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Who's dumping their ATV for Amazon Fire TV

betman said:
But when it comes to stuff for me personally like films and tv series I will make the decision due to price and physical media format. I will almost always buy Blu-ray discs from Amazon over iTunes, but if the film/show is only available on DVD then I will go with whatever is cheaper. There is basically no way I am paying more for a digital download than for the physical box set delivered to my home.
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agree.
Not to mention the image quality of blu-ray is far better than the streams from Apple and Amazon. (My wife couldn't tell the difference until I showed her all the noise in a dark scene from the Apple file. The same scene on Blu-ray was super clean)

That said- I do buy some stuff from iTunes.
(Animation actually holds up pretty good)
Films/shows that do not get a physical release, etc.
I don't ever plan on buying media from Amazon.
Their files look really terrible.
 
A long time ago I read an article about how the various companies go about encoding video and interestingly Microsoft came out tops. Must have been a long time ago as I don't see MS offering any content anywhere nowadays...
 
All of these companies are stupid for using proprietary encoders instead of licensing x264. Nothing beats x264, especially at lower bitrates that all these services are targeting.
 
My cloud cam encodes in H.264, are we just talking about major bandwidth savings without compromising on quality?
 
The amazon fire tv doesn't work with anything I own (I don't own any kindles). And it won't play my iTunes music or movies, so it's a done deal I will stay with my Apple TV. Now on the other hand if all I owned was a kindle and no MacBook and I used nothing but amazon content it would be a whole different story. (Lol). The problem is everyone wants everything to connect and sync and Apple does that well. Right now the Fire tv won't sync with Apple or windows (someone can correct me if I am wrong). Only time will tell if Amazon can really market and sell the Fire tv.
 
I seem to have developed a hobby of collecting and playing with these devices. Here is how I see them now (and how often I use them):

1. Roku 3: My go-to streamer - used for most of my sources

2. Fire TV: Fast and fun to use, but some app limitations - used for gaming (pretty decent!) and Amazon streaming. I may start using it for Netflix too.

3. Apple TV: Limited apps, buggy Netflix (e.g. no 5.1 surround), older app interfaces - usually unplugged, used occasionally to Airplay from iPad.

4. Chromecast: I'm just not sold on this delivery method, especially for long-form content. I often ran into situations where sync with my mobile device was lost and I had no way of knowing where I left off. Moved upstairs, and rarely used.

Fire TV may move up to #1 with just a few improvements and continuing app ecosystem evolution.
 
bearcatrp said:
Anyone considering dumping ATV for ATV? Looks like a hit but my only issue is no option to stream from my PC, as I do with my ATV and itunes. Will have to wait for reviews and see how it goes.
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While I'd be interested to check it out for sure, the whole reason I bought an :apple:TV to begin with was because I already own iPads and (less importantly) iPod touches and I have a fair amount of media invested in the iTunes store. If I didn't own those devices, I'd have far less of a "need" to stick with my :apple:TV.
 
Anyone with amazons new box know if you can stream movies from your computer to the tv? Am just itching to dump my ATV's for anything that will do this and doesn't require itunes or software running on the computer.
 
There's no way I would do that. No matter what the Amazon fire had to offer me becuase Apple TV is the only thing with airplay.
 
I use my Apple TV for Hulu/Netflix, where I get to pay my monthly fees out of my iTunes account.

Does Amazon Fire allow you to pay for those through Amazon?
 
bearcatrp said:
Anyone with amazons new box know if you can stream movies from your computer to the tv? Am just itching to dump my ATV's for anything that will do this and doesn't require itunes or software running on the computer.
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I'll see if I can figure it out, I got one of those "you're a Prime member so try out the Fire TV free for 30 days" emails, so I will.
It will be here Thu. I have an AMD gaming rig and an HP WHS besides the Mini to try with it.
 
Thanks. From what I have read so far, you have to load whatever you want streamed to amazon cloud 1st, which no way in hell I would do. I will keep what I want to watch on my own hard drives. Once I find a new streaming device, I can finally dump apples eco system. So far though, ATV is the only one out there to stream your own content to your tv. 🙁
 
Just looked at amazons app store. Plex is there. If anyone has plex server running on there computer, and has amazon fire tv with the plex app, can you verify you can stream a ripped movie? Since Amazon fire is a quad core, would be nice if it would fetch something off the computer instead of having to run a program on the computer like itunes or plex server.
 
While I haven't completely dumped my Apple tv 3, I do own the Amazon FIREtv

Just the fact of having amazon prime and being able to stream HBO is making it my favorite accessory right now
 
Isn't the Amazon Fire TV the same thing as basically every single Smart TV and Video game system? Apple TV is the only one that has iTunes so I can watch the 60 iTunes movies(thanks Disney for upgrading 20 of my movies to HD for buying Frozen 🙂) , my Walking Dead, Game of Thrones seasons and a bunch of other stuff I have.

I love how people buy these set boxes when they have Smart TVs. I had to to explain to my fiancee parents that their tv already does what a Roku does.😀

I had a Apple TV and didn't like it because I had a PS3 and it did the same thing. Not enough of my movies were HD because movie studios are awful people who give you Standard def versions when you buy the HD Blu Ray version. I really wish there was a way to get the upgrade.
 
I'm one of the one's that got offered 30 days free of a Fire TV, probably because I own a HDX tablet. So I took them up on it, heck I wanted to try it anyhow and you can beat free with free shipping back if you don't want it, I will give Amazon props for doing this promotion, I will report back after I've used it a bit.
 
Mockenrue said:
I seem to have developed a hobby of collecting and playing with these devices. Here is how I see them now (and how often I use them):

1. Roku 3: My go-to streamer - used for most of my sources

2. Fire TV: Fast and fun to use, but some app limitations - used for gaming (pretty decent!) and Amazon streaming. I may start using it for Netflix too.

3. Apple TV: Limited apps, buggy Netflix (e.g. no 5.1 surround), older app interfaces - usually unplugged, used occasionally to Airplay from iPad.

4. Chromecast: I'm just not sold on this delivery method, especially for long-form content. I often ran into situations where sync with my mobile device was lost and I had no way of knowing where I left off. Moved upstairs, and rarely used.

Fire TV may move up to #1 with just a few improvements and continuing app ecosystem evolution.
Click to expand...

do you stream your own content at all ? Do you use Plex ? and do you buy a lot of Content from Amazon ?

----------
bearcatrp said:
Anyone with amazons new box know if you can stream movies from your computer to the tv? Am just itching to dump my ATV's for anything that will do this and doesn't require itunes or software running on the computer.
Click to expand...

You can set up the plex server on your Computer and use the Plex App to stream your own content
 
Scarpad said:
do you stream your own content at all ? Do you use Plex ? and do you buy a lot of Content from Amazon ?
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I've tried Plex in the past, but it's too bloated for my simple needs - especially the management interface. Now I mostly use a native media server in a Seagate drive. It streams to my mobile devices via app and to my TV via DNLA. My Samsung Smart TV supports pretty much any format I throw at it, so I don't need/want transcoding.

I don't buy much content at all, to be honest. I mostly stream from the web: Netflix, Amazon Prime, TED, PBS, TWiT, Revision 3, Vimeo, etc. If I rent, it's usually Vudu because it has the best quality 1080p. No Vudu is a strike against Fire TV (and Apple TV for that matter).
 
I've been using a firetv for a few weeks now. I didnt like the plex app, so i sideloaded XBMC. It runs fine on my set up (just stereo speakers, no surround sound). I can now play the files that live on a different computer and watch videos from Netflix and Amazon Prime.
the set up is easy. here a link to the wiki that tells how:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Amazon_Fire_TV
 
Plex works great on Amazon Fire. I was so excited that finally my server worked well that i bought one for each of my kids to use. As a bonus it is much faster keypad response wise.
 
Bumping this old thread that popped up in a Google search

I just sold my jailbroken appletv2 and bought the FireTV and side loaded XBMC. Wow is this better. The AppleTV 2 started crashing when playing hd files and would sometimes crash just on the XBMC menu. What a difference this box makes. Has not crashed one time! Everything plays smoothly and perfectly!

The plex app though sucks and I wasted $5 on it. Some of my files would play without the audio!

I bought an appletv 3 that I'm going to use for AirPlay and I'm going to AirPlay Plex from my iPad mini, and I'm going to use the FireTV for XBMC.
 
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