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The Amazon Fire TV Is Kind of a Mess
redletterdave writes: "At the Fire TV unveiling, Amazon officials sounded like they perfectly understood how frustrating TV streaming devices are for their owners. Amazon focused on three main problems: Search is hard, especially for anything not on a bestseller list; streaming devices often provide slow or laggy performance; and TV set-top boxes tend to be closed ecosystems. The Fire TV is Amazon's attempt to solve these three problems—the key word here being 'attempt.' Perhaps Amazon's homegrown solution was a bit premature and its ambitions too lofty, because while Fire TV can do almost everything, little of it is done right."
An example given by the review is how the touted Voice Search works — it doesn't interact at all with supported apps, instead bringing up Amazon search results. Thus, even if you have access to a movie for free through Netflix, using the Voice Search for that movie will only bring up Amazon's paid options.
... I shouldn't sell our two AppleTVs?
Trolling is a art,
It would be my first first.
Thus, even if you have access to a movie for free through Netflix, using the Voice Search for that movie will only bring up Amazon's paid options.
You make that sound like a bad thing.
--Signed,
Jeff Bezos
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
So, yet another netflix streamer is ok, but I want something as good or better than the boxes box for local content. About 50% of my streaming media are things that I have locally on my network.
If Fire TV supported file sharing protocols I'd be a buyer.
"Thus, even if you have access to a movie for free through Netflix, using the Voice Search for that movie will only bring up Amazon's paid options."
This isn't exactly accurate. I got my Fire TV yesterday and the voice search showed results from Hulu as well. I believe the problem with Netflix is that it's not a Fire TV specific app and is just using their standard Android app (which is evident by the login prompts and keyboard being inconsistent from the rest of the Fire TV login prompts). If the individual app supports it, the Fire TV voice search will show you results from that app as well. It's the same way with the Roku search, it shows results from some apps but not from all.
Can I Sream.It is a must-have smartphone app (or website). Anyone who makes one of these streaming boxes should just license a version that searches the catalogs of whatever services you've installed on the box. That alone would make all of these boxes tremendously more useful - it's really the missing key to this puzzle. That and more content, although a lot of progress has been made on this front - compare with Netflix's initial pitiful streaming selections.
I know Roku supports centralized search for some of their "channels" (apps).
my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their
I'm, you're, he's/she's/it's, we're, you're, they're
And see it for what it is, an attempt to turn the Internet into a television.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
...hilariously biased article. This guy obviously prefers AppleTV. Does Apple plan to have a cross-vendor search function for streaming? I doubt it. I was in for one on the FireTV because I like the hardware and audio output options. I'm tired of vendors pushing HDMI audio at me.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
XBMC's Gotham release already runs on this device and XDA members are sideloading apps already. It's early days for the FireTV, but it looks promising.
http://forum.xda-developers.co...
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthre...
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
There have been dozens of attempts at a "set top box" like device that aggregates all of the major online streaming service. They are all abysmal failures. Did anyone expect Amazon's shot at it to be any different?
I think the worst fail is that no one, not a single intern, tried to enter firetv.com on a browser before deciding on the name. It will be great people trying to show grandma firetv set up box and end up on PORN set up box with "My wife caught me assf*cking her mother 6" as the first title.
yes, mess for sure.
no usb port. no way to play truly local content. and you have to transcode, it seems, to meet the player's profiles. the player should play EVERY format, but this one does not. in this day and age, to release a player that has limits seems pretty braindead to me.
I'd like a fast fanless media player to replace my fan-based pc but not until I can 100% replace it and play everything IT did.
amazon: you lose again. I know, you want to leverage this for Prime movies. that's just not enough for us, can't you see that?
I hope this fails. anything this limited deserves to fail.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I was wondering if the Amazon voice search was just for their stuff... I figured that would be the case.
However, I thought that Roku (which I don't have) did exactly that - I seem to remember read they had a cross-channel search of some kind (though I would guess it had some limitations). Does anyone know if that's the case?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It was sad for me to see that Google TV failed hard, many just blamed it on the manufacturers that never updated the devices and didn't go forward, but the truth is that Google failed with that with bad communication too.
Maybe it was too much to have a bulky remote-keyboard for the TV that make people afraid... I don't know. But Google TV was very good, it is like a standardized and tested Android TV stick, when you can run apps, chrome, etc.
ChromeCast is good, but misses all the functionality of having a full android connected to the TV.
I really hope that someone can finally crack the way to have a "SmartTV" but with something that can be standard and open source. I don't want to see fragmentation, manufacturer fighting between each other....but what the hell, that is the why market works.
I subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime and use both for streaming, and Amazon Prime is awful compared to Netflix. It's no wonder that they screwed up their set top box. There's no easy way that's immediately apparent to me on how to search for things that are available for free on Amazon streaming off their website. I've used their app built into Vizio TVs and that sucks too, as searching is again a pain in the ass. They don't even have a standalone app for Windows 8 like Netflix does - it all has to be done through the site which is hard to use. Overall, I love Amazon Prime for the shipping and I like having access to their streaming videos but I use it as little as possible if Netflix has the same show on their service.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
While Chromecast is decent (besides all the Google fanboys who follow Android Authority's G+ group spouting how it's the best), it can be a pain at times (disappearing, not a simple plug in, change input and you're off, etc).
I'm temping to try this as I already have a Roku XD, a Roku XS and a Chromecast. I'd love to see how it compares to those units.
Does Apple plan to have a cross-vendor search function for streaming?
No, they have search in each section.
But they also don't take you out of an app like Netflix if you search for something and show it to you in iTunes. That only happens if you are in the iTunes section.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Every so often, the interface goes to this ugly gray text on gray background. Please fix your site slashdot, this buggy garbage is likely to push this reader away.
Chromecast doesn't do enough to add value. The only thing it really brings to the table is the novel control scheme. Yes, it's a cheap streamer that I can control with a $75 tablet or retired smartphone, but I'll bet I can find a price-competitive BluRay player that can do both those things and still play discs AND use a proper ethernet connection.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Netflix was not included in the search because Netflix asked not to be. This was made in an official statement by Amazon.
I own one, and this is the best thing since sliced bread. It is so incredibly fast your head spins - every other device I have tried is so slow and wonky - the power of this machine is incredible. I unhooked my AppleTV and stuck it on eBay because thankfully none of my content is iTunes and stuck forever in Apple's walled garden.
The only caveat is that at launch (a whole two days ago) there are a few services notably missing - HBO GO and Vudu. However, unlike Apple it doesn't take an act of congress to get a new service, I have no doubt apps will be available for those services and many others very quickly. I understand if folks may wait for that to happen, but I have no doubts it will, and soon. For now, I'll use XBOX 360 for HBO GO and my Blu-ray player for Vudu, but the second the apps become available for Fire I'll jump ship so quick, well, you'll think I'm on fire.
The speed of this device just blows my mind, even though I have a bunch of devices that stream various media I always assumed that unless I hooked a full-on computer to my TV I'd have the same endless loading, just to get an app up and running so I could watch something. In a few months once the App Store for it is booming, I cannot see anyone choosing a different brand of device unless they are forced to because they lacked the foresight not to tie their media libraries into one companies devices.
Once you have seen a Fire in action, you will be blown away.
My Amazon Fire TV arrived today. Initial impressions:
The box is a lot bigger than Apple TV and includes an external power brick (unlike AppleTV). The physical look and feel of the device and remove are very premium.
The controller is big and uncomfortable. D-PAD is very poorly positioned. This is worse than the Pre-S XBox Controller. It feels like the NVidia Shield a bit but that at least has an entire computer (roughly as powerful as the Fire TV) inside the controller. Seriously, I think they hired the Atari Jaguar controller design team here
First impression is that the UI is not as polished or pretty as the Apple TV but it seems usable. Voice Search is fairly fast but not nearly as "instant" as the commercials and videos online make it seem. Also, the results are only for Amazon Instant Video, Amazon App Store (and supposedly Hulu but I haven't seen any of those).
HBO GO is not on it yet. I installed Flixster to access my Ultraviolet Collection. Unfortunately, Flixster will not play any of my movies in HD and highly compressed 480 SD resolution is a mess on my 65" TV.
And my Fire TV remote seems to lose "pairing" a lot. I sometimes have to use the game controller to go to settings and then to Add Remote and it will find it again.
At least when I search for "Avengers" on a Roku3 the results are for Amazon, Netflix, Mgo, Vudu and RedBox.
With or without Steed and Peel?
Or just toss (free) Plex server on your NAS and install the (free) Plex app on a $40 Roku.
If I'm in Netflix, no way should activating search take me to of the app. That is nuts.
It should at worst take me to the search page within Netflix, even if voice did not work to fill in what I was searching for.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have three Roku boxes (well, 4 but one is not plugged in). Of the three issues stated the only one I find applicable is the "closed" ecosystem, and on the Roku it's only "mostly" closed. Anyone who is on Slashdot will have no problems figuring out how to side-load any of the hundreds (thoustands?) of unofficial channels and apps. First gen ROKU were a bit slow, and I don't have a Roku 3 but I assume it is faster than my newest (2XS) which is plenty fast.
I was very disappointed that Voice Search didn't include Netflix, especially as I had returned a Roku 3, precisely for this "cross-search" feature.
That being said, I never used Amazon Prime Video much because every interface for it is so abysmal. And FireTV finally gets the Prime interface right. For instance, they now finally tell me where I left off in an episode, and which one is next. Now I can finally start using Prime for more than just shipping. And they seem to have a lot that Netflix doesn't.
I hestiate to call it a mess, because it works just as good as the Roku for me, and seems better at buffering Netflix (I can rewind a bit, without it having to rebuffer). I'm hoping it will improve over time, to do a fraction of what they claimed it would, but until Roku 4 comes out, this is the best streamer out there right now.
There is a way, quite simple really. You buy a big screen dumb display and attach a Linux PC. Of course big screen displays with a whole lot less technology than a smart TV are some how more expensive than a smart TV, perhaps because they are trying to keep out an open market. The Linux PC of course will do everything you need it to do, flexibility of course creates a catch 22 , the more it can do the more complex the controls become. Of course do anything at all like adding a camera and voice capability and you really do want a PC to make sure security can be implemented properly and kept updated.
The "Smart TV" needs to shift from idiot box ideology to being a "Family Personal Computer" with enhanced security features. The Samsung model with a separate box just needs to be expanded upon, straight display with a, expandable media PC, sold as a package. Likely Dell could try making a push in this area.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
the player should play EVERY format, but this one does not.
Including obscure FMV formats of CD-based game consoles? Besides, a lot of these formats are patented, and Amazon isn't allowed to include them in its box.
I tried out chromecast last week as a friend who worked at Google gave me one. The trouble is that it has no UI whatsoever, you have to do everything via another device. This is possibly ok if you really like using your phone or tablet to double as a remote control, but it's extremely clumsy. At least the app I tried doesn't require me to enter my PIN to unlock the phone before I can pause the video, but you still have to turn on the phone, be extremely careful with where and how you touch to control things (like anything on a smartphone).
The good thing there I like is that when it's showing stuff, it is showing it from your WiFi, and NOT from your phone! I have essentially no dataplan so I want to use my ISP for this stuff. The phone is just a control and not a conduit for data. And it seems you can use android or iOS or Chrome browser which is an improvement over Apple TV's worldview.
You're at the mercy of the awful phone apps for control. For example Youtube on android was awful in so many ways, no easy fast forward or rewind just a very very tiny button to drag, making it even worse than Youtube on a computer which I thought was impossible. And surprisingly when the youtube video was over it did not stop and return to a default chromecast background screen; instead it automatically started playing the next video in the channel. I stop the video and killed the app, but this left that freeze frame on the screen with no obvious way to clear it except to reboot or unplug chromecast.
On the other hand it's a good idea. Especially if you're a social media lover who uses that phone or tablet like a drug and your friends are sending you links to stuff to look at, so you can just tap quickly to move that kitten video to the TV. Good for parties too as anyone on your wifi can be showing stuff on your TV too. It's an interesting enough feature that this is what other set top boxes should be doing, and should be doing just as simply. It really works because it's damn cheap and hits a good price point. For a cable/satellite replacement it misses the mark though. What it needs is a remote control like appletv, firetv, and roku have. If you sit down on the couch in the evening to watch TV, Al Bundy style, you don't want to be fumbling with a touchscreen device.
For me though it seems like a way to see if a streaming device is feasible before I invest more money in one.
ROCKIN' GOOD NEWS, Jeff! That is exciting. I was going to leave mine in the box till tomorrow, but now I'm way to stoked to let it sit. I've been wanting a tiny XMBC box for cheap for a while. I passed on Ouya because I didn't have confidence, and Raspberry Pi because of the DIY time commitment I couldn't afford. It was the hardware specs that really sold me this box, and XBMC was in the back of my mind when I pulled the trigger.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Thus, even if you have access to a movie for free through Netflix, using the Voice Search for that movie will only bring up Amazon's paid options.
This is also the problem with the Xbox One, it only searches the MS store and none of your apps like Netflix or Hulu. It also can't search your DVR to suggest shows/movies you have already recorded.
Twinstiq, game news
I'm just running XBMC on a raspberry pi, less expensive and it just works with my TV's remote. Plays my 1080p videos just fine. Until x265 becomes supported in XBMC, I should be fine. Will the Fire TV have enough processing power for x265, and does it support HDMI-CEC?
Twinstiq, game news
How does it go against the Minix ?
basically if you want a decent "streaming box" (or whatever you want to call these things), IMNHO best bet is to build or buy an htpc(e.g. Intel NUC, Gigabyte gbox(or whatever they call it), a zbox, etc. (i.e. either a barebones(add RAM/storage) or a basic steamboxen...)
These little streamboxes, e.g. Roku 3, Fire TV, etc. are just too gimped to be useful unless ALL that you want are the basic services that they provide, but personally I'd like my box to be able to stream itself and not just be reliant on incoming streams, as well as be powerful enough to run several of those at once. ARMs just aren't up to that being processor limited, memory limited, and storage bandwidth limited(assuming your device has USB of some sort and you can actually attach something like an hdd, but ARM USB is generally slow).
The UI for something like this should be content first. It should be a discovery app, not a list of silo apps. Give us Search, Browsing, and most importantly Recommendations for ALL content with one viewer app. The stupid silo apps provide NO VALUE to the user. They provide nothing more than clumsy crapware attempts by the content people to barricade you in to their content. They force you to watch ads to get non-PPV content so why leave the Cable box+DVR when cord-cutting and online streaming puts you back in time to the day before the VCR. Amazon FireTV looks no better than the rest in solving the real problems. What we need is a content discovery first, source neutral, single viewer app that supports our fair use of content like the DVR does (even if it has to record to do it). Until then, all will all short.
Try voice searching for House of Cards. It comes up. Voice search may not fully support other apps on the device due to their meta data not being available to Amazon's cloud, but it doesn't ignore them either: http://www.cordcutterforum.com...
They want you to buy from Amazon. All my iThings are the same way -- Siri is great for interacting with the built-in Apple apps and services, but if I want to listen to something from Spotify, all it can do is launch the app. The AppleTV, the Chromecast, and the Roku are no better, each of them live in their own little universe. The XBONE and PS4 are the same way, too. It's the future kid, get used to it.