Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick update

Since my cousin's family was coming over to visit, I thought they might want to play Fibbage (or I wanted to play Fibbage with them), so I hauled out my Fire TV which I hadn't touched for months.

To my horror, I had left the batteries in the remote.  Luckily I didn't see any leakage, but I took them out and cleaned them and put it back.  For both remotes.

It was a pleasant surprise to see that the Fire TV boot up fine and recognize the remote.

All was well until I noticed the remote behaving sluggishly at times.  It's having trouble with the cursor right key.  Sometimes it responds, sometimes it doesn't respond.  Usually if I press it down hard for a brief amount of time it responds.  So this seems like a hardware issue with the remote.  Or maybe there's a piece of dirt in there messing up the connection.

I was going to call tech support to see if I could get (another) replacement.  This is a replacement already.  Or is it the second replacement?  But it seemed to be getting better as it started responding with less pressure.

I decided to try to open up the remote.  There are four screws you can access which I manged to unscrew with a small screwdriver.  But after I removed the screws, I couldn't figure out how to pry open the case.  Maybe there's a hidden screw or two somewhere.  Never mind.  I didn't want to make it worse anyway.

In the meantime, I had paired the Fire Stick remote to it.  I must have paired it earlier, but I guess it forgot.  Or maybe the unit had been sitting so long that it lost all the settings.  It seemed to work fine with the Fire Stick remote, though of course no voice.  (I had a little fun asking Alexa with the voice remote.)

So other than that it works pretty well.  I especially like the captions on hulu which are customizable.  I prefer the Netflix captions on the Apple TV and the Roku, but it's mostly tolerable.  ESPN seems to buffer more often and die more quickly than on the other devices.

Fibbage worked mostly OK, but had trouble on my cousin's daughters phone connecting to my router.  When she connected to her own wi-fi, it was better.

Another plus for the Fire TV, is that it now supports CBS All Access even though it was supposed to work only on the new Fire TV, so apparently the system software got updated.  CBS All Access seemed to work mostly OK, though the captions were a little larger than I like.  Or too small, since the size is customizable.  The other noticeable new app was Playstation Vue but I think my internet service is too slow to run it properly.  I don't know, I never tried.  And I see Disney Movies Anywhere, but since I have only one movie on it so far, I never installed it.

The next day I got invited to their place, so I was thinking to bring the Fire TV stick.  So let's hook that up.  Unlike the Fire TV, it didn't find the remote automatically.  After a restart, I tried pressing down the home button and it finally got recognized.  Then I had to connect the network.

I noticed PlayStation Vue was on the app list, but no CBS All Access.  That's a major minus.

And I noticed Hulu was behaving oddly.  I had noticed some strange non-responsive behavior for Hulu on the Fire TV also, but I uninstalled it and removed it from Cloud and installed it again, and it worked OK after that.  I tried that on the Fire TV stick, but it's still behaving oddly.

It seems to be lagging one key press behind.  So I had a heck of a time logging in.  Once in, the screen went blank and when I managed to get something on the screen I didn't know what was going on due to the keypress lag.  Apparently other people were having problems with the Hulu app, but these reviews were months and years ago, so you would think they would have fixed these issues.  I don't remember having these problems running the first time I used the Fire Stick.  Since I use Hulu and CBS as two of my main apps, I guess I won't be using the Fire TV stick any more.  $25 down the drain.  Well not totally, as I can use the remote instead of the (already replaced twice) Fire TV voice remote.  This doesn't say much for the quality of Amazon's products.

Let's try this to try to get Hulu working correctly.  Clear data, clear cache.  Try again.  Nope still a keypress behind.  Clear data, clear cache, uninstall, unplug Fire TV.  Plug back in.  Reinstall Hulu.  Nope, same problem.

OK let's check for system update.  There's one available.  Uninstall Hulu again and remove from cloud.  Update system.  It says it'll take about 10 minutes.  Wait.  Optimizing system and applications.

OK got a new screen saying there's a new section called My Videos and Alexa is available on the Fire TV.  Checking the system it says it's Fire OS 5.0.5.  But going to system update, it says an update (5.0.5.1) is available.  Shall I update.  Well, let me see how Hulu is now.

Hey, let's try to pair the voice remote.  It didn't work the first time.  But after a couple tries it worked.  And the voice feature works on the Fire TV.  And CBS All Access appears!  OK, things are looking up a bit.

Hulu?  Yay it works now!  Change caption text color to white, change font to monospace sans serif.  I'm all set.  OK, I guess I just needed to update the system software.  I'll leave the 5.0.5.1 for later since it's working now.

*** 5/18/16

finally decided to call Amazon support about my remote control problem (click on Help, Device Support, then the Contact Us button on the left, sign in with your password, What Can We Help You with: Fire and Kindle, select my Fire TV, issue details: I'm having trouble with my remote or game controller, additional details: my remote is not responding, then scroll down and click on phone, right after that my phone rang).

A nice woman with an Indian accent talked me through the normal troubleshooting procedures.  Did you change the battery?  Did you try holding the home button down?  Etc.  So clearly she didn't understand the problem.  After answering that I had tried all of the above, I got put on hold while she tried to look up my account.  My "problem" is that I didn't buy the Fire TV online but rather from the local Best Buy, so they couldn't find my purchase online.  I think she further discussed my problem with her supervisor and they might have seen all my recent purchases from Amazon.  After more waiting, they finally decided to give me a courtesy credit of $29.95 so I could buy a new remote.  So I wouldn't even have to return the old one.

Good deal!  But since my voice remote still mostly works (it's just annoying that I have to press hard on the right cursor sometimes) I might wind up using the courtesy credit for something else.  Or I could just buy a non voice remote for $14.99 and have $15 left over.  I don't really use the voice that often, though it's kind of cool I guess.  I guess that's how Amazon keeps their customers.  So thumbs up to Amazon.com for their customer service.

2 hours a month?

Netflix is scheduled to release its next earnings report on Monday after closing bell, and investors are anxious to find out how the streaming video giant’s growth is trending. Data from a third party indicates that almost 100 million people used Netflix at least once last month, giving it a net reach of 39.2% in the U.S. The company is trouncing Hulu, which has a reach of only 11.13% last month.

However, it seems that viewers break up their viewing into very small chunks and, on average, spend less than 2 hours a month watching Netflix.

Verto Analytics found that last month, 97.3 million people used Netflix at least once just in the U.S. alone. On a daily basis, 13.2 million Americans watch the company’s service, and based on this number, Verto assigns a “Stickiness Factor” of 14%. The firm pegs Hulu’s stickiness at 13%. Verto computes its “stickiness factor” by comparing “daily users with monthly users to reflect the active, loyal, and engaged part of the audience. The higher the stickiness, the bigger the share of daily users versus the monthly users is.”

One metric we found particularly interesting is that Verto said the average Netflix user supposedly spends only 1.8 hours per month watching videos on it, with the average session lasting only 11 minutes. The firm emphasizes that a single movie might be watched over multiple sessions, but it seems like these numbers are extremely small, particularly when “binge watching” TV shows is supposed to be so common.

Verto reports that the PC is still the device that’s used the most often to access Netflix’s service as 68.6 million users logged on using a PC. In second place was the smartphone with 24.3 million, while 21.7 million people used tablets to watch Netflix.

Although tablets were in third place in terms of the number of people using them to watch the service, the average time spent per tablet user is higher than it is for the other two devices. The average tablet user watches 3.2 hours of TV per month, compared to smartphone users’ 2 hours and less than 1 hour for PC users. This could be why the overall time spent is skewed to the low side, but still, the numbers seem small.

Verto also found that men and women like Netflix just about equally, with viewership consisting of 48% men and 52% women. The firm notes that this is pretty close to the overall distribution of online users as women are 51.6% of online users. In terms of generations, 34% of Millennials, 24% are Generation X, 31% are Baby Boomers, and 11% are Silents.

Hawaiian Electric supports EV

Hawaiian Electric Co. is pushing for more electric vehicles to build the utility’s customer base and make way for additional rooftop solar.

“Hawaii should be the EV capital of the world,” said Alan Oshima, HECO president and CEO, in an editorial board meeting with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday. The high price of gasoline in the islands and the short distances, especially on Oahu, make Hawaii an ideal location for the expansion of electric vehicles.

HECO is working to increase EV adoption by installing electric vehicle charging stations and partnering with the city to add electric buses. Oshima said HECO is also in talks with the military to get more electric vehicles and charging stations on Hawaii bases.

HECO’s campaign for more EV adoption comes amid a rapid growth in sales of electric cars, albeit from a small base. In February there were 4,209 registered electric vehicles in the state, up 26 percent from a year ago.

More than 100 Hawaii residents lined up at a Tesla Motors office in Waipahu last week and paid $1,000 to reserve the company’s latest electric car. The Tesla Model 3 sedan, which will be available late 2017, starts at $35,000 before state and federal incentives.

“Telsa’s launch of the Model 3 validates that things are changing,” said Richard Wallsgrove, program director at Blue Planet Foundation. “I really feel like we’re at an inflection point.”

HECO predicts there will be 388,500 electric vehicles on Hawaii’s roads by 2045. There are about 1 million vehicles registered in Hawaii.

Increased use of EVs gives electrical utilities a new market and could help replace lost demand due to rooftop solar and greater energy efficiency.

NFL on Twitter

New York (AFP) - Twitter has scored a deal to live-stream Thursday night National Football League games, the NFL announced -- a move that helps the social media group connect with new audiences.

The streaming rights had been hotly contested, with Amazon, Verizon and others reportedly in the running to help the NFL reach viewers outside the normal broadcast channels.

The NFL said in a statement Tuesday that Twitter would stream the 10 Thursday Night Football games, which would also be available on broadcast networks and the league's own NFL Network.

"This fall Thursday Night Football will be streamed live @twitter so fans will see more of this," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in his first tweet since September 2014.

"Twitter is where live events unfold and is the right partner for the NFL as we take the latest step in serving fans around the world live NFL football," he said in a statement.

"There is a massive amount of NFL-related conversation happening on Twitter during our games and tapping into that audience, in addition to our viewers on broadcast and cable, will ensure Thursday Night Football is seen on an unprecedented number of platforms this season."

Terms of the deal were not announced, but the NFL said the agreement will provide "additional reach" for its advertising partners.

The news website Re/code, citing unnamed sources, said Twitter would pay under $10 million under the deal, less than some rival bids.

View galleryThe NFL said in a statement Tuesday that Twitter would …

The NFL said in a statement Tuesday that Twitter would stream the 10 Thursday Night Football games,  …

The report said Twitter will be rebroadcasting the CBS and NBC feeds of the games, and will have the rights to sell only a small portion of the ads associated with each game.

- Transforming the experience -

The NFL statement said Twitter would provide free streaming without authentication worldwide to registered and non-registered users using Twitter on mobile phones, tablets, PCs and connected TVs.

Twitter will also provide game highlights and pre-game streaming using the Periscope application from players and teams.

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey said in the statement that "this is about transforming the fan experience with football. People watch NFL games with Twitter today. Now they'll be able to watch right on Twitter Thursday nights."

He also tweeted: "My dad is going to love this."

The deal is a major coup for Twitter, which has seen its user base stagnate and has been looking for ways to reach more users for conversations on live events.

Jan Dawson, analyst at Jackdaw Research, said the deal opens up new revenue possibilities for Twitter.

"It gives them their first real opportunity to cross-sell these different types of ads and break into television advertising for the first time," Dawson said in a research note.

"So far, Twitter has been used almost entirely for people to talk about live events being broadcast on other platforms, which has meant it hasn't been able to benefit as directly as some other players from those live events, even if massive numbers of tweets were sent and even shown on television."

For the NFL, the deal is seen as the first step in moving outside the traditional broadcast system and will help the sports league reach "cord cutters" without a cable or satellite subscription.

Twitter's base of monthly active users remained stuck at 320 million at the end of 2015. While that is a big accomplishment, Twitter has failed to keep pace with fast-growing rivals and to expand beyond its base.

The troubles have forced Twitter to bring back co-founder Dorsey as chief executive, but that has not stemmed rumors about a possible buyout or merger.

The move signals a growing trend away from the traditional broadcast and cable television operations to Internet platforms like Netflix and Amazon.

While these platforms have lacked lived sports, that appears to be changing. Some major sporting events like the Super Bowl and NCAA basketball have been streamed, and last year the NFL joined with Yahoo in streaming its first regular-season game.

DisneyMoviesAnywhere

Since I have the Collector's Edition of Avengers Age of Ultron that included a digital HD code, I was faced with how to redeem it.  You can do it without registration or via DisneyMoviesAnywhere.

The choices in the past came mainly to iTunes, Amazon Video, and Vudu.  In some cases, you could get the movie both on iTunes and Vudu.  If I had a choice, I would probably go with Amazon.  However the downside would be it's not available on my Apple TV (except via AirPlay).  If I wanted to use Apple TV, I would go with iTunes, but that's not available on my Roku.  Both Amazon and Vudu are available on the Roku.  And then was this new choice.  DisneyMoviesAnywhere.  I wasn't familiar with that.  But I didn't see a DisneyMoviesAnywhere app on my Apple TV, though I vaguely recalled it might be on the Roku (it is).

So initially, I chose nothing.

But then I read with DisneyMoviesAnywhere, you can link the account to iTunes.  So then I could have the movie on both the Roku and the Apple TV (which is what I use most of the time these days).

OK create an account, enter the code. Cool it's on there (on the website).

OK, let's try link it to iTunes.  Go to DisneyMoviesAnywhere, Settings, Account, choose iTunes, connect account.  It's supposed to go to iTunes.  But instead it went to a page to download iTunes even though I already had iTunes installed (on my Vista laptop).

OK, let's just go to iTunes and see if I can figure out to connect the account there.  But iTunes kept crashing.  OK. let's reinstall iTunes.  Download and run the setup.  Say Windows 7 required.

OK, let's try download the version for Windows Vista 32-bit.  Downloaded but didn't have time to install it.  Off to visit mom at CCOH.

OK, let's try on the Windows 10 laptop.  iTunes not installed.  Download it.

In the meantime, let's connect DisneyMoviesAnywhere with my Amazon Video account.  OK, that worked easily enough.

Install iTunes, try connecting the accounts.  Nope, still goes to the page asking to download iTunes.  What gives?  Ah, I see that people are having problems connecting while on Chrome.  Switch to Firefox.  OK, that worked!

OK, let's try it out.

Yep, it's on Amazon.  Cool, I can see it both on my iPad and my Roku.  I see it says with Bonus Features, but there's no menu option to view the special features.  But I notice the movie length is longer than it's supposed to be, so maybe the bonus features are just tacked on the end.

Install DisneyMoviesAnywhere app on Roku.  Yep it's there.  And there's a menu option to access the bonus features.

Connect my Vudu account.  It's there too.  But don't see any bonus features.

Go home and try it on iTunes on my Apple TV.  There it is.  There's an option for the bonus features, but don't see the feature "Connecting The Universe" (which is advertised in the insert).  Evidently that feature is only available only through the Disney app.

As far as I know, the DisneyMoviesAnywhere app is not yet available for the Apple TV (even the new one), so the only way to watch that feature on an Apple TV would be via AirPlay.

Checking iTunes, I see the special features from the Blu-ray are there, but I don't see the audio commentary.  In fact, I don't even see it on the DisneyMoviesAnywhere website.  How about the DisneyMoviesAnywhere app on the Roku?  Nope, not there either.  Apparently it's only available on the Blu-ray.  (This site says the commentary is available on digital HD but not on DVD.  Still don't see it digital HD though.  This site confirms it.)

So to have access to everything, you need both the Blu-ray and the DisneyMovieAnywhere access.

Digitial is almost, but not quite there yet.