Each box has its pluses and minuses. I still would be using the Apple TV, but it lacks Amazon video (except via AirPlay) and doesn't have Starz. (I have generation 3 of the Apple TV, Starz is now available on the fourth generation.)
Here's a quick rundown:
Fire TV pros: supports Amazon Video (of course), has Starz support. Their Hulu app seems most up to date as it indicates which shows have been watched with a status bar. That feature doesn't seem to consistently work on the Apple TV and Roku, better on the Apple TV (they use a status circle) than the Roku (the feature works on some shows, but not on others). Oddly on the Roku TV (Insignia model that I bought for my mother's place), that feature doesn't work at all.
Fire TV cons: PBS captions don't work. Bloomberg Live TV doesn't work (kicks out to the main screen), though other Bloomberg videos work. No CNBC app. No NatGeo TV. No SyFy app. No Vudu. CBS captions are a little bigger than I like (even after adjusting them). The remote is not RF, so I can't use my cheapie Philips learning remote to control it. With the current remote, I'm having problems with the cursor pad, in that pressing right doesn't always work the first time (in which case I have to press harder). I think this is my third Fire TV remote, so I'd have to say the quality of their remotes is lacking. It's a bluetooth remote and sometimes I have trouble connecting to the unit after putting away the remote for a while (on the other hand, with the bluetooth remote, you can hide your Fire TV behind the TV if you like).
Apple TV pros: Overall I like the captions better on the Apple TV. I prefer the Netflix captions on the Apple TV and Roku. I prefer the Hulu captions on the Apple TV and Fire TV. They're too fat on the Roku. I prefer Youtube on the Apple TV and Fire TV. It's too slow on my Roku. They have the best CNBC app with live streaming and full shows on demand. The CNBC app on the Roku shows only clips. The Fire TV has no CNBC app. Can use my Philips remote.
Apple TV cons: they lack such apps as Amazon Video, Starz, HGTV, Travel, Syfy, Vudu, Disney Channel Everywhere.
Roku pros: they have the most apps (Roku calls them channels), some of which aren't on the other boxes. For example SyFy (hey catch Troy: Street Magic), NewsOn (local news), Vudu, and Channel Pear. Can use my Philips remote. I like their Netflix captions and their old Netflix app (which is only on the old Roku's).
Roku cons: Hulu captions are too fat, no matter how I try to adjust them in the Roku settings. (But on the Roku TV, they're better after adjusting them). Youtube channel is really slow. CNBC app is skimpy compared to Apple TV.
[4/27/15] Fire TV still working, but noticed it sometimes pauses to buffer. It was doing that with both ESPN and PBS. Perhaps it's not optimized to adjust to marginal bandwidth. (I have like 4 mbps DSL.)
And I notice the picture in Netflix and Hulu Plus isn't all that great, especially at the beginning. Probably plays before the picture fully buffers. It generally gets better after playing a couple of minutes.
I think the Roku is the best at handling "low" bandwidth. While I think the Apple TV has the best picture, though the Roku is pretty good too. I'd go with the Fire TV if you have Amazon Prime, as it seems to be built for that in mind. The speech recognition is pretty nifty, pretty accurate and much faster than typing.
But the Roku has recently come out with their own voice search which has a broader search base. And the new Apple TV will likely support speech too (and already supports it in its app).
[4/24/15] Getting errors again with ESPN. And Fox Sports Go isn't finding my TV provider. They were both working earlier. I'm becoming more disenchanted with the Fire TV.
Disconnect the Fire TV. Hook up my old Roku HD. Yeah, seems a bit sluggish compared to the FireTV, but ESPN plays without problem.
[4/24/15] OK got the replacement remote for the FireTV. Testing everything out. ESPN worked, then stopped working. It wouldn't get into the app, the wheel would spin and spin. Removed it then reinstalled it. When I ran it again, it got an error saying the app wouldn't load. Then I tried again. And again. And on the third time it took.
[4/22/15] Noticed youtube doesn't auto-play on the Fire TV. It auto-plays on the Apple TV and Roku. Sometime you might not want it to auto-play. Funny, this post indicates that youtube does auto-play on the Fire TV. This one too. (Ah, I see you can turn on/off Netflix autoplay for all devices from the settings on the computer. I'll check on this later.)
Hmm. Now it's auto-playing NatGeoWild videos. Maybe it just got stuck earlier. Or maybe it's where you play the videos from?
[4/8/15] Hey, now I see there's an option to turn off/on autoplay for Hulu Plus on the Roku. Cool. Now I'm wondering if there's a way to turn on Hulu autoplay on the Apple TV? [Apparently not, but you can turn it off on the computer.]
[4/6/15] Hooked up the Fire TV, but the remote didn't work again. The IOS app still works, but notice there's not "back" button. But discovered it's actually there, but not visible. Whose bright idea was that?
Hmm. I think the button is supposed to be there according to the screen shot. Dunno where mine went. And apparently it's supposed to say Tap anywhere to select in the main screen. But mine is completely blank. Maybe my colors are off.
Anyway I think I'll take back the Fire TV to Best Buy and see what they say.
[3/26/15] Hey, now I see I can customize the Hulu Plus captions from the Hulu Plus settings. Font, color, transparency. I can also turn on/off auto-play. Things are looking up. Now if they would do the same for Netflix.
[3/25/15] OK, before putting away the Fire TV, decided to hook it up. Once again the the remote didn't work. And it was asking for a system update. It did it automatically since I couldn't turn it off in time. Then after the update, I went to the Roku app and checked the remote. It said it was offline. Fiddling with the battery. Trying to clean the contact. And after a while, it connnected.
WTH, let's test youtube. Hey the captions now appear. And they display fine (not off the edge of the screen like before). I like these captions as you can change the font, font size, font color, background color, background opacity, text opacity. I kind of wish there was a background opacity of 50% as 25% seems too light and 75% seems a little too dark. Don't know why it jumps from 25% to 75%.
So now debating whether to return the Fire TV or not. Well, maybe I'll take out the batteries again and try again later.
*** [start 5/22/14]
Still looking for that replacement streamer for my Roku. But now I'm thinking there is no one streamer that is the best of all worlds. Right now, I'm thinking the best combination would be the Apple TV with my old Roku HD or a Roku 2.
Why Apple TV? Because it has excellent captions for Netflix and Hulu Plus. Why not just Roku 2? Actually it's not a bad chose, but I like the Apple TV captions on Hulu Plus better than the Roku.
Captions for HBO Go are kind of odd on both systems. On the Roku, they appear too small if the font size is left on default. The lines overlap if the font size is medium. They don't overlap when they set on small, but it's a little too small. On the Apple TV, the words appear too thick on the default font. Seems better on a different font. Have to experiment more.
The Roku 2 advantage is that it support captions for youtube. As described elsewhere, the captions for certain videos (specifically the NatGeoWild videos of Dog Whisperer and Cesar 911) display off the screen. To solve this, you need to connect via composite connection and set the display to 16x9.
The other advantage of the Roku 2 is that it supports Amazon Instant Video which the Apple TV does not. And also other apps, like Nowhere TV, NBC News, CBS News.
A disadvantage of the Roku 2 are that youtube runs pretty sluggishly on it, as well as Hulu Plus.
[4/6/15 - I should note that I bought a Roku 3 from Costco (returned it later). Then a Roku 2 and a Fire TV from Best Buy. Kept both. Now begins my Amazon Fire TV unboxing...]
Well, the Amazon Fire TV should solve the sluggish problem. Ideally I'd like to see it display nicer captions on Hulu Plus than the Roku 2 and nicer captions for youtube than the Apple TV (actually the Apple TV youtube app doesn't support captions). Browsing through the Apple Fire TV user guide mentions closed captions on page 20.
It says in order to turn on captions on Amazon Instant Video, you press the menu button after the video starts playing. And that you can also manage closed captions settings at www.amazon.com/cc.
It also mentions you can update how closed caption text appears for Netflix by going to www.netflix.com/youraccount.
So that tells me that the Fire TV does not have system captions and it's up to the app to provide the captions.
We'll see.
Open the box.
It comes nicely packed with a separate smaller black box to hold the batteries and power supply. The unit is much heavier than the Roku HD and probably heavier than the Roku 3.
The power supply is a small block that plugs in to the outlet. Much like most power supplies. The Apple TV is much neater as it's just a cord that plugs into the Apple TV. So I'm assuming the power supply is built into the Apple TV box.
The box is wrapped in plastic as is the remote control. Hope I can stuff them back in, if I decide to return it.
The remote takes two AAA batteries which are included. I'll just use a couple of my own.
OK, plug in the power supply. Put batteries in the remote. Plug in HDMI cable. Switch to HDMI on TV (was watching my Roku HD on composite).
Amazon Fire TV log comes up. Then says searching for your remote.
Press (picture of play/pause button) to start. Press it.
Connect to your network
Choose my network. Press the big button.
Enter password. Don't know if the voice works, but just entered it with the remote. Even here, I can tell it's very responsive. Little or no signs of lag. Connect.
Connection successful.
Downloading the latest software. Taking a while... ... a long while ...
Installing the latest software.
amazon logo comes up
amazon fire tv logo
installing the latest software (again)
checking for updates
Registration
Register or create an account
Register (since I already have an amazon account)
Enter your Amazon account email / Next
Enter Your Amazon Account Password / Sign In
Registering your Amazon Fire TV
Registration successful
a video tutorial automatically plays
amazon Prime (start your 30 day free trial or no thanks) / no thanks
Enable Parental Controls or No Parental Controls (allows purchasing and video playback without pin) / enable (just to see how it works)
enter your existing PIN (let me look it up) ***** / Next
Parental Controls are now on
and finally the home screen comes on
Let's get right to it shall we?
The Home screen consists of several rows of videos
Recent: which has the Get Started video, Top prime movies & TV (a lot of the movies I notice are also on Netflix, the top two are GI Joe Retaliation and The Avengers which are also on Netflix. Plus others like Kill Bill, Jewel of the Nile, Hunger Games, Skyfall), Top Apps & Games
The next line is HBO on Prime Instant Video
Then featured apps and games: Netflix is here, also Hulu Plus
Then featured Movies & TV. House of Cards, season 2 is here. When I go to it, it tells me to download the Netflix app. There's also Baseba(the ll is cut off) which actually the Watch ESPN app. It also tell you to download the app.
Then there's recommended drama.
Shop New Release Movies
Recommended Movies & TV / Monk is no. 2 on the list here after arrow. You can buy HD episodes for $2.99. SD for $.99 (only season 1, other seasons are $1.99 for SD), or buy the whole season for $24.99. Checking Arrow, they don't tell you that's it's available at Netflix.
Shop Latest TV
Top Free Games. Free? OK, this sounds attractive. There's 65 of them.
Recommended Apps & Games. The first game is Virtua Tennis Challenge which costs $4.99 or 499 coins. Don't know if it's multi-player.
The other categories below Home (which apparently are all sourced from Amazon.com) are
Movies
TV
Watchlist
Video Library (here's where my purchased shows from Hitbliss are)
Games
Apps
Photos (get the Cloud Drive app for IOS or Android)
Settings
OK, let's try MAOS from my Video Library. Enter PIN (OK, maybe I'll turn this off later).
The button with the three horizonal lines is the closed caption button. It has options for language (usually english), font size (five of them), and Presets (four of them). The picture and subtitles look OK here, even in SD.
Let's get to Netflix. Have to download the app. Going to Settings, System, About, I see that there's 4.73 GB available (5.49 GB total). Download... Queued (briefly). Downloading...
Now have 4.66 GB available.
Open.
Member Sign in
tried voice search, good try, press the button and it brings up a qwerty keyboard
enter email address, enter, enter password, Continue
Select your Netflix experience (Netflix or Kids), Netflix
I guess it's OK, but the video doesn't jump out at me. Put on Ted Talks: Life Hack. The captions are a little small. But varies, putting on House of Cards, it's seems actually a little big. These have to be adjust at the Netflix website, which would be a bit of a hassle. Put on Num3ers. Captions are a little small again. And don't see a More Like This option. This is kind of like the Roku 3 app.
OK, let's try Hulu Plus.
Checking space available, now it's down to 4.63 GB. Maybe it's caching.
Downloaded pretty fast. Check space available. 4.61 GB.
Log in. Play Cesar 911. Turn on captions (press up to access menu). Caption are yellow on grey background. Apparently not customizable. But not bad. I guess I would get used to it, like you get used to your closed caption on your TV. Don't notice the blank box when there's no captions to display. Which is a plus. Notice the captions are lagging. Don't know if this is from Hulu or from the Fire TV. This might be a deal-breaker.
[checking my computer with the same show, the captions don't lag.]
Don't see the youtube app. I thought there was one? Looking here, youtube is listed.
Now down to 4.60 GB.
Looking around. There it is. Go to Apps, Categories, Entertainment.
Where it said download for Netflix and Hulu Plus, it says Free. Then on the bottom row, you can sign in, pair device, search. Actually you can't, those are just screen shots. Let's go to Free. Enter PIN. Processing. Downloading... 4.53GB.
Looks the same as the Roku app.
Search for NatGeoWild. Tried voice search, it found what I was saying, but couldn't apply the search to youtube. Pull up Project Runway. Sure enough, the captions are cut off at the top (and bottom) of the screen. So it's definitely not a Roku problem.
Down to 4.4 GB.
Let's try Crackle. It's in my Apps Library. Download queued. 4.42 GB
The far left edge of the screen is slightly cut off. Funny. Seinfeld isn't featured. But there it is in all shows.
Pressing the captions button brings up a bunch of options. But the default captions are really tiny. But then you can adjust the font size. So this seems (more than) acceptable.
That's about it for now.
I think I might go with the Apple TV as a companion to my Roku. I think I'll bring it home and try it out for a while.
Playing MAOS on hulu plus. Funny no caption lag now. Let's go back to End Game. Lagging again.
***
Explore more youtube videos. Some of them display OK on the Fire TV. The ones that don't I notice display the captions at the very top or very bottom of the screen on the PC (so far I've only seen this on videos uploaded by natgeo wild). But the picture on the TV actually slightly cuts off the edges the screen, thus the subtitles are cut off too. So that's what it looks like to me.
Down to 4.32 GB.
Let's add Bloomberg TV.
Pull up a full episode of Bloomberg West which is supposed to be closed captioned. Pressing the caption button brings up a nice menu with lots of options, but I don't see the option to turn on closed captions.
Down to 4.25 GB.
Checking the video on the computer, I see that it does support captions. Ah there it is, you turn it on in the Language Section. That makes sense. Oddly the captions display on the top on the PC, but on the bottom on the Fire TV.
Captions still lagging on Hulu Plus (End Game).
Let's try the Apple TV.
Found my network (it remembered). Hulu Plus takes a little while to load. Let's try End Game, episode 2. Unlike the Fire TV, there's the option to resume playing or Start from beginning. Again takes a while to load, then got the message "an error occurred loading this content". OK, plays on the second attempt.
Not lagging, but the blank empty caption box is somewhat annoying. Though not as annoying as the lagging captions.
Checking Bloomberg, I kind of don't like the captions as they're too thick and big. Let me make them smaller. (Sorry Al Franken, I'm going to settings. Change to default.) Al Franken still talking. Still don't like them that well. I like the Roku captions better. (Roku doesn't have an official Bloomberg Channel, but you can watch it via Nowhere TV.)
[5/23/14] continuing using Apple TV at home. Notice youtube is really slow buffering. It's taking a while to load the youtube videos before playing. Noticing it on cordkillers (the wheel has been spinning for minutes and minutes). This is unacceptably slow. VideoBuzz on my Roku is much faster. It plays immediately on my computer. The screensaver has kicked in on the AppleTV (lol).
[5/23/14] playing hulu plus (End Game for one) on Apple TV. Occasional buffering. And the signal strength on the network is down to three bars. Somewhat annoying.
[5/24/14] Plug back in Apple TV. Signal strength four bars. Playing Back To School on Hulu Plus. No buffering and no commercials (nobody seems to mention that Hulu Plus doesn't show ads during movies). OK, one brief buffer :(
Try a movie on Netflix. Played OK for a while, then errored out. "An error occurred loading this content. Try again later."
OK, switch back to the Fire.
[5/24/14] Despite the oddball lagging of some captions on Hulu Plus, I'm beginning to get used to it. Though it doesn't use system captions, the captions are quite readable on Netflix, Hulu Plus, Crackle. Though they all use different captioning systems (sort of like when you play a DVD, each DVD has their own style of captions. As opposed to a TV closed caption which uses the TV captions for everything. The latter is how the Apple TV is set.
Anyway, I figured maybe I'll use the Roku 3 at my mom's place. However, it wouldn't connect. There are two different networks I can connect to there. On the first one, it would connect to the router, then to the local network, but couldn't connect to the internet. On the second one, it would connect to the router, but wouldn't connect to the local network. And since I don't have access to the routers there, I'm out of luck. OK, so that makes one less option to me.
[5/26/14 - I'm wondering now if the first network was down, because I couldn't connect to it yesterday 5/25/14]
My Roku HD connects OK to the first network, but not to the second one. The Apple TV connects to both, even though it doesn't appear to connect to either at first and seemingly locks. But when you go back to the menu, it connects.
For completeness, I guess I'll have to try the Roku 2 and the Fire at my mom's place.
***
OK, take the Roku 3 home and hook it up and I can now compare it to the Fire TV.
I had reset it, but apparently it remembers my account, so after I connected to my network, I activated it on my computer and it's now updating my channels. I didn't have to set up my account again. Which actually could be bad in case I want to return it or link it to a new account. Then again, when I linked it from the computer, I was logged on to my roku account, so it might have taken the information from there.
OK, took a look. Captions don't lag on Hulu Plus. But captions are smaller on Netflix and seem to stand out better on the Amazon Fire TV. Also I see the empty block caption on Hulu Plus on the Roku 3.
Man, they don't make it easy. There's some pluses and minuses for both units. I prefer the captions on the Fire TV, if they don't lag.
[5/25/14] Let's try out the Roku 2 at mom's place. Darn, no batteries for the remote. OK, let's try the Fire. Hey it connects to CCOH network (network 2), but not the Tsunami network (which is the one my Roku HD connects to). It says it connects, but with problems. But I suspect something is wrong with the Tsunami network as my ipad is having problems accessing the internet on it.
Try out Hulu Plus. Captions still lagging on End Game, but not too bad on Dog Whisperer. It kind of looks like it lags, then catches up. Got that odd 4:3 display problem on Netflix again. On a 4:3 show (e.g. Dog Whisperer and X-Files), it looks like it stretches the 4:3 picture to fill the screen horizontally, then chops the sides to refit it to 4:3. But then when you restart the show, it looks like it resets the picture properly. So it appears the Fire is somewhat buggy.
The other thing I notice is that the captions are inconsistent from show-to-show on Netflix. On some, it's all caps (e.g. Leverage). On some shows, the captions are large (X-Files). On other shows, they're smaller.
Home. Hook up the Roku 2 via composite and the Roku 3 via HDMI. Comparing the Hulu Plus captions. Oddly the captions are larger on the Roku 3 than on the Roku 2. Hook up the Roku 2 via HDMI. Change display type from 16:9 to 720p (to match the Roku 3). Check the captions. Now they look the same. Interesting that the 720p captions are larger than the 16:9 captions. Neither of them lag.
Let's try Netflix. I definitely like the Roku 2's captions here batter as it uses the Roku captions vs. the Netflix captions. So I think the Roku 2 wins here, especially since the Roku 3 cannot connect to mom's network. I'm suspecting the Roku 2 will connect to the Tsunami network, but I'll have to check it when it's up and running again.
OK, let's hook up the Fire TV. Netflix. X-Files picture stretched out of shape again. Restart show and it seems OK. Nice big subtitles. My Name is Earl. Subtitles now kind of small. Back to X-Files, yep picture stretched again. So it seems after accessing a 16:9 picture and then you go back to a 4:3 picture, the picture is stretched out of shape. And you have to go back to the beginning of the show to reset it. That's another bug.
Comparing to the Roku 3 Netflix captions, the Fire TV captions are bigger and more readable on the X-Files. Turning to My Name is Earl. Here I actually like the Roku 3 captions a little better on the Roku 3 than on the Fire TV. They're both kind of small, but on the Roku 3, there's a drop shadow that makes it stand out a little more. Leverage. The captions are pretty huge on the Fire TV. And look a little smaller and thicker on the Roku 3. I'd give the advantage here to the Fire TV.
I like the Netflix interface a little better on the Fire TV better. On the Roku 3, there's no option to restart the episode from the beginning and you have to turn on/off the captions after the video starts. On the Fire TV, there is a play from the beginning option and the Audio and subtitles option appears on the menu before you play the video.
Now comparing the Hulu Plus captions, they're actually the same size on the Roku 2 as on the Fire TV. But without the lag. The major disadvantage of the Roku 2 is that it's clearly slower and less responsive than the Fire TV and Roku 3.
I notice the Hulu Plus interface is slightly different on the Fire TV and Roku 3 vs. the Roku 2. When going to a show, the options are Resume Show, Episodes, Clips, Add to Favorites, More Details, You May Also Like. On a show that's never been played, it's Play Episode, Add to Queue, More Details, Series Page, You May Also Like. On the Roku 2, it's Resume Episode, Restart Episode, Add to Queue, More Details, Series Page,You May Also Like. On a show that's never been played, it's Play Episode instead of the first two options (same as on the Fire TV).
Summing up.
Netflix. I like the captions on the Apple TV, Roku HD and Roku 2 the best. The Amazon Fire TV seems mostly OK, but has that odd problem of showing 4:3 out of proportion upon resuming. Plus the captions seem inconsistent. The Roku 3 captions sometimes seems a bit small to me. The captions on the Fire TV and Roku are inconsistent across shows on Netflix. Actually they're inconsistent on the other boxes too, but don't seem to vary as wildly as on the Fire TV and the Roku 3.
Hulu Plus. This was one of the main reasons that I explored getting a new streaming box. Because my Roku HD would lockup (the video would be play but the system would be unresponsive with the symptoms that the captions would stop updating) when playing Hulu Plus videos.
So the Roku HD is the worst. The Roku 2 is better because it's faster than the Roku HD, but still sluggish. The Roku 3 is responsive. The Fire TV is also responsive, but has that odd lagging problem on some videos.
The Roku 2, Roku 3, Fire TV all use the Hulu Plus captions and look OK. Yellow letters on a dark barkground. On the Roku 2, the captions are actually a bit smaller when sent to 16:9 vs. 720p.
I like the Apple TV captions here the best, as it uses the customizable Apple TV captions. I did notice some buffering when I was testing it, but that was probably due to my network.
Youtube. The other reason why I was looking into a new streaming box was the Youtube plays really slowly on the Roku HD. The Roku 2 is faster but still sluggish. The Roku 3 and Fire TV have acceptable speed. The problem on all of these systems is that the captions from NatGeoWild are cut off at the top or bottom. But oddly they're OK if the Roku HD and Roku 2 are set to 16:9 instead of 720p. The Roku 3 and Fire TV don't have the option of 16:9. The Apple TV app doesn't support captions.
Crackle. Captions are all pretty good here on all the systems. The system captions are used on the Roku's and the Apple TV. The Fire TV app has their own customizable captions.
Amazon Instant Video. The Roku uses the system captions here. But they look too small if set to default. Have to change the default size to medium. As one might expect, they look fine on the Fire TV. Not supported on Apple TV.
HBO Go. Roku uses the system captions, but if there are multi-line captions, the lines overlap. You can solve this by making the system font smaller, but then the captions look a little too small for me. The Apple TV also uses the system captions, but they look kind of too fat here for me. Adjusting the font makes it a little better. Not supported on the Fire TV (yet). So none of these systems have entirely satisfactory captions here to me.
System by System
Roku HD. Netflix is fine. Hulu Plus with captions on locks up. Youtube really slow, but captions display OK. Crackle is fine. Amazon Instant Video is fine (after adjusting the default captions). HBO Go captions overlap (unless you make the font smaller)
Apple TV. Netflix is fine. Hulu Plus captions are the best here as the other systems use the app captions. Youtube implementation is poor with no captions. Crackle is fine. Amazon Instant Video not supported. HBO Go captions look too fat to me. Amazon Instant Video not supported.
Roku 3. Netflix is fine, captions maybe a little small on some shows. Hulu Plus with captions are OK. Youtube responds fairly well, but NatGeoWild captions are cut off. Amazon Instant Video is fine. HBO Go captions overlap.
Apple Fire TV. Netflix is OK, though I like the Apple TV and Roku system captions a little better. And there is that odd problem with 4:3 videos. Hulu Plus captions are OK when they're not lagging. Youtube is responsive, but still has that cutoff caption problem. Crackle has their own customizable captions and are OK (after you customize it, the default is too small). Amazon Instant Video plays well. No support for HBO Go.
So what system should you get? If want the most app support, get a Roku. If you don't care about captions, get a Roku 3. If you like games, get a Fire TV and live with the 4:3 problem on Netflix. If you want the nicest captions, get an Apple TV, but you won't get Amazon Instant Video. If you want your NatGeo Wild captions not cut off on YouTube, get a Roku 2. If you want to listen on headphones, get a Roku 2 or Roku 3.
What about the Roku HD? The only possible advantage I see so far over the Roku 2 and 3 is that Plex had a notice that it was good for only 30 days before you have to pay. I think the Plex app on the HD might be grandfathered so you don't have to pay a fee. I also noticed that the HD app displayed captions on the ABC app, but doesn't on the Roku 3. Haven't tried the Fire TV implementation yet.
Another advantage. I think the Roku HD uses less electricity than the Roku 2 and Roku 3. After being plugged in, the HD doesn't get as warm as the other two. The Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV also don't get too warm, so they're probably energy efficient as well.
***
[5/26/14] Here's an idea. Since I see the Hulu Plus captions are different on the Roku 2 when playing it 16:9 vs. 720p, I wonder what would happen if I put my Roku HD on 720p? Does it still lock up on Hulu Plus? Let's try. Trying episode 3 of End Game.
It played OK until hitting the commerical. Then commercial progress disc at the top left stayed on the screen and said there was connection problems.
Try again. The captions froze. Then started again but was lagging. Then after a while, Playback Error. We're sorry, but there was an issue playing this video. Please check your computer and try again. OK or Retry.
OK, now let's try the Roku 2 and see if it can get through the same video (episode 3 of End Game). Yep. I think I'll keep the Roku 2.
***
I think I'll be keeping the Roku 2 as a replacement for the Roku HD. I think I'll return the Roku 3 to Costco. The question is whether to keep the Amazon Fire TV. One potential plus is that it plays games. Another potential plus is that it connects to the second network at mom's place. The question is whether I'll actually use it. I guess I'll try out some games to convince myself. Then again, I have these other game machines that I rarely use.
[5/29/14] Before I returned the Roku 3, I tried it out again at my mom's place. This time it connected to the Tsunami network (but failed again on CCOH). Trying Netflix. Nice big titles on Clean House, but smallish titles on TedTalks: Life Hacks. Magnum P.I.? Maybe a little small but readable. Columbo. Also a little small. I think I like the Fire TV a bit better here.
Now watching Green Lantern: The Animated Series. With headphones. Pretty cool. Made subtitles bigger. There's only three size options on Netflix. Captions now too big. Let's try the small. Exit and enter. Tiny. OK, I guess medium is best.
... Evening... I tried Everybody Loves Raymond. Captions a little small. Adjust. Too big. Ah, leave it. Easy to read :)
[5/30/14] Hooked back the Amazon Fire TV at my mom's place. Now it connects to Tsunami. So this is one advantage over the Roku. It can connect to both Tsunami and CCOH, whereas the Roku connects only to Tsunami. Here's another advantage. A nice scenic screen saver. It's from "Amazon Collection" which is the only option and apparently has 194 photos (because there's the number 194 next to it).
Let's try Everybody Loves Raymond. Huge Captions. And looks stretched. Already annoying. Play from beginning. Picture back in proportion. Captions acceptable, though maybe a little small. Cesar 911. Captions lag a bit, then catches up. Then the picture freezes. The captions keep going though. After about a minute, the picture comes back.
Played Clean House (which was enjoyable, the one with the guy with the pigeons). Exited and came back, picture was out of proportion. Rewind a bit, now picture OK. Then back to ELR. Out of proportion. Pause and resume. Hey, the picture is OK now. OK, so not a big problem. I'd still like the captions a bit bigger.
I really don't like the Netflix captions of the Roku 3 and Fire TV. I think I might bring the Roku 2 to my mom's place and hook up the Apple TV at home in tandem with my Roku HD.
[5/30/14] OK, hook up the Apple TV at home. Playing Hercules and Xena on Netflix. That seemed fine. Then Cesar 911 on Hulu Plus. That went OK. But now I'm playing Bob Newhart and it's buffering often enough to be unplayable. Let's try some Dog Whisperer. More buffering.
[5/31/14] More Apple TV testing. I see I only get three bars now on my network. Run the connection test. It passed. OK, let's try Dog Whisperer. Seems OK. Switch to Bob Newhart. Made it through this time. Exit Hulu Plus, go back in. Dog Whisperer. buffering during the first ad. Hmm.. But made it all the way through. OK, I think I'll keep the Apple TV at home, take the Roku 2 to mom's place, and return the Roku 3 and Fire TV since I probably wouldn't use it much. I can put the $200 to better use, I suppose.
[5/31/14] more playing with the Fire TV. Noticed there's a couple noticeable apps missing. Namely The History Channel and PBS. Both are on the Roku and the Apple TV.
[5/31/14] Hooked up the Roku 2 at mom's place. Connects to Tsunami, but not CCOH. Yep definitely like the Roku 2 captions on Netflix better than all the new boxes. One odd thing on the Dick Van Dyke captions. When the captions go to one-line, there's a blank background box above the line. Like it's displaying two lines, but the first line is a blank space. Don't see on the other captions on Netflix.
[6/1/14] Watching The Net 2.0 on Crackle. Was playing fine, but then the sound went out and the remote went unresponsive. Jiggled the batteries, was OK for a while, then sound went dead again. OK, try fresh batteries. Maybe using the headphones drains the batteries.
Netflix seems fine. Switch back to Crackle and resume The Net 2.0. No sound. Odd. Switch to Three Stooges, sound is working. Switch back to The Net 2.0. Resume. Commercial has sound, but no sound when show resumes. Try play from beginning. OK, sound is back.
Wait, sound is cutting in and out. Rewind and pull out the headphones. Same deal. Maybe it's a problem with the Roku2 and Crackle. Play Seinfeld. Seems OK.
[6/2/14] I was packing up the Amazon Fire TV, putting back the plastic wrap, getting ready to return it to Best Buy, but then I remembered that I should reset it to default before I return it. So I unwrapped again and plugged it in. WTH, let's try some games. Had to be free of course. And playable with the remote control. That narrowed down the choices.
The first game was Bowling. The graphics were pretty good. The play was pretty decent. Just two players though. Tried a game which was like Flappy Bird. Too hard. Pinball. Graphics were decent, but pretty mindless.
OK, let's try You Don't Know Jack Party. There's a You Don't Know Jack for the Roku 3, but I think it doesn't support multi-player. And I remember playing You Don't Know Jack on the computer network at the clubhouse. (I think it ran in DOS and we had to set up IPX.) That was pretty fun. Anyway, I tried the Roku 3 and the questions were pretty hard (to me).
YDKJP came out first for IOS, and if you have an Apple TV you can use AirPlay to make the TV your primary screen. Not sure how it would work withouth Airplay. The Amazon Fire TV version doesn't need Airplay as it can runs as an app.
The Amazon Fire TV version is supposed to support up to four players with the other players using their phones or tables at controllers. Apparently you download an app to turn your device into a controller. Didn't try it. Just tried the questions. They were fairly difficult. But I started to get the hang of it as I went along. Shows some promise. Still not quite enough to keep the Fire TV.
Then I looked for games similar to You Don't Know Jack and came across a game called Fibbage by the same developer of YDKJ (Jackbox Games). The Fire TV presents a question with a blank and the players fill in the blank. It supports up to 8 players. Participants can use a computer, a tablet, or smartphone to participate. To join, you go to the Fibbage website and enter the room name. And almost magically you see you're connected to the screen.
It's kind of a simplified version of Balderdash, but much easier to play and implement. Here's the press release and it gets enthusiastic reviews on Amazon.com. Wired liked it too. Not sure how much it is to unlock more episodes though.
Anyway, for Fibbage alone, I'm going to keep the Fire TV.
[6/3/14] Tried out Fibbage with three people. One was on an iphone, one was on the ipad, one on a computer. The ipad had trouble keeping connection with the server constantly asking to log on. Noticed it was running on chrome, switched to safari. worked fine after that. OK, it's a keeper.
Was looking for a news app. Tried Now This News. Which was kind of odd as were the news items which were generally short snippets. Then noticed AOL On was available. So I'll switch to that.
Frequency looks good too. Has lots of videos from lots of sources all over the place. Even KITV news. They even have full episodes for NatGeoWild. No captions though. Definitely a keeper.
After playing a whole episode of Cesar 911, I'm noticing a lot of buffering on this whale video. I'll blame it on my internet speed. But maybe it's the frequency app.
[10/4/14] Checking for new apps for the Fire TV. I see PBS is now available. OK install that. 3.22 GB available. Need to activate. pbs.org/activate.
[10/5/14] Adding History Channel. 2.97 GB available. Remove Vimeo. 2.98 GB available.
[1/3/15] HBO Go finally comes to Amazon Fire TV. Actually it arrived on December 15. Which shows you how long since I last used it. 2.80 GB available. Captions are small though and I can't figure out how to change the size (or even if that's possible).
[3/22/15] Took my Amazon Fire TV home to check out the captions for youtube (and Netflix and hulu). It couldn't connect to my network. Which made sense since I had changed back to my old router in the meantime. But when I tried to connect to my current network, I got no response. Looks like the remote isn't working now. Changed the batteries. Still not working. Test if remote is working by seeing if my One For All remote could learn any buttons from the Amazon Fire TV remote. Apparently not. Ugh.
Well, I believe it may have one-year warranty. I think I'll take it back to Best Buy and see what they say.
[3/23/15] OK, I see that the Amazon Fire TV remote is bluetooth. So the One For All remote wouldn't be able to learn it since it's IR. Here's more things to try.
If your remote isn’t discovered, press the Home button for 5 - 10 seconds.
Still having trouble?
Disconnect the power cord from your Amazon Fire TV devuce for three seconds, and then plug the power cord back in. Or, on your remote press and hold the Select button and the Play button at the same time until the device restarts (about five seconds).
Shucks, didn't work. At least it's still displaying some nice background pictures...
Before taking it back to Best Buy, I think I'll take it back to CCOH which has the network which the Fire TV is currently set up with. Then I'll see what happens. Maybe I'll try out the IOS app too.
***
OK, took it to CCOH. It connected to the network, but the remote still wouldn't work. Installed the Amazon Fire TV app for the iPad, connected to the same network and got it to work.
Navigated to system, pair remote, nothing. Said battery was missing or dead or something. Was fiddling around with the batteries and all of a sudden the batteries were found and the controller was working.
What I noticed before is that if I shook the controller I could feel rattling like the batteries were loose. But now when I shook it, there was no rattling. Took out the batteries, put it back. Remote not working. Fiddle around, no rattling. Remote working. Quite odd. And I'd say this is a design issue. Or maybe I got oddball batteries? And now the app isn't working (can't find the Fire TV). Dunno. Maybe it's the network? I had it on Tsunami and switched to CCOH. Oh well. I guess I'll fool around some more with the batteries (probably leading to more frustration.)
Trying out Hulu Plus. Yeah, captions are yellow on black. I prefer the Apple TV captions which are white on light grey (customizable), followed by the Roku HD and Roku 2. The Roku system are also customizable, but I think they font looks too fat compared to the Apple TV. I assume the Roku 3 still uses the yellow on black captions. On the hand, I think I like their captions for Amazon Instant video the best.
Home. Trying out youtube. WTH, the captions don't show up. You enable it similarly to how you enable the captions on hulu. Click up, scroll to the right until you get to the cc option, click it and set the options you want. It's odd that there are several options you can choose (such as text color, background color, opacity), but the thing doesn't even work. At least on the NatGeoWild videos that I tried (and work on other devices), such as It's Raining Hen.
[3/24/15] So a big thumbs down for the Amazon Fire TV as far as captions are concerned. For Netflix, I prefer the Apple TV and Roku 2 (and Roku HD) tied for first. Don't have a Roku 3 now, but when I tried it, it used the Netflix fonts which I didn't really like. So in that respect, the Roku 3 is like the Amazon Fire TV. For Hulu Plus, Apple TV is the choice with Roku behind and Amazon Fire TV third. For youtube, I prefer Apple TV as it's more responsive than the Roku. Non-working captions a big minus for Amazon Fire TV. However for Amazon Instant Video, the Amazon Fire TV has excellent captions with the Roku not too far behind. Of course, AppleTV doesn't support Amazon Instant Video.
Also looked again at the HBO captions on the Fire TV. Still too small. Apple TV and Roku are better here, but still not quite to my liking.
So who would I recommend the Amazon Fire TV to? Probably those who subscribe to Amazon Prime and/or want to play Fibbage.
And, OK, I think I might now know what the problem is with the battery. The contact "platform button" where the bottom battery contacts on the bottom has some spring action which portrudes it up from the bottom. It seems it was a little stuck and wasn't protruding all the way up. And now (I think) I notice it's sticking up more. Spray some silicone to prevent it from getting stuck (don't know if that helped or hurt). Hopefully that was the problem.
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