FireTV alternative ?

Ramadhir Singh

Ramadhir Singh

Wasseypur
Adept
What are the option i can explore, on the extremely lower end of budget for a streaming device ?
Even mi is asking 5k for their devices these days which is not worth.. or better wait for big billion amazon sale and buy fireTv again ?

Please suggest.
I will use only emby/jellyfin, DNLA app, and SmartTube.
1080p would suffice, no HDR required as well.
 
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Just wait for a sale and get another Fire TV. Usually Fire TVs last quite a while. You just might have been unlucky with the previous one.

During sale, you can get Fire stick 4k for 3-3.5k. There's nothing else in this budget with comparable performance.

Motorola streaming device is there. If there's offer during sale, you can consider it. It is pretty much the only device with 16 GB storage. But still not worth 4.5k IMO.
 
gourav said:
Just wait for a sale and get another Fire TV. Usually Fire TVs last quite a while. You just might have been unlucky with the previous one.
Click to expand...
Indeed, i was unlucky.
www.pcmag.com

Did an Amazon Update Accidentally Brick Fire TV Devices?

A number of Amazon Fire TV Sticks are stuck at the logo screen following a recent update. Amazon appears stumped by the problem.
www.pcmag.com www.pcmag.com

getting another on in diwali sale is what is my last option. Also new models are coming.
news.yahoo.com

Don't buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K – two new models are likely coming soon

The Amazon Fire TV Stick range could get two new additions soon, with regulatory filings pointing to updated 4K models.
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com
 
I suggest get the Fire Stick 4K during the October or so sale. 4K I say even if you don't have 4K tv. Because 4K would be faster and your experience will be better.
For whatever you want to use it for, 4K fire tv / stick will be great device.
 
raksrules said:
I suggest get the Fire Stick 4K during the October or so sale. 4K I say even if you don't have 4K tv. Because 4K would be faster and your experience will be better.
For whatever you want to use it for, 4K fire tv / stick will be great device.
Click to expand...
4k 4k 4k 4k 4k (laughing emoji here, for some reason can't add).

I recently tried the 4k max, and the experience was sub optimal at best. The homescreen ui looks dated, compared to something like webos or google tv. Theh have huge banner ads (amazon) right at the home screen, not sure if you can turn it off.

But the real deal breaker was the lackluster performance, navigating around the ui, playing back hevc from my media server was a laggy experience. Basic playback controls would start to stutter if a bigh bitrate content was playing.

I have only 2 real options, either the new apple tv 2022, or the nvidia shield pro. I'd still purchase the shield pro (as I'm not too keen on the apple ecosystem, even though it has far better performance), but sadly not available in India.
 
ze_cook said:
4k 4k 4k 4k 4k (laughing emoji here, for some reason can't add).

I recently tried the 4k max, and the experience was sub optimal at best. The homescreen ui looks dated, compared to something like webos or google tv. Theh have huge banner ads (amazon) right at the home screen, not sure if you can turn it off.

But the real deal breaker was the lackluster performance, navigating around the ui, playing back hevc from my media server was a laggy experience. Basic playback controls would start to stutter if a bigh bitrate content was playing.

I have only 2 real options, either the new apple tv 2022, or the nvidia shield pro. I'd still purchase the shield pro (as I'm not too keen on the apple ecosystem, even though it has far better performance), but sadly not available in India.
Click to expand...

We are talking relative to price and OPs requirements. Apple tv great for people who watch stuff only on proper streaming apps. I watch youtube with smarttubenext (s tube) to avoid ads and it also has sponser block. No possible in apple tv.
Shield is good option but not in same price range as fire stick.

You are free to not use firestick / tv but those sell by millions for a reason. It is a cheap, capable streaming device and we can sideload apps to it.
I have apple tv HD and the only use I get out of it is my kids playing couple of free games that work with siri motion sensor remote.
 
raksrules said:
We are talking relative to price and OPs requirements. Apple tv great for people who watch stuff only on proper streaming apps. I watch youtube with smarttubenext (s tube) to avoid ads and it also has sponser block. No possible in apple tv.
Shield is good option but not in same price range as fire stick.

You are free to not use firestick / tv but those sell by millions for a reason. It is a cheap, capable streaming device and we can sideload apps to it.
I have apple tv HD and the only use I get out of it is my kids playing couple of free games that work with siri motion sensor remote.
Click to expand...
I am not suggesting op to use apple tv/shield, apologies if it came off like that. I'm merely recounting my experience with the firetv and the sad state of android based streaming boxes.
 
Sobirvs said:
I'm using Apple TV 4K, and I honestly love it. But it costs around 17k
Click to expand...

I recently got a 2nd hand apple tv hd to try it out and realized it is not for me. OPs uses are..

Jellyfin/emby - Jellyfin does have swiftfin app for apple tv but it is sh!t. Infuse is great app he can use but it is prohibitively expensive. Basically no free option.
Smart-tube - not possible to have a ad free youtube app on apple tv at all.
DLNA - I honestly don't know which app to use for this. I guess regular free vlc app should work. Not pretty by does the job.

For all these uses, I don't think apple should deviate from an android based device. Be it firestick or Mi Box or shield tv.
ze_cook said:
I am not suggesting op to use apple tv/shield, apologies if it came off like that. I'm merely recounting my experience with the firetv and the sad state of android based streaming boxes.
Click to expand...
Oh Ok. I concur about sluggishness of fire stick and it being huge advertising hoarding. But that is also the reason of its pricing. The reason I suggest 4K over regular is I believe it has more RAM which aids in little more responsive usage.
I have a 4K Stick connected to one TV at home and I also have a 32inch amazon basics fire tv edition tv. The amazonbasics is very sluggish.
 
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I own a couple of firetv4k max, two appletv 4k and 2019 shield pro. Based on my experience
  • If you don't want to spend a lot then get FireTV 4k max.
    • Its great for streaming and local media playback. you can even steam PC games via moonlight with minimal latency. It has 802.11ax 2x2 MIMO (Wifi 6) as well
    • Its price drops below 5k frequently. It was selling for 4200 for a week in auagust - https://keepa.com/#!product/10-B08MR1KMM7
    • I use 'AirReceiver' app from Amazon app store for AirPlay from apple devices. It costs ~INR 200.
  • If budget is not a problem and you're invested in google/android ecosystem get shield pro ($199 from US)
  • If budget is not a problem and you're invested in apple ecosystem then get appletv 4k.
  • There maybe other devices as well, but I stick to these the above 3 because
    • strong hardware/performance
    • regular security updates
    • ease of use for other family members
  • Caveats
    • Shield doesn't do AV1 and HDR on youtube
    • Apple TV doesn't do lossless TrueHD and DTS HD, it does regular lossy DD plus, DTS amd atmos, not 100% sure
    • FireTV also doesn't do lossless TrueHD and DTS HD audio natively
P.S. Forgot Chromecast with google TV. This one is also pretty good. Not sure about audio codec support.
 
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m0h1t said:
I own a couple of firetv4k max, two appletv 4k and 2019 shield pro. Based on my experience
  • If you don't want to spend a lot then get FireTV 4k max.
    • Its great for streaming and local media playback. you can even steam PC games via moonlight with minimal latency. It has 802.11ax 2x2 MIMO (Wifi 6) as well
    • Its price drops below 5k frequently. It was selling for 4200 for a week in auagust - https://keepa.com/#!product/10-B08MR1KMM7
    • I use 'AirReceiver' app from Amazon app store for AirPlay from apple devices. It costs ~INR 200.
Click to expand...

I thought firetv doesn't support moonlight and such airplay capable features. Is there any list of advanced things that fire tv can do? Not like regular store apps, but something like, I remember people were using jio tv app in firestick long back.
 
Jio TV app is available in the app store itself. New Fire Sticks come with the shortcut pre-installed as well.

In case of fire stick, you can enable unknown sources and install APKs very easily, you're not locked to the app store. That's how people install SmartTubeNext and Kodi, which are not there in the app store.
 
One very important thing to consider for people who have Apple tv and intend to use Kodi but still use official login to JioCinema or JioTV Live channels or Sonyliv or something, it will not work. This is because Kodi cannot decrypt DRM or something and there is absolutely no way around it.
So first of all, installing Kodi is super difficult on apple tv, I have tried on apple tv hd and then you have that stupid 7 day refresh and on top of that this DRM issue.
 
Fire tv stick has been good for me.....still use the 2nd gen fire tv stick....is very sluggish now.....have fire tv stick 4k also, bought last year in sale for 3300....works like charm and also belps in mirroring from laptop.....thinking of getting one more this sale but will wait for the new launchea and see how they are.
 
If you're happy with the device, and just worried about price, get a used one from the market here or OLX. Personally I'm pretty invested in the Google ecosystem so get older 2/3 gen Chromecasts from OLX for 1.5k or less. They're pretty reliable, and only the remote causes issues. If your tv supports HDMI CEC then you can just use the TV remote
Also have two of the latest Chromecast 4k's. One I bought from the US and one I got last week for 4.8k off OLX. I have a fire stick I got free with a non smart TV on Amazon but I don't use it because of no Google cast functionality
 
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raksrules said:
Jellyfin/emby - Jellyfin does have swiftfin app for apple tv but it is sh!t. Infuse is great app he can use but it is prohibitively expensive. Basically no free option.
Smart-tube - not possible to have a ad free youtube app on apple tv at all.
DLNA - I honestly don't know which app to use for this. I guess regular free vlc app should work. Not pretty by does the job.
Click to expand...
Thanks @raksrules for summing up accurately.
cant live without smarttube. im using official yt in TV app now.. man its pure cancer. cant stand it for a minute for a disgusting app littered with ads. (do people play for this garbage? )

don't want to go in apple ecosystem in this context, no matter how good is the overall experience.
Could have built something very powerful in DIY, but then i have to face DRM isue in OTTs.
m0h1t said:
FireTV also doesn't do lossless TrueHD and DTS HD audio natively
Click to expand...
firestick has issue decoding any DTS streams, the sound level is very low.
have converted all DTS to AC3 in my personal collection.

greenhorn said:
I have a fire stick I got free with a non smart TV on Amazon but I don't use it because of no Google cast functionality
Click to expand...
please consider a charity for the needy and the jobless like me :D
 
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