Amazon FireTV Stick announced

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by wizwor

The AC routers have a lot of other improvements. We went from two WLANS to one when we upgraded. Virtually unlimited WiFi connections. No dead spots in the house. I usually lag on technology, but these routers are very good. Here is the one I have...

NETGEAR AC1750 Dual Band WiFi Gigabit Router R6300

That is the exact one we wanted. It was not in stock so we got a Belkin AC 1750. We have seen a big improvement. Although my son said the Xbox connection was slow.

What is AC gear?

[piper28]

Cheaper to buy a refurb netgear AC1450 and hack it to be a 1750. Been thinking of doing that myself since my current router has started showing signs of instability.

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by booklover6

That is the exact one we wanted. It was not in stock so we got a Belkin AC 1750. We have seen a big improvement. Although my son said the Xbox connection was slow.

What is AC gear?

802.11ac is the most current wifi standard. Cisco has a white paper on AC here...

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/product...11-713103.html

Some say older devices do not benefit from an upgrade and credit a placebo effect for perceptions to the contrary. I disagree. Exactly how much things improve will depend on what you are upgrading from, but expect improvement.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by booklover6

What is AC gear?

802.11ac is the next generation of wifi, after 802.11n.

Both the device and the access point (router) need to have ac wireless hardware to get all ac's benefits.

If your laptop or phone only has an n wireless card, it will connect to your ac router in n mode, not ac.

Wizwor is saying the ac router will give you benefits even when using it with n devices, but I'm skeptical.

I don't doubt he's getting better performance with his new router (and I'm considering trying it myself) but I'm skeptical about whether the benefit is because it's an ac router, or just because it's a good router. Good components, good engineering, good antennas, etc.
I suspect some other ac router with similar specs might not be as good.
Heaven knows I've had good and bad g routers and good and bad n routers.

Wizwor, what do you think is the inherent benefit of ac router with an n client?

ApK

[twowheels]

I think I've concluded that my problems are defective stick. I have a NETGEAR WNDR4500, which seems to be a fairly good router for all of my other devices, so I doubt it's a bad router.

I finally tried relocating the stick to the computer monitor that's connected to the desktop right next to the router. The stick was hanging off of the back of the monitor about 50 cm away from the router and still reporting 1 bar reception and taking forever to buffer a song. I gave it a very light tap and the signal strength jumped up to full strength and the song started immediately.

I've put in an e-mail support request, so we'll see what Amazon says tomorrow.

Interestingly my monitor apparently doesn't support DRM as the stick plays the audio for videos while connected to the monitor, but the screen is blue and says something about HDCP content unauthorized.

[HarryT]

What's the difference between the "Fire TV Stick" and the following "Fire TV" that's sold in the UK?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KQEJBS...kindle_fire_tv

[wizwor]

I think you are exactly right. I think these are better routers -- better antennas, better radios, better firmware, faster processor, more memory, better usb support. People moving from G (me) to AC will see more benefit than those moving from N, but, if you read the cisco paper, there are benefits to using the new AC hardware with legacy equipment including collision avoidance (which is much more important when you are continuously streaming to a lot of clients).

My experience is anecdotal. I skipped N because the AC routers were getting good reviews and were not much more expensive (in dollars not percentage). I enjoyed immediate relief from my wireless problems and things will only get better as new clients become available (iphone 6 and samsung s5 are both 802.11ac).

Originally Posted by ApK

Wizwor is saying the ac router will give you benefits even when using it with n devices, but I'm skeptical.

I don't doubt he's getting better performance with his new router (and I'm considering trying it myself) but I'm skeptical about whether the benefit is because it's an ac router, or just because it's a good router. Good components, good engineering, good antennas, etc.
I suspect some other ac router with similar specs might not be as good.
Heaven knows I've had good and bad g routers and good and bad n routers.

Wizwor, what do you think is the inherent benefit of ac router with an n client?

ApK

[Blossom]

All this talk of fancy routers. I have a $40 cheapo router. I can run Netflix on the TV, Stream music on my Tablet and we both can use our laptops at the same time with no buffering or slow downs. If the Fire Stick can't handle that then it's defective.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What's the difference between the "Fire TV Stick" and the following "Fire TV" that's sold in the UK?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KQEJBS...kindle_fire_tv

All these sticks are small dongles designed to plug directly into a HDMI port. Roku and Amazon have both box and stick form factor devices. Apple TV is only a box, Chromecast is only a stick. Ostensibly, the sticks would be cheaper and simpler, less powerful versions, but the gap is closing. One example of differences is that sticks are only HDMI and only WiFi for connectivity and remote control. Boxes often have other connection types, IR remotes, etc.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ApK

All these sticks are small dongles designed to plug directly into a HDMI port. Roku and Amazon have both box and stick form factor devices. Apple TV is only a box, Chromecast is only a stick. Ostensibly, the sticks would be cheaper and simpler, less powerful versions, but the gap is closing. One example of differences is that sticks are only HDMI and only WiFi for connectivity and remote control. Boxes often have other connection types, IR remotes, etc.

Thanks. So the same basic functionality, but the box might do a little more, right? We only seem to have the box available at the moment in the UK, not the stick.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks. So the same basic functionality, but the box might do a little more, right? We only seem to have the box available at the moment in the UK, not the stick.

The Fire TV box also has a better CPU and will play games that the stick can't handle.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The Fire TV box also has a better CPU and will play games that the stick can't play.

Thanks, Monkey.

I've had for years a Western Digital "Live TV" media streamer than I use to watch video, listen to music, look at photographs, etc. It's something I use every day, and I regard it as one of the most useful gadgets I've ever bought. Sounds as in the "Fire TV" box is a better version of that, with the added ability to stream Prime Video.

Presumably I can plug an external USB drive into a Fire TV box, as I can with my WD box?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, Monkey.

I've had for years a Western Digital "Live TV" media streamer than I use to watch video, listen to music, look at photographs, etc. It's something I use every day, and I regard it as one of the most useful gadgets I've ever bought. Sounds as in the "Fire TV" box is a better version of that, with the added ability to stream Prime Video.

The older WD boxes are considered by some to be the holy grails of LOCAL media streaming. They can stream DVD images, complete with menus, and handle formats and local file structures that more recent INTERNET optimized streaming devices can't match.

So if you have a huge in-home library of ripped DVDs and exotic media files, then your WD is likely far better.

If you watch mostly Amazon or Netflix or and the like, (and especially if you like Amazon's ecosystem for music and games and such) then the Fire TV is probably better.

The two can live side by side, by the way.

ApK

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, Monkey.

I've had for years a Western Digital "Live TV" media streamer than I use to watch video, listen to music, look at photographs, etc. It's something I use every day, and I regard it as one of the most useful gadgets I've ever bought. Sounds as in the "Fire TV" box is a better version of that, with the added ability to stream Prime Video.

Presumably I can plug an external USB drive into a Fire TV box, as I can with my WD box?

No, the WD Live TV is by far the better media player for local media.
I have one and nothing else from a reliable vendor comes close to its range of format support especially ISOs. It supports USB hubs so I can hook up six or seven hard drives to it. I've only hooked up 4 but it looks like it might go a dozen or more. It also exports those drives as SMB mounts so it can serve as a NAS hub. My Logitech remote calls it a Media Center rather than an STB.
The last update with the new GUI kicked it up a notch with a customizable front end.
I love that thing.

The FireTV box beats the WDTV in commercial streaming services supported, mostly because the wd box won't do the Amazon sites. (Yet.) Both pale before Roku though.

Where the FireTV box really shines is in casual gaming support and hackability because it runs Android and folks have already figured out how to sideload apps and run stuff it isn't supposed to be able to run.

Check here:

http://www.aftvnews.com/

The stick is a lower spec version but with similar capabilities. At the $19-25 prices it hits on sale it is a very useful tool but it has its limits.

[HarryT]

Thanks for the advice, chaps. Much appreciated.

Sounds as if my WD box isn't obsolete yet!