Amazon rolling their own OS for TV add-on devices instead of the re-skinned Android TV OS they've been using until now basically means I won't consider their devices any more. The last thing I need is yet another non-standard moving target to support in my house. Which is unfortunate because I bought their catchily-named "Fire TV Stick 4k Max (2nd Gen)" and, once you de-cruft the advertising riddled OS and sideload standard Android TV apps (eg SmartTube, Plex), the hardware is decent at a fair price (~$50). IMHO, all the broadly available TV streaming devices from major manufacturers are under-powered but the more recent, higher-end ones like the Fire TV 4K Max and Google Chromecast (aka "4K Streamer") can be basically usable once de-crufted.
Unfortunately, the only more powerful alternatives are from offshore manufacturers and thus have spotty Android TV support and may not be "authorized" (ie whitelisted) by all encrypted streaming apps (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, etc). It's bizarre that the most powerful dedicated TV streaming device available today is by far still the NVidia Shield which is essentially a 2015 era design (it got a very minor refresh in 2019 https://androidtvnews.com/nvidia-shield-differences/). It sucks because there are a lot of useful things a TV streaming device could do if it had a little more CPU/GPU headroom (AI upscaling, de-mosaicing, casual and retro-gaming).
I'm wondering if this is what they themselves use for developing the Prime Video app? At least on LG, it's by far the slowest, laggiest and most broken app our family sometimes use.
My information is largely out of date, but Vega is aimed squarely at Fire devices. I expect LG devices largely use the web based Prime Video app that runs on most living room devices.
LG TVs capabilities and performance from an app developer perspective is... not great.
> LG TVs capabilities and performance from an app developer perspective is... not great.
Yet every other app on the TV seems to work just fine, with minimal latency and smooth animations. YouTube, HBO, Jellyfin, Netflix, Rakuten even the Vodafone TV application runs smoother, and it's generally the worst of the apps (sans Prime).
It's not the tech for the most part... it's how Amazon is using it. For comparison, Netflix uses React and React-Native as does Facebook and their apps perform pretty well.
> It's not the tech for the most part... it's how Amazon is using it
Yeah, so I mean if Amazon then developers their own framework + OS on top of React Native, how well do we think that'll go, if they're unable to use things well?
If I were to guess, they aren't heavily modifying anything... it's likely a fork from Android and supporting React Native as a primary tool towards developers. I honestly doubt they've actually "done" much of anything other than branding and packaging.
Fire OS was an Android fork. Best I can tell from the stuff I've seen in the news about it, is that Vega OS is not Android at all, and is completely custom (well minus the Linux kernel)
I wonder if the Vega stuff will be much better. There's really nothing to like about the Fire TV sticks.
I bought the 4K Max thinking it might be the best option for 4K streaming from all of the major providers as an upgrade for my aging Mi Box (3, I think); aside from the home screen being majority advert, the AV sync is constantly out and differs per-app, so changing it for one makes another worse, WiFi signal is poor and the whole thing is only "acceptable" performance wise.
I suppose Amazon is subsidising the pricing, the the advert laden home screen is a given, but AV sync when it's plugged directly into the HDMI port on the TV is appalling. The Prime Video app on it is disgracefully slow to input and browser, but in that department I find Netflix is really the only app that does perform well on the various TV devices I've tried.
At one point, I thought I wanted an Android TV box, but I realise now that I really don't care so long has it has all of the major streaming apps and performs well (a half decent remote is a must too).
Apparently the only redeeming quality for FireTV Sticks is the ease of piracy. Easily flashed with Kodi or whatever with all the pirate streams pre-configured. I had a FireTV Stick once and never again, their OS is some franken-android monstrosity.
I had kind of hoped when I bought it, that I could put a better launcher on it without the almost-full-screen ads, which aren't always appropriate in a home with children, but they've blocked the ability to change the default launcher; there are ways to have one launch after a short delay, but that just annoys the missus and confuses the kids when it launches just after they've started scrolling around the stock launcher.
There's currently a exploit which allows for system user access. This allows disabling core FireOS features like forced updates (which intentionally break custom launchers) and also allows setting a custom launcher. It's simple and can be done with just an Android phone (or ADB).
I've set Projectivy as my launcher and now it starts directly instead of the ad-ridden Amazon launcher.
They're a bit overpriced, but I've been exceedingly happy with Shield TV (Pro) boxes since they first came out... all the major streaming services are supported with full res as well as Kodi for lan and most other apps direct or side loaded.
I'm able to playback H.265 and AV1 video content at 4k@60 without any issues.
I'm not a software engineer, but it simply blows my mind how shitty most of the streaming apps are. Is it really that hard to serve videos? How is Netflix so good at it? I guess apple tv is pretty snappy too. Surely there's not some deep hidden technical secret that others can't figure out, at least these days. I know back in the day auto-scaling and such was high tech, but isn't it standard technology now? Is it simply that they don't want to spend money to get good engineers? Poor management? It seems like serving videos to people smoothly should be a solved problem. And that's not even the only thing they suck at, the navigation within the apps suck. Or fast-forward/rewind functionality - some of them only have one speed or can only increment 30 seconds at a time. Or why can't I reset a show easily if I want to rewatch it? These are all doable things.
Ignoring the missing functionality, I can see one possibility being that the TV's built in computer is just too weak to process video? Would I better off buying a mini-PC to run all of the services off of?
But what seems like the most obvious explanation is that they know they can get by with it because they have exclusive rights to whatever show you're trying to watch.
You don't need to be in the Apple ecosystem to buy an Apple TV and only use non-Apple services.
The only thing that will probably suck is the lack of things like MiraCast and Google's Casting stuff, but you could use third party AirPlay software (still free IIRC) to stream whatever you want if you want to use screen mirroring.
These days people tend to use their media boxes as App Launchers for other services anyway, so it doesn't really matter that much anymore.
Yeah, the Apple TV would be my suggestion as well even if it's your only Apple device. Other than streaming service apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc...) I think the only app I've installed is Tailscale. It's a great device that is slightly more privacy respecting than similar devices from Roku or Smart TV manufacturers.
I've never owned a Mac before but now I'm thinking about getting one just so I can write software to run on my Apple TV. It's a pretty powerful computer that's tiny, silent, always on, barely uses any power, and is connected to my TV.
I'm going to check out VLC though. Thanks for the tip.
One other app that I had and forgot about is some remote play client for Steam. I start Steam on my desktop PC then pair my PS5 remote to the Apple TV, start the Steam tvOS app, and I can play games from my PC on the Apple TV.
I'm not in the Apple ecosystem, but I have an Apple TV. It really "just works", has been the less annoying out of the various devices I've used over the years (Roku, Fire stick etc.) My only nit is the stupid easy to lose remote, but I use a Harmony universal remote to avoid that stupidity.
"Google TV Streamer" is Googles official one, it's very streaming focused, any Android TV device of a reputable brand is good. NVIDIA Shields being the best.
I can recommend the app "Stremio" which has an extensive add-on ecosystem you can explore, works on Android, Android TV, Linux, MacOS and Windows!
I own multiple FireTVs, Google’s Android TV, and an Apple TV and for almost everything I do the AppleTV is far ahead.
The only thing the FireTV had as an edge was the Xbox game streaming app which worked fine over WiFi6E. Otherwise it was absolutely ad-ridden, poor UI/UX, and Amazon’s apps suck on any platform. Since I no longer use the Xbox stuff, the stick and the older versions I have line the bottom of some drawer.
The Android TV turned out be almost as ad ridden as the Fire Stick and no obvious outstanding features. Works ok though. I wanted it to sideload some TV apps from another country to stream those TV channels. But the Android apks didn’t behave well on Android TV so into the drawer it went.
The AppleTV can’t run those apps either, they’re not in the store but at least it’s not showing ads and the UI/UX and performance are top notch. Integration with the rest of the Apple ecosystem really brings value to me. And that brings me to probably the most important point.
In the end what matters more is what ecosystem you are or want to be in. Unless you have a super specific requirement or ecosystem preference then generally I’d rank them Apple TV > Android TV > Fire Stick. Amazon doesn’t have an ecosystem to speak of so it hard to take it as a serious competitor to Google and Apple.
The delta in power between Apple TVs and most other streaming boxes/dongles is absurd. Even the now ancient 2017 Apple TV 4K has the muscle to brute force decode a lot of video that isn’t natively hardware accelerated, meanwhile there’s piles of brand new boxes/dongles that are hopelessly weak and don’t have a prayer of being able to handle the same files. The gap is more like a canyon if comparing against the current Apple TV model, and the upcoming refresh is probably going to make it basically a Mac Nano in terms of horsepower.
Yes they’re more pricey, but you’re getting a lot more hardware and better longevity for that money.
It's incredible how consistently bad Set Top Box (and now some embedded-in-tv) products have been, going all the way back to the 90s. It's like every one of these STB manufacturers follows the same playbook: 1. Cut hardware performance down to the absolute bare minimum required to decode some insufficiently selected, average quality video. 2. Make interaction with a remote control as laggy and painful as possible, while also providing stupid [company specific] buttons on the remote that nobody uses. 3. Have no consistent design language or apparent UX research for the software's on-screen GUI, using misaligned clipart images and fixed-width shit-tier fonts for text. I used to even develop these boxes back in the day, and they've always been neglected engineering-wise, built by the lowest bidder so they are as cheap and fragile as humanly possible.
To make matters worse, the old style set top boxes didn't even have any power management, making them electricity hogs and space heaters despite being so pathetically weak. At least the modern ARM/Android borderline-manufactured-ewaste-TV-product can idle with reasonably low power usage, but the bar is so low it's underground.
I've semi-recently gone down the TV platforms rabbit hole again, and my overall impression is that they're all horrible.
I ended up grabbing a 6-year-old mini PC I had lying around in the basement and a >10-year-old TV that my father-in-law was going to throw away, as well as a Logitech y-10 air mouse [1] that I am lucky enough to have bought way back in the day.
I put desktop Linux on the PC with KDE plasma (avoiding Kodi, which, somehow, consistently attracts me but then annoys and frustrates me whenever I actually use it) and Brave.
I cranked up the scaling factor in KDE, and made a tiny tweak so KDE won't ask for superuser passwords and passwords on wallet access.
The browser is the only app I ever use on that thing, although it also has a DVD drive and VLC, and I copied my film collection onto the local disk of that thing.
I logged into all the media platforms I pay for (and the free ones I frequently use) and made an HTML file that links to all of them, using a huge font size, and setting it as home in the browser.
It cost me $0 (considering all the recycling), and it's a better experience than anything that money will buy.
I actually like TVs as a hardware concept, and am a happy paying customer of several VOD platforms, so I would seem to be the perfect customer for all these sticks and mini boxes and smart TV thingamajigs. But the UX is just so horrible. Everything about them screams, “We hate our customers”.
Last time I tried, I found that the VOD platforms I care about have their respective best implementations in their Desktop/Web-versions. Android Apps were not always available, and to the extent that they were, half of them were on Amazon/Fire, half of them on Android TV/Google Play. I remember, in one case (Masterclass), they used the Android App to upsell me on their "Premium" subscription (or maybe it was the download-feature on the Android App).
So I would have had to pay more, switch between multiple HDMI sources to switch to the platform with the app I wanted to consume, and would still have had to use my desktop PC for some of the content I was paying for.
And then, I could never get the apps I actually cared about to occupy most of the screen real estate (or at least be suitably prominently placed). Most of the real estate was dedicated to dark patterns trying to get me to pay for stuff I didn't want to pay for, even though I was already a happy paying customer for more than enough stuff and there wasn't a “give it a rest, already” setting anywhere to be found.
I think that anyone who is technically sufficiently well-versed, is going to avoid that hellscape like the plague. So then, who is the actual audience for this stuff? My guess would be: the old folks' home around the corner, which, sooner or later, will be forced to upgrade those TVs to smart-TVs. And once those old folks put in their credit card numbers or log in with their Amazon accounts, there goes a lot of people's inheritance.
My own elderly father is wise to the scam, but not confident in his ability to navigate the dark patterns. So now, he is afraid to input his credit card information into anything digital, essentially excluding him from cultural participation in the digital age.
It's just such a sad and sorry state of affairs. How did we get here?
> I actually like TVs as a hardware concept, and am a happy paying customer of several VOD platforms, so I would seem to be the perfect customer for all these sticks and mini boxes and smart TV thingamajigs. But the UX is just so horrible. Everything about them screams, “We hate our customers”.
These things just spam analytics and ad requests 24/7 too. The only one that's tolerable (and quite good) is Apple TV.
This is exactly what I've been wondering... The developer page doesn't really provide much insight into things either. Other than their development environment is based on React Native...
After skimming TFA, I came here wondering the same thing... what is it and how is it different than Android, Linux or other alternatives. I realize marketing writers think they must always lead with the usual vaguely positive puffery but it has no concrete meaning and contains no actionable information.
I'm assuming they've basically replaced the walled garden with a greenhouse with these changes to Vega OS?
At least it (hopefully) means no more stupid "cracked fire TV sticks" on the local market. The end-user-support experience is downright awful and I'm sick of having to explain to people I can't help with them.
They'll find another Android based device to use instead.
The main reason, at least around the people I know, people buy Fire Sticks is to watch football/soccer at 3pm on a Saturday (there's a UK wide blackout to encourage fans to go to their local game, albeit if you're a fan of a club far away or a Premier League team you're going to struggle to get there, games are still aired abroad, IPTV services skirt round this) and to save money on multiple media subscriptions (IYKYK).
I can only imagine after this change people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff.
> people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff
I don't know if by "people" you mean specifically the people who use them for illegal streams, but there are others of us who buy them.
I have a perfectly good high-end LG OLED TV that's now ~7-8 years old, and I wanted something with better performance (and newer WiFi standards) for streaming apps in 4K, I've used a couple of different boxes/dongles in that time and am currently using a Firestick 4K Max, it sort of does the job but of course it's advert-ridden and has AV sync issues, overall performance is ok, but the Prime Video app is still appallingly slow, Netflix runs great, Disney is ok, and the others are a variety of acceptable to poor.
If you go into any pub in the UK and say fire stick, people assume it's not legit content you're using one for. They're infamous for allowing people to watch football (soccer!) games illegally on Saturday at 3pm when the TV blackout is on, as people outside the country can watch the games.
The idea is that between around 3pm and 6pm every Saturday, outwith international breaks when international teams play (e.g. World Cup), no TV station in the UK is allowed to air live football. 3pm is the main kick off time.
The idea is that this encourages people to go to their local football team instead of watching the game on TV.
For a small island, there are massive amount of football teams. If you're American you're probably only familiar with the 'Premier League' with teams like Manchester United/City, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. and maybe the Scottish Premier League with Celtic and Rangers, and maybe Championship thanks to 'Welcome to Wrexham' but there are leagues and leagues below, it goes very deep until you get to teams literally just playing on a bit of grass behind a church in a small village and the local gym teacher being the referee.
The blackout is supposed to mean you go to whatever team is nearest or easiest to get to for you, going to big team Premier League games is very expensive if not impossible unless you have silly money to spend or wait years (I mean like 10+ years for a season ticket).
But it doesn't really work for a lot of people. If you moved away for university etc. you might still want to watch your team but the only local team is your team's rival. Or you would end up watching the village football team game.
Most games are aired abroad for expats and foreign fans, but UK residents are unable to watch those legally, hence the growth in fire sticks.
I'm British, but having never been into football (or any sport really) I wasn't aware of this TV blackout; given what I do know of people who don't necessarily support the local team, this sounds like madness, also how does this work for away games? I know loads of people who live/work in London now who still support their home town team.
So, to make sure I understand this correctly; if I wanted to watch a particular team, say my local one, without going to the game, there is no actual legit way to watch that match from home?
To answer your last question, yes. You would have to go watch your local lower non-league team if you wanted to watch football.
I suspect your London friends are using VPNs and/or illegal streams, or simply just following scores or watching watchalongs, Soccer Saturday etc.
Games outwith the Saturday blackout can be watched legally, bigger teams usually on TV or via club streaming services. Games are often scheduled at lunchtime and after 6pm to allow them to be aired on TV on Saturday.
This is quite the revelation. I had no idea that matches can't be watched on TV as they play. is there not even a pay-to-watch service, like with fights?
I've certainly got something to talk about next time I see some of my football fan friends, and I'll have to ask what they do to watch the games, I'm not aware of any of them actually going to the matches when I've known the local (Premier League) team to be playing.
No, only if you're outside of the UK or if it's an international break when international teams are playing (World Cup, Euros etc.) on a Saturday at 3pm.
Outside the blackout games are on TV as per usual.
I think there is a general support but it is weaning with people skirting around the rules nonchalantly, and TV companies wanting to make more money. It is a running joke of people "going to France for the day" in fanbases (code for VPN usage).
I won't use my "smart" features in my TVs... I'd get rid of them if I could... The tracking is generally worse than Apple, Google or Roku on them. I know some are using Google or Roku software, but even then, just not a fan. I've been pretty happy with Shield TV boxes for around a decade now.
Yeah I know saying that in hindsight it's just going to go to the ONN sticks instead and stay within Google TV - but it solves the problem Amazon wanted which is to quickly and smartly move the problem away from themselves and onto someone else's loss leader.
(And Walmart already has started doing regionlocking to try to crack down on that, too! Taking an ONN box out of the US will error out in setup and complain it's only for sale in US/PR.)
They may as well stop selling them. I doubt many people are going to buy a Fire Stick to watch Prime and Netflix when you already can on any standard Smart TV. It's harder to buy a dumb TV now than it is a smart one. Never mind if you also have a game console connected which can run the same apps. Or a set top box like Virgin Media which run apps too.
The nice thing about sticks is when you go on trips or vacation. You’re authenticated into all of your subscriptions already and don’t have to sign in. The convenience of using sticks they eliminate the need to sign in at hotels or other places, which is why I love them.
Yes and combine with a travel router so you don’t have to endure logging into a wifi portal with a soft keyboard on the TV, if the stick OS even allows it. Then having to repeat the process daily due to expiration times, or as soon as you remove the key card from the hotel room slot, causing the router to power down and the TV stick to time out.
Top tip, if you're in a hotel room you can often put any card like item (e.g. loyalty card) into the slot and it still works.
This works at a lot of chain hotels. Not every hotel, but a lot of them. In the UK this works in most Premier Inns and Travelodges, doesn't work in Point A hotels from experience.
Alternatively ask for two or more cards at the desk.
If the room is cleaned daily the cleaners have a tendency to remove them though. The chain hotels only tend to clean if you ask though, or on a certain few days after check-in.
Helps if you want to keep the air con on or devices powered up.
Presumably some services have issues with locale? Does anyone run a VPN to home on these devices? I'd never considered taking my Firestick on holiday but I'll definitely consider that for the future.
Correct. Fortunately a number of streaming services are available in many regions nowadays, e.g., Netflix, Apple TV, Disney, HBO Max or whatever it’s called now.
The content may vary between regions though, e.g., you open Netflix in another country and no longer see a show you’re watching while see other ones appear. This can sometimes feel like a feature more than a bug.
I like to travel, in particular road trips and disconnecting is often part of that. Even then, I'm not much of a nightlife person so will often still watch TV for a couple hours at night before bed.
Amazon rolling their own OS for TV add-on devices instead of the re-skinned Android TV OS they've been using until now basically means I won't consider their devices any more. The last thing I need is yet another non-standard moving target to support in my house. Which is unfortunate because I bought their catchily-named "Fire TV Stick 4k Max (2nd Gen)" and, once you de-cruft the advertising riddled OS and sideload standard Android TV apps (eg SmartTube, Plex), the hardware is decent at a fair price (~$50). IMHO, all the broadly available TV streaming devices from major manufacturers are under-powered but the more recent, higher-end ones like the Fire TV 4K Max and Google Chromecast (aka "4K Streamer") can be basically usable once de-crufted.
Unfortunately, the only more powerful alternatives are from offshore manufacturers and thus have spotty Android TV support and may not be "authorized" (ie whitelisted) by all encrypted streaming apps (Netflix, Amazon, Disney+, etc). It's bizarre that the most powerful dedicated TV streaming device available today is by far still the NVidia Shield which is essentially a 2015 era design (it got a very minor refresh in 2019 https://androidtvnews.com/nvidia-shield-differences/). It sucks because there are a lot of useful things a TV streaming device could do if it had a little more CPU/GPU headroom (AI upscaling, de-mosaicing, casual and retro-gaming).
I'm wondering if this is what they themselves use for developing the Prime Video app? At least on LG, it's by far the slowest, laggiest and most broken app our family sometimes use.
All Amazon apps are buggy and broken. The Amazon shopping app is awful, a bunch of put together web pages hanging on for dear life.
Amazon optimise for sales and metrics over anything else.
I learned my lesson to not trust amazon after sagemaker, some of their core services are good and well done.
Curious about the sagemaker experience. What specifically was that broke?
> optimise for sales and metrics
I take you have some insider knowledge... if the app is hanging for dear life, how is that helping optimize the sales pipeline?
It's a mess but the main flows just about function so it makes money.
My information is largely out of date, but Vega is aimed squarely at Fire devices. I expect LG devices largely use the web based Prime Video app that runs on most living room devices.
LG TVs capabilities and performance from an app developer perspective is... not great.
> LG TVs capabilities and performance from an app developer perspective is... not great.
Yet every other app on the TV seems to work just fine, with minimal latency and smooth animations. YouTube, HBO, Jellyfin, Netflix, Rakuten even the Vodafone TV application runs smoother, and it's generally the worst of the apps (sans Prime).
No big complaints with WebOS, and actually I find it more enjoyable as user than Android TV.
It's not the tech for the most part... it's how Amazon is using it. For comparison, Netflix uses React and React-Native as does Facebook and their apps perform pretty well.
> It's not the tech for the most part... it's how Amazon is using it
Yeah, so I mean if Amazon then developers their own framework + OS on top of React Native, how well do we think that'll go, if they're unable to use things well?
If I were to guess, they aren't heavily modifying anything... it's likely a fork from Android and supporting React Native as a primary tool towards developers. I honestly doubt they've actually "done" much of anything other than branding and packaging.
Fire OS was an Android fork. Best I can tell from the stuff I've seen in the news about it, is that Vega OS is not Android at all, and is completely custom (well minus the Linux kernel)
Vega is FireTV new OS. LG TV run webOS, which is totally different.
It's so bad on iOS that I unsubscribed.
I find Amazon’s software for streaming much slower and buggier than other providers. The streams too also seem to have more issues.
I wonder if the Vega stuff will be much better. There's really nothing to like about the Fire TV sticks.
I bought the 4K Max thinking it might be the best option for 4K streaming from all of the major providers as an upgrade for my aging Mi Box (3, I think); aside from the home screen being majority advert, the AV sync is constantly out and differs per-app, so changing it for one makes another worse, WiFi signal is poor and the whole thing is only "acceptable" performance wise.
I suppose Amazon is subsidising the pricing, the the advert laden home screen is a given, but AV sync when it's plugged directly into the HDMI port on the TV is appalling. The Prime Video app on it is disgracefully slow to input and browser, but in that department I find Netflix is really the only app that does perform well on the various TV devices I've tried.
At one point, I thought I wanted an Android TV box, but I realise now that I really don't care so long has it has all of the major streaming apps and performs well (a half decent remote is a must too).
Apparently the only redeeming quality for FireTV Sticks is the ease of piracy. Easily flashed with Kodi or whatever with all the pirate streams pre-configured. I had a FireTV Stick once and never again, their OS is some franken-android monstrosity.
I had kind of hoped when I bought it, that I could put a better launcher on it without the almost-full-screen ads, which aren't always appropriate in a home with children, but they've blocked the ability to change the default launcher; there are ways to have one launch after a short delay, but that just annoys the missus and confuses the kids when it launches just after they've started scrolling around the stock launcher.
There's currently a exploit which allows for system user access. This allows disabling core FireOS features like forced updates (which intentionally break custom launchers) and also allows setting a custom launcher. It's simple and can be done with just an Android phone (or ADB).
I've set Projectivy as my launcher and now it starts directly instead of the ad-ridden Amazon launcher.
https://xdaforums.com/t/system-user-fireos7-os8-all-fire-cub...
What kind of ads inappropriate for children were shown by it?
They're a bit overpriced, but I've been exceedingly happy with Shield TV (Pro) boxes since they first came out... all the major streaming services are supported with full res as well as Kodi for lan and most other apps direct or side loaded.
I'm able to playback H.265 and AV1 video content at 4k@60 without any issues.
> I wonder if the Vega stuff will be much better. There's really nothing to like about the Fire TV sticks.
I had one for a bit for the purpose of sideloading FreeTube via adb (I think it was called). That's the only good I can say about it.
I'm not a software engineer, but it simply blows my mind how shitty most of the streaming apps are. Is it really that hard to serve videos? How is Netflix so good at it? I guess apple tv is pretty snappy too. Surely there's not some deep hidden technical secret that others can't figure out, at least these days. I know back in the day auto-scaling and such was high tech, but isn't it standard technology now? Is it simply that they don't want to spend money to get good engineers? Poor management? It seems like serving videos to people smoothly should be a solved problem. And that's not even the only thing they suck at, the navigation within the apps suck. Or fast-forward/rewind functionality - some of them only have one speed or can only increment 30 seconds at a time. Or why can't I reset a show easily if I want to rewatch it? These are all doable things.
Ignoring the missing functionality, I can see one possibility being that the TV's built in computer is just too weak to process video? Would I better off buying a mini-PC to run all of the services off of?
But what seems like the most obvious explanation is that they know they can get by with it because they have exclusive rights to whatever show you're trying to watch.
What's better? I'm not in the Apple ecosystem. My key criteria would be UX and video quality. Thanks
You don't need to be in the Apple ecosystem to buy an Apple TV and only use non-Apple services.
The only thing that will probably suck is the lack of things like MiraCast and Google's Casting stuff, but you could use third party AirPlay software (still free IIRC) to stream whatever you want if you want to use screen mirroring.
These days people tend to use their media boxes as App Launchers for other services anyway, so it doesn't really matter that much anymore.
Yeah, the Apple TV would be my suggestion as well even if it's your only Apple device. Other than streaming service apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc...) I think the only app I've installed is Tailscale. It's a great device that is slightly more privacy respecting than similar devices from Roku or Smart TV manufacturers.
I've never owned a Mac before but now I'm thinking about getting one just so I can write software to run on my Apple TV. It's a pretty powerful computer that's tiny, silent, always on, barely uses any power, and is connected to my TV.
As a tip: the VLC app for Apple TV is incredibly useful. It can play video files (in essentially any format) from local network shares.
I use Plex for that and it works great.
I'm going to check out VLC though. Thanks for the tip.
One other app that I had and forgot about is some remote play client for Steam. I start Steam on my desktop PC then pair my PS5 remote to the Apple TV, start the Steam tvOS app, and I can play games from my PC on the Apple TV.
I'm not in the Apple ecosystem, but I have an Apple TV. It really "just works", has been the less annoying out of the various devices I've used over the years (Roku, Fire stick etc.) My only nit is the stupid easy to lose remote, but I use a Harmony universal remote to avoid that stupidity.
imo basic android tv os works better, i have a nvidia shield and it's good too (despite being old now).
The UI looks a little dated, but I've been happy with 4K Roku. The UX is more functional if uglier than AppleTV.
"Google TV Streamer" is Googles official one, it's very streaming focused, any Android TV device of a reputable brand is good. NVIDIA Shields being the best.
I can recommend the app "Stremio" which has an extensive add-on ecosystem you can explore, works on Android, Android TV, Linux, MacOS and Windows!
Stremio is pretty good. It has a great plugin ecosystem. I'm not going to say more than that.
It's the current official one, until it's killed and bricked for the next official one.
There is nothing wrong with the older devices either, they've kept compatibility as far as the hardware is concerned.
Ragebait belongs elsewhere, thanks.
My Chromecast and Google TV [1] beg to differ. The latter was unceremoniously bricked after a couple of years.
[1]https://www.cnet.com/reviews/logitech-revue-google-tv-review...
That's a Logitech device with Google software, Googles own devices have superb support. Logitech didn't pay Google for support I guess.
Google discontinued the software it ran on, Logitech had no choice.
Well, no such thing has happened to NVIDIA Shield or Googles own devices, they're the only ones I'd consider. "Reputable brand" is too vague I agree.
Isn't the Nvidia shield the thing they added ads to way after they were sold?
I own multiple FireTVs, Google’s Android TV, and an Apple TV and for almost everything I do the AppleTV is far ahead.
The only thing the FireTV had as an edge was the Xbox game streaming app which worked fine over WiFi6E. Otherwise it was absolutely ad-ridden, poor UI/UX, and Amazon’s apps suck on any platform. Since I no longer use the Xbox stuff, the stick and the older versions I have line the bottom of some drawer.
The Android TV turned out be almost as ad ridden as the Fire Stick and no obvious outstanding features. Works ok though. I wanted it to sideload some TV apps from another country to stream those TV channels. But the Android apks didn’t behave well on Android TV so into the drawer it went.
The AppleTV can’t run those apps either, they’re not in the store but at least it’s not showing ads and the UI/UX and performance are top notch. Integration with the rest of the Apple ecosystem really brings value to me. And that brings me to probably the most important point.
In the end what matters more is what ecosystem you are or want to be in. Unless you have a super specific requirement or ecosystem preference then generally I’d rank them Apple TV > Android TV > Fire Stick. Amazon doesn’t have an ecosystem to speak of so it hard to take it as a serious competitor to Google and Apple.
The delta in power between Apple TVs and most other streaming boxes/dongles is absurd. Even the now ancient 2017 Apple TV 4K has the muscle to brute force decode a lot of video that isn’t natively hardware accelerated, meanwhile there’s piles of brand new boxes/dongles that are hopelessly weak and don’t have a prayer of being able to handle the same files. The gap is more like a canyon if comparing against the current Apple TV model, and the upcoming refresh is probably going to make it basically a Mac Nano in terms of horsepower.
Yes they’re more pricey, but you’re getting a lot more hardware and better longevity for that money.
It's incredible how consistently bad Set Top Box (and now some embedded-in-tv) products have been, going all the way back to the 90s. It's like every one of these STB manufacturers follows the same playbook: 1. Cut hardware performance down to the absolute bare minimum required to decode some insufficiently selected, average quality video. 2. Make interaction with a remote control as laggy and painful as possible, while also providing stupid [company specific] buttons on the remote that nobody uses. 3. Have no consistent design language or apparent UX research for the software's on-screen GUI, using misaligned clipart images and fixed-width shit-tier fonts for text. I used to even develop these boxes back in the day, and they've always been neglected engineering-wise, built by the lowest bidder so they are as cheap and fragile as humanly possible.
To make matters worse, the old style set top boxes didn't even have any power management, making them electricity hogs and space heaters despite being so pathetically weak. At least the modern ARM/Android borderline-manufactured-ewaste-TV-product can idle with reasonably low power usage, but the bar is so low it's underground.
Google 4K TV with ProjectIvy, SmartTube and OnStream blows away Apple TV.
> What's better?
I've semi-recently gone down the TV platforms rabbit hole again, and my overall impression is that they're all horrible.
I ended up grabbing a 6-year-old mini PC I had lying around in the basement and a >10-year-old TV that my father-in-law was going to throw away, as well as a Logitech y-10 air mouse [1] that I am lucky enough to have bought way back in the day.
I put desktop Linux on the PC with KDE plasma (avoiding Kodi, which, somehow, consistently attracts me but then annoys and frustrates me whenever I actually use it) and Brave.
I cranked up the scaling factor in KDE, and made a tiny tweak so KDE won't ask for superuser passwords and passwords on wallet access.
The browser is the only app I ever use on that thing, although it also has a DVD drive and VLC, and I copied my film collection onto the local disk of that thing.
I logged into all the media platforms I pay for (and the free ones I frequently use) and made an HTML file that links to all of them, using a huge font size, and setting it as home in the browser.
It cost me $0 (considering all the recycling), and it's a better experience than anything that money will buy.
I actually like TVs as a hardware concept, and am a happy paying customer of several VOD platforms, so I would seem to be the perfect customer for all these sticks and mini boxes and smart TV thingamajigs. But the UX is just so horrible. Everything about them screams, “We hate our customers”.
Last time I tried, I found that the VOD platforms I care about have their respective best implementations in their Desktop/Web-versions. Android Apps were not always available, and to the extent that they were, half of them were on Amazon/Fire, half of them on Android TV/Google Play. I remember, in one case (Masterclass), they used the Android App to upsell me on their "Premium" subscription (or maybe it was the download-feature on the Android App).
So I would have had to pay more, switch between multiple HDMI sources to switch to the platform with the app I wanted to consume, and would still have had to use my desktop PC for some of the content I was paying for.
And then, I could never get the apps I actually cared about to occupy most of the screen real estate (or at least be suitably prominently placed). Most of the real estate was dedicated to dark patterns trying to get me to pay for stuff I didn't want to pay for, even though I was already a happy paying customer for more than enough stuff and there wasn't a “give it a rest, already” setting anywhere to be found.
I think that anyone who is technically sufficiently well-versed, is going to avoid that hellscape like the plague. So then, who is the actual audience for this stuff? My guess would be: the old folks' home around the corner, which, sooner or later, will be forced to upgrade those TVs to smart-TVs. And once those old folks put in their credit card numbers or log in with their Amazon accounts, there goes a lot of people's inheritance.
My own elderly father is wise to the scam, but not confident in his ability to navigate the dark patterns. So now, he is afraid to input his credit card information into anything digital, essentially excluding him from cultural participation in the digital age.
It's just such a sad and sorry state of affairs. How did we get here?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_W1dqRuljI
> I actually like TVs as a hardware concept, and am a happy paying customer of several VOD platforms, so I would seem to be the perfect customer for all these sticks and mini boxes and smart TV thingamajigs. But the UX is just so horrible. Everything about them screams, “We hate our customers”.
These things just spam analytics and ad requests 24/7 too. The only one that's tolerable (and quite good) is Apple TV.
Does it actually work well? I tried something similar and quit in disgust after realizing hdr 4k requires terrible hoops to go through
What is this Vega OS ?
Is it a custom OS (custom kernel and everything) ? Is it a linux distribution?
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/vega/0.21/vega-overview.ht... does not say much...
This is exactly what I've been wondering... The developer page doesn't really provide much insight into things either. Other than their development environment is based on React Native...
From last year announcement, this is custom linux.
After skimming TFA, I came here wondering the same thing... what is it and how is it different than Android, Linux or other alternatives. I realize marketing writers think they must always lead with the usual vaguely positive puffery but it has no concrete meaning and contains no actionable information.
And if it runs APKs from the Amazon Appstore on non-Android Linux, what tech are they using to do it?
I don't think it runs APKs. They'd probably market that feature more prominently if it were the case. They have their own format called VPKG.
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/vega/0.21/app-submission.h... "You must have a VPKG file available as an app binary."
(Deleted)
This docs for FireOS, don't confuse with new Vega OS
Looking at the sample apps… I think I pass, not liking much what I see, either generated by LLM or by an intern
So bye Android fork?
I read that as AMD Vega OS and Vega developer tools.
Reminds me of the Sony Wega televisions.
I bet thats gonna last for a couple years until amazon abandons it again.
I'm assuming they've basically replaced the walled garden with a greenhouse with these changes to Vega OS?
At least it (hopefully) means no more stupid "cracked fire TV sticks" on the local market. The end-user-support experience is downright awful and I'm sick of having to explain to people I can't help with them.
They'll find another Android based device to use instead.
The main reason, at least around the people I know, people buy Fire Sticks is to watch football/soccer at 3pm on a Saturday (there's a UK wide blackout to encourage fans to go to their local game, albeit if you're a fan of a club far away or a Premier League team you're going to struggle to get there, games are still aired abroad, IPTV services skirt round this) and to save money on multiple media subscriptions (IYKYK).
I can only imagine after this change people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff.
> people will stop buying them as they're close to useless as people have Smart TVs for the legal stuff
I don't know if by "people" you mean specifically the people who use them for illegal streams, but there are others of us who buy them.
I have a perfectly good high-end LG OLED TV that's now ~7-8 years old, and I wanted something with better performance (and newer WiFi standards) for streaming apps in 4K, I've used a couple of different boxes/dongles in that time and am currently using a Firestick 4K Max, it sort of does the job but of course it's advert-ridden and has AV sync issues, overall performance is ok, but the Prime Video app is still appallingly slow, Netflix runs great, Disney is ok, and the others are a variety of acceptable to poor.
If you go into any pub in the UK and say fire stick, people assume it's not legit content you're using one for. They're infamous for allowing people to watch football (soccer!) games illegally on Saturday at 3pm when the TV blackout is on, as people outside the country can watch the games.
I've certainly heard of the dodgy usage of fire stick for streams but I've never been into football, what's this blackout all about?
The idea is that between around 3pm and 6pm every Saturday, outwith international breaks when international teams play (e.g. World Cup), no TV station in the UK is allowed to air live football. 3pm is the main kick off time.
The idea is that this encourages people to go to their local football team instead of watching the game on TV.
For a small island, there are massive amount of football teams. If you're American you're probably only familiar with the 'Premier League' with teams like Manchester United/City, Arsenal, Chelsea etc. and maybe the Scottish Premier League with Celtic and Rangers, and maybe Championship thanks to 'Welcome to Wrexham' but there are leagues and leagues below, it goes very deep until you get to teams literally just playing on a bit of grass behind a church in a small village and the local gym teacher being the referee.
The blackout is supposed to mean you go to whatever team is nearest or easiest to get to for you, going to big team Premier League games is very expensive if not impossible unless you have silly money to spend or wait years (I mean like 10+ years for a season ticket).
But it doesn't really work for a lot of people. If you moved away for university etc. you might still want to watch your team but the only local team is your team's rival. Or you would end up watching the village football team game.
Most games are aired abroad for expats and foreign fans, but UK residents are unable to watch those legally, hence the growth in fire sticks.
Thanks for the explanation.
I'm British, but having never been into football (or any sport really) I wasn't aware of this TV blackout; given what I do know of people who don't necessarily support the local team, this sounds like madness, also how does this work for away games? I know loads of people who live/work in London now who still support their home town team.
So, to make sure I understand this correctly; if I wanted to watch a particular team, say my local one, without going to the game, there is no actual legit way to watch that match from home?
To answer your last question, yes. You would have to go watch your local lower non-league team if you wanted to watch football.
I suspect your London friends are using VPNs and/or illegal streams, or simply just following scores or watching watchalongs, Soccer Saturday etc.
Games outwith the Saturday blackout can be watched legally, bigger teams usually on TV or via club streaming services. Games are often scheduled at lunchtime and after 6pm to allow them to be aired on TV on Saturday.
This is quite the revelation. I had no idea that matches can't be watched on TV as they play. is there not even a pay-to-watch service, like with fights?
I've certainly got something to talk about next time I see some of my football fan friends, and I'll have to ask what they do to watch the games, I'm not aware of any of them actually going to the matches when I've known the local (Premier League) team to be playing.
No, only if you're outside of the UK or if it's an international break when international teams are playing (World Cup, Euros etc.) on a Saturday at 3pm.
Outside the blackout games are on TV as per usual.
Do people over there generally support this law? It's to my mind a super weird law, but to a degree... I dig it.
I think there is a general support but it is weaning with people skirting around the rules nonchalantly, and TV companies wanting to make more money. It is a running joke of people "going to France for the day" in fanbases (code for VPN usage).
Some 3pm games have started to air on trial.
I won't use my "smart" features in my TVs... I'd get rid of them if I could... The tracking is generally worse than Apple, Google or Roku on them. I know some are using Google or Roku software, but even then, just not a fan. I've been pretty happy with Shield TV boxes for around a decade now.
Yeah I know saying that in hindsight it's just going to go to the ONN sticks instead and stay within Google TV - but it solves the problem Amazon wanted which is to quickly and smartly move the problem away from themselves and onto someone else's loss leader.
(And Walmart already has started doing regionlocking to try to crack down on that, too! Taking an ONN box out of the US will error out in setup and complain it's only for sale in US/PR.)
They may as well stop selling them. I doubt many people are going to buy a Fire Stick to watch Prime and Netflix when you already can on any standard Smart TV. It's harder to buy a dumb TV now than it is a smart one. Never mind if you also have a game console connected which can run the same apps. Or a set top box like Virgin Media which run apps too.
The nice thing about sticks is when you go on trips or vacation. You’re authenticated into all of your subscriptions already and don’t have to sign in. The convenience of using sticks they eliminate the need to sign in at hotels or other places, which is why I love them.
Yes and combine with a travel router so you don’t have to endure logging into a wifi portal with a soft keyboard on the TV, if the stick OS even allows it. Then having to repeat the process daily due to expiration times, or as soon as you remove the key card from the hotel room slot, causing the router to power down and the TV stick to time out.
Top tip, if you're in a hotel room you can often put any card like item (e.g. loyalty card) into the slot and it still works.
This works at a lot of chain hotels. Not every hotel, but a lot of them. In the UK this works in most Premier Inns and Travelodges, doesn't work in Point A hotels from experience.
Alternatively ask for two or more cards at the desk.
If the room is cleaned daily the cleaners have a tendency to remove them though. The chain hotels only tend to clean if you ask though, or on a certain few days after check-in.
Helps if you want to keep the air con on or devices powered up.
Presumably some services have issues with locale? Does anyone run a VPN to home on these devices? I'd never considered taking my Firestick on holiday but I'll definitely consider that for the future.
Correct. Fortunately a number of streaming services are available in many regions nowadays, e.g., Netflix, Apple TV, Disney, HBO Max or whatever it’s called now.
The content may vary between regions though, e.g., you open Netflix in another country and no longer see a show you’re watching while see other ones appear. This can sometimes feel like a feature more than a bug.
NordVPN have an app on the Store and so do others.
id say is a fairly niche use case, people tend to disconnect outside when going on vacation not watch netflix from the hotel.
I like to travel, in particular road trips and disconnecting is often part of that. Even then, I'm not much of a nightlife person so will often still watch TV for a couple hours at night before bed.
+1, that’s what I do. Only problem is that the HDMI port can be hard to get to.
A lot of hotels I've been to recently have a HDMI port baked into the row of plugs and switches above the desk. Handy.
Might be worth getting a male to female HDMI extension cable to make it easier to plug in.