controls? How wide is the variance in output from set to set? Some of this stuff matters less the smaller you go and it's generally hard to find a quality TV from any manufacturer under 40". Generally it's true though that people don't care too much about image quality. That's one of the reasons why the TV market is in the sate it is in today.
|
|
#
?
Jan 4, 2017 19:00
|
|
|
bull3964 posted:There's more to a TV than panel and smart interface. 99% of people don't care or even understand what you just said. If you go to a store to buy a tv and the salesman says "this one is $399 but this one has better detect frame cadence and the algorithms are top notch and it's $999!" I'm p sure 99.99% of people still buy the $399 because they aren't spergy autists.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 00:37
|
|
|
As you go above 50" or so, most of those things are visible to most people even if they don't have names for them. What they do know is blacks are splotchy, there are jaggies in stuff, and the picture seems like it's stuttering every so often or tearing. Many of people still won't pay significantly more to avoid those problems, but they still do still see them and would avoid them if it was in budget. My point was that just because a TV shares the same panel doesn't mean it's anywhere near the same image quality. There's a reason why those TVs are cheaper, they represent a lot less R&D money and use cheaper components.
|
|
#
?
Jan 5, 2017 01:40
|
|
|
Call Me Charlie posted:If you thought ever thought 'oh boy, i'd like one of these fire tv things but i really wish it was built into some garbage tv' Amazon has you covered. oh man oh man oh man please make this do QAM and ill replace all my sticks with fire boxes
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2017 16:23
|
|
|
So we bought a 2016 model 6500 series 4K samsung smart tv Ahead of the purchase, went ahead and bought a 4k capable Amazon Fire TV (box not stick) We've been watching Westworld (Amazon HBO $15/mo app), Black Mirror (Netflix 4K video) etc using the Fire TV and I've noticed that the Fire TV has about a 1" black bar around the video image. Turned off auto-scaling and the black bar seems to have disappeared at least. But for some reason, the video coming out of the AFTV is nowhere as clear as if we watch Black Mirror (Netflix 4K video) using the smart tv app. Confirmed that the TV is displaying an image on HDMI 2 (where the Fire TV is plugged in to) at 3840 pixels × 2160 which is "true 4k". I'm also on some ridiculous 600mbps internet connection and using a highish end $160 google onhub router. Where is the weak link in the video quality coming out of the AFTV? I would assume that the AFTV is doing DRM stripping, then decoding the 4K signal and piping it over HDMI to the TV. I'd just use the smart tv app but we use the AFTV mostly for the music radio feature and it's on all the time, plus the AFTV is still way, way faster than the built in smart TV stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2017 23:22
|
|
|
Could it be lack of HDR? Fire TV doesn't have the hardware to support that yet.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2017 23:29
|
|
|
Anyone who has a rooted gen 1 on I think it's OS3 and suddenly has zero free space: You probably have to delete /data/data/com.amazon.tv.launcher/databases/mbcache.db Mine was like 4 or 5 gigs. Haven't noticed any side effects from deleting it. It'll probably just balloon up again. Seems like this is some new gently caress up with how the rooted old firmware interacts with the Amazon mothership. I've been meaning to update to the latest OS for months but reading XDA's Fire TV forum (where I found out about mbcache.db) with all the people loving up installing TWRP Recovery made me put it off.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2017 18:05
|
|
|
Any idea why I can't find the VLC for Fire app on my new Firestick when it's available for the old one?
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2017 01:45
|
|
|
CubanMissile posted:Any idea why I can't find the VLC for Fire app on my new Firestick when it's available for the old one? Probably the same kind of hardware profile nonsense that causes Google Play Store to deem certain apps "not available" for certain Android tablets. Sideload this for now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2017 04:04
|
|
|
Craptacular! posted:Probably the same kind of hardware profile nonsense that causes Google Play Store to deem certain apps "not available" for certain Android tablets. They probably forgot to check the box when they updated the app. That's what happened to ES File Explorer awhile back. You can always try contacting the developers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2017 04:11
|
|
|
Craptacular! posted:Probably the same kind of hardware profile nonsense that causes Google Play Store to deem certain apps "not available" for certain Android tablets. Cool, thanks.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2017 06:11
|
|
|
Is there any decent alternative to ES? I've tried sideloading Solid Explorer and Astro and they don't work right with the remote interface or lack networking features for some reason. Ever since ES sold to a Chinese outfit and promptly bloated up with system addons and popup messages at launch, I've gotten tired of their poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 22:55
|
|
|
Craptacular! posted:Is there any decent alternative to ES? I've tried sideloading Solid Explorer and Astro and they don't work right with the remote interface or lack networking features for some reason. I haven't tried it but there's another file manager in the app store called File Commander. Maybe that could work for you. http://www.aftvnews.com/file-commander-is-a-new-feature-rich-file-manager-for-the-amazon-fire-tv-and-fire-tv-stick/ I've heard alot of people mention Total Commander but it doesn't have networking features.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2017 23:51
|
|
|
AFTVNews posted an article titled 'What do you want to see changed or added to the Amazon Fire TV?' so that makes me think we could see new hardware very soon. He seems to have sources at Amazon and the last time he posted a random speculation article like 'Amazon needs to make a TV', Amazon announced it a few weeks later. And the new update seems to be rolling out to 1st gen hardware http://www.aftvnews.com/software-update-5-2-1-2-begins-rolling-out-to-1st-gen-fire-tvs-and-fire-tv-sticks/
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 02:45
|
|
|
What could they add to the Fire TV that would make it worth buying over the current generation?
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 03:24
|
|
|
HDR for one.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 03:25
|
|
|
bull3964 posted:HDR for one. This. I'm well invested into Amazon (3 tvs, 4 sticks) and having to use the built in app on my TV for HDR is kind of ridiculous. An HDHR app would be nice too, or at least a way to see OTA channels.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 03:51
|
|
|
Vykk.Draygo posted:What could they add to the Fire TV that would make it worth buying over the current generation? HDR support Upgraded processor More RAM (like 3 GB that the TVs are getting) More internal storage (like 16 GB that the TVs are getting) Those are the easy guesses we could see with gen 3. I also wouldn't be surprised at OTA support through a USB tuner since the new TVs are also getting support built into the OS. But if it's a USB tuner, they could easily add it to older models (unless it needs the microsd slot for something) Always listening Echo style mics on the box itself would be cool but I doubt they'll do it now. Even the new tvs have the mic on the remote. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jan 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 04:29
|
|
|
Building the Fire TV in to an Echo or Echo Dot seems pretty straightforward. 95% of what we use our Fire TV for is a radio. I don't know what you would use more ram or internal space, we have the HBO GO/NOW app installed, netflix, pandora, youtube and some local weather radar app that combined can't make up more than 200mb of space. "More hard drive space" is not something I ask for on a streaming media device typicaly.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 04:39
|
|
|
I would like them to add the volume controls to the remote like the one that is apparently coming with the televisions.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 04:40
|
|
|
Hadlock posted:Building the Fire TV in to an Echo or Echo Dot seems pretty straightforward. 95% of what we use our Fire TV for is a radio. I don't know what you would use more ram or internal space, we have the HBO GO/NOW app installed, netflix, pandora, youtube and some local weather radar app that combined can't make up more than 200mb of space. "More hard drive space" is not something I ask for on a streaming media device typicaly. More storage space would be more for the people who use theirs for casual gaming. 8 GB can fill up quick and there's a few big games that can't be moved to the SD card like GTA: SA and Star Wars: KOTOR Kodi can also balloon up if you don't manually move it to the SD card. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jan 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 05:12
|
|
|
I would like a USB port so I can have the option of adding external storage to the Firestick.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 08:38
|
|
|
CubanMissile posted:I would like a USB port so I can have the option of adding external storage to the Firestick. who needs an additonal usb port when you have this   http://www.aftvnews.com/amazon-fire-tv-stick-2-supports-usb-storage-keyboardsmice-and-ethernet-adapters-via-usb-otg-without-root/
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 09:43
|
|
|
Oh neat, I didn't know that could be done.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 10:01
|
|
|
Call Me Charlie posted:who needs an additonal usb port when you have this Could this be used as a car setup with no wifi and just storing videos for kodi on a usb stick?
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 17:16
|
|
|
We just got a FireTV Stick yesterday and so far it seems like only Amazon, Netflix, and maybe Hulu are actually watchable. DirecTV Now is a laggy, stuttery mess. Plex is the same. I keep seeing ads for people selling these things with Kodi on them, so I put that on and it's pretty much unwatchable either so far using the official Kodi apps like Food Network, Cooking Channel, or ESPN3. Do people actually successfully use DTVNow or Kodi with their Fire Sticks? Is there a setting I need to change to make this work? DTVNow especially irks me because it worked fine (most of the time) streaming through the Chromecast and AppleTV, and I have a hard time believing the Stick is that much worse. I mostly wanted a cheap device with a normal remote control to put in the guest bedroom since people don't seem to like using the Chromecast to browse content, but man this thing seems pretty mediocre once you get away from the couple of major streaming services.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 22:10
|
|
|
ESPN3 is pretty bad. Kodi is fine.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 23:02
|
|
|
PuTTY riot posted:Could this be used as a car setup with no wifi and just storing videos for kodi on a usb stick? Maybe? You'd need a program that could auto-open Kodi when the stick is booted on for it to really be usable in that situation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2017 23:18
|
|
|
PuTTY riot posted:ESPN3 is pretty bad. Kodi is fine. I didn't really expect too much from Kodi, but I hoped Plex would at least work alright. Even on my PS3 Plex can play things reasonably well, though the menus are absolutely awful to get through. But on the Fire Stick everything stops to buffer constantly unless I have the video set below 720p. I'm just curious if there's something obvious I might be missing since nearly every device I own can run DirecTV Now and Plex without much trouble, but the Fire Stick struggles with them both.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2017 01:46
|
|
|
If everything's buffering and sputtering, it sounds like some sort of issue with your wifi. A second gen fire tv stick shouldn't be having those type of issues with playback.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2017 02:23
|
|
|
Inspector 34 posted:I didn't really expect too much from Kodi, but I hoped Plex would at least work alright. Even on my PS3 Plex can play things reasonably well, though the menus are absolutely awful to get through. But on the Fire Stick everything stops to buffer constantly unless I have the video set below 720p. I'm just curious if there's something obvious I might be missing since nearly every device I own can run DirecTV Now and Plex without much trouble, but the Fire Stick struggles with them both. Is it something with your network? I set two up yesterday in my kids rooms and have been using DTV Now, Netflix, Plex with zero issues. DTV Now has been running for several hours non stop without issue on one of them. I had first gen sticks prior as well and both worked well despite being bit slow.
|
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2017 02:23
|
|
|
I'll check which router they're connected to. I assumed my gf set them up for the one within a foot of the stick, but she could have put them on the network on the other side of the house since the password is was easier to input. Glad to hear that this thing should be capable of doing the couple of things I want though, thanks guys. edit: Yep, it was connected to the barely there signal with the easy password instead of the excellent signal with the long random password. Working great now! Inspector 34 fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jan 26, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jan 25, 2017 02:35
|
|
|
Call Me Charlie posted:And the new update seems to be rolling out to 1st gen hardware http://www.aftvnews.com/software-update-5-2-1-2-begins-rolling-out-to-1st-gen-fire-tvs-and-fire-tv-sticks/ I got all excited this morning as my Gen 1 TV said it was updating. It's just 5.2.1.2 and that's only security patches and bug fixes. It sounds like I'm probably going to get the update way later this year if they're making a special version just for Gen 1 owners. The new OS must not like the old hardware.
|
|
#
?
Jan 26, 2017 17:57
|
|
|
There weren't always ads on the home screen, right? Or am I crazy?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 20:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 16, 2024 12:05 |
|
|
What kind of ads are you seeing?
|
|
#
?
Feb 3, 2017 21:34
|
|