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Amazon Fire TV
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ovbg
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by wakey:
“ They are telling you a load of tosh. For starters Sky's announcement stated that both were exclusive to their streaming device platform. ”

Really, a lot of tosh.

I was talking to real people in high positions in those channels, with real names who I am absolutely more confident in them than a person who I have never met such as yourself who I have no idea what you do for a living.
Secondly, whatever you claim Sky said, if they really did tell you this it means nothing. Anyone can claim an exclusive, but that doesn't mean anything... it's just marketing. Apple the other day had a marketing event where everything they claimed was "revolutionary". Was there anything revolutionary?

No.2 If Sky really had an exclusivity, then why are All 4 also found on other devices such as television Smart hubs, the Xbox One, the Roku box etc, with ITV also on Roku and Smart hubs?

Oh... that's right, I remember you're the one with that big Sky conspiracy that claims because Sky has invested in Roku UK, then they somehow control Roku and other devices.

Funny enough Wakey, one of the good things about my job (being a tech journalist), I happen to have a few contacts in the industry and I asked Sky if there was any truth to this at all last week. And their response was No..."There is no truth in this rumour, Roku are able to have whatever they want on their own boxes as there is nothing in any agreement with Sky that prevents or hampers them from doing so."

But, I guess you will want to persist with this conspiracy theory of yours anyway... go ahead...



Originally Posted by wakey:
“And porting to the FireTV is pretty simple from even Android let alone when the apps have already been ported to FireOS as both apps are available on both the Fire Phone and all the Fire Tablets. It's a couple of lines code and potentially some graphic assets. It's a few hours work to make it FireTV compatible. It's not like it's porting an app from iOS to Roku.”

Ummm, no its not. It is always much more than just simple. Nothing in this industry is simple. Besides the fact there may be licensing agreements with the content distributers restricting to certain platforms, even if there is a basic few lines of code to change, companies have budgets and resources.

Now, I don't know where you work, but if you work in any large company you must surely see this for yourself.

These companies will create a development program, which will most likely follow a schedule and will not be easy to amend. What their programs are, I have no idea. But I imagine they must follow them strictly to make efficient use of their resources. This is called Project Management.

Some companies will interrupt these roll-out plans when an exciting new platform suddenly appears, but not all. Some companies are more flexible than others. This is the way it goes.
gother
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by wakey:
“They are telling you a load of tosh. For starters Sky's announcement stated that both were exclusive to their streaming device platform. And porting to the FireTV is pretty simple from even Android let alone when the apps have already been ported to FireOS as both apps are available on both the Fire Phone and all the Fire Tablets. It's a couple of lines code and potentially some graphic assets. It's a few hours work to make it FireTV compatible. It's not like it's porting an app from iOS to Roku. Also Amazon did provide both financial and technical help for services in each country they felt were vital and I'm pretty sure along with BBC IPlayer and Five on demand that ITV player and All4 would have been on that list of vital apps”

So how come both itv player and all4 are on my windows 10 pc as apps, my Samsung smart tv and my Youview box then?
wakey
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by Matt35:
“Looking at the Amazon Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD which comes out in October. What difference is there gonna be between watching shows through that or through the app on my smart tv?”

Is your TV 4K? If not I would definitely hold off until there are more details on the New AppleTV. And if it is 4K almost certainly hold off until we know if it will support more 4K content, if it's just Amazon and your TV does Amazon 4K internally then you gain nothing. HEVC is nice at reducing bandwidth requirements which should allow better 1080p and the current 1080p at lower internet speeds than currently but that really is the main selling point.

As a big fan of the first gen FireTV then the new one has left me underwhelmed for the following reasons

Removal of the optical Most streaming devices output audio as only DD+ or Stereo. This is fine if you have a new AV receiver but AV receivers aren't something you replace yearly so many people don't have one that supports DD+. Also those who have All In One systems even of their device supports DD+ it's usually only on the inbuilt apps, the input ports don't support it. What made the FireTV great is via optical you could get surround in standard Dolby with the box converting DD+ into PCM to go via the optical meaning older receivers and all in ones could get 5.1 surround from the box

Still only 8GB onboard storage As much as some Android fanboys will tell you removable storage isn't an adequate replacement for internal storage. The bus speed on USB or MicroSD in this case is much slower than internal. As such when you move apps onto removable storage you get a performance hit. Google don't even like removable storage either which is why their a nexus devices don't generally have microSD slots and why their apps don't allow you to move them to removable storage. Also the way Android which FireOS is a fork of works with external storage is it doesn't move the whole app onto it. On my FireTV gen 1 I have a 32GB USB plugged in. 47 of my 61 apps are on the USB and takes up just over 1GB of the space. My internal storage has 550MB left from the 5.7GB you have after the OS takes up some of the 8GB so as you can see even with removable storage being used the lack of internal space becomes a limiting factor. It needed a boost to atleast 16GB of not the to the 32GB and 64GB that the AppleTV comes in

The MicroSD it's bad enough that it takes the optical's place on the box but with its addition the USB port can no longer be used for storage, it's accessory only. The reason this is bad is MicroSD even with the fastest standard has a slower bus speed than USB2 so the performance issue is even worse.

4K 4K sounds great but the device has a HDMI 1.4 port where as true 4K needs HDMI 2.0 otherwise there isn't enough bandwidth for it to reach its full,potential. This is why it's limited to 30fps in 4K. You also aren't going to get things like HDR for the same reason. The proccesor boost should be enough for full 4K if it hard the rest of the hardware to support it. Personally I have doubt that in 12-18months if Amazon are even still providing content in this 'crippled' 4K format so the 4K feature may become worthless (admittedly it's going to be the same for pretty much everyone who has a 4K tv right now as their TV's most likely have the same kind of limitation)

Voice while the first gen voice was a bit gimmicky, especially in the UK where it doesn't even work with anything but Amazon services (In the US it does search Hulu, Crackle, Vevo and a couple of other services with Netflix saying it is working on it) but the Echo has actually shown that Voice control is more than a gimmick. So putting Echos Alexa onto the FireTV seems a great addition but rather than taking it up a level they have put a crippled version on it. If you look at some of the thinks Siri can do on the New AppleTV they have really stepped Siri that's on phones/tablets up a few levels. When you can say to your TV 'What was that?' when you don't pick up what was said and it will rewind 15 seconds and turn on subtitles for that period so you can pick up what was being said it's a major feature.



It just seems to me that while the first gen looked at the situation in the market and looked to blow the rest out of the window that with this one they are making the mistakes Apple made with the AppleTV3 and that's thinking they had won the battle and so released a safe update that didn't really improve the device. I was in the market for a second FireTV but with Apples announcement and then this underwhelming release I'm now considering the AppleTV instead as the second device. It also has some issues (it's landing optical for example also) plus it's more expensive and those factors will make me wait until we see hands on reviews but Amazon really could have made it a simple choice with a more inspired release here
Matt35
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by wakey:
“Is your TV 4K? If not I would definitely hold off until there are more details on the New AppleTV. And if it is 4K almost certainly hold off until we know if it will support more 4K content, if it's just Amazon and your TV does Amazon 4K internally then you gain nothing. HEVC is nice at reducing bandwidth requirements which should allow better 1080p and the current 1080p at lower internet speeds than currently but that really is the main selling point.

As a big fan of the first gen FireTV then the new one has left me underwhelmed for the following reasons

Removal of the optical Most streaming devices output audio as only DD+ or Stereo. This is fine if you have a new AV receiver but AV receivers aren't something you replace yearly so many people don't have one that supports DD+. Also those who have All In One systems even of their device supports DD+ it's usually only on the inbuilt apps, the input ports don't support it. What made the FireTV great is via optical you could get surround in standard Dolby with the box converting DD+ into PCM to go via the optical meaning older receivers and all in ones could get 5.1 surround from the box

Still only 8GB onboard storage As much as some Android fanboys will tell you removable storage isn't an adequate replacement for internal storage. The bus speed on USB or MicroSD in this case is much slower than internal. As such when you move apps onto removable storage you get a performance hit. Google don't even like removable storage either which is why their a nexus devices don't generally have microSD slots and why their apps don't allow you to move them to removable storage. Also the way Android which FireOS is a fork of works with external storage is it doesn't move the whole app onto it. On my FireTV gen 1 I have a 32GB USB plugged in. 47 of my 61 apps are on the USB and takes up just over 1GB of the space. My internal storage has 550MB left from the 5.7GB you have after the OS takes up some of the 8GB so as you can see even with removable storage being used the lack of internal space becomes a limiting factor. It needed a boost to atleast 16GB of not the to the 32GB and 64GB that the AppleTV comes in

The MicroSD it's bad enough that it takes the optical's place on the box but with its addition the USB port can no longer be used for storage, it's accessory only. The reason this is bad is MicroSD even with the fastest standard has a slower bus speed than USB2 so the performance issue is even worse.

4K 4K sounds great but the device has a HDMI 1.4 port where as true 4K needs HDMI 2.0 otherwise there isn't enough bandwidth for it to reach its full,potential. This is why it's limited to 30fps in 4K. You also aren't going to get things like HDR for the same reason. The proccesor boost should be enough for full 4K if it hard the rest of the hardware to support it. Personally I have doubt that in 12-18months if Amazon are even still providing content in this 'crippled' 4K format so the 4K feature may become worthless (admittedly it's going to be the same for pretty much everyone who has a 4K tv right now as their TV's most likely have the same kind of limitation)

Voice while the first gen voice was a bit gimmicky, especially in the UK where it doesn't even work with anything but Amazon services (In the US it does search Hulu, Crackle, Vevo and a couple of other services with Netflix saying it is working on it) but the Echo has actually shown that Voice control is more than a gimmick. So putting Echos Alexa onto the FireTV seems a great addition but rather than taking it up a level they have put a crippled version on it. If you look at some of the thinks Siri can do on the New AppleTV they have really stepped Siri that's on phones/tablets up a few levels. When you can say to your TV 'What was that?' when you don't pick up what was said and it will rewind 15 seconds and turn on subtitles for that period so you can pick up what was being said it's a major feature.



It just seems to me that while the first gen looked at the situation in the market and looked to blow the rest out of the window that with this one they are making the mistakes Apple made with the AppleTV3 and that's thinking they had won the battle and so released a safe update that didn't really improve the device. I was in the market for a second FireTV but with Apples announcement and then this underwhelming release I'm now considering the AppleTV instead as the second device. It also has some issues (it's landing optical for example also) plus it's more expensive and those factors will make me wait until we see hands on reviews but Amazon really could have made it a simple choice with a more inspired release here”

No TV isn't 4k. Doubt I'll be getting one for a few years.
muppetman11
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by wakey:
“They are telling you a load of tosh. For starters Sky's announcement stated that both were exclusive to their streaming device platform. And porting to the FireTV is pretty simple from even Android let alone when the apps have already been ported to FireOS as both apps are available on both the Fire Phone and all the Fire Tablets. It's a couple of lines code and potentially some graphic assets. It's a few hours work to make it FireTV compatible. It's not like it's porting an app from iOS to Roku. Also Amazon did provide both financial and technical help for services in each country they felt were vital and I'm pretty sure along with BBC IPlayer and Five on demand that ITV player and All4 would have been on that list of vital apps”

Can't seem to find mention of exclusivity

https://corporate.sky.com/media-cent...the_now_tv_box
mossy2103
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by wakey:
“Removal of the optical Most streaming devices output audio as only DD+ or Stereo. This is fine if you have a new AV receiver but AV receivers aren't something you replace yearly so many people don't have one that supports DD+. Also those who have All In One systems even of their device supports DD+ it's usually only on the inbuilt apps, the input ports don't support it. What made the FireTV great is via optical you could get surround in standard Dolby with the box converting DD+ into PCM to go via the optical meaning older receivers and all in ones could get 5.1 surround from the box”

Very disappointing, a backward step.

The optical out was the only thing that would make me ditch the Chromecast. Amazon have shot themselves in the foot.
wakey
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by ovbg:
“Really, a lot of tosh.

I was talking to real people in high positions in those channels, with real names who I am absolutely more confident in them than a person who I have never met such as yourself who I have no idea what you do for a living.”

And do people really tell journalists the truth all the time? I work in software development which has included working on such apps and if I said anything to a journalist that confirmed anything that my employers hadn't officially announced I would be in trouble. Also as you should know people in a company don't always know everything. If you talked to the head of the department responsible for licencing to platforms then fine they should know (if they tell you as a journalist is another matter)

Quote:
“Secondly, whatever you claim Sky said, if they really did tell you this it means nothing. Anyone can claim an exclusive, but that doesn't mean anything... it's just marketing. Apple the other day had a marketing event where everything they claimed was "revolutionary". Was there anything revolutionary?”

Why would ITV and C4 choose to develop on a platform that at that point was using an antiquated and difficult platform to develop on (It's better now with its HTML5 implementation but HTML5 apps are painfully slow on any device below a Roku3 which includes the original NowTV box. They are also a bit sluggish on the stick too) and which in the UK had a very tiny footprint (take out the NowTV boxes and it's still a niche platform in the UK unlike in the US) ahead of AppleTV which despite its closed Eco system on the older ones was open to adding core services?

Unless you are being paid by the platform you are on then it makes more sense to develop for the platforms with the biggest user base rather than develop for niche platforms because in that situation your income comes from the ads so the more ads the more income.

And it was Sky's own press release with quotes from both ITV and C4

As for Apples 'revolutionary' claims. Most of it wasn't but their Siri implementation seems to largely be if it works as well as the demo and basic hands on those in attendance got with it. It seems to be about as close to that Star Trek situation as anyone has got yet with Voice control. Ofc in real use it may end up still being at the gimmick level but we will have to see

Quote:
“No.2 If Sky really had an exclusivity, then why are All 4 also found on other devices such as television Smart hubs, the Xbox One, the Roku box etc, with ITV also on Roku and Smart hubs?”

Roku and NowTV are the same platform for starters. And the other devices you have mentioned aren't the same device types. They are doing what is hard to be critical of them from a business POV as its the most profitable way for these kinds of companies by selling exclsuivity to the highest bidder inside very specific criteria which allows them to sell exclusivity by specific device types. So for example Samsung have an exclusive on itv Player on TV and DVD something which ITV themselves announced (although supposedly that deals coming to an end with Sony supposedly taking it up for next years TV's). When the companies themselves officially announced exclusive deals it says a lot about their strategy.

Quote:
“Oh... that's right, I remember you're the one with that big Sky conspiracy that claims because Sky has invested in Roku UK, then they somehow control Roku and other devices.

Funny enough Wakey, one of the good things about my job (being a tech journalist), I happen to have a few contacts in the industry and I asked Sky if there was any truth to this at all last week. And their response was No..."There is no truth in this rumour, Roku are able to have whatever they want on their own boxes as there is nothing in any agreement with Sky that prevents or hampers them from doing so."

But, I guess you will want to persist with this conspiracy theory of yours anyway... go ahead...”

And you want to persist in a rumour that Amazon decided to throw out 8 months of app development and testing a month before it launched because of a device that almost certainly wasn't even in development at that point and wouldn't hit the shelves for almost 2 years. A device that they make basically no money on as they are a service company.

Also they decided to not revive it and rebrand it when they became Amazon Prime Video or just port the US one they already had despite the FireTV still being well off in the future.

Again Amazon are a service company, it would be like Sky not putting NowTV on as many devices as possible to sell more of their subsidised even if it means missing out on on going subs from a number of potential customers.

The lack of NowTV on any Amazon device also suggest a tit for tat situation because NowTV have been launching on as many platforms as they can


Quote:
“Ummm, no its not. It is always much more than just simple. Nothing in this industry is simple. Besides the fact there may be licensing agreements with the content distributers restricting to certain platforms, even if there is a basic few lines of code to change, companies have budgets and resources.

Now, I don't know where you work, but if you work in any large company you must surely see this for yourself.

These companies will create a development program, which will most likely follow a schedule and will not be easy to amend. What their programs are, I have no idea. But I imagine they must follow them strictly to make efficient use of their resources. This is called Project Management.

Some companies will interrupt these roll-out plans when an exciting new platform suddenly appears, but not all. Some companies are more flexible than others. This is the way it goes.”

Content deals aren't as restrictive as being by device rather by device type. If they are able to launch on one streaming box they can on them all. If this was the only streaming box then you might have a point on that as Amazon's tablet and mobile app sell has some content that isn't available but is on the website and FireTV.

And trust me development teams aren't that inflexible especially when it's fairly simple changes and when platforms see them as core services to have included so are willing to provide help to get them on board especially when both companies have a FireOS teams already to maintain their apps. Especially when it's now a year since FireTV launched and which is more than enough time
ovbg
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by wakey:
“And do people ..... Blah blah blah”

Hmmm, so it is all up to your groundless theory with so many holes it could be a block of Swiss Cheese, or a person from Sky who I respect that told me essentially you are talking bollocks.

I know which side I will believe.

If you really are going to go on about your conspiracy theory Wakey, at least come up with some evidence. I don't care if I am right or wrong. All I care about is the truth. If you come up with evidence, I'll take it back to my contact and ask again. Until then...
wakey
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by ovbg:
“Hmmm, so it is all up to your groundless theory with so many holes it could be a block of Swiss Cheese, or a person from Sky who I respect that told me essentially you are talking bollocks.

I know which side I will believe.

If you really are going to go on about your conspiracy theory Wakey, at least come up with some evidence. I don't care if I am right or wrong. All I care about is the truth. If you come up with evidence, I'll take it back to my contact and ask again. Until then...”

If my argument is full of holes then go ahead and highlight where the holes are in the logic

And the simple fact is it's not a conspiracy because I know what I'm saying is true because I know someone who was on the Lovefilm development team and moved over to the Amazon team and they were denied entry to the Roku App Store. To be added they would have had to go through the unofficial channel feature. However I can't prove that (just as you can't actually prove your Sky comment) so there is little point bringing that up, rather I focuses on the logical elements that show there is interference going on.

And you do realise your quote also doesn't actually disprove anything, they said there is no agreement but it's a little naive if you don't think shareholders interest doen't Impact companies business decisions without formal agreements.
ovbg
18-09-2015
Originally Posted by wakey:
“If my argument is full of holes then go ahead and highlight where the holes are in the logic.”

It is not my job to disprove a conspiracy theory wakey, it is the job of the person who makes a claim to prove their claim.

You made a claim about Sky and you are the one who has to prove it.

It is always the claim maker, otherwise it is completely pointless.

Case in hand. If I claim that there are 8 legged aliens living on Pluto right now, whose has to come up with evidence? Me who makes the claim, or everyone else to actually prove without doubt there are no 8 legged aliens living on Pluto.

You made the claim, show the evidence.

And your latest claim should have been brought up right at the beginning if it was true. But you never stated that until after I made contact with Sky a few days ago to ask them. Since you had no other evidence, your claim of a friend in Lovefilm/Amazon would have been no different to anything else you had said. So why not say it in the beginning?
Maccadanny
19-09-2015
Yet another thread being ruined by petty arguments between posters
I don't want to wade through paragraphs of tosh, can't we just stick to what this thread is supposed to be about.
maninthemask
19-09-2015
I agree with you maccaddany, what a couple of idiots !!
hellesbelles
20-09-2015
My Fire tv is not loading at present, been in contact with Amazon and their servers are down, they have given 24 hours for them to be fixed.
1manonthebog
20-09-2015
Curious, how many actually use their Fire TV/Stick for Amazon content? I've never watched any Amazon content on it.
ovbg
20-09-2015
Originally Posted by 1manonthebog:
“Curious, how many actually use their Fire TV/Stick for Amazon content? I've never watched any Amazon content on it.”

I use it for Amazon Prime, but I have to admit I use Netflix a lot more.

Interestingly, is it just me or is the FFW & REW really horrible on Prime content with the AFTV Stick or box?
Jay-Cee
21-09-2015
so how many of you fire tv lovers have ordered the new 4k tv? waiting on info on apple tv, considering the fire tv
SkipTracer
21-09-2015
Originally Posted by Jay-Cee:
“so how many of you fire tv lovers have ordered the new 4k tv? waiting on info on apple tv, considering the fire tv”

I might buy one when I get a 4K HDR panel that cost less than a thousand pound.

I think it’s going to be along long time.
gother
21-09-2015
Originally Posted by 1manonthebog:
“Curious, how many actually use their Fire TV/Stick for Amazon content? I've never watched any Amazon content on it.”

I'll dip into Amazon instant video every now and again but with smart dns it is very rare i do.
drabble
21-09-2015
Anyone else having issues with their Fire TV box and HDMI-CEC?

My issue is that after the Fire TV box is connected after a while then my TV will lose all CEC functions so that my Sky+HD, Fire TV box and consoles will no longer turn on the TV and they are no longer listed on the TV as HDMI control devices.

If I unplug the Fire TV box all goes back to normal. I have done the usual resets, changing cables and ports.

Also have a Fire TV stick which does not exhibit the same behaviour.

Starting to think I will have to RMA the Fire TV box.

TV is a Sony KDL-32EX503 firmware version PKG4.131EUL-0108 and the current Fire TV box firmware 51.1.6.3_user_516012020.

Thanks.
ovbg
23-09-2015
Newsflash: ITV Player is coming to the Amazon Fire TV!

Well, in a new guise anyway. ITV's slow down on launching onto new platforms was because they have been rebuilding their IPTV service from the ground up. It will be called ITV Hub and will replace ITV Player and ITV.com.

The next platform they will support will be the Amazon Fire TV and Stick, and it will be launched sometime later this year. Link
Philip Wales
23-09-2015
Thats handy.
To answer the above question, I use mine mainly for NF, but occasionally will watch something on Prime, it's just that I find the Prime interface a bit of a pain. Lately I have been using iPlayer a lot, since my sky box decided not to record any programmes.

I won't be buying the 4k box as if reports are correct and they've dropped optical out, it will be no good to me. I still use my Yamaha amp from me first DVD days about 15 years ago or so, and it's still going great (touch wood) so see no need to change it.
Nailz
23-09-2015
Originally Posted by 1manonthebog:
“Curious, how many actually use their Fire TV/Stick for Amazon content? I've never watched any Amazon content on it.”

I've used it for quite a lot of things. 1 or 2 Prime movies a week and then I have some TV shows to work my way through - Hand Of God, The Americans, Ray Donovan and The Tudors are on my watchlist.
I've been streaming Prime Music as well seeing as it's included.

Will probably use it even more when I cancel Netflix in a month or 2.
ovbg
01-10-2015
Well, it is finally here. ITV Player has landed on the Amazon Fire TV Box. (with the stick to be supported in a couple of weeks).

It is the older version of the app (not the new one seen on the Roku boxes) which means no live streams, but this will not doubt arrive when the new ITV Hub rolls out in a couple of months.

So, all that is left is All 4 and UKTV Play!
Jay-Cee
02-10-2015
if you want american apps like nbcsn, is it easy to get? can you change store location? or you need an american amazon account?
ovbg
02-10-2015
Originally Posted by Jay-Cee:
“if you want american apps like nbcsn, is it easy to get? can you change store location? or you need an american amazon account?”

It's very easy, but a little fiddly. You only need your normal Amazon account, but you have to temporarily "shift" it to the US, install your apps, then return it back to the UK.

Your American apps will live side-by-side with your UK ones, but you will need a Smart DNS service to use unblock them. Don't bother with a VPN, as that is way harder since you will have to switch the VPN off to use your UK apps.

There is a full guide here, and take extra care if you have a Kindle active.
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