Amazon Fire TV Stick

[Belegost]

So...

Miracast doesn't necessarily mean WiDi (like from a laptop) support, correct?

Ah, who cares. Going to buy it and plug it into our spare TV at the very least.

WiDi 3.5 and above supports the Miracast standard.

 

[mcveigh]

Bought one last night. Says it won't be delivered till the week before Christmas!!! damn!

 

[basslover1]

Damn, I'm glad I happened to go to amazon to check on something yesterday morning, mine shows release date delivery

 

[notposting]

Damn, I'm glad I happened to go to amazon to check on something yesterday morning, mine shows release date delivery

*scowl*

 

[Darknite39]

Haha, Jan 9 for me. Almost forgot to order before the discount expired. I really only want to stream Amazon shows, so it's not a big deal at all.

 

[Anonemous]

Dec. 4th for me and I thought that was bad.

 

[pcsavvy]

My estimated delivery date is Jan. 9th, 2015.

 

[Roland00Address]

So...

Miracast doesn't necessarily mean WiDi (like from a laptop) support, correct?

Ah, who cares. Going to buy it and plug it into our spare TV at the very least.

This info may be way out of date.

Intel WiDi came out before Miracast. Intel WiDi has much lower latency than miracast and is more reliable. They way it gets lower latency and better reliability is using the cpu's dedicated video encoder and requiring certain wireless cards and thus better wifi support.

That said starting with Intel WiDi software 3.5, devices that support Intel WiDi 3.5 (sandy and newer, arrandale had widi but it did not have quicksync and thus only mpeg2 and not .h264 support) can now broadcast to miracast devices. The most current version of the Intel WiDi software is 4.2.29. Miracast is a much looser standard than WiDi it does not care as much as how the video is encoded (amd, intel, qualcomm, etc) and it has much looser requirements on the wireless card so manufacturers do garbage and is thus unreliable. Plus Miracast is messed up on the software side where only some devices work.

Now Intel WiDi software is compatible with windows 7 and windows 8.0 but not vista or windows 8.1. Now windows 8.1 instead builds this video encoding and wireless transfer right into the operating system and you do not need intels app to do so. Now some devices will wireless broadcast better than others due to the dedicated encoding on the cpu/gpu with fix function hardware vs using the cpu or the gpu to do so, same thing with wireless cards.

Since windows 8.1 intel has a new app WiDi app which is not really like the old one. Instead it just searches your computer for things like pictures and videos put it in an easy place so it is easier for grandma to put the video on the big screen tv. Windows does the work, the app just makes it easier to find stuff.

Who knows if the fire tv will be a good miracast receiver (at least it has dual band wireless 5ghz and 2.4 ghz wifi). Brian Klug was going to write a whole article about miracast devices when miracast first came out. Turns out he could never get it to work successfully (sometimes it works but then it drops) with dozens of phones and dozen of miracast receivers. Frustration at miracast turned into rage and he just never did it for the technology just does not work. He has mentioned though on his twitter and the podcast that miracast just does not work for the standard was just not well thought out.

Speaking as a person who has wasted several of his own hours trying to get miracast to work I can tell you that if you can't get it working in 15 mins please for the sake of all that is holy just give up.

 

[eplebnista]

Mine was originally estimated to be delivered on Dec 1st, received email from Amazon a little while ago stating that mine has shipped and should arrive on Thursday Nov. 20th.

 

[cronos]

Mine was originally estimated to be delivered on Dec 1st, received email from Amazon a little while ago stating that mine has shipped and should arrive on Thursday Nov. 20th.

Mine was originally Nov. 26, and still shows as Nov. 26 :\

Just realized that if somehow it missed the Nov. 26 date, I probably won't get it until the following week (Thanksgiving).

 

[basslover1]

Mine shows up tomorrow

But of course I wont be home to receive it, which means it'll be locked up in my complex's office until Thursday morning when they reopen.

 

[notposting]

This info may be way out of date.

Intel WiDi came out before Miracast. Intel WiDi has much lower latency than miracast and is more reliable.

*snip*

Speaking as a person who has wasted several of his own hours trying to get miracast to work I can tell you that if you can't get it working in 15 mins please for the sake of all that is holy just give up.

Wow, I missed this before. Awesome, thanks for that writeup.

 

[Kaido]

Mine shows up tomorrow

But of course I wont be home to receive it, which means it'll be locked up in my complex's office until Thursday morning when they reopen.

Nice! Mine shipped but it won't show up until Thursday. Anxious to give it a try!

 

[EvilYoda]

Haven't bothered looking at mine but I don't think I'm expecting it before next year. Oh well.

 

[zerocool84]

The two I ordered just got here. I already have a Chromecast but for the $20 price I wanted one to play with. I'll probably give it to my mom and the other for an Xmas gift.

It's cool that it comes with a remote because not everyone wants to use an app on their phone/tablet to control everything plus it's easier to hand someone a remote than the whole phone/tablet if they want to change something. It's small like Chromecast but slightly longer. It's weird that the USB plug is on the side and not the back of the device like Chromecast.

Upon booting up it says it's recommended to plug in the power adapter to an outlet which to me defeats the purpose of the device. I have it plugged into the tv USB and it seems to be working fine so far. I love my Chromecast and this seems cool so far. Will need more time to play with it to see if I really like it.


EDIT:

Played with it for a little and while it's a fine little streaming stick, it really offers nothing over Chromecast. The extra speed of the hardware of the Fire Stick doesn't mean anything loads faster since streaming Netflix isn't processor heavy and Chromecast does that just fine. I don't plan on playing any games on the Fire TV so that doesn't matter to me. Interface is fine but if you're already entrenched in the Apple or Android ecosystem, the respective streaming devices from those companies are better for you. Even though I have Prime, it's not enough to sway me, I'll be giving both away as gifts. It's not bad at all and if you need a streaming option, this fits the bill just fine but not enough to give up using Chromecast for me.

 

[cronos]

So, the most important thing, can you sideload app (XBMC) on it?

 

[shortylickens]

What I've noticed with slower devices is they take a long time to load up videos initially.

My Roku 2 is MUCH faster than the smart blu-ray and the Wii U. HD video quality is the same on all of them.

Oh, and also navigating menus with hundreds of titles.

 

[Kaido]

Got mine today. First impressions:

1. Yay for putting both batteries in the remote in the same way. It's a small thing, but it's one of the things I love about modern technology. Also, it's hilarious how much bigger the remote is than the stick!

2. Booted up, hooked up to my wifi, downloaded updates for maybe 20 minutes. Booted back up, installed the updates. The update must have overwritten my wifi, had to punch it in again. Then it booted.

3. GUI looks like Plex...exactly like Plex, right side to the orange text. It's a complete ripoff, but in a good way - very snappy.

4. It knew who I was when I booted in. I'm not sure how. I didn't have to punch ANYTHING in, which was both convenient & creepy. I'm not sure if they guessed at my wifi network & IP (from previous connections on my Roku via the Amazon app) or had a serial number on the device or what. Cool, but weird. It asked if it was me (my name) or not - I selected my name & it booted right in, no password required. Didn't have to hop on my smartphone or computer to register it. Neat, but I'm curious how they did it. #nsa

5. Got sucked into watching the 5th Element on Prime Video for awhile. Loaded fast, played smooth, picture looked good. I am a meat popsicle.

6. It did crash once on me & rebooted the whole thing automatically. While I'm not happy that it crashed, I did like the automatic reboot - my Roku 3's occasionally freeze up & I have to manually reset the power to get it to boot back up. I also understand that it's very new & I know how programming deadlines go - ship now, patch later.

7. Music & movies sound great. I recently got a 2.1 Vizio soundbar and I was rocking out with the music.

8. I don't like the music interface. I have a few hundred artists/albums/etc. on Amazon (I always jump on the random freebies) and it just lets you scroll from left to right...which takes forever. Maybe there's more to the interface, I'll dig more into it as I spend more time with it.

9. It had a Sonic the Hedgehog game, which I downloaded, but it said it needed the wireless joystick controller to play it. Oh well. Might get one in the future, especially if apps can be sideloaded. Looks like the PS4 controller (Bluetooth) may be a good option as well.

10. Haven't read anything about sideloading yet. Specs comparison in the meantime:

http://sideloadfiretv.com/fire-tv-vs-fire-tv-stick/

12. Oh, and when it first booted up, it had a cartoon video tutorial. VERY nice for non-technical users.

 

[Kaido]

Initial reports are that sideloading works fine. Looks like people are having success getting XBMC on it:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=207444&pid=1841602#pid1841602

 

[Kaido]

Also, I haven't seen the VUDU app on the Fire TV stick. That's a killer app for my family.

 

[cronos]

Thanks, Kaido.

And yes, just like the Fire TV (and I think Kindle Fire as well?), they are all sent pre-registered with your Amazon account. So all you need to do is hook it up.

 

[Kaido]

Thanks, Kaido.

And yes, just like the Fire TV (and I think Kindle Fire as well?), they are all sent pre-registered with your Amazon account. So all you need to do is hook it up.

Yeah, just read that on the packaging this morning - how do they do it?? If they're doing it based on serialization, they must have a serious system in place to handle that...I'm sure their pre-orders were in the millions at $19 a pop. I've done some industrial serialization projects at work and it is surprisingly NOT easy stuff to do, so it was kind of mind-blowing that I plugged it in, it knew who I was, and simply got everything setup for me. Crazy but awesome!

 

[Kaido]

I don't know why the reviews are saying it's not as snappy as the Fire TV...I've never used a Fire TV, but the entire menu works instantly, so I dunno what they're talking about. Feels very zippy to me!

I think my only real complaint is the lack of a VUDU app. And I guess, the lack of a channel store...it's basically the Apple TV on steroids, i.e. you get what you get, they just happen to offer more apps than Apple, especially game-wise. Side note, I'm really surprised that Apple hasn't ported over games to the AppleTV yet. Anyway, it looks like Walmart will be offering their own VUDU Spark streaming stick:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/7/7174127/walmart-will-challenge-chromecast-roku-with-vudu-spark

I don't really want to have two devices. I consolidated to Roku 3's throughout the house about a year ago & got my family trained on the interface, and they don't want to change haha. But the Fire TV Stick looks promising because if sideloading works properly & I can run basic emulators with the wireless gamepads, then I'll be a pretty happy camper. All it needs is VUDU!

 

[Jesusthewererabbit]

Yeah, just read that on the packaging this morning - how do they do it?? If they're doing it based on serialization, they must have a serious system in place to handle that...I'm sure their pre-orders were in the millions at $19 a pop. I've done some industrial serialization projects at work and it is surprisingly NOT easy stuff to do, so it was kind of mind-blowing that I plugged it in, it knew who I was, and simply got everything setup for me. Crazy but awesome!

All of the Fire stuff comes like that. All three Kindle Fire's and the Fire TV have all come preloaded with my account info.

 

[cronos]

So I mentioned back on Tuesday how my order was still showing expected delivery date of Nov 26, as it was originally. Wednesday night I checked and it moved back to Monday, Nov 24, which I think is fantastic, now I'll sure be getting it before the thanksgiving holiday.

Last night I got a notification that my order just shipped (it's late, like 9 pm), but somehow Amazon did its magic and it will arrive today! So just now I checked UPS tracking and it's already out on delivery. Love it when Amazon did the 'earlier than expected delivery date' switcheroo and made me happy :wub: