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Amazon Fire TV

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Re: Amazon Fire TV

#201

Post by parasubvert »

Touche wrote: post #186
parasubvert wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um what? These restrictions are everywhere, just a little different across platforms. For example - All iTunes content is available on Mac, Windows & iOS devices, and all downloaded music is playable on all devices that support AAC. Apple doesn't offer a pure streaming service (AppleTV masquerades as one) so you're stuck with iOS, Windows, and Mac for purchased video content. - Google Play content can be streamed to…

You seem to be saying these restrictions are equivalent, but we're talking about video here, and iTunes is only available on Apple devices and Windows desktop (who wants to watch movies on a desktop computer anyways), whereas Amazon Instant is available on dozens of blu-ray players, smart TVs, set-top boxes, video game consoles that they do not control. Let's be clear here, iTunes is never coming to any non-Apple dev…

Apple is in the business of selling devices and having the most content available to encourage adoption (and doing a pretty good job of it). I don't give a toss that iTunes isn't available on a bunch of Smart TVs or BluRay players, I'm rarely going to buy another BluRay player or Smart TV, nor are most people, they're happy with the one they've currently got.

Amazon is in the content distribution business and playing catchup on having the devices to support it (because, for some reason, having their app on a smart TV and set top box doesn't seem to be enough).

This is a pretty good offering, but it's clear that, HuluPlus and Netflix aside, the big players [Google|Amazon|Apple] wants to have their own device ecosystem, and are fighting to differentiate theirs. For $99, these streaming devices are a disposable income purchase that gives you benefits in a particular ecosystem. Amazon has no particular advantage in this race yet, they're still coming from behind.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#202

Post by zequel »

laxatives wrote: post #192
ambler0 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lag is terrible with mirroring. Apple TV won't be viable for gaming until the game is played on the box itself and there is a low-latency controller.

Similarly, I've never understood the purpose of ChromeCast. The lag makes it completely unusable for video (I'm getting ~1 frame / 3 seconds), making it a glorified radio with cellphone/laptop remotes.

Odd, I've streamed Netflix to Chromecast and my laptop video to Chromecast just fine. It may be your wifi connection.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#203

Post by Dwolb »

Does Amazon see the future?

Content delivery platform for commercials/suggestions + shipping infrastructure to deliver products + drone delivery for last mile = Commercials with immediate product purchase ability.

Amazon can even broadcast a commercial in a geographic area, know the percentage of users who will immediately want the commercial's product, and pre-emptively unleash drones to a geographic location to drop off the product within seconds.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#204

Post by ChuckMcM »

I am kind of surprised the Roku manages to stay independent in all the 'tv' efforts. They have a really nice player and now a nice 'stick' player. Also a pretty easy to use SDK. So why re-build all or much of that for a proprietary box? Any thoughts on that strategy?

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#205

Post by adestefan »

WoodenChair wrote: post #45

I'm really not that impressed. This is just Apple TV for the Amazon eco-system with gaming lopped on. The majority of people don't care about the specs of their set-top box since that really doesn't affect the performance of streaming an HD video in this day and age. So the two differentiating features are: - Voice Search - Gaming Are those enough of a value proposition? Probably not to make converts. I suspect the m…

If this Amazon box ever gets MLB.TV I'll buy one that day to replace my AppleTV. I don't watch enough movies or non-sports TV to make Netflix worth it to me, but having ties into what Amazon Prime streaming would be enough to pull me over.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#206

Post by timdierks »

I have difficulty envisioning exactly how this market is going to develop. None of the products (AppleTV, Roku, Google, Amazon) are differentiated enough to imagine someone who's pretty happy with their box switching, particularly given various ways you'd get locked into particular features or media (e.g., if the average AppleTV user has bought a bunch of movies from iTunes, they're unlikely to switch to Amazon even if they like the games).

At the price point, you can imagine people owning more than one device to get access to different feature silos, but the huge duplication of features (e.g. every device having Netflix) makes this feel wasteful. Furthermore, I think people quickly run into a limitation on how many HDMI ports their TV has. If you're going to have a cable box and DVD/BluRay player connected, you need to have 3 ports to be able to connect one of these devices at all, and you can't plausibly have more than two. (I don't know how many HDMI ports TVs have in the market, but 2, 3, and 4 seems to cover the consumer space in a very small sampling of Amazon availability.)

If I were building one of these devices, I would include an HDMI switch with pass-through so I don't consume an HDMI port. In the absence of that, it's not clear at all to me what the shape of market adoption looks like.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#207

Post by saturdaysaint »

sosborn wrote: post #177
bratsche wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AppleTV let me watch Amazon Prime video it would be perfect. I use Amazon Prime and Hulu+ for TV, and right now the only device I have that lets me watch both is my PS3, and its UI sucks (plus it's constantly requiring me to download updates).

Constantly? http://us.playstation.com/support/systemupdates/ps3/history/

Compared to any other device I use, PS3 updates are unusually intrusive. Almost nothing seems to be done automatically, so I'll end up with 5 minutes of downloading update apps and system updates before I can do what I intended to do when I sat down. Oh, and the updates are often "required", meaning you're prevented from even running your out of date app. I'm hopeful that they fixed most of these issues for the PS4 (hard to believe there was no App Store or Play Store when the PS3 came out).

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#208

Post by chrisdroukas »

mmcclure wrote: post #77

I know this is a nitpick...I really do, but for some reason things like this in marketing copy really annoy me: "Remote with no line of sight required" - not checked for Chromecast. While kind of true since Chromecast doesn't have a dedicated remote, but the devices used to control it absolutely don't require line of site.

The same is (sorta) true of Apple TV. You can use an iOS device as a remote via WiFi.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#209

Post by parasubvert »

Touche wrote: post #191
parasubvert wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge, you cannot stream Amazon Instant Video content to an Android portable device that isn't sold by Amazon.

What's your point? I didn't say Amazon was available on every platform in existence, just that it's available on a large variety of platforms and is expanding. I wish it was on Android too, that would be ideal, but we're just comparing availability here. And Amazon's is pretty good.

You are claiming that Amazon is on a wide variety of platforms and that's a reason to choose their ecosystem over Apple which encourages the purchase of an Apple device.

I don't agree. Google and Amazon are trying to get into Apple's device ecosystem game as it's way more profitable and offers more control than inserting apps on devices, which seems a failed strategy. Microsoft has already taken this approach with Surface and Xbox. And they're actively putting blocks up to their biggest competitors, which all about locking-in consumers to their ecosystem.

The the market leader in the "generic video streaming app everywhere" space (Netflix) is crowding out all competitors in this space unless they have exclusive content (HBO Go, HuluPlus, etc.) Apple maintains its market in the face of Netflix because of its wider content selection and the wide availability and affordability ($99) of its devices.

Amazon will be able to compete well here (this FireTV looks like a good offering) but we haven't seen what this year's AppleTV has in store, so it's not a slam dunk.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#210

Post by aroch »

fixedd wrote: post #169
aroch wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are hundreds of devices out there capable of playing Amazon Video, they can't because Amazon either doesn't allow it (Android devices that aren't their branding) or charges a fee/device (ie. $1/Roku). They want Vendor lock in, not in the sense that your data isn't portable, but that you rely on only their services. They do this by slowly pushing you onto more of their specific hardware and bundling more service…

I've never been charged a fee for using Amazon Video on our Rokus. What are you referring to?

They aren't charging you (well, directly), they're charging the device manufacturer -- the $1/Roku amount is not the actual per-device royalty.
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