back to article Amazon hopes fire stick will light up its video service

Amazon hopes a new dongle will revive its flagging video ambitions. The Fire TV stick is essentially the same as Google’s Chromecast concept: a low cost HDMI dongle bundled with a taster of Amazon’s own entertainment service – and a miniature version of the Fire TV box 'n’ remote that it revealed in April. Both old box and …

  1. Irongut

    I guess this means Prime Video won't be coming to Chromecast any time soon. Oh well they charge by the episode for most of the good stuff anyway.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amazon Prime doing fine

    I've been a subscriber to Amazon Prime for the 1 day delivery and Kindle book a month for ages. I had a rethink when the Prime subscription increased, particularly as we already had Netflix, but have kept it on, and to be honest we are more likely to be watching something through Amazon Prime than Netflix these days - the Prime catalogue seems to updated more often, and is on par with Netflix's (pisspoor in the UK) movie content, and far better than Netflix for TV series.

    1. Bassey

      Re: Amazon Prime doing fine

      That's strange. I'm in the same position (due for renewal next week but probably won't) but came to the opposite conclusion. We spend far more time watching series on Netflix but I prefer the films of Amazon Prime. Vikings and Transparent aside I've found Prime disappointing on the TV side. Extant was woeful - even allowing for the eye candy that is Halle Berry.

      At £40 between 4 households I thought prime was a bargain. At £80 and only allowed to share the postage part I think it is very questionable. The other households would have to have a lovefilm instant subscription to get the video and the books only work with kindle devices. I can't access the free books through the kindle app on my phone, tablet or PC.

    2. Selden

      Re: Amazon Prime doing fine

      Honestly, I wouldn't know if Netflix's content is pisspoor or not, because their search engine is so bad. I rarely found anything I was looking for, and their recommendations for what might "interest me" were always laughably off-target.

  3. JDX Gold badge

    "After this it seems to have disappeared completely"

    "After this it seems to have disappeared completely. You’ll have a hard time finding it on the Amazon home page amidst the offers for Kindles, while even Prime members don’t get the hard sell."

    1)Go to amazon.co.uk

    2)Hover over or click "your prime"

    Or:

    1)Start typing the name of a film/TV-show in the main search box

    And oh look.

  4. D@v3

    box vs stick

    anyone know what the box gives you that the stick doesn't?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: box vs stick

      Oh, myyy

    2. Alan Edwards

      Re: box vs stick

      > anyone know what the box gives you that the stick doesn't?

      It's quite a bit more powerful. The box has a quad-core Snapdragon CPU and 2Gb RAM, the stick has 1Gb and a dual-core Broadcom Capri.

      The game controller works with the stick, but it might struggle with some of the higher-power games.

      The box comes with the voice search remote, the stick doesn't it's a $30 extra.

      The OS is the same AFAIK.

  5. Ben Norris

    When Amazon took over the service from Lovefilm it went rapidly downhill. They have filled it with TV boxset, mostly old and their homemade very US centric series trying to stumble on another game of thrones.

    They clearly don't love film anymore because very few new films are added on a regular basis and all the brand new stuff requires payment above the subscription.

    It is not surprising that people don't want a service that they have ruined.

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    I was rather impressed with Google Chromecast. I needed a quick and dirty solution to watch American Football, as my brother was coming over. I could have lugged the computer over to the sitting room, but I also want to watch iPlayer on it. I used to have Sky, but cancelled. Now I have a Chromcast button on the BBC iPlayer app on my iPad. Access to Netflix, should I choose to sign up plus YouTube and other things, should I care.

    The NFL Gamepass app doesn't yet support Chromecast, so it was a quick walk to the office, bung on the PC, launch the video player, tell Chrome to turn it back into a normal browser window by right-clicking, and there was the chromcast button. I admit that's not the best, and some proper old-schook standing up from your chair, instead of a remote control. But I could have set up the tablet for RDP, if I hadn't been hitting the margaritas with my mexican (yum).

    One of the faults, back when I read the first reviews of Chromecast, was how limited it was. I'm sure that's still the case, but when the NFL turned out to have not got round to supporting it, like they'd promised, it was a matter of a few minutes to get the PC to do the job instead. I'm impressed. Especially for a £30 gadget.

  8. Efros

    Seems to be on fire as it were

    I ordered one yesterday, $19 is not a bad price even if this thing sucks. Anyway after perusing a few forums the likelihood of a hack was being bounced around and so I thought I would go and order myself a second one to play with. Can't do it, amazon has cut the maximum order to one device per account.

  9. wikkity

    Where is the vanilla android version?

    If they made app available on non-amazon android devices they might get a few more customers. I had a "free" subscription to this with Prime but no hardware I could use it with, no longer have prime but may have kept it if I could have used this.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Where is the vanilla android version?

      You can view Amazon Prime/Instant videos via the normal Amazon app, it will then prompt you to install Amazon video player upon playing of a purchased video or Prime subscription video.

      1. wikkity

        Re: Where is the vanilla android version?

        Thanks for that, never noticed that. Looks like it only came out last month though, about time.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wish amazon would just give up. I have a chromecast that cost me $30 and it's great. I have cancelled Amazon Prime when it went up as I refuse to pay for another video subscription. I do like the next day shipping, but it's just not worth it.

    1. Selden

      For me, Amazon Instant Video + free shipping is still a pretty good deal, even at $99.95 a year. I have used a Chromecast for over a year, but (surprise, surprise) Amazon Instant Video isn't cast-enabled. I still prefer the Chromecast for everything but watching Amazon Instant Video. Since I have never subscribed to "premium" CATV, there is a lot content that is of interest to me. After I got the Chromecast, I tried 1-month trials of Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix, and of the three, Amazon's content most closely matched my interests. The Fire TV Stick is great watching Amazon Instant Video content; for everything else, I prefer the Chromecast. The two devices complement, rather than compete with, each other. A year from now, I may have watched all of Amazon's "free" content, and will cancel Prime, but for now, it's working for me.

  11. Zot

    I loaded the PS3 Amazon player the other day.

    I wanted to see the new Constantine TV series. Unfortunately I have to be on Prime to see it.

    I would have gladly payed a couple of quid, but I'm not paying £79 just to see if it's any good.

    Hey AMAZON! You're actually stopping me from giving you money to watch something, please step back and see how stupid that strategy is.

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: I loaded the PS3 Amazon player the other day.

      Can't you sign up for a month's free trial of Prime, and then cancel after you've watched the show?

      I've had at least 2 free trials of Prime over the years, when it was just cheap postage, and Amazon have offered it to me again this year.

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