We now know that Amazon will be releasing a brand new interface for the Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, but thanks to some eagle eyes and a comment from Bacon, it looks like shots of the new interface managed to slip into Amazon’s promotional video for the all-new Fire TV Stick 2. Read more ›
The Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick interface hasn’t changed much since we first saw it over 2 years ago when the original Fire TV was released in April of 2014. There have been small refinements to the interface here and there, but it’s due for a bigger refresh and it looks like it’s happening soon. After noticing that the new Fire TV Stick 2’s product page was notably lacking images of the device’s interface, I did some digging and found a note on Amazon’s developer portal that states the Fire TV image guidelines have been updated “for [an] upcoming Fire TV UI refresh.” Read more ›
Buyers of the all-new Fire TV Stick 2 will receive several extra freebies. For starters, Amazon is giving buyers a $10 credit that can be used to purchase or rent content from Amazon Video. Customers will also receive 1 month of Sling TV, which is a nice bump up from the standard 7-day trial, and 2 months of Hulu, which is a big bump up from the regular 7-day trial. Once you activate the Fire TV Stick 2, you’ll receive an email from Amazon with promotional codes for all three freebies. The promotion ends October 31st, so be sure you setup and login to your new Fire TV Stick 2 prior to that date to receive the email from Amazon. The Hulu and Sling TV offers are for new customers of those services only, but the $10 Amazon Video credit is for everyone.
Amazon has just announced an all-new Fire TV Stick 2 with Alexa Voice Remote for $39.99. The new device looks exactly like the previous model from the outside, but is all-new on the inside. Packed in is a quad-core 1.3 Ghz Mediatek 8127D processor with Mali-450 GPU. That’s a considerable jump from the 1 Ghz dual core CPU powering the previous generation Fire TV Stick. Connectivity also receives a bump up with the addition of dual-band/dual-antenna 802.11ac WiFi. Interestingly, ethernet connectivity is listed as “optional” so it seems the new Fire TV Stick may support OTG cables and USB-to-Ethernet adapters out of the box without needing to root the deivce.
RAM and internal storage remain the same at 1GB and 8GB respectively. The new Fire TV Stick 2 is still a 1080p device, so there’s no 4K support, but the new hardware does now decode h.265 HEVC natively. The new hardware now only ships with a voice remote, but is priced $10 less than the old voice remote bundle. The new Fire TV Stick 2 with Voice Remote is available for pre-order now and will arrive at customer’s doors on October 20th.
Amazon’s most recent pilot season has turned out to be a huge success because all three pilot shows have been greenlit to become full Amazon Original Series. The shows are Jean-Claude Van Johnson, I Love Dick, and The Tick. All three are expected to debut their first full season in 2017. Amazon says this most recent pilot season was the most watched ever.
The newest Amazon original series, which is set to debut this Friday, is Woody Allen’s first TV series Crisis in Six Scenes. The only show to be picked up for series from June’s pilot season was The Last Tycoon.
Plex has just announced Plex Cloud, which may be the simplest way to access all of your personal media from anywhere, without needing to leave a PC or NAS drive on all the time. Plex Cloud links a Plex Pass to an Amazon Cloud Drive account. This allows the Plex app to stream media directly from the Amazon Cloud Drive, without needing to have a PC or NAS running Plex’s server software. Read more ›
Google is expected to reveal the first 4K capable Chromecast next month, among other devices, at their October 4th media event. The Chromecast Ultra, which is what it will reportedly be called, will look nearly identical to the existing Chromecast if the above image uncovered by VentureBeat is accurate. Notably different is the lack of a Google Chrome logo, which has been replaced by Google’s “G” logo.
The Chromecast Ultra is expected to be priced at $69, which many believe may leave it dead in the water, since a device like the Xiaomi Mi Box is available for the same price, also acts as a 4K Google Cast receiver, and does so much more with its dedicated physical remote control and Android TV interface. We’ll have to wait until next week to see if Google has anything new up its sleeve to justify the Chromecast Ultra’s price.
After several leaks, Roku as officially revealed their new lineup of streaming media boxes to the world. At the low end is the Roku Express, coming in at an impressively affordable price of $29.99, and at the upper end is the Roku Ultra, which replaces the Roku 4 from last year, at $129.99. If affordable 4K support is all you’re after, the $79.99 Roku Premiere has you covered, while the $99.99 Roku Premiere+ adds HDR and a few more features. Read on for a break down of each models specs and features. Read more ›
The first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is tonight, September 26th. The debate will begin at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific. Here is how to watch it for free on the Amazon Fire TV or Fire TV Stick. Read more ›
Earlier this month, Plex announced that its server software could now function as a DVR to record content from networked HDHomeRun tuners. NVIDIA has now announced that its SHIELD Android TV box has received an updated Plex app that allows it to take advantage of the new DVR functionality. Unlike every other streaming box on the market, the NVIDIA SHIELD TV can function not only as a Plex client for content playback, but also as a Plex server which sends media to other devices. This unique capability, along with the updated Plex app, now allows it to also record content using Plex’s new DVR feature.
