Anyone With Amazon Fire TV?

[941Punk]

I'm tired of paying whatever it is i'm paying for TV. Really it's for my wife.

Does anyone have it can share it's praises or tell me to run the other direction?

Wife needs Bravo, A & E, and whatever channel serves up gays, midgets, housewives, and murder investigation. I just need the BBC and History.

 

[Joker]

I'm tired of paying whatever it is i'm paying for TV. Really it's for my wife.

Does anyone have it can share it's praises or tell me to run the other direction?

Wife needs Bravo, A & E, and whatever channel serves up gays, midgets, housewives, and murder investigation. I just need the BBC and History.

I'll look at the new build I installed yesterday and confirm what channels are available.

 

[OldSchoolBoats]

I have the a built out Amazon Fire Box and it is great, but I still have DirectTV. I just pay for the basic plan so that I can still get all the sports I want and the wife's HGTV, BRAVO, etc.

I wouldn't drop cable 100% for the Firebox.....just my opinion.

 

[Cole Trickle]

Fire TV in basic form won't do what you want.

You will need to load kodi and then she would need to search for the shows. There won't be live tv but most sitcoms show up really fast.

Like Joe said it's a great option but It's not to the point where I would ditch basic cable/satellite.

The fire TV lives and dies with the speed of your internet.

 

[OldSchoolBoats]

Fire TV in basic form won't do what you want.

You will need to load kodi and then she would need to search for the shows. There won't be live tv but most sitcoms show up really fast.

Like Joe said it's a great option but It's not to the point where I would ditch basic cable/satellite.

The fire TV lives and dies with the speed of your internet.

Have you ever looked into Sling TV?? I just saw it last night when I logged into my box and this thread reminded me to check it out.

 

[941Punk]

Have you ever looked into Sling TV?? I just saw it last night when I logged into my box and this thread reminded me to check it out.

That covers the greater majority of what I would want. No ABC which is a bummer due to most Oklahoma Sooner games are televised on ABC. But hell, I can go to the sports bar my SIL manages. :drink

I'll check that out! Thanks!

 

[Waffles]

You will need to load kodi and then she would need to search for the shows. There won't be live tv but most sitcoms show up really fast.

This varies from build to build. Top Tutorials Hyper TT build for example, has live tv. Thats the build i run on my Fire TV and it runs flawlessly. The builder runs IVUE2 tv guide for EVERY channel available (foreign and domestic) and even has a tab that breaks it down to only domestic channels like bravo, abc, E!, and such. (see USA tab at 1:32 in the link i posted). Hyper TT is probably one of the best builds out there right now if not second to The Beast Build.


[video=youtube;FNcBpyz39mU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNcBpyz39mU[/video]

 

[OldSchoolBoats]

That covers the greater majority of what I would want. No ABC which is a bummer due to most Oklahoma Sooner games are televised on ABC. But hell, I can go to the sports bar my SIL manages. :drink

I'll check that out! Thanks!

I haven't had time to do a lot of research so let us know what you find out. I am curious if the TV channels are hD.

 

[headshothills]

I'm tired of paying whatever it is i'm paying for TV. Really it's for my wife.

Does anyone have it can share it's praises or tell me to run the other direction?

Wife needs Bravo, A & E, and whatever channel serves up gays, midgets, housewives, and murder investigation. I just need the BBC and History.

So here's the rub.. I have an Amazon FireTV Box in my main room, and 4 FireSticks on the rest of the TV's, all running either KODI or SPMC. While I recommend the FireTV over the Firestick, its hard to argue the cost different over the 2. The FireTV's are 100 bucks, and if youre lucky to find them on sale for 60, which they it does happen... GRAB THEM.. Krackhouse from here hit me up for an AmazonTV box.. I told him the price and the next day, just a week ago, Best Buy had everything on sale, Firestick 25 bucks, FireTV 60.. I messaged him and he jumped on it. Had I of known the sale was only 1 day, i would have picked up more AmazonTV boxes, went back the next day and the sale was over, i kicked myself.

The main different between the 2 is, the TV has a quad core processor, expandable memory, and responds to input and navigation lightening fast. The Firesticks are dual-core, fixed memory, and can be sluggish at times.

In terms of functionality, they are the exactly same and both do the same with the exception of the TV being able to hold more data/apps etc... this is where to price point doesnt really justify the cost, unless on sale.

What I will say is that our FireTV box is in the main room. Its not as finiky as the firesticks in terms of how it runs. The firesticks do crash at times, and sometimes it messes up the build and either wipes out the boot loader for it or prevents it from running. I have had a few guys reach out to me and I have been able to get them back up and running over the phone or on Facetime with me guiding them through. I have considered putting together a document for people to review for various issues like this. These things arent perfect by any means, repositories go down, and sometimes it takes a couple days for them to come up, sometimes it takes a couple weeks, its the nature of it.

In terms of your Local channels and cable channels. The build I use does have a live TV portion to it, again, cant control the content on them, some of them work, some of them are dead, we rely on the repository and add-on to make the content they have listed avail.

There are hundreds of builds that can be installed over kodi/spmc which are pre-configured with various Movies repos, TV Show Repos, Sports Repo's, LiveTV repos, Kids stuff, etc... I can honestly say that not every build will be bullet proof. If the developer of the build stops providing updates to the build, removing dead repos with updates, and staying current with new repos for content, a build dies. But when a build dies, 5 more developers pop up. If you are fluent enough with Kodi/SPMC and the configuration of how to get, find, and add sources, repositories, and video addons, then you could essentially skip loading a build and just configure it yourself. But thats the main issue, most people either dont know how, or its so convoluted trying to configure as well as frustrating, installing a build thats pre-configured with everything, even if its not a perfect build, is still easier than someone struggling to install it all themselves and knowing where to go and how to do it.

The build I use has a dedicated IPTV subscirption base option. Its an option, if youre tired of trying to find channels, local, cable, etc, they offer a $10/mo for first device, and $5 for ever other, it comes with a TV Guide, and is pretty damn legit in terms of cable channels and local channels. granted they might be from new york for local channels, but youre still getting ABC, NBC, CBD, Fox, and just about every cable channel.

For the free TV channels, some of the more popular ones that come with my build is LiveMix and CCloud. Again these arent perfect, some links work, some dont. As a result with us cutting the DirectTV bill, you technically have 2 options. Go buy a OTA antenna and install on the house and get all the common local channels in HD, which you can find how far away from the OTA antennas you are by going to www.antennaweb.org, putting in your home address, and it will tell you how far away and where to point the antenna as well as recommend which OTA antenna to get for your distance.

For KODI/SPMC LiveTV, with my build, you can enable the USTVNowPlus Add-on, sign up for a free account, yes, its totally free, and enjoy local New York based channels completely free. you get the first 45 days in HD, after that they go to SD, but there is a TV guide for this, and again totally fee, but you do have to sign up. The company was originally designed to offer Military member abroad the ability to watch local US TV.

A new Repo I have been testing is the DNATV Pro Beta, which is pretty awesome. not part of the standard build, does have a TV Guide, but is a little tricky to install, cause you have to install the TV Guide first through the UFO Repo, then add in the DNA Repo and install the DNATV Pro Beta, but once you get those, the channels are in HD and SD format and they seem to be pretty good.

I could go on and on, but this is my best, first hand experience, I have tried to help everyone who has gotten a stick from me, especially when they have issues or questions. Again, these things arent perfect, you win some you lose some cause youre at the mercy of the repo's and the sources they host.

 

[headshothills]

This varies from build to build. Top Tutorials Hyper TT build for example, has live tv. Thats the build i run on my Fire TV and it runs flawlessly. The builder runs IVUE2 tv guide for EVERY channel available (foreign and domestic) and even has a tab that breaks it down to only domestic channels like bravo, abc, E!, and such. (see USA tab at 1:32 in the link i posted). Hyper TT is probably one of the best builds out there right now if not second to The Beast Build.


[video=youtube;FNcBpyz39mU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNcBpyz39mU[/video]

View attachment 506946

I follow Husham on quite a bit of stuff, he has good content and is current with his stuff. He did a best builds poll, as seen here... http://www.husham.com/vote-for-best-xbmc-kodi-build/

Also, the IVUE2 TV guide is just that, its only a TV guide, I just installed it, and the IVUETEMP is not working, its continuing to say authorization error, but the IVUE2 is a linking source to a repo already installed which offers LiveTV, its not a LiveTV repo stream. Im interested to see what LiveTV repo's they are using to link to IVUE2 in the hyper TT build...

 

[BHC Vic]

I follow Husham on quite a bit of stuff, he has good content and is current with his stuff. He did a best builds poll, as seen here... http://www.husham.com/vote-for-best-xbmc-kodi-build/

Also, the IVUE2 TV guide is just that, its only a TV guide, I just installed it, and the IVUETEMP is not working, its continuing to say authorization error, but the IVUE2 is a linking source to a repo already installed which offers LiveTV, its not a LiveTV repo stream. Im interested to see what LiveTV repo's they are using to link to IVUE2 in the hyper TT build...

How much to build me a fire TV. I love the stream smart because it's plug and play to me but I'm not spending that kind of money for the lake house. I'll use it very little

 

[Waffles]

I follow Husham on quite a bit of stuff, he has good content and is current with his stuff. He did a best builds poll, as seen here... http://www.husham.com/vote-for-best-xbmc-kodi-build/

Also, the IVUE2 TV guide is just that, its only a TV guide, I just installed it, and the IVUETEMP is not working, its continuing to say authorization error, but the IVUE2 is a linking source to a repo already installed which offers LiveTV, its not a LiveTV repo stream. Im interested to see what LiveTV repo's they are using to link to IVUE2 in the hyper TT build...

You're correct. I should've clarified this. He links UKTV AGAIN and UKTV NOW repo to IVUE2 to get the content. The interface is what draws me. It's so simple and it's all there.

 

[headshothills]

You're correct. I should've clarified this. He links UKTV AGAIN and UKTV NOW repo to IVUE2 to get the content. The interface is what draws me. It's so simple and it's all there.

Right on!! Ill check those out.. I like staying on top of this kind of stuff cause I always have people asking me questions... Ill check those repos out for their live tv streams...

 

[headshothills]

How much to build me a fire TV. I love the stream smart because it's plug and play to me but I'm not spending that kind of money for the lake house. I'll use it very little

I only charge $35 bucks for programming. ive had people with Firestick's send me theirs and ive configured them and send them back, in fact ShippingGuy had a couple sticks and his neighbor or friend had one, he sent them to be and I laughed, I told him no wonder he couldnt get anything, he had like 6 addon-ons configured on his stick.. When I got done installing the build he got over 70+ add-ons. Thats the biggest problem getting these things online or from craiglist, youre at the mercy of whatever they load, and dont have the ability to call them back and say, hey man, how does this work, or where is this at, etc... Hell, I was on the phone with Mike's dad for like 2 hours when he called me about his stick.. HAHA

The biggest issue im having now is that the Firesticks are so far behind in their updates to the IOS, it takes me an additional 15 minutes to update each stick before I can even get KODI/SPMC loaded on it and then install the build... thats whats frustrating right now..

 

[HgH Vltg]

A modified fireTV can get live TV?

 

[headshothills]

A modified fireTV can get live TV?

Yes.. through KODI/SPMC configured repositories that have LiveTV streams... I have test a few different ones, and they seem pretty good...

 

[Joker]

I'm thankful I have ESExplorer saved so I can load kodi. From what I understand, Amazon took it down.

 

[USMC2010]

I'm thankful I have ESExplorer saved so I can load kodi. From what I understand, Amazon took it down.

I just installed ESExplorer on a new fire stick yesterday.

 

[Joker]

I just installed ESExplorer on a new fire stick yesterday.

[emoji106], I know they took it down on 8/1. Good news.

 

[headshothills]

You're correct. I should've clarified this. He links UKTV AGAIN and UKTV NOW repo to IVUE2 to get the content. The interface is what draws me. It's so simple and it's all there.

Just added the Add-on, my build comes with fusion and mettlekettle which has the UKTVNow and Again... good list of US channels, although some HD channels didnt work, the SD channels did, for instance ABC HD didnt work on either link, but ABC SD did.. NBC HD worked.. it was a mix and match...

For the simplicity and ease, USTVNow, although you have to sign up for a free account, you do have the option to upgrade... but then again, take the guesswork out of it, check and see how far away you are from an OTA antenna, and just toss one up and feed every TV from where your old Dish was. We got the channel master stealth OTA antenna, and a 4 port amplifier... will be putting it up at the end of the month when we move into our temp home while we sell ours...

 

[HgH Vltg]

Headshot, think you'll be getting a pm from me.

 

[No Butt No Putt]

Spend the $ and go with Streamsmart.

 

[RogerThat99]

Has anyone tried a high quality HD antenna for local channels?
I have heard they work great and often have higher picture quality due to it not being compressed for distribution over cable.

 

[No Butt No Putt]

Has anyone tried a high quality HD antenna for local channels?
I have heard they work great and often have higher picture quality due to it not being compressed for distribution over cable.

My in laws have 2 of them. They only get 3 channels. Sometimes.

 

[USMC2010]

Has anyone tried a high quality HD antenna for local channels?
I have heard they work great and often have higher picture quality due to it not being compressed for distribution over cable.

I can get Las Vegas channels in my toy hauler down on the island. I am going to be putting an HD antenna on the house for more options, the picture quality is good.

 

[purrfecttremor]

Has anyone tried a high quality HD antenna for local channels?
I have heard they work great and often have higher picture quality due to it not being compressed for distribution over cable.

I tried the antenna in my MH for giggles and was amazed at the volume on channels. Kind of made me wonder why i have dish in it.

 

[poncho]

I'm tired of paying whatever it is i'm paying for TV. Really it's for my wife.

Does anyone have it can share it's praises or tell me to run the other direction?

Wife needs Bravo, A & E, and whatever channel serves up gays, midgets, housewives, and murder investigation. I just need the BBC and History.

Jeezus that's funny, I could have written that. She can marathon that Housewives crap, grown up high school girls bitching about meaningless shit.

 

[headshothills]

Has anyone tried a high quality HD antenna for local channels?
I have heard they work great and often have higher picture quality due to it not being compressed for distribution over cable.

Dont need a high quality one, you need to use Antennaweb.org and see how far away you are from the OTA towers, then that determines which antenna you need, directional, omni directional, and distance.. and yes, I have both a indoor from Frys for 60 bucks, cause the others were crap, the ones you put on the window, and it works great, HD and local channels are awesome with it... For the rest of the house, got a Channel Master Stealth... More than enough, only 15 miles away from the OTA antennas..

 

[headshothills]

Jeezus that's funny, I could have written that. She can marathon that Housewives crap, grown up high school girls bitching about meaningless shit.

The cool thing about most of the shows and repositories configured, for stuff on TV, normally its avail for viewing on a Kodi configured device the next day... So even if you missed it live, you can still get it..

 

[C-2]

Jeezus that's funny, I could have written that. She can marathon that Housewives crap, grown up high school girls bitching about meaningless shit.

X2

DirectTV has a basic package for $50, it includes the reality/drama shows, all of them I believe, except for Oprah Network - which replays a lot of the 48 Hours and 20/20 shows about women killing their husbands. I was going to get rid of it, but ho lee fok, wifey said no. So that one stupid channel cranks it up to the next level, to $75.

Like you guys, sometimes I have to ask wifey why she needs to listen to all that bickering, drives me insane. :swear

941 - be forewarned, none of the streaming stuff is point and click.

 

[BHC Vic]

X2

DirectTV has a basic package for $50, it includes the reality/drama shows, all of them I believe, except for Oprah Network - which replays a lot of the 48 Hours and 20/20 shows about women killing their husbands. I was going to get rid of it, but ho lee fok, wifey said no. So that one stupid channel cranks it up to the next level, to $75.

Like you guys, sometimes I have to ask wifey why she needs to listen to all that bickering, drives me insane. :swear

941 - be forewarned, none of the streaming stuff is point and click.

Just got off the phone w directv. Dropped my bill to 30 a month and got free nfl ticket

 

[USMC2010]

Not bad Vic, we dropped directv just over a month ago now, bill is 0 , and I haven't missed a football game I have wanted to watch yet even though it is preseason. I don't miss paying that bill at all. Do we get buffering? Yes but not much and not worth paying for anything again.

 

[angiebaby]

We have a fire stick with Amaxon Prime. For 20 years we had zero network TV. Just video. Then we got Cable last year because I love college football. Turns out, other than Saturdays in the fall, we didn't use the cable. We got the fire stick then just got rid of the cableTV 2 months ago. Don't miss it. There is a bar 2 blocks away for football games. I can buy a lot of drinks for $150/month.

We get Netflix, Pandora, and all of the Amazon Prime videos and tv shows. It suits us.

 

[C-2]

Just got off the phone w directv. Dropped my bill to 30 a month and got free nfl ticket

I need to call them, we've been a continuous customer since 99. Also need new equipment, but we are out of contract for 3 years now :thumbsup

Thanks for the heads up

 

[poncho]

The cool thing about most of the shows and repositories configured, for stuff on TV, normally its avail for viewing on a Kodi configured device the next day... So even if you missed it live, you can still get it..

No way in Hell I'm giving her any more ways to watch that crap, but thanks.:thumbsup

X2

DirectTV has a basic package for $50, it includes the reality/drama shows, all of them I believe, except for Oprah Network - which replays a lot of the 48 Hours and 20/20 shows about women killing their husbands. I was going to get rid of it, but ho lee fok, wifey said no. So that one stupid channel cranks it up to the next level, to $75.

Like you guys, sometimes I have to ask wifey why she needs to listen to all that bickering, drives me insane. :swear

941 - be forewarned, none of the streaming stuff is point and click.

I find myself getting irritated sometimes when those shows are on, I'm not real good at arguing. :eek

 

[headshothills]

We have a fire stick with Amaxon Prime. For 20 years we had zero network TV. Just video. Then we got Cable last year because I love college football. Turns out, other than Saturdays in the fall, we didn't use the cable. We got the fire stick then just got rid of the cableTV 2 months ago. Don't miss it. There is a bar 2 blocks away for football games. I can buy a lot of drinks for $150/month.

We get Netflix, Pandora, and all of the Amazon Prime videos and tv shows. It suits us.

And to think if you got KODI and a build installed on that stick, you could cancel Netflix, and never leave the house to watch any football games and still save money so you're not paying bar price!!

 

[460]

I'm still on the fence about switching. Big hold up is get kids shows. When they are in full freak out mode it's nice to point and click. Screaming kids or 120 direct tv bill. Hmmmmmmm[emoji1]

 

[BHC Vic]

I'm still on the fence about switching. Big hold up is get kids shows. When they are in full freak out mode it's nice to point and click. Screaming kids or 120 direct tv bill. Hmmmmmmm[emoji1]

You get all the kids channels on the basic package. I just got a deal 30 a month and nfl ticket [emoji3]

 

[jetboatperformance]

Im Teased about the fact that I have a flat screen in nearly every room , currently all have Roku on all of them and my Newest TV is "Smart" we have a "wall to wall" super good connection for the net We can get damn near anything we want but we cant seem to get Fox news anywhere if we drop Dish network, say what you may but we like Fox and want to keep it and Dump Dish I thought I saw somewhere on this thread that some device or deal actually had it ?

 

[BHC Vic]

Im Teased about the fact that I have a flat screen in nearly every room , currently all have Roku and my Newest TV is "Smart" we have a "wall to wall" super good connection for the net We can get damn near anything we want but we cant seem to get Fox news anywhere if we drop Dish network, say what you may but we like Fox and want to keep it and Dump Dish I thought I saw somewhere on this thread that some device or deal actually had it ?

I want to say stream smart has a app for Fox News installed. If not I do know that I get it

 

[USMC2010]

I can find Fox News national and local on both my streamsmart boxes and my firestick.

 

[headshothills]

The FOX New is configured in numerous repos avail, CCloud, Council, LiveMix, Cosmic, Phoenix, Im sure theres others... The build I have has a Kids Zone in the navigation menu with tons of pre-configured Kids stuff, cartoons, movies, animated, Disney. There is also multiple sports channels available through various sports repos as well as regular repos which categorize most of the forks down to what you are looking for, NFL, NHL, MLB, etc... So they are there, but you gotta point and click to get them..

 

[jetboatperformance]

Can someone who actually has this "jailbroken" FS school me please whats all really available to watch ? is it "gimicky" , been looking at these on Amazon and Ebay etc the version I have been seeing most is 16.1 version is this like the "black box" that was around in the early days of cable TV ? Thanks Tom

 

[krackhouse]

Order one from Headshothills, you will not be disappointed. It is not gimicky at all.
Watch any shows, movies, sports, etc. that you want at the touch of a button. Pretty easy to find and most are in 720p or 1080p.

 

[guest hs]

Fire Stick help. So we purchase the Fire Stick works great my son does some download so we can watch movies in theaters. We watch Sausage Party no problems I go to watch Sully and Neighbors II, these two movies have Japanese sub titles that I don't know how to get rid of. Has anyone else run into this problem?

 

[Joker]

Fire Stick help. So we purchase the Fire Stick works great my son does some download so we can watch movies in theaters. We watch Sausage Party no problems I go to watch Sully and Neighbors II, these two movies have Japanese sub titles that I don't know how to get rid of. Has anyone else run into this problem?

There's no option to get rid of it.

 

[Joker]

Can someone who actually has this "jailbroken" FS school me please whats all really available to watch ? is it "gimicky" , been looking at these on Amazon and Ebay etc the version I have been seeing most is 16.1 version is this like the "black box" that was around in the early days of cable TV ? Thanks Tom

Nothing like black boxes. Damn those things are old.[emoji1]

 

[headshothills]

There's no option to get rid of it.

Unfortunately there isn't.. When these movies are stripped and made avail via the addons you are at the mercy of the source.. This is just part of being able to watch the movie for free.. Some have them some don't...

 

[guest hs]

Ok thank you!

 

[Waffles]

Fire Stick help. So we purchase the Fire Stick works great my son does some download so we can watch movies in theaters. We watch Sausage Party no problems I go to watch Sully and Neighbors II, these two movies have Japanese sub titles that I don't know how to get rid of. Has anyone else run into this problem?

Question.....Does yours have the autoplayback feature on? For example, if you choose sausage party, does it automatically play after you click it or does it populate a list of different sources to choose from?