Does the Amazon device have better controls for YouTube than the Roku 3? Trying to fast forward YouTube on the Roku does not work very well.
Can one browse the internet at all?
Youtube and Netflix are absolutely identical on the two devices. They use the HTML5 UIs.
You can sideload Chrome (or any android browser) on the firetv, if you want to.
So I picked up one of these on the cheap ($84) to play around with. It runs XBMC like a charm, but the hardware struggles playing stuff off my MythTV backend. Occasional artifacts in the playback, and fast-forward doesn’t show what’s going past (making that a pretty useless feature). XBMC on my PC connected to the same backend has no such issues. Looks like Netflix will work fine, though, and I’m probably going to take the plunge on Amazon Prime (been almost doing that for the last six months, for the shipping) so I’ll have that stuff to check out, too.
Looks like the Fire Stick is on sale for $19 for the next 2 days. Prime members only. I picked one up to see whats it all about, I usually just watch Prime movies on my PC. So it will be nice to have the option for my wreck room.
HBO GO is now available.
I’m really happy with my fireTV. Fantastic Kodi platform for my bedroom. I was leery about buying it with the androidTV coming up, but it turned out the fireTV was a better choice anyway.
Kodi can now be run directly from the FTV homescreen! No need to mess around with Llama or xposed modules and root.
Just “buy” the Kodi app on the amazon store, sync in settings, then Kodi will start to show up in Recents on the FTV. You still need to sideload to install/upgrade it, as Amazon doesn’t certify Kodi for the FTV.
At this point the FTV is clearly, by far, the best non-PC Kodi platform.
Oh wow. I might just pull the trigger now. Any scuttlebutt on a hardware refresh in the next, say, six months? And what are the big things missing from Fire TV that you would find on Roku (that would be relevant in the UK - so Vudu for instance wouldn’t matter) ?
Hey, that’s handy. Thanks for posting it.
At the moment, I only have two issues with the Kodi implementation on the Fire TV: it still crashes a couple of times a day if I’m using it heavily, and some MKV files won’t play without major stuttering. (And the volume doesn’t work, but that’s FTV’s problem, not Kodi.) I’m hoping both can be fixed in upcoming releases. Until then, restarting after a crash isn’t too hard, and I just go back to VLC on the PC for files that Kodi can’t play.
No news on a hardware refresh, but they wouldn’t tell us about that in advance for obvious reasons. FireTV is missing nothing of note compared to the Roku. It covers all the big streaming sites; netflix, amazon (obviously), HBO GO, hulu+, youtube, etc. Well, it won’t have HBO NOW for 3 months as that’s apple-exclusive, but that’s it.
Kodi never crashes on my firetv, and I don’t have any stuttering problems. Are you running 14.1? If you’re on wireless, are you on 5Ghz with a good connection?
I just went throught the Lllama install for Kodi 2 days ago!
My issue is how to I get my PC media to play on Kodi? I can’t figure out how to find the stuff on my PC to stream to the FTV.
You can uninstall llama and classicTV now.
You need to setup a windows share on your PC, and connect to it in Kodi.
Awesome. Thanks.
Yep, 14.1 and my network is wired (and I’ve tried several different cables and ports on the hub, just in case). Between the Kodi issues and my Netflix app problems and the issues I had with the Sling app, I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some kind of memory and/or cache issue on the Fire TV. All the problems (except the MKV stutter, that’s consistent) go away temporarily when I restart the box, but always come back after a while. Since others don’t have the problem, it’s likely specific to my box.
Unfortunately, these kinds of intermittent issues are nigh impossible to troubleshoot. If I could be sure of the problem, I’d find a way to fix it or send it back to Amazon…but as it stands, I pretty much just have to live with it. And despite all my bitching about it, it’s really not a huge deal…mostly it works, just every once in a while one of these problems pops up and I have to fiddle with it. Reminds me of the old days when the TV signal was usually clear, but every once in a while you’d have to get up and move the rabbit ears around.
Later versions of the FireTV firmware improve video playback and scaling, might want to try upgrading. If you have root, you will want to use a pre-rooted firmware.
For stuttering, try various permutations of enabling/disabling mediacodec and libstagefright under video acceleration settings. I forget which one I use; I’m not at home to check. If both are enabled it will always use mediacodec.
Long story short, mediacodec is the built-in android video acceleration, but amazon’s implementation sometimes has issues. Libstagefright is kodi’s hacked version which often works better.
http://kodi.wiki/view/Android_FAQ#rough_playback
Edit: Just actually read your post… so you also have problems in Netflix, and they go away when you restart the box? If so, it’s time to contact Amazon for a replacement. They pay for shipping both ways. It’s super-easy to exchange at amazon, and triply so for Amazon’s own hardware. I guarantee it will be the easiest most pleasant exchange of your entire life.
The replacement probably won’t be rootable, but now that you can run Kodi from the homescreen, I’m not sure that I would really care.
Does it have Twit?
Thanks for the info. I’ll try disabling mediacodec, maybe that’ll solve the stutter issue. A quick Google shows that it worked for some other folks with similar problems.
Can’t hurt to try! I’ll get in touch with them and go through the usual “try to reboot, try clearing your data, try reinstalling” rigmarole with them. Having done all that already, I’ll be stunned if it actually helps, then we’ll see how the replacement process goes.
Yes, it has a twit.tv app. There’s also a twit.tv Kodi addon.
If you already tried clearing all your data/etc, just tell them that. Really, you should expect a very pleasant return experience.
Does all of this also apply to the Fire Stick? I’d had enough issues with the FS that’s I’d pulled it out and put the Chromecast back in.
Yes, if you’re having technical problems, return it.
Update: disabling mediacodec in Kodi did the trick for MKV playback! Thanks for the tip, stusser.
I did call Amazon, and they did have me do all the clearing and restarting stuff, but it was slightly different than the procedure I’d been using. Had me remove some extra apps I wasn’t using, do a full poweroff instead of just restarting, that sort of thing. So we’ll see if that helps.