Or simply stick with a Raspberry Pi, which is free of arbitrary manufacturer-imposted restrictions and comfortably off of the locked-down-software induced upgrade treadmill.
My mother can't operate a Raspberry Pi.
Amazon Fire TV
211–220 of 400 posts
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#212To me it looks like the biggest comparison is Apple TV (and Roku which I'm less familiar with). It's just an incremental version of the Apple TV for the Amazon ecosystem and to me that's the biggest disappointment. I would have much preferred that they go in the direction of incremental improvement over the Chromecast which would make this industry much more exciting in my opinion.
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#213Do they try not to mention Youtube? Only in the comparison chart!
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
No, they do have the advantage of being available on a large number of platforms. This means I can buy a movie from Amazon and feel confident that in 2 years if I decide to buy a different TV, a different set-top box, a different video game console, a different tablet, I probably (but of course not guaranteed) can still watch that movie on it.
That's like, a real advantage.
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#215Earlier 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.
That is odd. On mine on a poor connection it works like youtube -- it pauses for buffering. But it plays smoothly when it's not paused for buffering...
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#216I love it, but I don't see that there is an app for non-kindle devices for managing or playing video for the Fire TV. The thing I like about chromecast is the ability to browse and play video from my ipad. But of course chromecast doesn't have amazon prime, so I have to switch to my roku to watch Walking Dead.
If Fire TV has an app to manage it for ipad or android, then it's pretty much the perfect device.
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
If my smartphone is the remote then no-one can use it when I'm not at home. So instead you have to set up every smartphone as a remote That's not how it works. Anyone connected to your Wifi, is "set up" to use the Chromecast and can stream from any number of apps like YouTube, Netflix, Google Play Music and Movies, Pandora, and now even Rdio and Vudu.
I know, I have a Chromecast. They still need to set up those apps on their phone. They need to log in to Netflix, Amazon Instant, etc. etc. even if they never watch content on their phone.
You log into those apps once when you install them on your device. How difficult is it to install an app one time?
Amazon Instant doesn't have an app that works with Chromecast that I'm aware of.
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#218Android Developers who want to jump into this opportunity: https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/asb.html & https://developer.amazon.com/public/community/blog/author/Mi...
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#219Android Developers who want to jump into this opportunity: https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/asb.html & https://developer.amazon.com/public/community/blog/author/Mi...
It would be interesting to know if the Fire TV is running on X86 or ARM processor. Anyone know?
Re: Amazon Fire TV
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
With screen mirroring, Apple TV offers the ability to play any game in the App Store on a TV wirelessly without having to buy a controller. That game library will likely always be larger than this one. Granted, you must have an iPhone or iPad, but I am surprised that Apple does not tout this feature more. I use it daily and it is pretty awesome.
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.
I haven't really had a problem with it.