I currently have a Sanyo ROKU TV, and people are telling me that adding a Firestick would be a great addition.
What is the difference between the two? Does Fire TV have b-movie channels like Roku’s The B-Zone, B Movie TV, Otherworlds Television etc.? Would I just be duplicating what Roku does for the most part?
Enlighten me, please
I have a fire TV stick I use while traveling and a Hisense Roku TV at home. IMO, people are either pulling your chain or are dipshits.
Fire TV is more ad-focused and cluttered. If your roku TV is old and struggling, a more current fire TV stick could help make it useful again, but so would a Roku stick.
So I don’t see a reason to get one of those.
Are there channels featuring b-movies and/or television that are available on Fire that are not available on Roku?
I’ve used FireTV a few times, but didn’t look into the FireTV-specific channels. I’m not sure if they have special channels that aren’t available on the Roku. The core functionality of running streaming apps is just about the same. Fire seems more geared to showing top-level ads and Amazon content. For some services, you can jump right back into a show from the top-level screen. So if you’re watching something on Prime, from the FireTV top screen you can see the show and jump right into it. You wouldn’t have to launch the Prime app, find the show, and resume watching it. Roku has some of this capability as well, but I think FireTV does it a little better. But regardless, I don’t think FireTV is all that much better that it’s worth getting a FireTV stick. However, the streaming platforms in TVs are often underpowered, clunky, and crash prone, so I’d recommend getting an external player to avoid the hassles of using the embedded streamer. I have external Roku players attached to my Roku TVs because I kept getting frustrated at the poor performance of the Roku platform embedded in the TV.
I don’t think there’s anything on the fire stick that’s not available on the prime video app. Is there a channel you’d like to get or one you’re worried about missing if you switch? I don’t watch a lot of b-movie channels, so I can’t comment on that, but both ecosystems rely on an app marketplace and the big names like free vee, tubi, etc are available on both.
What I am looking for are the smaller channels, often run by just a small group of people.
Again, you’d have to provide examples. If they make an app for roku, they likely make one for fire stick, but not guaranteed.
I provided three examples in the OP.
If they are top-level channels that are at the same level as Hulu, Prime, etc., then they would likely also be available on Fire. But if they are one of the channels that are inside the “Roku Channel” app, then they may or may not be on Fire. The Roku Channel app has some aggregated content and some Roku-only content. Some of the channels inside the Roku Channel app can be found in top-level apps as well. If there are standalone apps for these channels, then it’s very likely they would also work on Fire. But if they are Roku-owned content, then they probably wouldn’t be on Fire.
Sorry, long day. The first 2 look to be exclusive to roku. I couldn’t determine the third.
What advantage are you looking for from the stick? If it’s just portability, roku also makes a stick you can use. Personally I like their TV interface and wouldn’t want to switch to a stick, but that’s just me.
I am looking for the same kind of content, or very similar. B-Movies, unusual commercials from other places, bad television, a lot of stuff you used to find on local access television etc. . Roku contains much more than just “The Roku Channel”, btw. I have found channels/apps on Roku dedicated to such things as erotic paintings, local pro wrestling, WWII wartime cartoons. I have even found three different channels dedicated to the show “Dusty’s Trail”. It is a treasure trove of weirdness, and I am wondering if a Fire Stick would add anything or just pretty much be a unnecessary duplication of what I already have with Roku.
Here is a partial list of what can be accessed by Roku that is outside the Roku Channel itself: Apps Channels | TV Apps | Roku Channel Store | Roku
At some point Amazon bought IMDbTV and rebranded it Freevee, and it has a lot of channels, but it mostly seems to be an ad-based grab bag of standard channels plus some odd bespoke channels…but nothing as bespoke as what you list. One interesting thing they do is make entire channels of one show, so there’s a Let’s Make a Deal channel, an Alfred Hitchcock Presents channel, an Outer Limits channel, an SNL Vault channel, MST3K, etc etc etc.
I’ve tried to find a comprehensive list of those channels, but after scrolling for 10 minutes I see that they’re endless. But nothing like what you describe.
ETA Dick van Dyke Show channel, “Classic Doctor Who” channel, etc. I need to stop scrolling, now, but I can’t help myself.
I had reasonable performance taking an Amazon Fire Stick and installing Kodi (open source media player) on it. Then I was able to install whatever channels/add-ons I wanted— there are many, many, many of them, not just Netflix and Disney and whatever— without worrying what was or was not available on the main app or marketplace.
Really seems like an unnecessary duplication. I’ve never been pitched much in the way of alternate non-mainstream channels but you can link your Prime video account to services like Showtime, Starz, etc.
By the same token, if you wanted to try they will likely be super-cheap with Prime Day, likely 25 or 30 bucks (assuming you’re a Prime member). Or you can find a used one and try it out.
Here is a list of Prime Day sales for Fire TV add-ons. The best bet there is to go with one of the 4k ones.
Yeah, they don’t come with enough memory. The FireOS ecosystem is drifting further away from mainstream Android, etc. I just haven’t ever done Roku so I can’t give a comparison.
I use it mainly for Kodi but got a few other channels on it. I’d like to add several more but memory, you know. (Amazon has added a feature to background unused apps out of main memory, but still …)
Roku seems to be making themselves worse lately. They have been looking into ways of inserting their own ads when you pause an app, they have forced some users into using video smoothing on their roku tvs, they download their own apps, and they call home a lot to report on activity on your network. There is a reason that their devices are so cheap, they sell the user data to advertisers. Amazon has a similar policy of making the user the end product.
Although you need to be within the Apple family to take advantage of a lot of the benefits, I vastly prefer my Apple TVs over the one Roku Ultra that I have. The interface is very fast, there are no ads, and the picture/sound quality are excellent. I do not watch B movies so I do not know if there are any good apps that you can add that will meet your needs.
Wait, what the hell?
It seems to be only on their TVs
Many of the streaming apps have “live TV” sections where the aggregate lots of content together into a channel-like format. The Roku itself has a Live TV app, but other Roku apps have channel content like Prime, Paramount, Sling, and PlutoTV. Some apps will have the channels available for free even if you aren’t a subscriber. They may have channels with various content, like B-movies, old TV shows, game shows, etc.