Amazon FireTV Stick announced

[Catlady]

I bought the Stick because of the low initial price, but I've yet to take it out of the box!

[Ripplinger]

I also bought it because of the initial low price for Prime members, I did unbox it and check that it worked ok though. The drawback for me is that it can only use Plex to connect to your PCs, and I really really dislike Plex. So I ended up getting another Sony BDP-S5200 unit which does all the streaming from my PCs as well as play DVDs/Bluerays/3D and any format codec I throw at it. I packed up the Fire Stick to have on hand as a spare in case one of the Sonys ever breaks down.

[wizwor]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I bought the Stick because of the low initial price, but I've yet to take it out of the box!

My Chromecast says hello!

Actually, most of my streamers are grossly underutilized. Some are living with more appreciative friends and family, but most are simply collecting dust. I recently dusted off a Sony SMP-N200 and a Roku 2 XS for use with a Sony KV-36FS120...



#1 is a Sony 36" 480p tube. Not the signal strength is displayed on the screen. That's coming from an EchoStar DTVPal aka CM-7000PAL. WAY ahead of its time. #2 is the DTVPal. #3 is a Sony SMP-N200 -- still my favorite discrete streamer. #4 is a Roku 2XS. #5 is a bank of Simple DVRs. #6 is a Wii -- which streams netflix AND plays games. #7 is an Asus Transformer monitoring signal strength on two channels concurrently with my TVFool report to one side.

The streamers still work, but the DVR gets all of my viewing time. The WII is a distant second. (I am still telling myself I can get exercise playing games.) The fact is I am too lazy for the WII or on-demand viewing.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I also bought it because of the initial low price for Prime members, I did unbox it and check that it worked ok though. The drawback for me is that it can only use Plex to connect to your PCs, and I really really dislike Plex. So I ended up getting another Sony BDP-S5200 unit which does all the streaming from my PCs as well as play DVDs/Bluerays/3D and any format codec I throw at it. I packed up the Fire Stick to have on hand as a spare in case one of the Sonys ever breaks down.

Uh, look through my recent posts: there are at least three ways to access your PC files without Plex.
The best is Kodi but it needs sideloading. Easy but not trivial.
VLC is trivial. Both work.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by wizwor

My Chromecast says hello!

Actually, most of my streamers are grossly underutilized. Some are living with more appreciative friends and family, but most are simply collecting dust. I recently dusted off a Sony SMP-N200 and a Roku 2 XS for use with a Sony KV-36FS120...

I do use my Roku 1 on a TV that's not hooked up to cable. I never had a specific use in mind for the Stick, other than as a backup, though I am amazed that I haven't even tried it out. But at $19, I don't really regret buying it anyway.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Uh, look through my recent posts: there are at least three ways to access your PC files without Plex.
The best is Kodi but it needs sideloading. Easy but not trivial.
VLC is trivial. Both work.

Thanks for the info about Kodi, I'll have to give it a try next time I hook it up to play with it. But I love this series of Sony players, I've never had a problem with the streaming any format (haven't tried .iso files though, I really don't use those).

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

Thanks for the info about Kodi, I'll have to give it a try next time I hook it up to play with it. But I love this series of Sony players, I've never had a problem with the streaming any format (haven't tried .iso files though, I really don't use those).

I had a Sony BD and it was a pretty good streamer.
It choked on some mp4s and mkvs.
No ISO. Don't remember if it handled wmv.

That drove me to the WD TV live.
Don't regret it. Highly recommended.
The Fire Stick is a close second. The box a near tie.

Should be interesting what the next gen Fire's bring.
Quad core stick? Octo core box? Better USB? Built-in local streaming?
Audible and/or Kindle support?

[conan50]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I also bought it because of the initial low price for Prime members, I did unbox it and check that it worked ok though. The drawback for me is that it can only use Plex to connect to your PCs, and I really really dislike Plex. So I ended up getting another Sony BDP-S5200 unit which does all the streaming from my PCs as well as play DVDs/Bluerays/3D and any format codec I throw at it. I packed up the Fire Stick to have on hand as a spare in case one of the Sonys ever breaks down.

Just curious, what did you dislike about Plex? I find it the best and easiest solution to get to my videos to almost any device. I re-purposed an Acer Netbook with just an Atom processor and 2 gig ram and it does a fine job as a Plex server. But I used Linux rather than the Windows Plex version.
Those Sony BDP are excellent considering they are great streaming devices as well as disk players. I have two of them.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Uh, look through my recent posts: there are at least three ways to access your PC files without Plex.
The best is Kodi but it needs sideloading. Easy but not trivial.
VLC is trivial. Both work.

VLC hasn't worked for me (and least not trivially....I haven't put non-trivial effort into it) but Vimu has, at least in most cases, with supported formats.

Originally Posted by conan50

Just curious, what did you dislike about Plex?

For myself, I don't want to run a transcoding server, and in the case of Plex specifically, I found the server setup and configuration, with it's online account component, complicated.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a geek, I could get it working if I wanted to, but I'm only interested in solutions that don't require a geek to setup and maintain. I want an appliance, else I'll be on family tech support duty when we want to be relaxing with a movie.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ApK

For myself, I don't want to run a transcoding server, and in the case of Plex specifically, I found the server setup and configuration, with it's online account component, complicated.
Don't get me wrong: I'm a geek, I could get it working if I wanted to, but I'm only interested in solutions that don't require a geek to setup and maintain. I want an appliance, else I'll be on family tech support duty when we want to be relaxing with a movie.

Ditto.
Plus it ties up a whole PC.
These days you don't *need* a PC to serve up files.
Routers with NAS and standalone ethernet drives are dirt cheap.
(Right now I can put 19TB of content on my home network, accessible to phones, tablets, streamers, consoles, and PCs without a PC server or middleman app of service. When my WHS PC died, I just copied the files to a USB drive and plugged it straight to the router.)

I tried PLEX pro but the added value doesn't justify the cost or the hoops, much less the overhead.

Also the client interface on the stick is so sparse you can't honestly call it a gui.
The Lotus 1-2-3 lightbar was more infirmative.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I had a Sony BD and it was a pretty good streamer.
It choked on some mp4s and mkvs.
No ISO. Don't remember if it handled wmv.

I have no problems with mp4s and mkvs with the Sonys. I don't have any wmv files, so can't test on that. And since I never use ISOs, that's never a problem for me.

Edit: I downloaded a very high quality wmv file and it played perfectly through the Sony.

Originally Posted by conan50

Just curious, what did you dislike about Plex? I find it the best and easiest solution to get to my videos to almost any device.

I prefer the simple folder layout that Serviio gives you instead of how Plex wanted to sort movies. It took forever to find anything through Plex. I hated that Plex wanted to scan every single directory on my hard drive and list every video file it found, it would take forever to keep scanning the drive, including when it was adding new content. And sticking in the .plexignore files into all my directories got old fast. Maybe it's improved since the last time I tried it, but I really didn't like the layout of it at all, including having to use a browser as the interface. Maybe I'll take a look at it again, but Serviio has always been much faster all around for my systems and my use.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I hated that Plex wanted to scan every single directory on my hard drive and list every video file it found, it would take forever to keep scanning the drive, including when it was adding new content. And sticking in the .plexignore files into all my directories got old fast. Maybe it's improved since the last time I tried it, but I really didn't like the layout of it at all, including having to use a browser as the interface. Maybe I'll take a look at it again, but Serviio has always been much faster all around for my systems and my use.

I've been using Plex for quite a long, time and I don't remember the server component ever trying to scan the entire hard-drive. Must have been very early-days. You tell Plex where your various media is--or will be--stored, by defining media libraries. You can also set how often the libraries will be scanned for new media.

My Plex server runs on my main Linux PC that I use for just about everything: programming/compiling/calibre-ing/Sigil-ing/transcoding/browsing/downloading -- all without breaking a sweat. So I don't really consider Plex as needing a "dedicated" PC, as much as it needs "A" PC to install it on.

But I'm not here to try and convince anyone. Surely everyone is as happy with their setup as I am with mine.

(Oh, and you don't HAVE to have an online Plex account to get things to work. Almost all the clients have the ability to connect to one manually configured Plex server)

[GA Russell]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Ditto.
Plus it ties up a whole PC.
These days you don't *need* a PC to serve up files.
Routers with NAS and standalone ethernet drives are dirt cheap.
(Right now I can put 19TB of content on my home network, accessible to phones, tablets, streamers, consoles, and PCs without a PC server or middleman app of service. When my WHS PC died, I just copied the files to a USB drive and plugged it straight to the router.)

I tried PLEX pro but the added value doesn't justify the cost or the hoops, much less the overhead.

Also the client interface on the stick is so sparse you can't honestly call it a gui.
The Lotus 1-2-3 lightbar was more infirmative.

You guys make me wonder if I am paying every month for services I don't realize I get. Is there a website or book which will explain how I can inexpensively take advantage of what I am already paying for?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

You guys make me wonder if I am paying every month for services I don't realize I get. Is there a website or book which will explain how I can inexpensively take advantage of what I am already paying for?

What kind of stuff in particular?

I don't really have 19TB of content. But I *could*. My hardware and connectivity goes that far.
Some of the drives are backup drives of the others and all have lots of empty space for future content.
I doubt I have more than 6 TB. (About 800 DVDs worth.)

What I do have is a lot of DVDs both commercial (about two thirds) and homebrew (the rest).

The trick in the homebrews (Good quality SD recorded off the old HDNET, HDNET MOVIES, HBO, and SHOWTIME using the "analog hole") is that Philips used to have a line of DVD recorders with 480i component video inputs. So I would record shows like Torchwood and Blade and 80's and 90's movies in HD on the cable box, play them out (and record them) in very high quality SD in good old bulky MPEG. And because is so bulky it takes 4GB for one hour at the highest quality. But it also has tons of "redundant" data that allows for good scalers to produce beautiful faux-HD.

Today I wouldn't bother with that stuff (or buying DVDs) because of Hulu and Netflix and Prime Video but I did capture stuff that isn't readily available. Like DAISY COOKS from PBS, a cooking show on latin cuisine.

On the commercial DVDs I an accumulation of movies and TV shows that hard to find, stuff like THE CHAMPIONS from the 60's (only half the series, alas. For some reason A&E never saw fit to sell the second half.) Stargates, all seasons, all series. Smallville, BABYLON 5, TIME TUNNEL, GREATEST AMERICAN HERO, WILD WILD WEST... The sadly unappreciated TENTH KINGDOM. (I had to buy a rare dutch edition for that one.) Not all is online yet.

I just wait for sales on the DVD sets.
I've tried converting the disks to compressed files (mp4, wmv, mkv) but it takes time, artifacts pop up, and you don't have the features of the DVDs. And with hard drive space running about $0.25 a GB I decided to go with the much faster ISO encoding after I got the WD TV. It's about as fast and easy as ripping CDs.

All perfectly legit.
Now, the sad (for me) part is that after running into a mainstream media news article complaining about POPCORN TIME, I got curious about how that particular part of the darknet works and...

1- I got an education
2- Discovered I could've gotten away without buying most of the movies and a good portion of the TV DVDs.

One thing I found is those folks seem to have moles in the stamping plants because I've seen BluRay rips floating around of movies before the legal disks show up on Amazon. Three months earlier. The various distributors have actual brands so if you run into one, that will lead you to their corner of the red light district. Warning: do not explore with a production system. At least I didn't.
I used an old Android tablet I factory reset before and after.

3- I also found that there is at least one (sort-of?) legal tool for personal use all-digital online video capture. It requires a Quad Core PC and it's called Playlater. It comes from the same company that makes the PLEX competitor PLAY ON. The reason I think it's legal is because CNET (owned by anti-piracy zealot CBS) featured it as a deal of the day a while back. It lets you capture, save, and stream web video to DLNC clients. It's useful for viewing bowser-only stuff at Hulu, ABC, etc. I don't know how well it might work since me desktop is only dual core.

One thing is certain: when the BPHs complain about piracy, their Hollywood brethren have every right to roll their eyes. Especially producers of crappy horror flicks. I don't think there is one bad movie in that genre that isn't floating around in pristine 1080p.

[conan50]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I prefer the simple folder layout that Serviio gives you instead of how Plex wanted to sort movies. It took forever to find anything through Plex. I hated that Plex wanted to scan every single directory on my hard drive and list every video file it found, it would take forever to keep scanning the drive, including when it was adding new content. And sticking in the .plexignore files into all my directories got old fast. Maybe it's improved since the last time I tried it, but I really didn't like the layout of it at all, including having to use a browser as the interface. Maybe I'll take a look at it again, but Serviio has always been much faster all around for my systems and my use.

The only issue I ever had with Plex was metadata. I had to rename a number of files for the scan to pick them up.