Amazon Fire TV

Scottland · 30 Dec 2014 at 21:15

Got one turning up tomorrow for the bedroom. Is root needed if I just want to push Kodi and shove it on the homescreen?

m4cc45 · 30 Dec 2014 at 21:21

Clov!s said:
The way i had mine setup, i had to keep re adding my stuff onto the plex media server, annoyed me as it takes ages!

You also have to have a Plex Server so if you have a NAS with all your media on it you have to have a Plex Server / NAS and then a client to view the media. With XBMC you just need the storage which can either be a NAS or local storage.

M.

Captain · 30 Dec 2014 at 22:18

m4cc45 said:
You also have to have a Plex Server so if you have a NAS with all your media on it you have to have a Plex Server / NAS and then a client to view the media. With XBMC you just need the storage which can either be a NAS or local storage.

M.

I know yeah, I didn't like plex anyway, xbmc is just fantastic on my fire TV, yet to find anything simpler

kidloco · 30 Dec 2014 at 22:44

Scottland said:
Got one turning up tomorrow for the bedroom. Is root needed if I just want to push Kodi and shove it on the homescreen?

Nope, root not needed for this. Just sideload Kodi

Scam · 31 Dec 2014 at 10:11

Will I get noticeably better performance running XBMC on my FireTV rather than my RPi? I currently run OpenELEC with a local USB drive for media, and it's fantastic.

So, a few questions about the FireTV..

- Can I use local USB drive for media?
- If I want to add another drive, can I add a USB hub?
- Can I use SMB to transfer media/rips from my PC to my FireTV? (I can't remember if this is a feature of XBMC or OpenELEC?). If so, what sort of speeds can you get -- I only get about 800kbs to my RPi? :confused:

Thanks!

I have to say I've only used Prime video so far, but the FireTV is great! Any other tips for a noob?

Thomss · 31 Dec 2014 at 11:29

Damn, for £64 I'm temped with one of these.
I have a Crystal AppleTV, a Mac Mini, a few Chromecasts and a Acer PC all running a mix of Plex and XBMC/Kodi.

This looks like a slick little replacement for fairly expensive computers running simply front end shizzle.

Scottland · 31 Dec 2014 at 12:21

kidloco said:
Nope, root not needed for this. Just sideload Kodi

Thanks, setup now using FiredTV as a launcher. It seems the Kodi team are toying with the idea of publishing to App stores so may only need a 3rd party solution in the short term.

Scottland · 31 Dec 2014 at 18:16

Before I send it back, has anyone been able to get it working to play live tv via Kodi? SD channels are ok but drop frames every now and then, HD channels are unwatchable @9fps.

Edit: Solved, mediacodec was the issue.

ChrisD. · 31 Dec 2014 at 18:56

Clov!s said:
Has anyone managed to get an internet browser installed on their AFT? Or can't it be done? Have tried sideloading Chrome and FF but neither show on the AFT.

Interested in this as well.

kidloco · 31 Dec 2014 at 19:32

Scam said:
So, a few questions about the FireTV..

- Can I use local USB drive for media?
- If I want to add another drive, can I add a USB hub?
- Can I use SMB to transfer media/rips from my PC to my FireTV? (I can't remember if this is a feature of XBMC or OpenELEC?). If so, what sort of speeds can you get -- I only get about 800kbs to my RPi?

- it's my understanding you need to root it to allow the USB port to be used for file playback

- not sure

- tech you could, if both folders are set as sources then you can transfer between them. 800kbs seems very very slow.

Rich · 31 Dec 2014 at 20:38

Now got mine and the living room NUC running a shared XBMC MySQL database. Syncs 'watched' status, libraries and pause/resume points. I can stop a film in the living room and go carry on where i left off in the bedroom! Awesome

Kobi · 2 Jan 2015 at 11:02

Almost pulled the trigger on a Apple TV, thought plex was a supported app! Luckily I done a last min double check to make sure. Fire tv is a steal at this price! Mine comes tomorrow

Scam · 2 Jan 2015 at 11:41

kidloco said:
- it's my understanding you need to root it to allow the USB port to be used for file playback

- not sure

- tech you could, if both folders are set as sources then you can transfer between them. 800kbs seems very very slow.

Hmn that's a shame. I was happy to install XBMC on it but I don't really want to root.

Scottland · 2 Jan 2015 at 11:55

You could just add the remote PC as a source of the files and play them over the network. You'll need decent Wifi for 1080P though.

kidloco · 2 Jan 2015 at 12:02

Scottland said:
You could just add the remote PC as a source of the files and play them over the network. You'll need decent Wifi for 1080P though.

Yep thats what I did for my dad and it works a treat. Granted he lives in a bungalow so its all on the same level, but modem (only the crappy virgin superhub) is quite a way from the TV and it streams everything flawlessly, including 1080p bluray rips (10-12gb in size).

Scam · 2 Jan 2015 at 13:34

Scottland said:
You could just add the remote PC as a source of the files and play them over the network. You'll need decent Wifi for 1080P though.

Nah. At the moment my Pi is self-sufficient. I don't want to have my desktop PC on all the time -- I've never understood this!

I suppose I could use the Pi as a file server but there's no way the usb wifi adapter will handle streaming 20GB MKVs..

Scottland · 2 Jan 2015 at 14:33

If a USB hard drive is a must, I'd say something running Openelec would be best. Either a NUC or Chromebox (or a newer RPi, I think there are faster ones now?). Another option would be to look at some of the android players (e.g. Sumvision X4) which are around £45.

There are other alternatives to leaving the PC on all the time though, such as a small NAS device that is shared storage for both the PC and Media player(s).

K@rl · 2 Jan 2015 at 15:11

I'm tempted with one of these for Kodi to replace my Lenovo Q190 HTPC - I would prefer the Nexus player for full Play Store account though.

Scam · 2 Jan 2015 at 18:02

Scottland I see what you're saying but in essence I have a fully working HTPC setup with my PI (OpenELEC+local usb drive). All I was wondering is if I could ditch the Pi now I have a FTV. I don't need too, it just seemed like it would be a straight swap to save having two different devices running all the time. If I can't run the media from a drive plugged into the FTV then I guess not

Captain · 2 Jan 2015 at 18:11

S2KIP said:
Interested in this as well.

Managed to get Chrome installed on my AFT without rooting, with a mouse and keyboard it's fine, just need to figure out who to install a flash player to allow videos.