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Hands-On With the New Amazon Prime Video App for Apple TV

I am another that is happy to use just one device. For me my ATV 4 is ok, I mean I like it but nothing outstanding as far as picture quality or sound from any streaming service. I blame my tv for that tho, a 2016 Sony 1080p. And as far as sound, I will use my Pioneer AV to get me Dolby Surround (not a perfectionist obviously) and that satisfies me.
One anal issue that I have with Smart Tv’s. I had one in 2015, had my home WiFi setup on it and lightning struck our house and disabled it (blew out all ports on it). So I could not disable my wifi settings on it. It went to the dump and I was worried that some guru, and a cyber theif, would be able to view my wifi settings ( anal, remember). So now having the Amazon App on my ATV (my only reason for using my smart tv (replaced one) was Amazon video), I have turned off wifi and reset tv to factory defaults.
 
69Mustang said:
You've obviously never met an Apple fan. If it ain't coming through Apple hardware, it ain't coming through.:D
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It's more about having everything in once place. I primarily use an apple tv for my media consumption. I had other ways of accessing Prime but rarely did because it wasn't convenient (unless I was looking for something specific I'd actually even forget prime was an option). And before we get into the why even have a box when you could just use the smart tv... I am not an occasional streamer. I don't have cable so UI becomes very important and I personally prefer the UI of the atv.
 
Rainshadow said:
Have one of those TVs. The UI sucks on mine. This will be a welcome way to avoid it. Maybe others aren’t as difficult.

Also, this will put all my content in one place. Easier and more familiar.
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Yeah, funny thing is we just got a Samsung TV for the Bedroom, including a 2nd Gen Apple TV and a TiVo Mini. In a sequence of three days I discovered:

Day 1. That although the TiVo Bolt downstairs has amazon on it, we cannot stream Amazon through the Tivo Mini (unclear as to why just yet). Annoyed.
Day 2. The Amazon app on the Samsung TV is perfectly cromulent. No complaints. No longer annoyed.
Day 3. The Amazon app becomes available on AppleTVs - question whether it's finally time to upgrade the old unit and decide, Nah. I'm good.
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ryanayr said:
Amazon Prime or Netflix? More specific the TV content not what Amazon offers i.e. music, kindle etc.
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Frankly it's a toss-up for the original content, though it seems like Netflix is more willing to toss stuff out there and hope it works (I'm looking at you, Adam Sandler) whereas AZ seems to take more care to focus on what they expect will be successful. for movies, this is unscientific but it seems there's more interesting stuff available on AZ lately. Can't remember the last time I found a decent movie on Netflix. For TV shows, AZ is a clear winner, with much more interesting options.
 
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With Amazon Prime app coming out, it sure looks like Netflix picked the wrong month to raise their rates.
 
pazz said:
A pretty pointless application for the Apple TV 4K given that the all modern 4K TV's have the ability to run the Amazon Prime Video application within their own OS anyways.
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I'm running a projector so there are no built-in 'smarts.' But 126 inches of glorious image is worth any of the inconveniences involved :)
 
ipponrg said:
Unfortunately, NYC apartment and no need/room for speaker set up here. If I were back in LA, I'd probably care more about lossless audio.
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Oh i'd make it work. I've had a surround system since I lived at home. First apartment and every place I lived since then. You don't have to crank it up to get the benefit.
 
picciano said:
With Amazon Prime app coming out, it sure looks like Netflix picked the wrong month to raise their rates.
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When you have Stranger Things + Punisher (Marvel etc etc) you aren't worried about a thing. They'll do this until people catch on that it's an absurd price per month.
 
erinsarah said:
Yeah, funny thing is we just got a Samsung TV for the Bedroom, including a 2nd Gen Apple TV and a TiVo Mini. In a sequence of three days I discovered:

Day 1. That although the TiVo Bolt downstairs has amazon on it, we cannot stream Amazon through the Tivo Mini (unclear as to why just yet). Annoyed.
Day 2. The Amazon app on the Samsung TV is perfectly cromulent. No complaints. No longer annoyed.
Day 3. The Amazon app becomes available on AppleTVs - question whether it's finally time to upgrade the old unit and decide, Nah. I'm good.
...
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Back in June Amazon said Prime Video was coming to Gen. 2, 3, & 4 ATVs, but, now they say compatible with Gen. 3 and up, but, if it shows up on your Gen. 2 ATV, let us know.

The TV app with universal search and up next totally changes the streaming experience on ATV 4th Gen. & ATV 4K, I recommend either, if you don't have a 4K set you could go for an ATV 4th gen refurb. or on sale at a decent price. (Only thing, Netflix isn't working with TV app at this point.)
 
Ronkdar said:
Same here. Error message about some hdcp issue...
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got 2 apple tv 4k loaded with amazon prime video app and amazon 4k and 4k HDR movies/shows works great with my old65c7, but not with my samsung 4k non-hdr tv, even just amazon 4k (non-hdr) movies, just keep loading forever? exactly the same hdmi cables used, apple 4k/hdr movies plays fine with my samsung 4k tv (non-hdr).
 
demitri said:
Just to be clear - no devices at all (including Fire TVs) are getting 5.1 right now? I hope that’s true in that maybe they will be forced to fix the issue quicker and it wont need to happen through an App Update.
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Streaming in 4K and surround sound not there and maybe never will. Those media folks want to make the high quality users buy the Blue-ray disks, even better go to the theaters, so streaming competing in quality will be slow if ever to compete on quality. Then add the technology challenges, want quality sound and video, buy or rent physical media.
 
npmacuser5 said:
Streaming in 4K and surround sound not there and maybe never will. Those media folks want to make the high quality users buy the Blue-ray disks, even better go to the theaters, so streaming competing in quality will be slow if ever to compete on quality. Then add the technology challenges, want quality sound and video, buy or rent physical media.
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This isn’t necessarily true. Amazon and Netflix might not be all that great but you can certainly rent or buy much higher quality 4K content from iTunes
 
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On the 5.1 issue, I just compared some 5.1 content on my LG TV's Amazon app vs the ATV, and sure enough, 5.1 works fine on my LG.

Hopefully this is just a bug on Amazon's part and will be fixed soon.
 
Sakurambo-kun said:
Dolby Vision is a layer which sits on top of HDR10, so I very much doubt that's the case.
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It is very much the case. Dolby Vision requires HDMI 1.4b.
And dolby vision does not sit on top of HDR10. It is its own thing. They are both based off the same technology though. That is why you will see some streaming services, apple included, that offer Dolby vision but no HDR10(on certain titles). Sometimes they have both.
Netflix has both but if your TV only supports HDR10 it has to convert and process from Dolby Vision to HDR10. Netflix has a technical write up on this.

Dolby Vision used to require end to end hardware but early this year they announced they can do it with software only. This is an article that covers that but there are many, many more:
https://www.cepro.com/article/dolby_vision_hdr_will_be_available_as_software_upgrade
 
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ersan191 said:
This isn’t necessarily true. Amazon and Netflix might not be all that great but you can certainly rent or buy much higher quality 4K content from iTunes
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The defining word higher. Like music streaming, never quite the quality of media. The folks here wanting streaming to replace physical media, maybe disappointed as noted by all the streaming quality posts. Ok with me, the convenience of streaming, streaming attractive costs, and the ability of physical media when need works. Set expectations.
 
pazz said:
A pretty pointless application for the Apple TV 4K given that the all modern 4K TV's have the ability to run the Amazon Prime Video application within their own OS anyways.
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It's a nice convenience that I don't have to switch remotes to check out what's on Amazon now. And that I can use the universal voice search with it.
 
pazz said:
A pretty pointless application for the Apple TV 4K given that the all modern 4K TV's have the ability to run the Amazon Prime Video application within their own OS anyways.
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universal search works in prime and most important applications on the apple tv. that thing saves a lot of time!
[doublepost=1512675332][/doublepost]quite annoyingly it has its own UI for entering the adult PIN number, I'd rather input it by voice, but no option. How this passed apple's QA process it's beyond me.
 
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