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Amazon Fire TV

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Re: Amazon Fire TV

#281

Post by clarky07 »

Pxtl wrote: post #156
bitcrusher wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how different perspectives work: > The gaming aspect of this will make it a winner. OUYA's big problem is that it didn't do streaming and was a bit clunky. Amazon has a big game library and just needs controller support. I think the gaming aspects are the worst part and are entirely useless. Who wants to casual game with an underpowered box on a giant TV screen? Goofy games are fun on a 4-7" screen b…

> Who wants to casual game with an underpowered box on a giant TV screen? Over 100 million Nintendo Wii consoles were sold. Now, we can bicker about how many of those buyers were into casual games or not, but regardless: The market exists.

comparing Wii games to phone games is a bit of a stretch. They might be more casual than xbox and ps4, but they are far bigger and better than than phone games. Mario, zelda, candy crush, which one of these is not like the others.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#282

Post by benlm »

aresant wrote: post #20

I think this represents the first device to support Amazon streaming in 1080p - as far as I know Roku etc are still limited to 720p?

It's not actually clear whether Amazon Instant Video will stream at 1080p for any/all HD material, or if the device just supports 1080p for other services like Netflix. Does anyone know?

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#283

Post by yincrash »

Osiris wrote: post #249
mikeryan wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps they would have been better served by spending their time getting HBO-Go, Starz/Encore and Spotify all hooked into their little box Give it time. These are usually 3rd party apps not built by the provider of the platform (as a note, my company just finished building Starz/Encore/Movieplex Play for Xbox 360). The important thing is that Amazon provides an Ecosystem,it just needs some time for all the other off…

The SDK is a big deal. According to the page, existing Android code should just work. Some tweaking may be necessary to properly support the controller(s) and fitting to a 1080p screen. I'm looking forward to XBMC or other local streaming software coming to the platform. If that happens, this will literally be the ultimate set top box for me.

Yup. It's basically just a Jelly Bean 4.2 (API 17) fork. Should be able to run anything JB can.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#285

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #274
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple TV lets you watch all three (iTunes, Netflix, and Amazon Prime). Airplay is a thing.

So, the solution to the shortcomings of Apple devices is yet more Apple devices? Oh, ok.

Suspect many already have at least one Airplay capable device.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#286

Post by thatthatis »

swanson wrote: post #32

The side-by-side comparison with Roku/AppleTV actually looks pretty bad for Amazon Fire TV... Same price, the only differences are that the Fire TV has voice search (don't care), a bunch of technical specs that the layperson doesn't care about, and a bunch of games (don't care). It's missing the checkbox for HBO GO (deal breaker for me personally). I was expecting something like a monthly subscription for all-you-can…

And amazon customer service, which while not talked about often is truly top-notch.

For a person already invested in the amazon ecosystem, this doesn't have to be better than roku, it merely has to be about as good.

I own two rokus, but I also have amazon prime and my kid has a kindle fire. I will definitely consider this next time I need to upgrade (about once every 3-6 years judging by history)

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#287

Post by happyscrappy »

Osiris wrote: post #244
happyscrappy wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works fine for me, and if I remember correctly the people having a problem with lag had their ATV connected via RJ-45 and switching to wifi fixed it.

That sounds completely backwards to me. You should get significantly lower latency over a LAN connection than WiFi.

Sounded strange to me too, here is the discussion

https://discussions.apple.com/message/24987047#24987047

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#288

Post by AJ007 »

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.

Per other commenter, you are doing something wrong. My friend has had one since it was released. Works really well.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#289

Post by landhar »

itafroma wrote: post #130
landhar wrote: post #81

What I find most exciting is that this finally opens the doors for indie game developers to write games for the big screen. It is true that Steam was already doing that, but I think the audience of people with a PC plugged to a TV screen in the living room or that owns a Steam box is not as big as what the Fire TV owners might end up being

> this finally opens the doors for indie game developers to write games for the big screen Sony has had extensive and widely-used support for indie game development for the PlayStation platforms for quite some time.[1] Microsoft has has had so-so support for indie developers (choice between them essentially acting as your publisher or fending for yourself in the Xbox Live Indie Games wasteland), but they're trying to…

Everything you say is absolutely right.

What I meant to say however (and I apologize for the way I phrased it) is that this is makes it even easier for indie developers to reach a wide audience.

Not only do I expect that it will be fairly easy to port Android Tablet games to the Fire TV, I also think that the strategy of offering a TV box that has a Games marketplace as a bonus feature is a strategy that will allow Fire TVs to sell a lot more than Ouyas.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#290

Post by KRuchan »

bitcrusher wrote: post #111
programminggeek wrote: post #84

This is pretty much what Google TV should have been all along, but Google cares too much about web search and not enough about what people actually want to do on a TV - watch shows and play games. The gaming aspect of this will make it a winner. OUYA's big problem is that it didn't do streaming and was a bit clunky. Amazon has a big game library and just needs controller support. As a parent, a $100 streaming box and…

It's interesting how different perspectives work: > The gaming aspect of this will make it a winner. OUYA's big problem is that it didn't do streaming and was a bit clunky. Amazon has a big game library and just needs controller support. I think the gaming aspects are the worst part and are entirely useless. Who wants to casual game with an underpowered box on a giant TV screen? Goofy games are fun on a 4-7" screen b…

The box has a snapdragon 600 chip in it, so not exactly underpowered. They also seem to be addressing the 'immersive' segment more than 'Candy Crush' type of games - they mention Asphalt 8 will be supported soon and Amazon has been hiring/acqui-hiring AAA-title devs for broader support since a while now.
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