I’ll stick with my Roku. It has more options and isn’t currently trying to take over the world. I can view Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix and a thousand other channels. The only things I can’t get are from Itunes, but I don’t think the Fire TV Stick can either.
Netflix and Prime dropped Top Gear. And Netflix and Prime dropped me. My Roku became a largely unwieldy way to watch youtube.
So has the BBC.
Yup. I’m fine with that. Clarkson has always reminded me a bit of Rush Limbaugh with a more erudite manner.
He’s the very definition of the word “oaf”. It’s been fun watching the ride, but it was never going to end well.
The Fire TV Stick doesn’t do podcasts so I’ll have to keep the Apple TV around for that purpose*. Also the wifi in the stick isn’t very good. I had to return mine and get another one just to get it to connect consistently no matter how close my router was to the Fire. Amazon tried to deny there was a problem and really dug in its heels on this one. It wasn’t until I asked them to close my account that they agreed to a replacement. If you look at the reviews for the product, this is a common issue and makes me wonder if the customer service hostility was from them getting too many returns. Whatever the reason, it certainly did significant damage to my opinion of Amazon. Another problem is the PIN system where you either enter a PIN before each and every item you view or your Fire sits there ready for anyone who uses it to run up a huge bill. They need to have a PIN setting so you can require it for purchases that cost actual money. Seems like the basic problem is that Amazon considers things that cost $0.00 to be a purchase. Try watching an entire season of a show with a demand for your PIN between each and every episode. It’s annoying and shows a lack of user empathy on the part of Amazon’s UI designers.
- I know someone will suggest Plex, which seems to be the catch all answer to any device’s shortcomings but having to keep another machine running all the time so that other devices can perform basic tasks is at best a kludge.
that’s interesting - i got one of these primarily to use as a SlingTV client, and i found that the experience was horrible. the video quality would degrade and stay degraded, which i figured was the result of too many packets being dropped on wifi coupled with bad software. but maybe the wifi is just crap. agree on plex - i did the appleTV hack that hijacks the trailers app to become a plex client, but it only sort of half-works.
“…Apple TV sells only HD versions of TV episodes…”
That’s not actually the case — the option to choose SD or HD content is in the system settings.
I still prefer chromecast to both.
Could you show me where?
Yeah, my enjoyment of top gear is trumped by not seeing that dickhead on tv again. I’m sure he’ll end up on itv but i avoid that wherever possible. Anyway, watching it is like glimpsing through a timewarp to 1966 or something, the xenophobia is just noxious.
Found it. Thanks. Christ, I’m an idiot.
Nah, It’s annoyingly obscure and it’s a pain in the ass if you just want to buy one particular movie in HD, say.
Best thing I ever did was connect my PC to my HDTV. 1gbps wired internet port, fed by 100+Mbps internet, and enough graphics horsepower to compress videos means it handles playing HD video with practically zero latency, higher quality than any standalone device I’ve seen. And it is pretty much rock solid because I play most things from firefox which is much better supported than all these one-off devices. Plus it heats my living room in the winter.
I know I’m hijacking the topic by saying this, but I’ll do it anyways.
After all this time, companies should not be selling HD and SD content at different prices. Frankly it should be illegal if that’s what it takes to stop them.
HD (1080p) is the standard. You make a film now it is done in HD, the cameras you buy to do so are all HD, nearly everyone has a HD capable device. It no longer costs any more money to make something in HD. As everything commercial is already being done in HD as the default and any SD content is created by downgrading that HD content. (Which ironically means it likely costs a few pennies more to create SD content than it does to create HD).
This SD vs HD content is just another industry practice where they artificially raise the price of something standard by also selling you something downgraded to make you think the higher price is valid.
It’s basically on the same level as what the telecoms in the US wanted to do when they opposed reclassifying the internet to be net neutral. They wanted to slow down your internet even more and call it “Fast”, then sell you what you were already getting before at a higher price calling it “Hyperspeed”.
They’re not selling you “Standard” definition for $1.99 and “High” definition for $2.99. They’re selling you “Standard (1080p)” definition at $2.99 and “Downgraded” at $1.99 to justify selling the standard quality at a higher price.
If 2-tiered selling of technological advancements at higher prices forever, even after they had become standard, was really a thing. We would still be able to buy a B&W copy and it would cost less than $0.99.
Of course I do understand we live in “reality” where North American companies get to artificially hold back our technological to a level behind the actual technological level of the world just so they can rake in more and more money, and the average person is too ignorant of this fact to give a shit.
Thats what i thought of the iwatch.
Silly to buy one of these when you can get a Roku.
I know nothing about the amazon fire tv product but can you “sideload” a podcast app (eg podcast addict) onto the stick?
I have a Roku, and get all this with that. Plus I can stream from my computer or tablet to my TV, as well.
