Probably not for this audience, but I am keeping notes on the hacker/Android fan aspect of the Amazon stuff should Q&A go that way. Mostly, I am presenting to non-tech people who need a walkthrough of what it’s about and how to get there.
Once I decided to go cable-free, which meant getting rid of the cable that belonged to the previous tenant in my apartment. (This was decades ago, before cable was omnipresent.) The two workers came to the door. “We’re here to remove your cable.” They braced themselves, as if I was about to curse them out. I told them to come in. They did so cautiously, repeating the reason for their presence. “Yes, I know, I called to have it removed.” They looked at me as if I was crazy. Finally they left, looking as if they thought I’d start screaming at them. I’m guessing they’d had some bad experiences.
The cheapest Apple TV is $149. That’s fairly pricey. But not as much as the Nvidia SHIELD box.
Clearly no one in their right mind would buy those. … Unless they actually look at what they do overall and notice that you are getting something extra for your money.
Naive comparisons of these devices fall apart if you fail to see this. I.e., if you compare two devices without considering how much more one can do than the other.
Note that Apple/Apple TV, Google/Chromecast and Amazon/Fire TV are not just boxes. They are gateways to the respective company’s media content/app systems.
The big money isn’t in the hardware, it’s in the software/content/etc. If a device maker doesn’t have the latter behind their hardware, they’ve got a problem. There are a ton of cheap Android media boxes coming out now. (I was just browsing some cheap “DVR” boxes on Amazon yesterday that are around ~$30. All without an external HD that is a must if you actually want to record stuff.
But still surprisingly cheap.)
If someone can make millions of copies of your type of box, they will- for cheaper with razor thing profit margins. Without the “something else” behind your product, how do you compete?
Anyway: one issue with Apple TV is that people aren’t sure if Apple is really gungho behind it. People have been expecting new announcements with more features but …
It is quite sad that people keep doing the Kodi = piracy thing. Kodi out of the box doesn’t have any torrent streaming tools or such. Those are add ons that aren’t even in the official Kodi add-on library! It’s like equating Windows 10 = piracy. But this mistaken notion is enough to get official Kodi kicked out of the Amazon app store. (Hence the sideload it yourself mentions.)
Note that you don’t need to “hack” a Fire TV stick to run Kodi or most anything you want. Mine is rooted so I can use an USB Ethernet dongle. My Fire TV is unrooted and I’m fine with that.
Well, you really seem to have it in for Roku, but I can’t seem to make that an entirely fact-based position. If your preference is for the Android-based platforms that can be accessed at an OS level and “hacked” for the whole spectrum that term refers to, fine, and I see your point and preference.
But Roku stands alone as a streaming appliance for people who simply want a full-service streaming appliance; it’s the cheapest at every tier; it has a great technical history; and it’s unbound from any general universe of commercial products (which IMO is a plus). It is also the best-selling streamer and has been since the first days of simplified streaming. All of that is why I am recommending it as a first option for folks new to streaming… not techies, not geeks, not Android fan/hackers, not gamers, etc.
Gamers may want a PSx, an XBox or a Shield… that also does video streaming.
Folks with a heavy investment in Apple gear and iTunes may want an Apple TV.
Folks who want a low-cost Android TV device and/or are already Prime customers might prefer the Fire TV stuff.
Folks who have already mastered streaming on phones and tablets don’t need anything more than the simplicity of a Chromecast.
But it’s hard to make a case that Roku isn’t the best option for the rest of the market, and so far, sales seem to support that. I’m not even sure most of the buyers recognize that it’s the “purest” of the streaming devices in that it does not simply take them from the closed world of cable to another closed world of proprietary offerings, where the players have at one time or another worked to exclude the others. (Again, I see that as a huge advantage, perhaps as big as you see Android tinker/hackability. If we’re going to go free, folks, let’s go really free.)
You both imply that Apple has wondrous features that go unmentioned, and the dark cloud that even Apple seems kind of meh about it (my read: they didn’t capture the whole market, so they aren’t interested any more). Can you answer my prior question about why anyone would go with Apple TV other than already having a compatible technobase and an investment in iTunes material?
This article from The New York Times might be useful for the OP.
Where does this “hacked” stuff keep coming from? You don’t need root access to do a ton of cool stuff on Fire TV devices. Like I just pointed out, I have not bothered to root one of my Fire TV devices. It runs Kodi, the PBS app, etc.
It is very misleading to suggest that using Fire TV devices is for advanced users.
Note that you can easily find “hacked”/“modded” Fire TV Sticks on eBay loaded with software to “watch all you favorite TV shows/movies for free!”. These are scumbags. The Sticks have not been “hacked” in any way. They just load up skeevy apps the regular way, tack on a markup and post them for sale. This is scuzzy marketing, not reality.
And pardon me for liking a much more featureful, cheap device.
(And anyone who thinks sideloading apps is a “hack”, your knowledge of this is … lacking.)
I should have used more words; as someone who was around before hacking was invented I still use it as a synonym for “hobbyist tinkering.” My audience is not likely to be interested in loading apps, running secondary tools and apps and such. They’ll just want an appliance to replace their cable box. For all practical purposes, there’s no difference between equivalent Roku and Fire devices… except that Roku is unbound to a commercial platform and currently supports 4K, which puts it ahead in the general preference sweepstakes for me. I am clearly telling people that if they’re already Prime customers, the Fire TV offerings have an edge for them. (Without relying on any interest in the app capabilities, even.)
I’m not casting any aspersions on your choice. However, you’re going out of your way to diss and dismiss what’s not only the original product, but (so far) market leader and bellwether that will suit nearly all users who aren’t interested in… an active computing device. Hack, mod, use and tinker with Android-platforms in all good health and fun.
Appreciate the link, but it’s like dozens of such articles I’ve looked at and dismissed: little more than a shopper’s guide to the four main streaming devices on the market. There’s no justification for recommending this one for movies, that one for sports, and the other one for TV shows when they all have an nearly identical lineup of channel options.
Most cord-cutting articles are either this vague and simplistic or written by one of ftg’s kin for advanced net/AV/videohacker/Android-Linux geeks. Registrations for my community seminar keep rolling in because even with all this info, there’s still a lack of a single good source on how to get from cable to a comfortable streaming setup, without already knowing an awful lot of things and being something of a techie.
They just want to know the general what and the easiest how, and get a good sense of the why (bother).
Bad edit, sorry. So does the Fire TV box (albeit at a slightly higher price point).
You may have noticed they left out “Android TV boxes” Like the MINIX U1 in that story!
And I think Sony has an Android smart TV? Don’t see that mentioned.
More, search google.com for: android tv boxes
In terms of audience, the NYT article is to my talk/presentation/audience level as mine is to the Android platform fans. (That is, for a completely non-tech audience. It’s just a thinly disguised ‘recommended products’ article.)
Some people have no idea there IS an OS in a TV box, and care even less.
And some of us did their years trying to keep “media computers” up and working reliably from session to session, and got tired of dicking around more with the tool than the product. If I needed to have a lot of control over what the box did, I’d probably dive deeper into Android TV in and of itself… but my interest is in watching stuff with as little hassle as possible, so a black box appliance suits me fine.
No love for Tivo, AB?
The Bolt model:
[ul]
[li]Receives and records OTA HD signals (as well as cable)[/li][li]Is 4K capable[/li][li]Streams from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu, HBO, and other outlets[/li][li]Streams music and video from the user’s local Plex server[/li][li]Distributes content to tablets and other devices around the house[/li][li]Is not tied into Google or Amazon[/li][/ul]
Here’s a comparison of Bolt (and other Tivo devices) to competitors. (Note that the newer Bolt+ model does not have OTA capability.)
ISTM that Bolt would be useful to a fairly wide array of cord cutters, especially since the OTA/cable capability would allow someone to see how well OTA reception works for them before cutting the cord.
Admittedly, Tivo products are generally more expensive than Roku, Apple TV, or Fire Stick/TV. The basic Bolt with 500 GB hard disk is $200 and to get 3 TB will cost you $500. But of course, that’s because Tivos are DVRs, which none of those other devices is. If we define cord cutting as giving up all forms of scheduled, “real-time” TV, in favor of an on-demand experience, then perhaps Tivo is not for cord cutters.
But I’ve found that Tivo allows me to merge all of my TV viewing, including broadcast, cable networks, live sports, and streaming content, into one device. Before Tivo, I split my viewing between the Cox STB/DVR and Roku. Now I rarely use Roko at all. I chose the Roamio for reasons that aren’t germane to this discussion, but if I had thought that all of my viewing options could have been met through OTA plus streaming, a Bolt would have been a great solution.
I get that OTA reception might not be great in your community, but that may not be true for everyone in your audience, and some of your listeners may be interested in a hybrid cable/streaming model like I’m using, as outlined in my previous post.
Tivo recently came out with an OTA-only Romio for about $400 with Lifetime service included. Most Tivo’s have a monthly fee to cover the guide data, but this one has that included in the purchase price. Provided you can get OTA signals, Tivo is an awesome solution for cord cutters. Yes, the price is high compared to other DVR’s, but it provides a lot of value in terms of simplicity and reliability.
It won’t have as many fancy features like standalone streaming devices, but it still offers some of the features, like the ability to search for a program across services.
Yeah, the multi-use of “hacking” is a perennial problem.
In my years as a CS student and prof is was almost exclusively used to mean “A crude workaround. Far from the best way of doing things.”
Sometimes there’d be someone with an MIT connection around and their use which is pretty much the opposite caused confusion.
Then the media stepped in … downhill from there.
But regardless of usage, in this case it’s not so different to install an app on a Fire TV than a Windows box. And keep in mind that apps are the gateway in this context to various program services: Netflix, Hulu, etc. Some are just more official than others.
(If anyone really wants to know my “fan boy” ness, btw, I love my Raspberry Pis. I have 4 now. My Pi 2B runs OpenElec, a Kodi variant from boot up. But I do not recommend this to the casual user. As noted in my first post, Fire TVs are quite suitable for some people. Hardly a “fan boy” ultra rant.)
<not helpful> Cut the cord a couple years ago when Charter upgraded their system to carry internet … and tripled their price … so I bought a cheap-o antenna to get the local broadcasts … apparently PBS has two feeds which has pretty much doubled my TV viewing selections over Charter … </not helpful>
My thoughts on TiVo, respond to filmore’s post.
I currently have two of them up and running. I enjoy them quite a bit. But not as much as I used to. Some nights I barely use it and watch stuff thru my Fire TV devices.
TiVo is indeed working hard to add streaming stuff to their boxes. Netflix has been on them for a long time. The Amazon stuff seems to come and go. My Series 4 must have a dozen or so services listed for it. (Including the cable company’s VOD, which isn’t so relevant here.)
Of course it is a completely 100% locked down system. No hope of adding anything on yourself. Which really sucks.
The big issue with TiVo is the company is in trouble. They’ve been losing money on the DVR side for a long time. Their main source of income has been from patent licensing and some of their key patents are expiring. They’ve been mis-managed from the start.
One things to note: “Lifetime” isn’t lifetime. Last month they stopped service for Series 1 and 2s (analog tuner boxes). Who knows how much longer they will support my Series 3 lifetime box.
Another thing: they have a program to play media from a desktop computer. It hasn’t been updated in a while. And the mp3 player component has been killed off. (It was always unreliable.)
Many devices out of the box only allow media playing from “the cloud”. Which sucks, IMHO.
But if you can run Kodi (or merely something like ESFileExplorer), you can play all your favorite media nicely.
I would be slightly hesitant now to pay a lot of money up front to TiVo given the company’s shaky future. But it is still a somewhat decent option if you want one device with DVR capabilities.
No.
In a world that’s completely on-demand, which all streaming is (except some of what Sling TV offers), there’s no need to record anything.
I also object to the model of charging a significant amount each month to make the process work, especially on hardware that could do the job just fine on its own. It’s as if Philips and Sony released the VCR in a way that would only work if you rented channel-tuning information from them every month.
Getting rid of an overpriced box driven by an overpriced service that draws 75-120 watts 24/7/365 (~$10/month) is part of cutting the cord, to me.
As far as being an alternate streaming device, I put it in the same category as the game consoles… I guess if you find the (costly) main feature useful, the streaming functions are nice to have. But that’s around $40-50 of $4-500…
I’d still put a +1 in for Kodiand/or Plex. Plex is quite easy to use and if you’re willing to or already have a home theatre PC (a laptop plus a bluetooth keyboard or even a raspberry pi work well here) it is the way to go. With the Ubuntu version of Kodi I can still load in all my paid streaming services plus use things like Youtube or other internet streams. It takes a little bit to learn the ins and outs but that’s true of any new device.
Roku has the Plex app natively. As I may or may not have said here, I kind of burned out on the “computer driven home media system” a long while ago, but I understand the user base that likes to tie everything together. I was there once, mostly before it was all prefab apps and connection tech.
We just got rid of Uverse.
Internet through Cable w/ wifi $45
Sony Playstation Vue $35
HBO $15
Netflix $10
Total $105 a month.
Now we had to buy 2 Amazon Fire Tv boxs for the 2 tvs that dont have the PS4 connected, but that was a one time purchase.