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Looks like the Amazon Fire TV could be the mythical do-everything box everyone's been waiting for. It will do Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, Hulu, and a lot more, plus it runs Android, so XBMC shouldn't be an issue.
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Apr 2, 2014 16:30
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Should have sold my aTV2 for $200 when I had the chance.
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Apr 2, 2014 16:34
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Whirlwind Jones posted:Should have sold my aTV2 for $200 when I had the chance. They're still $200+ on ebay. More if already jailbroken.
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Apr 2, 2014 16:35
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wolfbiker posted:Looks like the Amazon Fire TV could be the mythical do-everything box everyone's been waiting for. It will do Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, Hulu, and a lot more, plus it runs Android, so XBMC shouldn't be an issue. How much?
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Apr 2, 2014 16:41
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TraderStav posted:How much? http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/02/amazon-liveblog-video-device/ EDIT: $99. That's impressive. Whirlwind Jones fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 16:44
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Whirlwind Jones posted:It's going on right now. Probably $200ish. EDIT: $99
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Apr 2, 2014 16:51
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Endless Mike posted:They're comparing it to Roku and AppleTV. They'd be fools to price it over $100 and since it's Amazon, they'll sell it as close to $0 margin as they can. Unless the user experience is amazing I can't see it beating out the new $50 Roku stick that supports all the same services.
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Apr 2, 2014 16:55
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If it can run XBMC then I'd be happy. I've been chasing the all in one HTPC dream for awhile and gave up. I just hope it can be controlled by my Harmony Smart Control.
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Apr 2, 2014 17:17
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wolfbiker posted:Looks like the Amazon Fire TV could be the mythical do-everything box everyone's been waiting for. It will do Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, Hulu, and a lot more, plus it runs Android, so XBMC shouldn't be an issue. They're already advertising Plex app as one of the channels/services. Plex's website or blog hasn't been updated yet, but Plex's Android tablet app was already available on the Amazon App Store for the Kindle Fire tablets. On my Nexus 7, the Plex app has a "TV mode" setting. I imagine the FireTV interface will look a lot like that. How well is XBMC running on Ouya and the other Chinese Android devices now that XBMC has full Android support? Is hardware HD video acceleration/decoding supported across the board, or at least for most chipsets?
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Apr 2, 2014 17:50
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I recently installed XBMC on my Nexus 5 phone and it worked amazingly and played back a 1080p x264 file seamlessly, so if this Fire thing can install XBMC (which since it's Android, it should be able to somehow) it should play everything fine. It's a quad-core with 2GB of RAM, BUT I don't think it has a LAN port, just wireless. Edit: It has a 10/100 port. Size 4.5" x 4.5" x 0.7" (115 mm x 115 mm x 17.5 mm) Weight 9.9 oz (281 grams) SOC Platform Qualcomm Snapdragon 8064 Processor Qualcomm Krait 300, quad-core to 1.7 Ghz GPU Qualcomm Adreno 320 Storage 8 GB internal Memory 2 GB LPDDR2 @ 533 MHZ Wi-Fi Connectivity Dual-band, dual-antenna Wi-Fi (MIMO) for faster streaming and fewer dropped connections than standard Wi-Fi. 802.11a/b/g/n Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.0 with support for the following profiles: HID, HFP 1.6, SPP Cloud Storage Free cloud storage for all Amazon content Ports 5.5 mm DC Jack, Type A HDMI 1.4b output, w/HDCP, Optical Audio (TOSLINK), 10/100 Ethernet, USB 2.0 Type A Audio Support for Dolby Digital Plus, 5.1 surround sound, 2ch Stereo and HDMI audio pass through up to 7.1 Content Formats Supported Video: H.263, H.264, MPEG4-SP, VC1 Audio AAC, AC-3, E-AC-3, HE-A, PCM, MP3 Photo JPG, PNG Output Resolution Supported 720p and 1080p up to 60fps wolfbiker fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Apr 2, 2014 18:36
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wolfbiker posted:BUT I don't think it has a LAN port, just wireless. The FireTV has an ethernet port. http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-CL1130-Fire-TV/dp/B00CX5P8FC#tech
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Apr 2, 2014 18:42
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The app store is up for the FireTV http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=lp_7031...6462227&lo=none
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Apr 2, 2014 19:19
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It has a USB port as well but in the manual it just says that it supports no accessories at this time. If this can eventually be made to play local content I'll get one for sure.
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Apr 2, 2014 19:25
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wolfbiker posted:Edit: It has a 10/100 port. They still make 10/100 poo poo?? Why in the world would this not have gigabit ethernet?
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Apr 2, 2014 19:27
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TraderStav posted:Unless the user experience is amazing I can't see it beating out the new $50 Roku stick that supports all the same services. It's running Android, which means it's going to have a way more flexible gui than Roku, so the UI could be much better. Plex's will be at least. That also means much more extensibility. fletcher posted:They still make 10/100 poo poo?? Why in the world would this not have gigabit ethernet? Because what the hell are you going to be doing with a FireTV that requires gigabit Ethernet?
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Apr 2, 2014 19:36
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Crackbone posted:Because what the hell are you going to be doing with a FireTV that requires gigabit Ethernet? Running XBMC and playing files from a NAS. Way snappier experience on gigabit.
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Apr 2, 2014 19:46
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Elston Gunn posted:It has a USB port as well but in the manual it just says that it supports no accessories at this time. If this can eventually be made to play local content I'll get one for sure. Someone said it'll have the Plex app which is fine I guess. Personally I hate the vanilla Plex skin on the Roku/etc so I'll hope for XBMC. The base UI they showed off looks a lot like XBMC which is interesting, I wonder if they forked it. quote:They still make 10/100 poo poo?? Why in the world would this not have gigabit ethernet? 100 is fine for streaming Bluray and its probably just a cost cutting thing. They're competing with the Chromecast and Roku so keeping it under $100 was pretty important.
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Apr 2, 2014 19:46
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fletcher posted:Running XBMC and playing files from a NAS. Way snappier experience on gigabit. They arn't building it with unsupported applications in mind it seems.
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Apr 2, 2014 20:20
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fletcher posted:What OS are you running? What version of the AMD video drivers? Any chance there is a background process running consuming processing power? (I noticed my youtube videos were choppy when I had crashplan running) Is hardware acceleration enabled in your Flash player settings? I'm running Win8. I'll have to check the driver version later, but I won't say confidently that they're the newest ones. I don't really know the best way to get drivers for prebuilt PCs/laptops. I've made sure background processes aren't running, but I'll have to check hardware acceleration in Flash. By the way, we have mutual real life friends (told to me by a friend who is also a goon). Sorry if that's creepy.
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Apr 2, 2014 21:30
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KingKapalone posted:I'm running Win8. I'll have to check the driver version later, but I won't say confidently that they're the newest ones. I don't really know the best way to get drivers for prebuilt PCs/laptops. I've made sure background processes aren't running, but I'll have to check hardware acceleration in Flash. Definitely try the latest and greatest video card drivers, just grab 'em right off http://support.amd.com/en-us/download No way!! Not creepy at all, that's hella cool. Who is our mutual friend? Feel free to PM me.
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Apr 2, 2014 22:14
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A brief trip report with the Fire TV - It had to download a large update right out of the box. - It's lightning fast compared to my old Roku LT. Even with apps like Hulu. - There's no distinction between normal android apps and Fire TV apps. If you grabbed Sonic CD yesterday in their free app of the day promotion, you also got the Fire TV version for free. It was nice to see that I had a nice little collection going right out the box. - Voice works surprisingly well. The majority of actors/shows popped up on the first try. There was some funny issues like it interpreting Degrassi as The Grassy or Dinosaur Jr. as Dinosaur Junior, showing kids shows instead of the band. Voice also only works on Amazon stuff (TV/movies/apps) - Setting a pin up for purchases is only available when you turn on parental controls. That also makes it where you have to enter a pin to access any system stuff or to download any free videos/apps. - There's no acceleration on scroll when you're going through videos/apps which is weird. - There's no way to organize your apps like on the Roku. - Only music apps will continue to play when you bounce back to the main menu. I don't know if that's an Amazon imposed thing or the nature of the apps. YouTube didn't continue running. - But the music app will continue to play until you click a video to watch. - I think you can set up your own photos from your Cloud as the screensaver. I haven't tested it yet but it defaults to a bunch of stock HD images from Amazon. - There's no other screensaver besides photos and there's no clock anywhere to be found. - Plex loaded quick, showed all my movies as covers but there was a notable lag between clicking one and getting to the information page before being able to launch the movie. I think that's more of a Plex issue than Amazon's. - It looks like you'll be able to sideload applications when you turn on ADB debugging in the developer options. - It runs as hot as my old Roku, which is disappointing. Overall, I like it but it feels a bit half-baked at the moment. If Amazon tweaks the software and apps keep rolling out, they could have a real contender on their hands.
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Apr 3, 2014 19:32
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Call Me Charlie posted:A brief trip report with the Fire TV I ordered one today to try it out. Reading your review got me very optimistic and then your closing statement seemed contradictory. Was it the smaller features like not being able to back out to a menu and acceleration through lists? How did the Plex playback perform? Rough time to buffer a 1080p movie? I know that's very anecdotal but anything helps!
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Apr 3, 2014 19:37
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TraderStav posted:I ordered one today to try it out. Reading your review got me very optimistic and then your closing statement seemed contradictory. Was it the smaller features like not being able to back out to a menu and acceleration through lists? How did the Plex playback perform? Rough time to buffer a 1080p movie? I know that's very anecdotal but anything helps! There's a number of things that are suppose to be coming soon. Missing apps like HBO GO/Vudu/WWE Network, Amazon Cloud Player, Kindle Freetime, miracast support. Right now, it's good. In six months, it could be great. My Plex server is only strong enough to direct play stuff so I couldn't test play back. Another weird thing I noticed, Amazon said that search would search everything but I only get results from Amazon's store. No content from Hulu/Crackle are listed. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 20:30
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Call Me Charlie posted:There's a number of things that are suppose to be coming soon. Missing apps like HBO GO/Vudu/WWE Network, Kindle Freetime, miracast support. Thanks for the trip report. 30 day free trial so little risk here.
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Apr 3, 2014 20:32
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Call Me Charlie posted:Another weird thing I noticed, Amazon said that search would search everything but I only get results from Amazon's store. No content from Hulu/Crackle are listed. I was wondering about that myself. I figured I must have misread about how search was supposed to work so it's good to see I'm not crazy. Hopefully it gets patched in.
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Apr 3, 2014 21:55
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Someone asked Amazon support about it and apparently the app makers can "opt out" out of having their stuff indexed by the voice search which is why Flixster and Netflix don't show in the results. I don't know how knowledgeable your average support worker is at Amazon though. Does this pass DTS by the way?
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Apr 3, 2014 21:59
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Short Plex on Amazon Fire TV video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCZNsACFJuU
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Apr 4, 2014 08:02
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I'm guessing the fire can't handle emulators?
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Apr 4, 2014 13:07
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Guitarchitect posted:I'm guessing the fire can't handle emulators? I don't see why not. It can handle pretty beefy Android games. The Gunslinger posted:Someone asked Amazon support about it and apparently the app makers can "opt out" out of having their stuff indexed by the voice search which is why Flixster and Netflix don't show in the results. The only other thing I've seen in Amazon's search so far is music videos from Vevo. Although it's a fun novelty to say 'kanye west new slaves' into the mic and have it bring up the SNL performance. ------ The more I use this thing, the more I like it. There's been some minor bugs like artwork not showing up in a new search but being able to play some King Oddball, jumping to a show I was watching on Amazon, out to Hulu and back to King Oddball without it having to reopen the app/game is such a departure from the Roku. Everything's nearly instant.
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Apr 4, 2014 15:18
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Will the Fire TV play local content? By local content, I mean content on a USB enclosure. I don't have a Plex server setup, and I'm not really sure that I want to setup a Plex server. At the moment, I have a Boxee that I use for local content and Netflix. The Boxee is really starting to show its age, and I'm wondering if the Fire TV could outright replace it? Does the Plex app for Fire TV support local content? If it does, I'm pretty much sold.
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Apr 4, 2014 16:50
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n0n0 posted:Will the Fire TV play local content? By local content, I mean content on a USB enclosure. I don't have a Plex server setup, and I'm not really sure that I want to setup a Plex server. Not currently.
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Apr 4, 2014 17:26
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Elston Gunn posted:Not currently.
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Apr 4, 2014 23:10
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I don't use my desktop much anymore, just for streaming my video files via Plex. I was thinking about building a HTPC or getting NAS or something, but I really wasn't sure what the best option would be for my needs. I basically just want something that's always on & connected to the network, low power consumption, & able to transcode HD video efficiently. What's my best bet here?
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Apr 6, 2014 18:12
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UncleGuito posted:I don't use my desktop much anymore, just for streaming my video files via Plex. I was thinking about building a HTPC or getting NAS or something, but I really wasn't sure what the best option would be for my needs. I basically just want something that's always on & connected to the network, low power consumption, & able to transcode HD video efficiently. What's my best bet here? I'm selling an AD12 and an Intel NUC that would do exactly that in SA-Mart. The aD12 would be better to put windows on it but Openelec would work great on both.
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Apr 6, 2014 20:54
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If you're streaming files from local storage, what's your local storage setup then? I had my NAS pull double duty as a transcoder because I didn't want more machines than minimum to get a scalable setup, but with a small little machine you're limited to transferring from elsewhere on the network taking up potentially limited bandwidth or mounting external drives via eSATA or USB. In truth, a lot of people that use their desktop frequently are probably better off just dropping a bunch of drives there and running a NAS from that setup. My desktop is on most of the time and now my NAS and HTPC are too, sweet power savings right?  It makes sense to separate duties when your usage patterns and availability conflict though like you reboot your desktop when someone's trying to watch a movie or you're playing a game when someone needs to transcode off you.
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Apr 6, 2014 21:25
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Is this the thread to ask about set top network players? I have an older WDTV Live Hub and its been pretty good despite the UI. Right now I'm looking for a similar product for a kiosk at work. The catch is that it needs to be at the top of support for H.264 profiles, levels and bitrate. Basically whatever is the decoding king as the content I'll be pushing to it will be all encoded in house from lossless high depth sources. Is sigma designs still the king of decoder ASICs? Edit: Dune HD Base 3D? Shaocaholica fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 15:44
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There's some pretty exciting things happening with the Fire TV. It's recognizing keyboards/mouses/controllers plugged into the USB port and people are already sideloading apps onto it. quote:APPS Working: http://forum.xda-developers.com/fire-tv/general?nocache=1&z=2667700415818007
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Apr 9, 2014 17:16
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Call Me Charlie posted:There's some pretty exciting things happening with the Fire TV. It's recognizing keyboards/mouses/controllers plugged into the USB port and people are already sideloading apps onto it. I heard the 360 wireless controller works with the dongle of course.
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Apr 9, 2014 17:29
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Is side loading an involved process? Really want HBO Go!
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Apr 9, 2014 17:47
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Did anyone figure out a way to get sideloaded apps on the launcher yet? That's the only thing holding me back.
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Apr 9, 2014 20:29
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