Amazon Fire TV (Regular & Stick)
- Thread starter BirdOPrey5
- Start date
Can you use a USB port on the TV?
Ralph
VIP
The stick recommends "for best results" that you plug it in. The box, no. The power supply is not USB based. It's a wall wart with a conventional dc power plug on the device end
I received notice this morning that my ship date has been moved up
Main benefit is that the Fire TV will see more frequent updates and for a longer period than your average Smart TV.
It also probably connects to more streaming services.
Basically if you are happy with the functionality of your Smart TV then use it. If you ever find the smarts to be not so smart anymore then buy a Fire TV or whatever streaming thingy is the hotness at that time.
Road Head
VIP
We have a smart bluray player that we keep stored in a closet. In-laws got it for us so we could stream Netflix. Literally, every time we turned it on the thing would have to update and would take 5-10 minutes, and so we put it in the closet, and hooked up our good, old, dumb dvd player and it works as it should.
My FIrestick Delivery has also been moved up, should have it this week.
NOW I JUST NEED AN ECHO!
NOW I JUST NEED AN ECHO!
My Fire TV Stick is showing a 22 Dec delivery date.
Echo should be delivered tonight!
That's why I just turned on my PS3, so I can watch a movie later. F'n thing is always updating.
do you have ****ing dial up? It take a minute to update at the most
How to sideload apps: Sideload Apps to the Amazon Fire TV using Windows | Sideload Fire TV
Is the watchespn app an older version on Amazon then what is available in Google Play maybe? If you sideload the Google Play version that might work.
OK so this is how I setup my Fire TV to work how I wanted.
First I sideloaded XBMC (AKA Kodi) onto it via the instructions I posted above (post #75.)
Updated- everything beyond this is uncessary now that Kodi or SPMC or any side loaded app shows up like any other app.
Then I sideloaded Llama which is a location based event app. Ignore the description, we don't care about locations. (I used this site to get .apk files from the Play Store.)
You can then use Llama to setup a new event that "Listens" for you to launch some random unused legit Fire TV app and tell it to take an "Action" and to load XBMC. This basically gives you quick access to XBMC from the main Fire TV screen. I did the same thing with ES File Explorer so I can browse local and network files.
OK then I setup XBMC to add the network location I share my videos from- just as files- I did not want to use the scraper to find "Movie" and "TV SHows" as that will download a bunch of artwork and other data I don't care about. Without that extra stuff XBMC seems more stable and its easier to find what I want.
I was still having two more issues- the time was off on XBMC... turns out the Time Zone set on the Fire TV itself was wrong- it was set to PST, I had to move it to EST in the Fire TV settings. Also the Fire TV video wasn't taking up the full screen but I only noticed it when playing videos. That too had to be updated in the Fire TV settings itself- I had to increase the size of the display- even at absolute max it isn't taking up the entire screen, but it's much closer to the edge now- I can live with it.
This will really make my Fire TV the "go to" device- it is indeed far superior (faster, more robust) than the apps built into the TV and my TV remote magically controls the Fire TV- just haven't figure out what the "Home" button is when on the TV remote.
First I sideloaded XBMC (AKA Kodi) onto it via the instructions I posted above (post #75.)
Updated- everything beyond this is uncessary now that Kodi or SPMC or any side loaded app shows up like any other app.
Then I sideloaded Llama which is a location based event app. Ignore the description, we don't care about locations. (I used this site to get .apk files from the Play Store.)
You can then use Llama to setup a new event that "Listens" for you to launch some random unused legit Fire TV app and tell it to take an "Action" and to load XBMC. This basically gives you quick access to XBMC from the main Fire TV screen. I did the same thing with ES File Explorer so I can browse local and network files.
OK then I setup XBMC to add the network location I share my videos from- just as files- I did not want to use the scraper to find "Movie" and "TV SHows" as that will download a bunch of artwork and other data I don't care about. Without that extra stuff XBMC seems more stable and its easier to find what I want.
I was still having two more issues- the time was off on XBMC... turns out the Time Zone set on the Fire TV itself was wrong- it was set to PST, I had to move it to EST in the Fire TV settings. Also the Fire TV video wasn't taking up the full screen but I only noticed it when playing videos. That too had to be updated in the Fire TV settings itself- I had to increase the size of the display- even at absolute max it isn't taking up the entire screen, but it's much closer to the edge now- I can live with it.
This will really make my Fire TV the "go to" device- it is indeed far superior (faster, more robust) than the apps built into the TV and my TV remote magically controls the Fire TV- just haven't figure out what the "Home" button is when on the TV remote.
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Check HDMI-CEC commands, but I don't think "home" is supported in the HDMI-CEC spec. However, I pretty much never use the home button on my FireTV anyway so no big deal.
FWIW, they just released HBO-Go for FireTV. Makes zero difference to me, I don't have cable let alone HBO, but that's been a common complaint.
FWIW, they just released HBO-Go for FireTV. Makes zero difference to me, I don't have cable let alone HBO, but that's been a common complaint.