My Amazon Fire TV Test...

[Arcmanov]

Relevant...

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/22/netflix-wants-to-stretch-its-lead-against-amazon-w.aspx




SM-N900 / VN-ROM v11.1 (KitKat 4.4.2) / SwiftKey / Tapatalk Pro

[woodyear99]

Update:
Installed the latest arm build of xbmc Gotham. This one is working great, getting stuttering when I playback via wifi. Using wired ethernet and my streams are perfect. Tried out a 1080p Blu Ray rip and it's working well.

Also noticed that the issue I was having in Mashup, not being able to fast forward, might not really be an issue but more of a limitation with how videos are hosted. I noticed that Mashup buffers the video so it doesn't let you go past the point it reached in the download.

As it is now this will be my primary playback device for movies from my raspberry pi.

I can now recommend this device to anyone looking for a cheap low powered xbmc device that's silent. The only major limitation is that there is still no access to USB port so it cannot play files directly from USB hard drive. Network playback is great.
As mentioned earlier it can also run other sideloaded Android apps.

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[TriniXaeno]

Yeah WiFi has been a no no for htpc use. So I wouldn't count that as a negative. Wire all the way.

Excellent news!

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[woodyear99]

Interesting however that my Samsung smart TV can stream the same 1080p files over wifi with no issues.

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[TriniXaeno]

Count yourself lucky. I will never use WiFi for htpc. Ever.

By design, WiFi is subject to interference from external sources that you do not control.

Wire will hold the line regardless. (Short of an emp)

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[woodyear99]

I'm using a PowerLine adapter to access my network. Very impressed with the speeds, almost as good as an ethernet cable and way better than wifi. Ymmv

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00AWRUIY4/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1399480241&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40

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[TriniXaeno]

boom bang. I use those liberally. They are on par with wire (because they are wire!)

You're in a gear.

#Fire.TVidmc

[woodyear99]

Update: Installed Plex client. It's working great!

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[TriniXaeno]

Nice. Is that an official add on or any sort of side loading shenanigans required as with xbmc?

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[woodyear99]

Nope I bought plex straight off the Amazon Android store and it synced to the fire TV.

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[TriniXaeno]

slick

[woodyear99]

May pair it with a plex server on a nuc eventually yes. It's very simple. Seems like even xbmc too complicated for mom :s

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[woodyear99]

So my parents have been using Plex with the Fire TV for the past year. I checked out the latest version of Kodi, and was pleasantly surprised with how well it now works, 10 gig 1080p video files stream flawlessly over the network. When I initially set it up a year earlier, older versions of xbmc had quite a bit of stuttering and it couldn't keep up. This will probably be replacing my current Plex setup since Kodi can now stream properly from network shares I have on my router's usb ports. No more plex transcoding/need for a pc running a plex server.

Also installation is much easier, you no longer have to manually install adb packages and use console commands to sideload apps onto the Fire TV. A powerful utility called adbfire with a gui frontend was developed specifically for the firetv, it allows you to quickly install Kodi and other apks along with rooting the fire tv etc. Note: Rooting is not necessary to install Kodi.

http://www.jocala.com/adbfire.html





Full instructions on how to install Kodi onto the Fire TV available here:
http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Install_Kodi_on_Fire_TV

[TriniXaeno]

Fantastic update Woody.

That is a real game changer