New Amazon DVR/Streaming Box
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Guide reportedly similar to Fire stand-alone TV and is two weeks. Unit is 2 channel with 500gb drive and 4 channel with 1tb drive.
Amazon announces new Fire TV Recast — a DVR for Fire TVs, Echo Shows, and Mobile devices
Amazon announces new Fire TV Recast — a DVR for Fire TVs, Echo Shows, and Mobile devices
If you have PS vue, it will integrate the ota channels into that guide and service, which I think is a nice touch and similar to how the airplayer does with sling.
I would expect that for channels that they carry. The problem for many is that PS Vue doesn't carry most OTA channels. My market only provides the local Fox and NBC channels and it appears that they still don't offer CBS at all so this isn't really an apples-to-apples comparison.
Not a show-stopper for the typical time shifter, but certainly a deal breaker for those who might want to save things (big games, ceremonies, news stories) for posterity.No download to device for offline viewing.
I'm not sure I follow.
The way I gather it works is, if Vue carries only fox, but you can pick up all the networks ota, it will add them all to the ps Vue guide whether they offer them streaming or not.
And it will do away with the duplicates if you can get them ota and they offer it streaming.
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If you can set a flag saying that you can receive channels OTA, how would they hand you off to the dozens of channels that they don't carry? Guides are best when used for channel selection and setting recordings.
This seems like something that would serve largely to point out deficiencies in their offering as much as it may be of value to some.
We use the transfer/download feature of Dish Anywhere, Amazon Prime, and Netflix a lot when traveling and network access is intermittent or limited in throughput.
I'm curious how this feature works too. For some time now, Amazon has has a service called Amazon Channels, which offers various a la carte subscriptions such as HBO and Showtime that can be added to your Prime Video subscription. If you subbed to Showtime through Amazon Channels, then you would see a program guide grid on your Fire TV featuring all of the various live Showtime channels (e.g. Showtime, Showtime 2, Showtime Extreme, etc.). Live TV has a new home on Fire TV – Amazon Fire TV
If you have this new Recast DVR, then those Showtime live streaming channels (which come from Amazon's servers) would appear in the same guide grid as your local OTA channels. Clicking on either a streaming channel or an OTA channel would launch that live stream in the native Amazon Fire TV UI, with Amazon's native playback controls and on-screen elements.
In addition, Amazon is now saying that various third-party vMVPD services with apps available on Fire TV will be able to somehow integrate their live streaming channels into this same guide grid. The first of those is PS Vue. But what I wonder is, when you click on, say, ESPN in Amazon's channel guide grid, does that launch a live stream of ESPN in the same native Fire TV UI as OTA TV and streaming channels from Amazon Channels? Or does it just act as a link that triggers the launch of the PS Vue app, going directly to the ESPN live stream within that app? My guess is the latter. Unless Amazon is going to actually start streaming all of those cable channels from their own servers. But why do that unless they're going to become a vMVPD and launch their own cable bundle?
That too. I realize that this is probably what they managed to negotiate with their content people, but I think it is going to turn out to be a significant negative -- especially among those of us coming from DISH or TiVo (or media server) backgrounds where long-term archiving is supported. 75 hours is pretty great compared to your average cable company DVR, but if you're hoarder, it doesn't go very far.
I'd guess that this would only be supported if the stream was from an Amazon channel. It wouldn't be trivial to keep track of which streaming service that you preferred to use to access a given channel (or whether you were authorized to access that particular channel any one of those services).
Since the product is in the last stages of alpha testing or the beginning of beta, we'll surely have to wait until at least the November release date to find out.
I think some are confused as to what's showing up where.
The ps Vue integration is just that . The fire integrates with your ps Vue subscription guide, any channels that your new fire DVR receives over your antenna . Much like the sling with the air player device . If you can receive the broadcast networks ota, and you sub to Vue, it will tie those together within the Vue app.
It won't put in Amazon channel subscriptions in the ps Vue guide .
A totally different feature apparently is the fire guide may show those same channels AND the channels you sub to through Amazon. I haven't read if it does or not, but it seems some of you think it will.
In any case. The Amazon channel such as hbo, showtime, and such that you can get from Amazon won't be in the Vue guide , which has nothing to do with the Amazon fire TV guide.
The ps Vue integration is just that . The fire integrates with your ps Vue subscription guide, any channels that your new fire DVR receives over your antenna . Much like the sling with the air player device . If you can receive the broadcast networks ota, and you sub to Vue, it will tie those together within the Vue app.
It won't put in Amazon channel subscriptions in the ps Vue guide .
A totally different feature apparently is the fire guide may show those same channels AND the channels you sub to through Amazon. I haven't read if it does or not, but it seems some of you think it will.
In any case. The Amazon channel such as hbo, showtime, and such that you can get from Amazon won't be in the Vue guide , which has nothing to do with the Amazon fire TV guide.
What you're saying is something that I haven't read from any other source. (Although I'm not saying that you're wrong.) You're contending that the PS Vue app will have access to and display in its own channel guide the various OTA channels that are coming in via the Recast.
All of the talk about integration between OTA channels and PS Vue streaming channels that I've seen so far refers to the Vue channels getting integrated into the Fire TV's own native channel guide, not the other way around. Read this quote from an article over at TechCrunch:
There’s also a new Channel Guide that looks a lot like a traditional cable TV guide to show you what’s currently airing on your over-the-air TV channels. A small thumbnail of the channel you’re currently tuned to will display at the bottom right as you browse through the available programming. Included in this guide is the live content from any streaming service you subscribe to that offers live programming. PlayStation Vue is Amazon’s first partner on this front, but the company notes that if you subscribe to an Amazon Channel that offers live content – like HBO or CBS All Access – that will appear here, too.
Who knows, maybe TechCrunch and others are confused about this. It's early days yet.
In that the product won't be released for another three weeks, "early days" is an understatement.
Something very interesting about the box. There is a Max of two streams even on the 4 Tuner model. Only two tuners can transcode. They will get a lot of complaints.
Most households probably aren't watching more than a couple of OTA-sourced programs at once. Surely there are large families that depend largely on OTA that this product wouldn't be a good fit for but for many households, two streams is probably good enough.
To the point I think you were trying to make, it is perhaps misleading that the device has four tuners but can only stream two but it is no less misleading that something like the HR54 (that can't display a UHD stream on its own) can only stream one UHD program at a time yet AT&T will offer you multiple UHD clients.
The TiVo Bolt+ offers six tuners but it will only stream two sessions. The other streaming TiVos can only stream two cable programs.
