Current Situation with 4K Stick

I'm finding on hardware decoding some channels won't tune and after awhile channels that do tune crash.

Using software decoding all channels work but it starts to get very choppy after a couple of minutes.

Is the 4K stick the issue? Is the Cube any better?

I have experienced the same issues with the 4K Stick.

Perhaps you can give us a few more details that might help narrow the issues down.

  • Is it any particular channel you have noticed this problem with, or does it just randomly happen?
  • What is your source for the feeds? Are you using an old Dual, a current Connect Quattro, Prime, TV Everywhere/Locast streams?
  • If it's using a physical tuner, where are you located? Does geography play a role?
  • Do you have any relevant logs to share when a channel has failed to tune? It's possible it's a problem in the server, and not with the client as you assume.

I am using a Prime on Verizon. At least two channels I have noticed the crashing issues on are 644 Oxygen and 645 OWN. This happens with hardware on and tuner sharing off. If I use software I get choppy playback issues.

I should note TVE plays perfect on the same channels.

Channel 103 - ITV HD.

HDHR Connect Quattro.

UK - TV signals are 73% to 98%.

I don't get any error messages it just spins and spins.

@SlvrYeti @snickers: Have you attempted to make a recording from the trouble channels? It's sounds like you may be running into the issue where the Fire TV Stick 4K cannot hardware decode interlaced H.264 content.

@SlvrYeti, this has been known as a problem, especially for OTA broadcasts in the UK as they often transmit some stations interlaced and H.264 encoded.

@snickers, there are some US cable providers that are also transmitting interlaced H.264 content. The developers have mentioned that this is the case in some Comcast markets; perhaps Verizon/Frontier FiOS markets may be subject to the same problems.

Until Amazon releases the fix for interlaced H.264 hardware decoding, your only real option is to use software decoding.

Thanks for this info! Any ETA on Amazon's fix? I'm guessing the cube will have the same issue.

Remember, without any logs about a recording or stream, this is all only speculation. It could be a problem with the stream or server, too.

Amazon has finally released 6.2.7.3 with a fix for the FireTV 4K Stick.