New Amazon Fire TV Recast - 2- & 4-Tuner DVR for Fire TV

[Foxbat]

Amazon product ASIN B01J6A6H74

The best part is no subscription fee! The worse, it only talks to Amazon Fire TV and Echo Show devices, in addition to your mobile devices. If you had an HDTV with Fire TV built-in, this might make a worthwhile purchase to enable the ability to record OTA programs.

 

[primestar31]

So it should by rights come bundled with a FireTV device. I'll stick with my Tivo Roamio.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Price point seems a bit high for a network-attached TV tuner, especially if it only talks to Amazon devices. I'll stick with my HD Homerun Connect.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Still not as good as the Tablo with 4 tuners. You can stream up to 6 different streams at the same time regardless of at home or away at work. I saw comparison article from Tablo the other day in my email box and it compares the two devices and Tablo comes out ahead on all features.

 

[harshness]

Price point seems a bit high for a network-attached TV tuner, especially if it only talks to Amazon devices.

To call the Recast a "network-attached TV tuner" is to ignore a fairly significant feature set (Android TV with storage capability). A HDHomerun Connect is a "network-attached TV tuner" because it literally can't do anything else.

When you factor in the cost of a small selection of media NAS' or a full-blown media servers that the SiliconDust solution requires to approximate the feature set, the Recast is likely cheaper and more straightforward to set up. The Fire TV restriction is a downer but certainly not a show-stopper as the Fire TV devices are capable and fairly inexpensive streamers. By the same token the SiliconDust DVR service requires that you use the HDHomerun DVR app to interact with its server software and, lo and behold, I see only the Amazon Fire TV listed in the compatible streamers list!

I suppose that if most of your viewing is on devices rather than TVs or projectors, there's a tipping point.

 

[fredp]

I have this device(4 tuner version) along with the FTV 4K stick. It is slick and the menus integrates easily with each other. I did jump the gun on both products getting them when the became available this month. Anyone thinking about these should wait until the Black Friday. Amazon has both models for $50 off the normal price and the 4K stick can be had at BB for $15 off on BF too!

 

[harshness]

Anyone thinking about these should wait until the Black Friday. Amazon has both models for $50 off the normal price and the 4K stick can be had at BB for $15 off on BF too!

As was pointed out in the linked article, the Amazon Black Friday deals started today with the 500GB Recast selling for $179.99 and the 1TB version selling for $219.99. The Cube is going for half price but I suspect that is because people haven't been gushingly happy with it and the Fire TV 4K Stick is mostly as capable (except for Ethernet and Alexa).

If I say Alexa from where I watch TV, my Ecobee thermostat lights up so I don't need the Alexa capability.

 

[harshness]

Still not as good as the Tablo with 4 tuners.

The knock against the Tablo is the ongoing subscription fees. For many (if not most), the streaming session count isn't all that important since you have to use a proprietary streaming app and you could probably get the content through other means using its own app.

 

[MikeD-C05]

The knock against the Tablo is the ongoing subscription fees. For many (if not most), the streaming session count isn't all that important since you have to use a proprietary streaming app and you could probably get the content through other means using its own app.

I have lifetime subscription . Paid once and never again and can add more tablos on my account for the same subscription.

 

[primestar31]

I have lifetime subscription . Paid once and never again and can add more tablos on my account for the same subscription.

How much is the lifetime sub for the guide on Tablo?

 

[harshness]

How much is the lifetime sub for the guide on Tablo?

$149.99.

The Tablo was off the table for me until they finally offered surround sound and some kind end user(s) developed software to download the content.

The Amazon reviews are still all over the map but the concept of network-based tuners still hasn't really sunk in.

 

[MikeD-C05]

$149.99.

The Tablo was off the table for me until they finally offered surround sound and some kind end user(s) developed software to download the content.

The Amazon reviews are still all over the map but the concept of network-based tuners still hasn't really sunk in.

That’s what I paid for my subscription . Much cheaper than TiVo .

 

[harshness]

That’s what I paid for my subscription . Much cheaper than TiVo .

The subscription is $100 less but...

The Bolt OTA comes with 1TB of storage where the Tablo comes with zero.

The Bolt OTA features 802.11ac versus the Tablo's 802.11n.

The Bolt OTA doesn't use a proprietary file format.

The Bolt OTA supports Alexa control.

Of course both of these solutions are considerably more than price of the Recast and a handful of Fire TV sticks that have other practical uses.