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Amazon Fire TV

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Re: Amazon Fire TV

#361

Post by nickonline »

lukifer wrote: post #319
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…

> This is just Apple TV for the Amazon eco-system with gaming lopped on. I hate the word "just". The iPad is "just" a big iPod Touch. The new feature the client wants is "just" a simple checkbox. Etc. Not only does that single word abstract away hundreds of person-years of work; it ignores the fact that products often gain market traction despite being "just" $existingThing + $minorChange, whether by reaching a tippi…

I understand your gripe you just made with the word "just" and I'm not the OP.

I had a friend excitedly text me about this today so I looked it up. On the device's page [1] there is a 'compare to xyz' box they literally place 3 other devices that have existed for a while now and looking through this, it appears to me to be "just" amazon's attempt to get into this space without providing a lot of additional value.

Looking at the list they provide there each of the devices provide all the functionality I personally would ever want in a streaming hardware solution. They have "just" provided Apple TV for Amazon, they have not extended the paradigm as far as I can see.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-CL1130-Fire-TV/dp/B00CX5P8FC

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#362

Post by vlish »

lukifer wrote: post #319
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…

> This is just Apple TV for the Amazon eco-system with gaming lopped on. I hate the word "just". The iPad is "just" a big iPod Touch. The new feature the client wants is "just" a simple checkbox. Etc. Not only does that single word abstract away hundreds of person-years of work; it ignores the fact that products often gain market traction despite being "just" $existingThing + $minorChange, whether by reaching a tippi…

I misread it as '$extingThing'. Twice. What's wrong with me, doctor?

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#363

Post by Crito »

Crito wrote: post #351
nkozyra wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the critique confusing, too, because I streamed a 1080p movie to my Chromecast by dragging it into Chrome and then casting from Chrome itself. No problems. It played fine.

Is Chrome actually decoding the file then reencoding it / pushing raw video frames, or is it just streaming the file to the Chromecast? I suspect the later. Maybe I'll try that myself later.

Tried it myself. Chrome plays the video fine itself. Trying to cast that tab to Chromecast has the CPU usage on the casting computer spike way up. This is not a network bandwidth issue.

Incidentally I've just discovered that my Roku can have local videos streamed to it from my S3. It works flawlessly.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#364

Post by rednukleus »

guiambros wrote: post #360
esrauch wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they are now selling a razor that "works best" with their own blades.

Don't get confused: Amazon will always sell you both razors and blades. They're not in the business of winning one specific category: they want to win everything . That's why you can use the Kindle app on your iOS, or Android, or web browser. Or Amazon Prime on PS3/4, Xbox One/360, Roku, iOS. They don't have to kill the iPad; they just have to win every book reader.

Except Amazon Prime still doesn't work on Android, other than the Fire. Kindle is truly cross platform, but Prime streaming video is not.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#366

Post by fpgeek »

yincrash wrote: post #283
Osiris wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So Amazon's fork gets to Jelly Bean before official Google TV (still on Honeycomb) does? Ouch.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#367

Post by fpgeek »

laxatives wrote: post #291
eclipxe wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people confuse the ChromeCast tab/screen mirroring (which is slow and laggy) and ChromeCast DIAL/casting from apps like Netflix which actually just sends a URL to the Chromecast to stream

Okay, that's great. But I don't use Netflix at all. I'd like to watch something from VLC, but apparently the plug in that enabled that was killed. Google's so simple its stupid makes it impossible for me to find out how the thing actually works and why I can't try to configure it to work any better.

AllCast (one of the more notable apps that supports streaming from local apps like VLC) got its Chromecast support back once the official SDK (finally) came out:

http://phandroid.com/2014/02/04/allcast-chromecast-update/

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#368

Post by 72deluxe »

Touche wrote: post #112
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…

> I suspect the main buyers will be those who simply have bought into Amazon Instant Video as opposed to iTunes in the past. But that includes anyone with Amazon Prime. > Let's see what Apple's next revision of Apple TV offers. Is Apple's next revision of Apple TV going to let me watch iTunes content from non-Apple devices? You're glossing over this as insignificant when, for lots of us, it's a deal-breaker.

If this is just going to be offering Prime videos, they really need to improve the quality of films they offer as else nobody will hang around. They offer ancient sci-fi films from the 1950s and also incessant horror films, neither of which I have an interest in watching.

All the films you'd want to watch have to be paid for now. Pretty glad I stuck with my Lovefilm disc renting option - far better choice, despite the fuel burn used by Royal Mail to get it to me.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#369

Post by eloisant »

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…

There are some big, immersive games on Android. Granted, they're very few now, simply because playing them on a touch screen is not great and playing with a controller on a phone is clunky.

But if the Fire TV gets enough traction there could be more "real" games on Android.

Re: Amazon Fire TV

#370

Post by lisnake »

stevenp wrote: post #85

For me, AirPlay is the killer Apple TV feature. Any time a new app comes out for iOS that supports streaming video, I know I'm going to be able to play it on my television. The local content provider apps on the device don't really matter that much to me. I can even stream Amazon Prime video to my Apple TV, so I'm having a hard time seeing why I would want this instead of waiting for the next generation Apple TV.

XBMC have builtin AirPlay receiving capability. And you can install XBMC on pretty much any ARM/x86 based device
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