I use an older firestick on a 720p TV I keep in my basement and it works great with channels dvr.. often on sale for 25 bucks
the newer one has a remote that will control your TV, also able to power it off a USB port, so its completely wireless
I dont like the fire TV interface that much but the device does work. my main box is a shield.
avoid the generic android TV boxes, flakey and not well supported
Really? I guess I have been out of the loop because, last I knew, the Fire TV 4K stick was still problematical.
I bought a non-4K Fire TV stick on last season's Amazon holiday-time sale for $15. It's meant to be used remotely (tmm1's idea), but it seems to work fine locally. Just plugged it in and am running it now. Appears to be fine.
(Our "legacy" Fire TV Gen. 2 devices are still working fine, too, despite the significant amount of grief they've given you in development.)
When using them remotely, you're only using them with h.264 encoded media. They work fine for that. It's interlaced MPEG-2 content that gives them a lot of trouble.
Yikes, I bought that months ago for traveling! Should I look for something else that is portable?
I can't find the Tivo 4k Dongle in stores. like Best Buy, Target, Microcenter
Only thing i can find is the Bolt and Mini VOX devices.
Is it not out yet?
For things I may end up returning, i do physical stores, not online.
Also, since Amazon and other delivery drivers just put things on my curb now, they get stolen every time, so I have stopped using pretty much any online site for things.
I don't even see it on Amazon.
Let me be more clear. If your buying a Fire TV device today, it should be the Fire TV Stick 4K. It’s the fastest device they make by a mile. The others are very slow devices. This is the one you should invest in.
I don’t believe it’s at retail yet. You have to order from their site. I’ve ordered twice and both times got them in less than 3 days.
Meh, still to expensive for the rare use case. but, ill gues, thats the best and lowest cost option.
To bad that was not a option several months ago when i wanted a ATV box for my living room. The Shield Tube model i have in there works great, but if the TiVo may have worked ok. But, i wanted hardwired Ethernet in there, not wifi. Seems like the TiVO is only wifi.
I have seen some cheapo android tv boxes on ebay/amazon, but yea, i know those are often not ATV, but some modded version of normal Android.
The problem with Android TV devices is the on-going dispute between Google and Amazon. I've got a couple cheap Android TV devices. Can't get Amazon Prime on them still. (Nvidia somehow got exempted from that problem.)
Btw: I understand Google's renaming "Android TV" to "Google TV." That's a good thing, because it will end the confusion between ATV (Android TV) and ATV (Apple TV).
I don't have Prime or Prime video...so not something i care about.
I do know that Amazon devices like FIRE tablets and so i hear their streaming devices are very heavy Amazon centered (to be expected).
Very much Google rebrands to GTV. They already did for Project Fi, to Google Fi.
It's not available for all Google TV devices. I just checked: It's still not available for our Xiaomi MiBox S'. Observe:
"All my [Google] devices" are two Xiaomi MiBox S'.
I don't particularly care, because both of our MiBox S' are out-of-service and I'll eventually be putting them up for sale. I'm leaving everything Google.
An app not being compatible isn't Google's fault, but rather either Amazon for not making available for a particular processor or the device manufacturer for achieving full certification/compatibility from Google.
(Is you device running the Android 9 update? If not, that'd explain why you can't see. The Mi Box system update to Android 9 is necessary to support Prime Video from the Play store.)
It's a properly-certified Android device running Android TV, not a hacked device running Android mobile. And, yes: It has the Android 9 update on it. All that accomplished was to trash the mpeg2 decoder. (Yay, Xiaomi!)
I was on the verge of solving my use case....figure, i'll just use a old spare Android phone i have, and cast via the Channels app to a spare chrome cast i rarely use.
However, the Channels DVR app on Android does NOT have cast ability????
I could ave sworn it did. (must have been thinking of Emby)
I tired the phones built in screen mirroring casting, but that clearly was not made for video streaming...it is terrible.
A Xiaomi MiBox S can be had on eBay for $75-$90. It'll work fine for Channels. Don't know about anything else. Stay away from the MiBox 3. Far away.
Sorry Maddox misread your post your Firetv 4K support has been outstanding.
@maddox was stating the Fire TV 4K Stick is the only Amazon device they recommend; previous devices aren't great. (The newer Cubes are OK, too, but not quite "cheap".)
Yeah I misread it did not see the " but " Sorry Maddox.