Amazon Press Event - 02 Apr

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Early reviews say the voice search commands only work with Amazon's video not with Netflix or Hulu.

Universal Voice search currently works with Amazon and Hulu, I believe (according to the review Jessica linked to in her post). They claim to be working to integrate other services into it, which requires cooperation on the part of those services of course, so who knows when that might be. Point being: I don't think "only works with Amazon content" is a permanent condition by any means. I'm sure it will probably always work BEST with Amazon Video, though.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by WillysJeepMan

The "superior" hardware of the Fire TV is in support of games. If one is not going to play games (and who seriously wants to play Android games on their TV?) then there are no benefits to that hardware.

I have a Roku 3 and Plex.

In what way is "Fire TV such a clear choice it's almost unfair"?

You could drop games from the device and the extra grunt supplied by the cpu, graphics processing and memory increase is going to affect playback, load times and buffering ability, unless Amazon really screwed things up somehow. I'm not wowed by voice recognition usually, but if it works it may be a nice boon over the virtual keyboard. Throw in things like additional connectivity (the optical audio seems redundant, though) and comparable content (with fair reason to believe it's going to grow), all at the same price as the Roku 3 and the burden of "why" falls on the Roku. Imagine the specifications were swapped. The Fire would be dead in the water, imo.

Those Fire TV specs aren't impressive, per se. They're relatively impressive, but combined with Amazon's clout for content, at the same price it's enough. Roku can, and should match the processing specs. Roku needs to up their game.

They've been the best option for $100 streaming content for a while, despite their annoying game of bouncing between connectivity features each gen. They can't sit on their laurels, as it were, anymore, and I think this is going to be a very good thing for Roku fans.

side note: I'm a bit skeptical of Amazon's claim of better audio processing. They list Dolby Digital Plus as a feature, but I thought the Roku already had DD+.

[WillysJeepMan]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

You could drop games from the device and the extra grunt supplied by the cpu, graphics processing and memory increase is going to affect playback, load times and buffering ability, unless Amazon really screwed things up somehow.

That implies that the additional processing power can made a difference. Looking at the Roku 3 and AppleTV neither of those suffer from the lower hardware specs. In other words, they could quadruple the hardware performance and it wouldn't change the playback performance/quality. In the future with 4K video? Sure. But with today's streaming source files, no benefits under most use cases.

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

I'm not wowed by voice recognition usually, but if it works it may be a nice boon over the virtual keyboard. Throw in things like additional connectivity (the optical audio seems redundant, though) and comparable content (with fair reason to believe it's going to grow), all at the same price as the Roku 3 and the burden of "why" falls on the Roku. Imagine the specifications were swapped. The Fire would be dead in the water, imo.

Those Fire TV specs aren't impressive, per se. They're relatively impressive, but combined with Amazon's clout for content, at the same price it's enough. Roku can, and should match the processing specs. Roku needs to up their game.

side note: I'm a bit skeptical of Amazon's claim of better audio processing. They list Dolby Digital Plus as a feature, but I thought the Roku already had DD+.

You're enamored with the Fire TV hardware, and that's fine. I'm not seeing why the glowing praise for the hardware specs are warranted. But that's me.

I almost never buy hardware for the future capabilities. First, because there's no guarantee that those future capabilities will ever be realized. Though that's not a real issue with Amazon, they'll produce it. But second, because there's a premium to pay for the technology today.

I buy what works now (which is generally cheaper) and THEN when the higher end hardware can be used to it's capabilities, I'll buy the hardware (which will be cheaper than it is today).

[Namekuseijin]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

I'm not wowed by voice recognition usually, but if it works it may be a nice boon over the virtual keyboard.

a freaking huge boon

searching youtube and others with a TV controller is no fun at all


as a games console, it's pretty obsolete: the graphical level is equivalent to that of GC/PS2 games from 15 years ago, regardless of what chip makers want you to believe. Takes years to obsolete chips become so miniaturized as to be usable in mobile devices. Current consoles, thus, should fear not.

That said, while the vast majority of mobile games are casual generic toys dealing with farming or squishing/cutting things on screen, I've had quite a share of fun with some really well designed games for it. Mobile games took the casual gameplaying thunder away from Nintendo's Wii, but they have the potential for much more, despite the obsolete tech. How much better realism pays off? Many of mobile games most celebrated games are highly stylized cartoony graphics, not 3D at all.

I'd buy one, except tech-wise it's the same as my smartphone and mostly runs the same software. But for those who don't and want an affordable quality media streamer with a fine selection of incredibly cheap games, it's an incredible deal, I guess.

[Xanthe]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/4/558...fire-tv-review

There are no options that I can find to watch live content.

That's the buzz kill.

[Jyster]

Originally Posted by afv011

That part is not correct, the phone/tablet does not stream to the Chromecast (that's the beauty of it), it only tells the Chromecast where to get the stream from, and then the Chromecast carries on by itself.

Yes and no, depends if it is casting to the tv or not. You can cast video on your computer to the tv by wi-fi.

[wizwor]

I just ordered one of these. I'll post a review on thebeersoncomcast in a week or two. It'll be a good review because...

- I'm a cord cutter
- It'll be based on more than a couple house of use
- The test will happen on a home network
- I use a lot of streamers
- I'll read everything out there while I'm waiting

Already, people have paired one of these with a BT keyboard and BT game controllers plus a USB game controller. Someone has side-loaded apps too.

I suspect Simple/Tablo/Aereo apps will make their way to the FTV, but I'd be happy to side-load them.

BTW, I bought mine from Staples. I used four Discover gift cards to pay for it, so my cost was $80. Staples will give me 5% back, so out of pocket was $75. I can do this for AppleTV, but mot for Roku.

Note that the warranty is 1 YR vs 90 days for the Rokus. This speaks to construction and reliability.

BTW #2, the author of that article is typical of a dissatisfied cable cutter. He cut the cable on an impulse because he was unhappy with cost, did no research, didn't work very hard at the transition, gave up, and reinstalled cable. I probably bought his returned/refurb'd Roku. LOL.

Originally Posted by Xanthe

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/4/558...fire-tv-review



That's the buzz kill.

[Jessica Lares]

Boom, and Google just responded:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/5/558...-is-android-tv

[tubemonkey]

Google TV, Chromecast, and now Android TV. Talk about splintering. Google's doing a great job at confusing the public. What's next?

[wizwor]

this clash of the titans is good for us. either has the resources to make OTT a reality. either has the resources to build a national network capable of delivering it. should be fun.

i think it is possible that all the minor players will exit this battlefield very quickly.

that said, powerpoint slides, internal documents, and press releases are not the same as working, shipping product. I think Amazon surprised Google with its product launch and Google is trying to slow sales until they can compete.

It's kind of amazing that people were using Fire TV 24 hours after the presser.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by Jyster

Yes and no, depends if it is casting to the tv or not. You can cast video on your computer to the tv by wi-fi.

Right, that's why I mentioned phone/tablet. The use of a PC is a different scenario. When the casting device is a phone or a tablet there is no streaming from the device to the Chromecast.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by afv011

When the casting device is a phone or a tablet there is no streaming from the device to the Chromecast.

Pretty sure there are already apps that can stream music/video/photos that are on the tablet/phone to the Chromecast. AllCast comes to mind.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by WillysJeepMan

That implies that the additional processing power can made a difference. Looking at the Roku 3 and AppleTV neither of those suffer from the lower hardware specs. In other words, they could quadruple the hardware performance and it wouldn't change the playback performance/quality. In the future with 4K video? Sure. But with today's streaming source files, no benefits under most use cases.

The FireTV's hardware is nothing to impress; at $99 I wouldn't expect it to be. Since in my experience current streaming players have room to grow when it comes to speed/smoothness of the operating system, the FireTV's hardware does not need be impressive for me to consider it, it just needs to be better than the others. It may very well turn out to suck or be no better than the Roku overall, and if so I'm glad to pick up a Roku 4.

I only suspect that the hardware will have a noticeable impact on load times, interface responsiveness, forwarding/reversing through video, and search speed. A lot of that is going to depend on how good of a job Amazon did with the software, but software can be patched. If those things are no better than on a Roku/Apple TV..well that's Amazon's problem, ha. Which is why I'm just speculating here and not throwing my money at it. I'm guessing that the voice control may be useful, but that's more of a wild card.

I don't expect video image quality will be any better than it is when streamed through the "Smart-TV" features built into an HDTV or disc player. But that isn't what these little dedicated streamers have to offer: they're about the OS, and to a large extent their content selection, which seems give-and-take right now.

[Barbara1955]

Well this explains Why I cant buy a streaming device made since 2014 that streams Amazon! Kinda dirty trick me buying all those movies & now cant stream them unless I own a Streamer made by Amazon! grrrr

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Katie1

Well this explains Why I cant buy a streaming device made since 2014 that streams Amazon! Kinda dirty trick me buying all those movies & now cant stream them unless I own a Streamer made by Amazon! grrrr

There are all kinds of streaming devices you can buy that stream Amazon video. Rokus, XBOX 360 (& some other game consoles), a bunch of different Blu-Ray players, Sony streaming boxes, etc.

Made since 2014? Do you mean new models for 2014? Most manufacturers haven't launched new models yet since we're only into the fourth month of the year.