Netflix will allow customers to download some shows and movies to
their devices for offline viewing, fulfilling a long-standing request
from users for easier access to their favorite video content.
The
streaming-video provider said Wednesday that hit shows such as “Orange
Is the New Black,” “Narcos” and “The Crown” will be among the first
series that customers can download. The feature is available now as an
update to the Netflix app on phones and tablets powered by Android and
iOS, the company said.
Only some types of content will support
downloads at first, but more will be added in the future. And all
Netflix users worldwide can take advantage of the new capability,
regardless of what plan they have.
***
Hey, you can download The Flash, Arrow, and Supergirl!
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Monday, November 21, 2016
dementia on the decline
A
new study finds that the prevalence of dementia has fallen sharply in
recent years, most likely as a result of Americans' rising educational
levels and better heart health, which are both closely related to brain
health.
Dementia rates in
people over age 65 fell from 11.6 percent in 2000 to 8.8 percent in
2012, a decline of 24 percent, according to a study of more than 21,000
people across the country published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.
"It's
definitely good news," said Dr. Kenneth Langa, a professor of internal
medicine at the University of Michigan and a coauthor of the new study.
"Even without a cure for Alzheimer's disease or a new medication, there
are things that we can do socially and medically and behaviorally that
can significantly reduce the risk."
While advocates for people with dementia welcomed the news, they noted
that Alzheimer's disease and other forms of memory loss remain a serious
burden for the nation and the world. Up to five million Americans
today suffer from dementia, a number that is expected to triple by 2050,
as people live longer and the elderly population increases.
Although researchers can't definitively explain why dementia rates are
decreasing, Langa said doctors may be doing a better job controlling
high blood pressure and diabetes, which can both boost the risk of
age-related memory problems. High blood pressure and diabetes both
increase the risk of strokes, which kill brain cells, increasing the
risk of vascular dementia.
"We've been saying now for several years that what's good for your heart
is good for your head," Fargo said. "There are several things you can
do to reduce your risk for dementia."
Authors of the study found that senior
citizens today are better educated than even half a generation ago. The
population studied in 2012 stayed in school 13 years, while the seniors
studied in 2000 had about 12 years of education, according to the study.
That's
significant, because many studies have found a strong link between
higher educational levels and lower risk of disease, including dementia,
Lang said. The reasons are likely to be complex. People with more
education tend to earn more money and have better access to health care.
They're less likely to smoke, more likely to exercise and less likely
to be overweight. People with more education also may live in safer
neighborhoods and have less stress.
People
who are better educated may have more intellectually stimulating jobs
and hobbies that help exercise their brains, Lang said.
Saturday, November 12, 2016
TWC TV
[11/22/16] KGMB is now showing KGMB (CBS). Although when I first accessed the app today, it showed the major network channels missing. Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC were missing, but KFVE, KHET, CW were there.
[11/15/16] OK, now I see CW is on. It's on channel 1093. But oddly KGMB (channel 7, 87, 1007) is showing NBCSN instead. Same on my iPad. Meanwhile NBCSN (1210) is erroring out. OK, a work in progress. And now I see ESPN2 is on Channel 1224 (and 224).
[11/12/16] Checking out the TWC TV app on my mom's Roku TV in Aiea. Since they have both TV and internet service from Oceanic, they had a lot of channels available on the app. But notably they lacked the local network channels as well as OCSports and OC16.
But today I notice Oceanic has expanded the channels carried. They now carry the local network channels live (KHON, KFVE, KITV, KGMB, KHNL, KHET) as well as OCSports and OC16. The notable omissions are The CW and ESPN2. They do have the NFL Network, but not NFL Redzone. However I can catch those channels on the separate Roku apps (though admittedly NFL not supported by Time Warner Cable last I checked). They even have KBFD, KIKU, KWHE, MeTV (126) and Antenna TV (541).
Anyway, with the addition of these channels, this pretty much takes away my desire of hooking up direct cable or an antenna to her Roku TV.
I'm noticing the "reception" of the local (and other) channels isn't always that great. Sometimes I can't catch the channels or the channel "dies" or the video is grainy. But it usually works.
[7/20/12] signed up for twctv. supposedly you can watch TV on your computer or ipad or whatever device.
Pretty neat. I can get the guide and change the channel from my computer. But live TV isn't working. I wonder if it'll work in the morning. Or if that feature isn't implemented yet?
... looking ... apparently for live TV to work you have to have Time Warner cable for both TV and internet. And you must be connected to your home internet. Since, I'm on Oceanic cable and not hawaiiantelnet dsl, apparently I'm out of luck. Would have been neat to be able to watch my TV over any internet connection. But I guess not.
Mysti Amber writes: Tells me I cannot watch because I am not connected to my network. So how do i connect my box to my wireless network.. The Timewarner rep said I need Time warner internet. Seriously? I am not going to buy their internet just so I can watch tv on my laptop and I can only watch it AT HOME? Are you serious? I was going to figure out how to get it going but if I can't watch it when I am away from home then why bother. I can just go sit in front of the tv. FAIL
I see it states that you can "watch live programming on your computer within your own home". In other words, not outside your home.
I guess On Demand is theoretically better than just mindless watching whatever happens to be on live anyway..
***
[1/9/12] Now I see that TWC is coming to Roku. Apparently it'll be the same deal. It looks to me that you'll have to be a subscriber both to Time Warner cable and Time Warner Road Runner. And be connected to your own Road Runner service. So won't do me any good.
[6/13/15] TWC is much better on the iPad. You can watch a number of live channels, On Demand shows and movies. And you don't have to be on your Oceanic internet network, though you get access to fewer channels if you are not.
[11/15/16] OK, now I see CW is on. It's on channel 1093. But oddly KGMB (channel 7, 87, 1007) is showing NBCSN instead. Same on my iPad. Meanwhile NBCSN (1210) is erroring out. OK, a work in progress. And now I see ESPN2 is on Channel 1224 (and 224).
[11/12/16] Checking out the TWC TV app on my mom's Roku TV in Aiea. Since they have both TV and internet service from Oceanic, they had a lot of channels available on the app. But notably they lacked the local network channels as well as OCSports and OC16.
But today I notice Oceanic has expanded the channels carried. They now carry the local network channels live (KHON, KFVE, KITV, KGMB, KHNL, KHET) as well as OCSports and OC16. The notable omissions are The CW and ESPN2. They do have the NFL Network, but not NFL Redzone. However I can catch those channels on the separate Roku apps (though admittedly NFL not supported by Time Warner Cable last I checked). They even have KBFD, KIKU, KWHE, MeTV (126) and Antenna TV (541).
Anyway, with the addition of these channels, this pretty much takes away my desire of hooking up direct cable or an antenna to her Roku TV.
I'm noticing the "reception" of the local (and other) channels isn't always that great. Sometimes I can't catch the channels or the channel "dies" or the video is grainy. But it usually works.
[7/20/12] signed up for twctv. supposedly you can watch TV on your computer or ipad or whatever device.
Pretty neat. I can get the guide and change the channel from my computer. But live TV isn't working. I wonder if it'll work in the morning. Or if that feature isn't implemented yet?
... looking ... apparently for live TV to work you have to have Time Warner cable for both TV and internet. And you must be connected to your home internet. Since, I'm on Oceanic cable and not hawaiiantelnet dsl, apparently I'm out of luck. Would have been neat to be able to watch my TV over any internet connection. But I guess not.
Mysti Amber writes: Tells me I cannot watch because I am not connected to my network. So how do i connect my box to my wireless network.. The Timewarner rep said I need Time warner internet. Seriously? I am not going to buy their internet just so I can watch tv on my laptop and I can only watch it AT HOME? Are you serious? I was going to figure out how to get it going but if I can't watch it when I am away from home then why bother. I can just go sit in front of the tv. FAIL
I see it states that you can "watch live programming on your computer within your own home". In other words, not outside your home.
I guess On Demand is theoretically better than just mindless watching whatever happens to be on live anyway..
***
[1/9/12] Now I see that TWC is coming to Roku. Apparently it'll be the same deal. It looks to me that you'll have to be a subscriber both to Time Warner cable and Time Warner Road Runner. And be connected to your own Road Runner service. So won't do me any good.
[6/13/15] TWC is much better on the iPad. You can watch a number of live channels, On Demand shows and movies. And you don't have to be on your Oceanic internet network, though you get access to fewer channels if you are not.
Wednesday, November 02, 2016
Prime Reading
A new feature for Amazon Prime members (noticed from this article). Look it up.
This service is accessible on all devices running the Kindle app,
rendering it distinct from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which
offers Kindle and Fire owners one free e-book rental per month. Prime
members will still have access to Kindle First, the program offering
members one free new-release prior to its publication date.
While a useful addition, the new perk likely won't bring in droves of new members the same way as other popular services, such as Prime's unlimited, two-day shipping or the Prime Day shopping holiday.
However, all the additional reading sparked by Prime Reading could help drive more sales of e-books, a market Amazon helped birth and still dominates. Also, Prime Reading may serve as a gateway to get more of Amazon's loyalest customers to sign up for Kindle Unlimited, Amazon's $10 monthly reading service that includes over 1 million books and thousands of audiobooks. Using a similar tactic, Amazon last month introduced a slimmed-down, free-for-Prime version of its paid audiobook services called Audible Channels. A full Audible membership costs $14.95 a month.
In addition to Prime Reading, Amazon will continue to provide the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. That Prime service lets people borrow one e-book a month from a much wider selection of hundreds of thousands of titles. Unlike Prime Reading -- which can be used with Amazon, iOS and Android devices -- the lending library is only available on Kindle and Fire devices.
***
OK, let's try it out on my Fire Tablet.
Go to Books. Select Store. Select NEW! Prime Reading.
There are several categories.
New & Notable: 15 titles.
Current Magazines: "Every month we choose a selection of top magazines for you to borrow as part of your Prime membership." There's some good stuff here, such as Smithsonian Magazine, New York Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, Slam, Money, House Beautiful, Real Simple, The Atlantic, Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, The New Yorker. It remains to be seen how many of these will be offered next month. I chose to try Money Magazine, but found it a little hard to read on my tablet. My eyes ain't that good any more :(
Science Fiction & Fantasy: 96 titles including Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone.
Nonfiction: 432 titles, including The Millionaire Next Door and Life Hacks. I chose Habit Stacking. Do Less sounds interesting. Let's try that one too.
Mystery & Thriller: 173 titles.
Romance: 163 titles.
Comics & Graphic Novels: 21 titles. Including The Complete Peanuts Vol 1: 1950-1952, and 14 Years of Loyal Service in a Fabric-Covered Box: A Dilbert Book. OK let's try the Dilbert.
Business & Money: 15 titles. The Million Next Door and Habit Stacking are categories here.
Children's Books: 73 titles. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone is listed here.
Teen & Young Adult: 55 titles.
Kindle Singles & Singles Classics: 23 titles. Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma might be interesting.
Interestingly, when you open up the book the first time, it doesn't start at the front cover. But rather at the introduction.
You can't zoom in when reading the books, so you're stuck with the font size. However, you can zoom when reading magazines. I guess it's big enough for me to read with my freebie reading glasses, but it's a little blurry.
Now that I'm looking at the Dilbert book, the strips appear tiny when they first appear. Tap on them and they become a little bigger. Double-tap on a strip and it appears on it's own screen. From there you can zoom in to read it.
Exit out and try to read another book. My tablet locked up with a black screen. :(
Power off. Turn back on. OK, seems to work now.
Starting this month, Amazon Prime memberships have a new feature: Prime Reading. Under this program, the $99 Prime subscription now includes free access to over one-thousand e-books, comics, and magazines. The content on offer will rotate, hopefully encouraging subscribers to read more and eventually purchase additional e-books.
While a useful addition, the new perk likely won't bring in droves of new members the same way as other popular services, such as Prime's unlimited, two-day shipping or the Prime Day shopping holiday.
However, all the additional reading sparked by Prime Reading could help drive more sales of e-books, a market Amazon helped birth and still dominates. Also, Prime Reading may serve as a gateway to get more of Amazon's loyalest customers to sign up for Kindle Unlimited, Amazon's $10 monthly reading service that includes over 1 million books and thousands of audiobooks. Using a similar tactic, Amazon last month introduced a slimmed-down, free-for-Prime version of its paid audiobook services called Audible Channels. A full Audible membership costs $14.95 a month.
In addition to Prime Reading, Amazon will continue to provide the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. That Prime service lets people borrow one e-book a month from a much wider selection of hundreds of thousands of titles. Unlike Prime Reading -- which can be used with Amazon, iOS and Android devices -- the lending library is only available on Kindle and Fire devices.
***
OK, let's try it out on my Fire Tablet.
Go to Books. Select Store. Select NEW! Prime Reading.
There are several categories.
New & Notable: 15 titles.
Current Magazines: "Every month we choose a selection of top magazines for you to borrow as part of your Prime membership." There's some good stuff here, such as Smithsonian Magazine, New York Magazine, Better Homes & Gardens, Slam, Money, House Beautiful, Real Simple, The Atlantic, Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day, The New Yorker. It remains to be seen how many of these will be offered next month. I chose to try Money Magazine, but found it a little hard to read on my tablet. My eyes ain't that good any more :(
Science Fiction & Fantasy: 96 titles including Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone.
Nonfiction: 432 titles, including The Millionaire Next Door and Life Hacks. I chose Habit Stacking. Do Less sounds interesting. Let's try that one too.
Mystery & Thriller: 173 titles.
Romance: 163 titles.
Comics & Graphic Novels: 21 titles. Including The Complete Peanuts Vol 1: 1950-1952, and 14 Years of Loyal Service in a Fabric-Covered Box: A Dilbert Book. OK let's try the Dilbert.
Business & Money: 15 titles. The Million Next Door and Habit Stacking are categories here.
Children's Books: 73 titles. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone is listed here.
Teen & Young Adult: 55 titles.
Kindle Singles & Singles Classics: 23 titles. Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma might be interesting.
Interestingly, when you open up the book the first time, it doesn't start at the front cover. But rather at the introduction.
You can't zoom in when reading the books, so you're stuck with the font size. However, you can zoom when reading magazines. I guess it's big enough for me to read with my freebie reading glasses, but it's a little blurry.
Now that I'm looking at the Dilbert book, the strips appear tiny when they first appear. Tap on them and they become a little bigger. Double-tap on a strip and it appears on it's own screen. From there you can zoom in to read it.
Exit out and try to read another book. My tablet locked up with a black screen. :(
Power off. Turn back on. OK, seems to work now.
Tuesday, November 01, 2016
new Hulu streaming service
Video website Hulu on Tuesday announced deals to add programming from
Twenty-first Century Fox and Walt Disney Co to a streaming TV service
that it plans to offer in early 2017.
Disney and Fox, as well as Comcast Corp and Time Warner Inc, own stakes in Hulu.
Hulu's live and on-demand streaming video service will include Fox's entertainment, news, sports and non-fiction content, along with video from Disney's channels including ABC and ESPN, it said in a statement.
Time Warner said in August that it would pay $583 million to buy a 10 percent stake in Hulu and that its Turner networks, including TBS, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies, would be available on the new service.
"With these two new deals in place, and additional partners to come, Hulu will soon give TV fans of all ages live and on-demand access to their favorite programs in a whole new, more flexible, highly personalized way," Hulu Chief Executive Officer Mike Hopkins said in the company's statement.
***
The new live TV streaming service, which will cost about $40 a month, resembles a (not so) skinny bundle. It offers consumers an alternative to cable with no set-up or installation and is seen by Hulu as a complement to its current ad-supported and ad-free subscription models.
Live TV, particularly sporting events, seems to be one of the most common reasons people stick with cable, which makes Hulu’s announcement–specifically its implications for ESPN and Fox Sports–all the more compelling to potential subscribers (and more expensive for Hulu).
Fox and Disney each own about 30% of Hulu, which partly explains the deal, as they are betting on the future of the platform, rather than traditional cable.
And for Hulu, these additions provide ammunition against competitors Netflix and Amazon, which may boast more original content, but have not yet entered the live-streaming space–yet.
***
Well, don't both Sling and Playstation Vue already offer ESPN and Fox sports? This doesn't sound that much different.
Disney and Fox, as well as Comcast Corp and Time Warner Inc, own stakes in Hulu.
Hulu's live and on-demand streaming video service will include Fox's entertainment, news, sports and non-fiction content, along with video from Disney's channels including ABC and ESPN, it said in a statement.
Time Warner said in August that it would pay $583 million to buy a 10 percent stake in Hulu and that its Turner networks, including TBS, Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies, would be available on the new service.
"With these two new deals in place, and additional partners to come, Hulu will soon give TV fans of all ages live and on-demand access to their favorite programs in a whole new, more flexible, highly personalized way," Hulu Chief Executive Officer Mike Hopkins said in the company's statement.
***
The new live TV streaming service, which will cost about $40 a month, resembles a (not so) skinny bundle. It offers consumers an alternative to cable with no set-up or installation and is seen by Hulu as a complement to its current ad-supported and ad-free subscription models.
Live TV, particularly sporting events, seems to be one of the most common reasons people stick with cable, which makes Hulu’s announcement–specifically its implications for ESPN and Fox Sports–all the more compelling to potential subscribers (and more expensive for Hulu).
Fox and Disney each own about 30% of Hulu, which partly explains the deal, as they are betting on the future of the platform, rather than traditional cable.
And for Hulu, these additions provide ammunition against competitors Netflix and Amazon, which may boast more original content, but have not yet entered the live-streaming space–yet.
***
Well, don't both Sling and Playstation Vue already offer ESPN and Fox sports? This doesn't sound that much different.
Firefox locking up? Try this.
Last week, I ran into a problem with Firefox locking up at a particular place on a particular website (if you must know, I was looking up MOAT on Morningstar.com). It worked OK on Chrome.
Went to task manager (I'm using Vista) and noticed the plug-in container running. I think when I end-tasked it, Firefox unlocked up. [Don't really remember, but I assume that's what I did.]
Looking up the problem, it appeared that the problem was Adobe Flash locking up.
So I checked the add-ons and decided to enable uBlock Origin. That seemed to help as the website didn't lock up any more, though uBlock doesn't really affect Flash. Whatever it worked.
And while I was at it, I decided to change Shockwave Flash from Always Activate to Ask to Activate.
And now Firefox has been running faster with less lockups.
There are sometimes though, when you might want to activate Flash. For example, some webpage display videos using Flash. If a webpage is trying to use Flash, there will be a prompt asking whether you want to allow the site to run Adobe Flash. You can either Continue Blocking or Allow. If you Allow, you can choose between Allow Now and Allow and Remember. I generally don't allow it unless I see a video that I might want to watch.
Went to task manager (I'm using Vista) and noticed the plug-in container running. I think when I end-tasked it, Firefox unlocked up. [Don't really remember, but I assume that's what I did.]
Looking up the problem, it appeared that the problem was Adobe Flash locking up.
So I checked the add-ons and decided to enable uBlock Origin. That seemed to help as the website didn't lock up any more, though uBlock doesn't really affect Flash. Whatever it worked.
And while I was at it, I decided to change Shockwave Flash from Always Activate to Ask to Activate.
And now Firefox has been running faster with less lockups.
There are sometimes though, when you might want to activate Flash. For example, some webpage display videos using Flash. If a webpage is trying to use Flash, there will be a prompt asking whether you want to allow the site to run Adobe Flash. You can either Continue Blocking or Allow. If you Allow, you can choose between Allow Now and Allow and Remember. I generally don't allow it unless I see a video that I might want to watch.
Thursday, October 27, 2016
wildlife population down by 58%
The number of wild animals living on Earth is set to fall by two-thirds by 2020, according to a new report, part of a mass extinction that is destroying the natural world upon which humanity depends.
The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020. Researchers from WWF and the Zoological Society of London compiled the report from scientific data and found that the destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution were to blame.
The creatures being lost range from mountains to forests to rivers and the seas and include well-known endangered species such as elephants and gorillas and lesser known creatures such as vultures and salamanders.
The collapse of wildlife is, with climate change, the most striking sign of the Anthropocene, a proposed new geological era in which humans dominate the planet. “We are no longer a small world on a big planet. We are now a big world on a small planet, where we have reached a saturation point,” said Prof Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, in a foreword for the report.
The biggest cause of tumbling animal numbers is the destruction of wild areas for farming and logging: the majority of the Earth’s land area has now been impacted by humans, with just 15% protected for nature. Poaching and exploitation for food is another major factor, due to unsustainable fishing and hunting: more than 300 mammal species are being eaten into extinction, according to recent research.
Pollution is also a significant problem with, for example, killer whales and dolphins in European seas being seriously harmed by long-lived industrial pollutants. Vultures in south-east Asia have been decimated over the last 20 years, dying after eating the carcasses of cattle dosed with an anti-inflammatory drug. Amphibians have suffered one of the greatest declines of all animals due to a fungal disease thought to be spread around the world by the trade in frogs and newts.
The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to reach 67% by 2020. Researchers from WWF and the Zoological Society of London compiled the report from scientific data and found that the destruction of wild habitats, hunting and pollution were to blame.
The creatures being lost range from mountains to forests to rivers and the seas and include well-known endangered species such as elephants and gorillas and lesser known creatures such as vultures and salamanders.
The collapse of wildlife is, with climate change, the most striking sign of the Anthropocene, a proposed new geological era in which humans dominate the planet. “We are no longer a small world on a big planet. We are now a big world on a small planet, where we have reached a saturation point,” said Prof Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, in a foreword for the report.
The biggest cause of tumbling animal numbers is the destruction of wild areas for farming and logging: the majority of the Earth’s land area has now been impacted by humans, with just 15% protected for nature. Poaching and exploitation for food is another major factor, due to unsustainable fishing and hunting: more than 300 mammal species are being eaten into extinction, according to recent research.
Pollution is also a significant problem with, for example, killer whales and dolphins in European seas being seriously harmed by long-lived industrial pollutants. Vultures in south-east Asia have been decimated over the last 20 years, dying after eating the carcasses of cattle dosed with an anti-inflammatory drug. Amphibians have suffered one of the greatest declines of all animals due to a fungal disease thought to be spread around the world by the trade in frogs and newts.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
NBA League Pass
This is another instance where the app on the Fire TV is inferior to the respective app on the Roku (and in this case the Apple TV). For the other instances, see The CW (10/1/16) and ESPN (10/22/16).
I heard that there's currently a freeview to NBA League Pass at the start of the season. So I signed on to nba.com and signed up for the free preview.
Then I logged into the NBA app on the Fire TV, waited for the Utah-Portland game to start (after the Knicks-Cavaliers game on TNT) and tried to watch. No video stream showed up and it said you can watch it on League Pass.
What gives? Maybe the free preview doesn't work on the streaming boxes?
So I switched to my Roku. Installed the NBA channel. Logged into my account. Accessed the game. You can choose either the home feed or the away feed. Both worked.
OK how about the Apple TV? Hooked up my Apple TV. Started up the NBA app. Didn't even have to log in, it remembered it from last season. Head to the game. Choose the video stream. And after a worrisome pause of nothing happening (I have only a 4 mbps DSL connection), the video stream of the game played.
So yep, I guess I'd have to blame the Fire TV app.
Strike three.
***
Decided to install it on my Fire tablet. Did it on the website, but after I started up the tablet, I didn't see the app.
Went to the app store. Searched for NBA. Is it NBA Game Time? Yep, that's the one because I see it downloading.
OK sign in. Try to access the Utah-Portland game (the only game currently playing on League Pass). Stream currently not available.
OK, maybe it's an Amazon problem, not necessarily just a Fire TV problem.
I'll check tomorrow when more games are on.
***
OK playing some more. It worked on the iPad mini. But then the Apple TV locked up. Then the iPad mini locked up. It worked again after restarting.
It's pretty neat when it works. Watching the Knicks-Nets preseason game. Was kind of unusual to see five white guys on the court for the Nets toward the end of the first quarter. And I noticed that Kurt Rambis shaves, so he doesn't look like Phil Jackson so much any more.
*** [10/26/16]
Saw that the app for the Fire tablet was updated, so tried again. Nope still didn't work.
Then saw this comment that uninstalling and reinstalling worked. So I uninstalled that app and reinstalled it.
Hey it works now.
Then I noticed the comment was actually for the app for Fire TV, not the Fire tablet. So even though the app said it hadn't been updated, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling.
And it worked.
I guess I'm happy. Or happier than before. But the app for the Fire TV is still inferior to its counterparts on the Roku and Apple TV because it doesn't support fast forward/rewind on archived games.
[10/27/16]
Experimenting further as the Wizards-Hawks game is on. The Roku app is not able to rewind the live game, but on the Apple TV, I can rewind to whenever I want. So I rank the Apple TV as the best app of the three.
... Later that day ...
More experimenting as the Clippers-Blazers game is now playing on TNT. Normally League Pass doesn't carry TNT games live, but interestingly the Roku app allowed me to view the game via the TNT Overtime feeds (with your choice of view). This is not supported on the Apple TV or Fire TV.
Then I tried to access the Spurs-Kings game which is now playing, but is blacked out in my area. I wasn't able to access it when I tried on the Roku or Fire TV, but when I tried to access the video feed on the Apple TV, I got the audio (radio) feed!
So the Roku actually has the most coverage as it covers TNT games. But the Apple TV has the advantage of rewinding live games and giving access to the radio feed for games blacked out in your area.
[11/1/16]
Noticed that the app was updated today. From the website:
What's new in version 2016.1.3
TNT Overtime: watch enhanced live coverage of NBA on TNT games for free
Navigation updates
Bug fixes and performance enhancements.
Navigation updates? Maybe FF/REW now work?
OK, hook up the Fire TV. Run the app. All games now say "this game has just ended / please check back later for game recap."
Uninstall, remove from cloud, reinstall.
OK, the app now works. FF/REW now work for archived games, but not for live games.
Will have to wait Thursday until I can test the TNT Overtime feature.
[11/3/16]
Yep, TNT Overtime works on the Fire TV. It's free. You don't have to be an NBA League Pass subscriber. In fact, it worked without me even being logged into my account. So this puts the app right up there with the Roku app.
However, I don't see the great attraction of the Overtime views if you're used to the view of the standard telecast. It's an interesting to watch for a while, but what I miss most is that none of the views display the score along with the feed. But I guess it's better than nothing if you don't have access to the regular TNT feed.
[12/28/16] Not really NBA League Pass entry, but it's an NBA entry so I'll put it here.
Noticed that the NBC Sports app on the Roku currently has three NBA games playing. Kings vs. Trail Blazers on CSN California, Raptors vs. Warriors on CSN Bay Area, and Nets vs. Bull on CSN Chicago. I want to see if I can catch any of them on the Hawaiian Telcom account.
OK, activated. Let's see if I get any results.
I guess not. There's a message saying: Restricted Content The current program is not available in your region due to local blackout restrictions. And now that I'm logged in, none of the games show up on the screen. Oh well, I tried..
Looking at the activation screen, it says "You have access to NBC Sports video from the following networks: NBCSN. CNBC, USA, Golf Channel, NBC. No Prime Ticket, which makes sense since Hawaiian Telcom doesn't carry Prime Ticket. Wait, never mind. Prime Ticket is a Fox channel.
Go home and try activate the Roku app with Oceanic. [what 52pickup not working? try Keith.] OK, logged in, but as expected no NBA.
I heard that there's currently a freeview to NBA League Pass at the start of the season. So I signed on to nba.com and signed up for the free preview.
Then I logged into the NBA app on the Fire TV, waited for the Utah-Portland game to start (after the Knicks-Cavaliers game on TNT) and tried to watch. No video stream showed up and it said you can watch it on League Pass.
What gives? Maybe the free preview doesn't work on the streaming boxes?
So I switched to my Roku. Installed the NBA channel. Logged into my account. Accessed the game. You can choose either the home feed or the away feed. Both worked.
OK how about the Apple TV? Hooked up my Apple TV. Started up the NBA app. Didn't even have to log in, it remembered it from last season. Head to the game. Choose the video stream. And after a worrisome pause of nothing happening (I have only a 4 mbps DSL connection), the video stream of the game played.
So yep, I guess I'd have to blame the Fire TV app.
Strike three.
***
Decided to install it on my Fire tablet. Did it on the website, but after I started up the tablet, I didn't see the app.
Went to the app store. Searched for NBA. Is it NBA Game Time? Yep, that's the one because I see it downloading.
OK sign in. Try to access the Utah-Portland game (the only game currently playing on League Pass). Stream currently not available.
OK, maybe it's an Amazon problem, not necessarily just a Fire TV problem.
I'll check tomorrow when more games are on.
***
OK playing some more. It worked on the iPad mini. But then the Apple TV locked up. Then the iPad mini locked up. It worked again after restarting.
It's pretty neat when it works. Watching the Knicks-Nets preseason game. Was kind of unusual to see five white guys on the court for the Nets toward the end of the first quarter. And I noticed that Kurt Rambis shaves, so he doesn't look like Phil Jackson so much any more.
*** [10/26/16]
Saw that the app for the Fire tablet was updated, so tried again. Nope still didn't work.
Then saw this comment that uninstalling and reinstalling worked. So I uninstalled that app and reinstalled it.
Hey it works now.
Then I noticed the comment was actually for the app for Fire TV, not the Fire tablet. So even though the app said it hadn't been updated, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling.
And it worked.
I guess I'm happy. Or happier than before. But the app for the Fire TV is still inferior to its counterparts on the Roku and Apple TV because it doesn't support fast forward/rewind on archived games.
[10/27/16]
Experimenting further as the Wizards-Hawks game is on. The Roku app is not able to rewind the live game, but on the Apple TV, I can rewind to whenever I want. So I rank the Apple TV as the best app of the three.
... Later that day ...
More experimenting as the Clippers-Blazers game is now playing on TNT. Normally League Pass doesn't carry TNT games live, but interestingly the Roku app allowed me to view the game via the TNT Overtime feeds (with your choice of view). This is not supported on the Apple TV or Fire TV.
Then I tried to access the Spurs-Kings game which is now playing, but is blacked out in my area. I wasn't able to access it when I tried on the Roku or Fire TV, but when I tried to access the video feed on the Apple TV, I got the audio (radio) feed!
So the Roku actually has the most coverage as it covers TNT games. But the Apple TV has the advantage of rewinding live games and giving access to the radio feed for games blacked out in your area.
[11/1/16]
Noticed that the app was updated today. From the website:
What's new in version 2016.1.3
TNT Overtime: watch enhanced live coverage of NBA on TNT games for free
Navigation updates
Bug fixes and performance enhancements.
Navigation updates? Maybe FF/REW now work?
OK, hook up the Fire TV. Run the app. All games now say "this game has just ended / please check back later for game recap."
Uninstall, remove from cloud, reinstall.
OK, the app now works. FF/REW now work for archived games, but not for live games.
Will have to wait Thursday until I can test the TNT Overtime feature.
[11/3/16]
Yep, TNT Overtime works on the Fire TV. It's free. You don't have to be an NBA League Pass subscriber. In fact, it worked without me even being logged into my account. So this puts the app right up there with the Roku app.
However, I don't see the great attraction of the Overtime views if you're used to the view of the standard telecast. It's an interesting to watch for a while, but what I miss most is that none of the views display the score along with the feed. But I guess it's better than nothing if you don't have access to the regular TNT feed.
[12/28/16] Not really NBA League Pass entry, but it's an NBA entry so I'll put it here.
Noticed that the NBC Sports app on the Roku currently has three NBA games playing. Kings vs. Trail Blazers on CSN California, Raptors vs. Warriors on CSN Bay Area, and Nets vs. Bull on CSN Chicago. I want to see if I can catch any of them on the Hawaiian Telcom account.
OK, activated. Let's see if I get any results.
I guess not. There's a message saying: Restricted Content The current program is not available in your region due to local blackout restrictions. And now that I'm logged in, none of the games show up on the screen. Oh well, I tried..
Looking at the activation screen, it says "You have access to NBC Sports video from the following networks: NBCSN. CNBC, USA, Golf Channel, NBC. No Prime Ticket, which makes sense since Hawaiian Telcom doesn't carry Prime Ticket. Wait, never mind. Prime Ticket is a Fox channel.
Go home and try activate the Roku app with Oceanic. [what 52pickup not working? try Keith.] OK, logged in, but as expected no NBA.
Vudu Movies On Us
Via CordKillers 142, I see that Walmart has launched a new service called Vudu Movies On Us.
You access the service through the Vudu app. The drawback is that Vudu is only on one of the major streaming boxes. It's on the Roku, but not on the Fire TV or Apple TV.
Anyway I hooked up my Roku and checked it out.
So launch Vudu. Go to Spotlight (actually it was already highlighted), then go down to Movies On Us.
Yep. There's 241 movies. All free with ads. Actually there's a lot more than 241 movies. There's 241 featured movies. 219 in Top Drama. 115 in Top Action. 193 in Top Comedy. 65 in Top Romance. 165 in Music/Musicals. 100 in Family Movie Night. 37 in Animation. 578 in Documentaries. Plus a few more categories.
Among the ones that caught to my eye were True Grit (the newer one), School of Rock, A Walk To Remember, Searching For Bobby Fischer, The Phantom of the Opera, Mad Max, Stardust, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Midnight Cowboy, The Magnificent Seven, Inherit The Wind, Waiting for Superman, Aeon Flux, The Running Man, Collateral Damage, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Star Trek: Nemesis, Race for Your Life Charlie Brown, The Legend of Bruce Lee, Universal Soldier, The Brothers Bloom (actually never heard of it before but the trailer seems fun), An Inconvenient Truth, Wayne's World 2, Pink Floyd: Behind the Wall, So some well-known titles.
Some of these are on other free services like tubitv but certainly not all. And the service is more responsive, seems better organized with not as much junk as Tubi. The selection is as good or better than Crackle. They certainly have more movies, though Crackle might have a few newer movies and also has more TV shows.
So I suppose this is another reason to go into the Vudu app. But it's not like I don't have already have enough to watch with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime. And if I actually want to buy something, I prefer buying it on Amazon largely because it's on both the Fire TV as well as the Roku. And also I like the captions on Amazon more than on Vudu.
One thing I do like about Vudu is that always have a few free TV episodes you can buy. Generally, I check to see what's free on Fandango on the Roku or the TV section on the Apple TV to see what they are offering for free. And often Vudu has it too (as well as Amazon).
All in all, I have to give it a thumbs up. You can't argue with free.
You access the service through the Vudu app. The drawback is that Vudu is only on one of the major streaming boxes. It's on the Roku, but not on the Fire TV or Apple TV.
Anyway I hooked up my Roku and checked it out.
So launch Vudu. Go to Spotlight (actually it was already highlighted), then go down to Movies On Us.
Yep. There's 241 movies. All free with ads. Actually there's a lot more than 241 movies. There's 241 featured movies. 219 in Top Drama. 115 in Top Action. 193 in Top Comedy. 65 in Top Romance. 165 in Music/Musicals. 100 in Family Movie Night. 37 in Animation. 578 in Documentaries. Plus a few more categories.
Among the ones that caught to my eye were True Grit (the newer one), School of Rock, A Walk To Remember, Searching For Bobby Fischer, The Phantom of the Opera, Mad Max, Stardust, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Midnight Cowboy, The Magnificent Seven, Inherit The Wind, Waiting for Superman, Aeon Flux, The Running Man, Collateral Damage, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Star Trek: Nemesis, Race for Your Life Charlie Brown, The Legend of Bruce Lee, Universal Soldier, The Brothers Bloom (actually never heard of it before but the trailer seems fun), An Inconvenient Truth, Wayne's World 2, Pink Floyd: Behind the Wall, So some well-known titles.
Some of these are on other free services like tubitv but certainly not all. And the service is more responsive, seems better organized with not as much junk as Tubi. The selection is as good or better than Crackle. They certainly have more movies, though Crackle might have a few newer movies and also has more TV shows.
So I suppose this is another reason to go into the Vudu app. But it's not like I don't have already have enough to watch with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime. And if I actually want to buy something, I prefer buying it on Amazon largely because it's on both the Fire TV as well as the Roku. And also I like the captions on Amazon more than on Vudu.
One thing I do like about Vudu is that always have a few free TV episodes you can buy. Generally, I check to see what's free on Fandango on the Roku or the TV section on the Apple TV to see what they are offering for free. And often Vudu has it too (as well as Amazon).
All in all, I have to give it a thumbs up. You can't argue with free.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Tesla announces fully self-driving cars
SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla Motors announced Wednesday that its electric
cars will be the first in the nation to all be fitted with the hardware
they need to drive themselves.
CEOElon Musk
announced Wednesday that the automaker's Model S, X and forthcoming
Model 3 sedan will start being outfitted with "the hardware needed for
full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater
than that of a human driver."
That constitutes full Level 5 autonomy, which doesn't require any driver involvement. That's the ultimate goal for a range of automakers and tech companies, including Google, Ford and Volvo, which have vowed to produce such self-driving vehicles by 2021.
Musk did not say exactly when such technology would be consumer-ready, although he did say regulatory hurdles would have to be vaulted first.
"It's not up to us, it's up to the regulators, and we hope things don't become balkanized and different in every state," he said. "It's a question of what the public and regulators think is appropriate. The system will always be operating in 'shadow mode,' though, so we can gather a lot of sophisticated data to show where software could have acted or not acted."
CEO
That constitutes full Level 5 autonomy, which doesn't require any driver involvement. That's the ultimate goal for a range of automakers and tech companies, including Google, Ford and Volvo, which have vowed to produce such self-driving vehicles by 2021.
Musk did not say exactly when such technology would be consumer-ready, although he did say regulatory hurdles would have to be vaulted first.
"It's not up to us, it's up to the regulators, and we hope things don't become balkanized and different in every state," he said. "It's a question of what the public and regulators think is appropriate. The system will always be operating in 'shadow mode,' though, so we can gather a lot of sophisticated data to show where software could have acted or not acted."
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Apple TV 3 discontinued
Apple has discontinued the third-generation Apple TV, removing it from its online store. Additionally, links to the Apple TV 3 now reroute to the fourth-generation Apple TV. Apple confirmed it was discontinuing the device in an email to employees and educators obtained by 9to5Mac.
The Apple TV 3 was released in 2012 and given a spec bump the following year. In fall 2015, Apple announced the long-awaited fourth-generation Apple TV, including support for Siri, the brand-new tvOS, and the App Store.
[via cordkillers]
***
What that tells me is that I will start using my Apple TV less and less as the channel developers probably won't develop apps for it and/or get Apple to put them on. So don't hold your breath for The CW to appear on it.
Overall I still like Apple TV's captions the best for Hulu. But the Fire TV is acceptable. Still don't like the Roku captions on Hulu. I'm using the Fire TV more than the Roku largely because of Hulu. I also like how the Fire TV marks which shows on Hulu and have been seen or unseen.
However the Fire TV still doesn't have several channels (e.g. NatGeo, FreeForm, NFL), so I still switch between them from time-to-time. The Fire TV does support TNT and TBS though, which are not yet on the Roku.
The Apple TV 3 was released in 2012 and given a spec bump the following year. In fall 2015, Apple announced the long-awaited fourth-generation Apple TV, including support for Siri, the brand-new tvOS, and the App Store.
[via cordkillers]
***
What that tells me is that I will start using my Apple TV less and less as the channel developers probably won't develop apps for it and/or get Apple to put them on. So don't hold your breath for The CW to appear on it.
Overall I still like Apple TV's captions the best for Hulu. But the Fire TV is acceptable. Still don't like the Roku captions on Hulu. I'm using the Fire TV more than the Roku largely because of Hulu. I also like how the Fire TV marks which shows on Hulu and have been seen or unseen.
However the Fire TV still doesn't have several channels (e.g. NatGeo, FreeForm, NFL), so I still switch between them from time-to-time. The Fire TV does support TNT and TBS though, which are not yet on the Roku.
Thursday, October 06, 2016
no traffic deaths in 30 years?
ARLINGTON, Va.—The Obama administration on Wednesday committed to a
goal of eliminating traffic deaths within 30 years, setting a timeline
for the first time on an ambitious agenda that relies heavily on the
auto industry's development of self-driving cars.
The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and other agencies committed to the objective after a sharp uptick in roadway deaths.
Although U.S. auto-safety regulators had previously said their goal was to someday eliminate road fatalities altogether, Wednesday's announcement marks the first time they've identified a specific timeline.
For starters, NHTSA, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and National Safety Council will coordinate efforts to promote safe driving through a campaign called Road to Zero, which will include marketing efforts and the installation of basic safety infrastructure such as rumble strips. The Transportation Department will spend $1 million per year for the next three years on grants.
But those baby steps belie what will become a much more substantive push to promote the development of self-driving cars, road infrastructure that can communicate with vehicles and advanced safety systems in vehicles.
It's an especially ambitious goal — some might say unrealistic — especially considering that the number of people killed on the road in the U.S. soared 7.2% to 35,092 in 2015, marking the deadliest year on the road since 2008.
The Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and other agencies committed to the objective after a sharp uptick in roadway deaths.
Although U.S. auto-safety regulators had previously said their goal was to someday eliminate road fatalities altogether, Wednesday's announcement marks the first time they've identified a specific timeline.
For starters, NHTSA, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and National Safety Council will coordinate efforts to promote safe driving through a campaign called Road to Zero, which will include marketing efforts and the installation of basic safety infrastructure such as rumble strips. The Transportation Department will spend $1 million per year for the next three years on grants.
But those baby steps belie what will become a much more substantive push to promote the development of self-driving cars, road infrastructure that can communicate with vehicles and advanced safety systems in vehicles.
It's an especially ambitious goal — some might say unrealistic — especially considering that the number of people killed on the road in the U.S. soared 7.2% to 35,092 in 2015, marking the deadliest year on the road since 2008.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Plex
[9/27/16] Finally installed the Plex Server on my laptop so I can watch Plex at my mom's place. (Actually I watched the premiere of Kevin Can Wait which is free on Amazon Video [and itunes] and I was kind of interested in the second episode. Anyway...]
Scanning photos on my laptop. Takes forever (and is still going).
First thing I installed was the CBS channel. You have to do it on the computer (right-click on the Plex Server icon in the lower right on the computer, you'll probably have to click the ^ to see it. Then Open Plex...).
Didn't see CBS when I opened the Plex Classic app on the Roku, but it showed up in the newer Plex app. However the videos don't play. It starts to play. The progress circle stops at 13% and keeps spinning. Then some minutes later, I get an error message, like video not available or in wrong format.
In the meantime, to check if something was wrong with the Plex installation, I installed the Twit channel. And it seemed to play fine.
Try again. This time I tried Big Bang Theory and it started to play after a long time waiting to load. Then after a few seconds, it started to buffer again and now is stuck at 33%.
Now it started again, but keeps pausing to buffer. And now it seems to be playing better, pausing to buffer less and less. Maybe Plex needed to settle down (from processing so many photos). We'll see how it performs next time. No captions though.
Actually most of the Plex channels that I'm interested in are already on the Roku (though some require cable verification). CBS was the main one I was interested in, since access on streaming boxes is limited to CBS All Access subscribers.
I think I'd be better off just re-subscribing to CBS All Access. The thing is that when I subscribed, the shows I mostly watched were Supergirl, Limitless, and CSI: Cyber. And now Supergirl has moved to The CW. And Limitless and CSI: Cyber were both cancelled. (Supergirl and Limitless reruns are now on Netflix.) So there's not much reason for me to re-subscribe. I had been watching Scorpion and NCIS: Los Angeles. But lost interest last season (mainly because I had other shows I wanted to watch more).
And now I see I can watch CBS Shows On Demand at my mom's place through the TWC app on her Roku TV. So I guess this turned out to be mostly an academic exercise.
Watching Kevin Can Wait, episode 2. Keep waiting for Deke to show up...
[7/22/16] OK installed Plex Classic. Still no subtitles on Fox, but subtitles worked on NBC (Heroes Reborn). But have to toggle it off then toggle it back on (from the * menu).
Switch back to Roku 3. Nope, no still subtitles on Plex. But they worked on Plex Classic (on NBC, still have to toggle off then toggle on).
Try Team Coco, Conan full episodes. No subtitles. However subtitles work when watching using Nowhere TV. So very limited success with subtitles using Plex Classic.
[7/21/16] Notice that Plex has a new interface (because I was watching a youtube video which says you can install the old-style interface). I guess it's OK, but I notice that it doesn't support captions, whereas the older Plex supported captions on some channels (for example, ABC used to support captions -- see below). So I disconnected the Roku 3 and connected up my old Roku HD. Nope, I see Plex got updated to the newer version. So no captions. Disappointing.
I wonder if the old-style interface supports captions? Maybe I'll try later.
[9/7/15] Tried out Plex on the Fire TV. Connected fine, but you gotta pay $4.99 to watch more than a minute. No subtitles on Fox. But I guess this is one way to watch CBS on the Fire TV. Though with no subtitles (on both Roku and Fire TV).
[9/6/15] Tried out the new Plex client on Roku (supposedly now free, but it was always free for me. Apparently I was grandfathered in. Or because I installed it before they started charging).
Yep, the design looks more modernized. And I noticed a Fox channel. So I installed that and it worked with captions. Tried HGTV Canada (since Kodi has it). But evidently it's blocked. Looked for DIY (also on Kodi), but evidently it's an unofficial app. Also noticed HGTV and DIY is now gone from Hulu.
And now I see some episode from HGTV and DIY (as well as Food Network, Travel Channel, Cooking Channel) are available on ulive.com (directed from hulu.com).
[6/8/15] installed the USA Network channel on the Plex app on the Roku, so I could watch Mr. Robot. It works and has captions! (Apple TV has a USA Network app, so you can watch there too.)
[3/18/15] Started playing with Plex again, finally tried renaming some of my Dog Whisperer videos according to plex convention, repointed to the folder location (I had moved it), and it showed up. And the .srt subtitles worked. At least on the video I tested. I guess I'll play some more later.
Also last week (3/10) tried out again some of the channels I had installed months ago after not really using Plex for a while. Most of them still work. Here's the results:
CBS works, but no captions (watched Scorpion)
ABC works with captions (Castle)
NBC works with captions (Parks and Recreation)
The CW works, but no captions (The Flash)
CNN partially works with captions
HGTV works with captions
TheWB doesn't work (not surprisingly since the website no longer is functions)
Tried removing TheWB Channel from the media server and couldn't.
Let's try some more
Team Coco - works with captions (only two full episodes available) / also available on Nowhere TV
Youtube - the app isn't supported, then it worked, partially anyway
CNet - app isn't supported, but it worked
PBS - not supported, but partially works (Nature videos didn't play), no captions (but what's this direct stream/transcode instead of play? ok can change it in playback options)
NFL Network - works, no captions
TWIT - not supported, but works
Spike - able to access the menu, but can't find any videos that work
wasn't getting captions on ABC, changed direct stream/transcode to automatic (don't know why it changed in the first place) and got the captions back.
Not sure if Plex is still free as I'm using the old Plex installed on my old Roku HD. But I'm not going to touch it since it's working.
[5/18/13] With the success (sort of) with installing iTunes so I could get apps on the iPad (more like I needed to set up my iTunes account) and xferring some photos to the iPad, I decided to try Plex too (the other item on my to-do list).
The main reason I wanted to get Plex was to view Hulu on the Roku.
Looked at this link, but when I installed Plex it looked like a newer version and didn't have a preferences section. Or at least it wasn't labelled preferences. And didn't get a sign up button. (Well now I see a signup section for My Plex.)
Anyway, I ran the server and when I went to the Plex app on the Roku I could see that it found my iTunes music. So I knew the computer and Roku were talking. So I figured I didn't need to sign up for an account.
Then I added the Hulu channel on Plex. I could see the shows on the Roku, but the show wouldn't play saying it was unavailable (but it ran when I went directly to hulu.com on the computer).
I tried twit.tv and that worked pretty good. Youtube worked too. But some other channels didn't work so well. Timing out and going too slow.
PBS seemed to lock up the roku and it rebooted. But later I got one of the videos to play, but not very smooth.
CBS didn't work very well with Star Trek timing out and Letterman taking a long time to load. But ABC seems to work quite well. Oddly the picture starts out blurry but then clears up after several seconds.
Scanning photos on my laptop. Takes forever (and is still going).
First thing I installed was the CBS channel. You have to do it on the computer (right-click on the Plex Server icon in the lower right on the computer, you'll probably have to click the ^ to see it. Then Open Plex...).
Didn't see CBS when I opened the Plex Classic app on the Roku, but it showed up in the newer Plex app. However the videos don't play. It starts to play. The progress circle stops at 13% and keeps spinning. Then some minutes later, I get an error message, like video not available or in wrong format.
In the meantime, to check if something was wrong with the Plex installation, I installed the Twit channel. And it seemed to play fine.
Try again. This time I tried Big Bang Theory and it started to play after a long time waiting to load. Then after a few seconds, it started to buffer again and now is stuck at 33%.
Now it started again, but keeps pausing to buffer. And now it seems to be playing better, pausing to buffer less and less. Maybe Plex needed to settle down (from processing so many photos). We'll see how it performs next time. No captions though.
Actually most of the Plex channels that I'm interested in are already on the Roku (though some require cable verification). CBS was the main one I was interested in, since access on streaming boxes is limited to CBS All Access subscribers.
I think I'd be better off just re-subscribing to CBS All Access. The thing is that when I subscribed, the shows I mostly watched were Supergirl, Limitless, and CSI: Cyber. And now Supergirl has moved to The CW. And Limitless and CSI: Cyber were both cancelled. (Supergirl and Limitless reruns are now on Netflix.) So there's not much reason for me to re-subscribe. I had been watching Scorpion and NCIS: Los Angeles. But lost interest last season (mainly because I had other shows I wanted to watch more).
And now I see I can watch CBS Shows On Demand at my mom's place through the TWC app on her Roku TV. So I guess this turned out to be mostly an academic exercise.
Watching Kevin Can Wait, episode 2. Keep waiting for Deke to show up...
[7/22/16] OK installed Plex Classic. Still no subtitles on Fox, but subtitles worked on NBC (Heroes Reborn). But have to toggle it off then toggle it back on (from the * menu).
Switch back to Roku 3. Nope, no still subtitles on Plex. But they worked on Plex Classic (on NBC, still have to toggle off then toggle on).
Try Team Coco, Conan full episodes. No subtitles. However subtitles work when watching using Nowhere TV. So very limited success with subtitles using Plex Classic.
[7/21/16] Notice that Plex has a new interface (because I was watching a youtube video which says you can install the old-style interface). I guess it's OK, but I notice that it doesn't support captions, whereas the older Plex supported captions on some channels (for example, ABC used to support captions -- see below). So I disconnected the Roku 3 and connected up my old Roku HD. Nope, I see Plex got updated to the newer version. So no captions. Disappointing.
I wonder if the old-style interface supports captions? Maybe I'll try later.
[9/7/15] Tried out Plex on the Fire TV. Connected fine, but you gotta pay $4.99 to watch more than a minute. No subtitles on Fox. But I guess this is one way to watch CBS on the Fire TV. Though with no subtitles (on both Roku and Fire TV).
[9/6/15] Tried out the new Plex client on Roku (supposedly now free, but it was always free for me. Apparently I was grandfathered in. Or because I installed it before they started charging).
Yep, the design looks more modernized. And I noticed a Fox channel. So I installed that and it worked with captions. Tried HGTV Canada (since Kodi has it). But evidently it's blocked. Looked for DIY (also on Kodi), but evidently it's an unofficial app. Also noticed HGTV and DIY is now gone from Hulu.
And now I see some episode from HGTV and DIY (as well as Food Network, Travel Channel, Cooking Channel) are available on ulive.com (directed from hulu.com).
[6/8/15] installed the USA Network channel on the Plex app on the Roku, so I could watch Mr. Robot. It works and has captions! (Apple TV has a USA Network app, so you can watch there too.)
[3/18/15] Started playing with Plex again, finally tried renaming some of my Dog Whisperer videos according to plex convention, repointed to the folder location (I had moved it), and it showed up. And the .srt subtitles worked. At least on the video I tested. I guess I'll play some more later.
Also last week (3/10) tried out again some of the channels I had installed months ago after not really using Plex for a while. Most of them still work. Here's the results:
CBS works, but no captions (watched Scorpion)
ABC works with captions (Castle)
NBC works with captions (Parks and Recreation)
The CW works, but no captions (The Flash)
CNN partially works with captions
HGTV works with captions
TheWB doesn't work (not surprisingly since the website no longer is functions)
Tried removing TheWB Channel from the media server and couldn't.
I don't see some of them as officially available now. Looking at the TV category, I don't see ABC, NBC, TheWB. Not Fox either, though Fox News is on (as well as CNBC). Apparently only CBS and CW are now official channels.
Team Coco - works with captions (only two full episodes available) / also available on Nowhere TV
Youtube - the app isn't supported, then it worked, partially anyway
CNet - app isn't supported, but it worked
PBS - not supported, but partially works (Nature videos didn't play), no captions (but what's this direct stream/transcode instead of play? ok can change it in playback options)
NFL Network - works, no captions
TWIT - not supported, but works
Spike - able to access the menu, but can't find any videos that work
wasn't getting captions on ABC, changed direct stream/transcode to automatic (don't know why it changed in the first place) and got the captions back.
Not sure if Plex is still free as I'm using the old Plex installed on my old Roku HD. But I'm not going to touch it since it's working.
[5/18/13] With the success (sort of) with installing iTunes so I could get apps on the iPad (more like I needed to set up my iTunes account) and xferring some photos to the iPad, I decided to try Plex too (the other item on my to-do list).
The main reason I wanted to get Plex was to view Hulu on the Roku.
Looked at this link, but when I installed Plex it looked like a newer version and didn't have a preferences section. Or at least it wasn't labelled preferences. And didn't get a sign up button. (Well now I see a signup section for My Plex.)
Anyway, I ran the server and when I went to the Plex app on the Roku I could see that it found my iTunes music. So I knew the computer and Roku were talking. So I figured I didn't need to sign up for an account.
Then I added the Hulu channel on Plex. I could see the shows on the Roku, but the show wouldn't play saying it was unavailable (but it ran when I went directly to hulu.com on the computer).
I tried twit.tv and that worked pretty good. Youtube worked too. But some other channels didn't work so well. Timing out and going too slow.
PBS seemed to lock up the roku and it rebooted. But later I got one of the videos to play, but not very smooth.
CBS didn't work very well with Star Trek timing out and Letterman taking a long time to load. But ABC seems to work quite well. Oddly the picture starts out blurry but then clears up after several seconds.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
free movies and TV on the Roku
If you have a Roku, you know there's a lot of channels you can add.
Most notably, a lot of movies and TV shows for free. Admittedly, I don't watch them all that much since I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. And have access to HBO, Showtime, Starz, Epix, FX, etc.
But if you're cheap, I guess you can get away with just watching free stuff.
So here's the best of them that I found.
Probably the most well-known is Crackle. They're owned by Sony so feature a lot of Sony movies. Taking a look at the current lineup, they have movies such as The Hulk, Underworld, Resident Evil, Johnny Mnemonic, Conan The Barbarian, The Nutty Professor (1996), Look Who's Talking, Groundhog Day, Stripes, Beverly Hills Ninja, The Blues Brothers, A League of Their Own, Jerry Maguire, And TV shows such as Seinfeld, All In The Family, Married With Children, I Dream of Jeannie, Mad About You, Fantasy Island, Sanford (but not Sanford and Son -- they used to have it -- I see Sanford and Son is now on Starz), The Three Stooges.
CW Seed has shows that were on the predecessor to CW, the WB Network. They don't have a huge selection, but what they offer is pretty decent. Among their selection: Birds of Prey, Constantine, Mad TV, The O.C., Vixen, Whose Line Is it Anyway (every episode). They even have a couple of feature length animated movies: Justice League: Doom, Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths. They used to have The Flash (the original one), but it's no longer on. I remember they also used to have Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. So they do rotate their shows once in a while.
For sheer volume, it's hard to beat tubitv. I wouldn't say most of the shows are hits or even known. But there's a lot of them and some of them are recognizable. Among the current selection is Whose Line is it Anyway? (TV - seasons 7-10 -- they have them all at CW Seed), Star Trek: Nemesis, Legally Blonde 2, The Secret, Fargo, Searching For Bobby Fischer (this is the first time I've seen this available for streaming), AeonFlux, Five People You Meet In Heaven, Hoosiers, Heaven Can Wait, Inherit The Wind, Sahara, Sky Captain and the World Tomorrow, . So there are some well-known movies, you just have to search for them in the mass. For example in the Dramatic Movies category there are 614 movies! Supports subtitles, but if you have an older Roku, you might find it very slow in loading.
Ovguide. They have 235 movies in the Featured category. None of which particularly caught my eye as something I might want to see. Well they have Battle for the Planet of the Apes (which was the fifth and final entry in the original Planet of the Apes series). They have 390 shows in the TV Shows category. The Nature of Things sounds interesting. We The Economy, The Jack Benny Program (not that many episodes), Tai Chi for Beginners, Heaven On Earth, The Red Skelton Show, World of Discovery, The Bob Hope Show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.The Heckle and Jeckle Show, The Three Stooges (cartoon),
popcornflix. Let's see what they have. Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown. Silver Hawk (Michelle Yeoh), Designing Spaces (TV series -- taking a long time to pull up -- I'd say it's stuck). Some interesting documentaries some of which I previously saw on Netflix: Fast, Sick & Nearly Dead, Welcome to Macintosh, Earth Songs, What the Bleep Do We Know? The Flaw. Supports closed caption.
Shout Factory TV. A bunch of MST3K. A Night in Casablanca (Marx Bros), Africa Screams (Abbott & Costello), Car 52 Where Are You? Dennis the Menace, Father Knows Best. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. The Red Skelton Show. The Marx Brothers TV Collection. A bunch of old Jackie Chan movies (City Hunter, Crime Story, Police Story, Police Story 2, Battle Creek Brawl, etc.). And a bunch of Steve Martin specials: Not to mention: The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.
premiere. The Jackie Robinson Story. My Dog Shep. Rescue from Gilligan's Island. Ozzie and Harriet, The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, The George Burns and Gacie Allen Show, The Lone Ranger.
Gravitas. Fat Sick & Nearly Dead.
SnagFilms. Expedition Blue Planet. Barack Obama: The Power of Change. And tons more (that I can live without).
Docurama. 10 Questions for the Dali Lama. A Small Act. Hungry for Change. My Dog. Forgiveness.
Documentary Depot. [now with a modernized interface]. Ellen Degeneres: All Of Me. Steve Jobs - Consciously Genius.Wild Horse, Wild Ride. The Beautiful Truth. Losing LeBron. Going to the All Documentary category, there are now 1434 shows. No captions.
FilmRise is one that I took off earliy. Looking at it now, I see Highway To Heaven (with Michael Landon), Heaven On Earth, World of Discovery. I Am is also on here. Maybe I'll keep it on now.
When I checked four months ago, the series We the Economy was on several of them. Now I don't see it, which is odd because it was supposedly distributed for free. Well, I guess I can still catch it on youtube. It's also on vimeo. And I guess, still on itunes. No captions except for a free episode on Amazon.
EndemolShineInternational (aka Shine Now). Retrieving... [The next day, still Retrieving... I guess I'll delete it then.]
Most notably, a lot of movies and TV shows for free. Admittedly, I don't watch them all that much since I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. And have access to HBO, Showtime, Starz, Epix, FX, etc.
But if you're cheap, I guess you can get away with just watching free stuff.
So here's the best of them that I found.
Probably the most well-known is Crackle. They're owned by Sony so feature a lot of Sony movies. Taking a look at the current lineup, they have movies such as The Hulk, Underworld, Resident Evil, Johnny Mnemonic, Conan The Barbarian, The Nutty Professor (1996), Look Who's Talking, Groundhog Day, Stripes, Beverly Hills Ninja, The Blues Brothers, A League of Their Own, Jerry Maguire, And TV shows such as Seinfeld, All In The Family, Married With Children, I Dream of Jeannie, Mad About You, Fantasy Island, Sanford (but not Sanford and Son -- they used to have it -- I see Sanford and Son is now on Starz), The Three Stooges.
CW Seed has shows that were on the predecessor to CW, the WB Network. They don't have a huge selection, but what they offer is pretty decent. Among their selection: Birds of Prey, Constantine, Mad TV, The O.C., Vixen, Whose Line Is it Anyway (every episode). They even have a couple of feature length animated movies: Justice League: Doom, Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths. They used to have The Flash (the original one), but it's no longer on. I remember they also used to have Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. So they do rotate their shows once in a while.
For sheer volume, it's hard to beat tubitv. I wouldn't say most of the shows are hits or even known. But there's a lot of them and some of them are recognizable. Among the current selection is Whose Line is it Anyway? (TV - seasons 7-10 -- they have them all at CW Seed), Star Trek: Nemesis, Legally Blonde 2, The Secret, Fargo, Searching For Bobby Fischer (this is the first time I've seen this available for streaming), AeonFlux, Five People You Meet In Heaven, Hoosiers, Heaven Can Wait, Inherit The Wind, Sahara, Sky Captain and the World Tomorrow, . So there are some well-known movies, you just have to search for them in the mass. For example in the Dramatic Movies category there are 614 movies! Supports subtitles, but if you have an older Roku, you might find it very slow in loading.
Ovguide. They have 235 movies in the Featured category. None of which particularly caught my eye as something I might want to see. Well they have Battle for the Planet of the Apes (which was the fifth and final entry in the original Planet of the Apes series). They have 390 shows in the TV Shows category. The Nature of Things sounds interesting. We The Economy, The Jack Benny Program (not that many episodes), Tai Chi for Beginners, Heaven On Earth, The Red Skelton Show, World of Discovery, The Bob Hope Show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.The Heckle and Jeckle Show, The Three Stooges (cartoon),
popcornflix. Let's see what they have. Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown. Silver Hawk (Michelle Yeoh), Designing Spaces (TV series -- taking a long time to pull up -- I'd say it's stuck). Some interesting documentaries some of which I previously saw on Netflix: Fast, Sick & Nearly Dead, Welcome to Macintosh, Earth Songs, What the Bleep Do We Know? The Flaw. Supports closed caption.
Shout Factory TV. A bunch of MST3K. A Night in Casablanca (Marx Bros), Africa Screams (Abbott & Costello), Car 52 Where Are You? Dennis the Menace, Father Knows Best. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. The Red Skelton Show. The Marx Brothers TV Collection. A bunch of old Jackie Chan movies (City Hunter, Crime Story, Police Story, Police Story 2, Battle Creek Brawl, etc.). And a bunch of Steve Martin specials: Not to mention: The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.
premiere. The Jackie Robinson Story. My Dog Shep. Rescue from Gilligan's Island. Ozzie and Harriet, The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, The George Burns and Gacie Allen Show, The Lone Ranger.
Gravitas. Fat Sick & Nearly Dead.
SnagFilms. Expedition Blue Planet. Barack Obama: The Power of Change. And tons more (that I can live without).
Docurama. 10 Questions for the Dali Lama. A Small Act. Hungry for Change. My Dog. Forgiveness.
Documentary Depot. [now with a modernized interface]. Ellen Degeneres: All Of Me. Steve Jobs - Consciously Genius.Wild Horse, Wild Ride. The Beautiful Truth. Losing LeBron. Going to the All Documentary category, there are now 1434 shows. No captions.
FilmRise is one that I took off earliy. Looking at it now, I see Highway To Heaven (with Michael Landon), Heaven On Earth, World of Discovery. I Am is also on here. Maybe I'll keep it on now.
When I checked four months ago, the series We the Economy was on several of them. Now I don't see it, which is odd because it was supposedly distributed for free. Well, I guess I can still catch it on youtube. It's also on vimeo. And I guess, still on itunes. No captions except for a free episode on Amazon.
EndemolShineInternational (aka Shine Now). Retrieving... [The next day, still Retrieving... I guess I'll delete it then.]
a cure for blindness?
One in every 200 people on Earth can’t see. But amazingly, a cure for blindness is now in sight.
-- via Bill Gates
-- via Bill Gates
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
CBS All Access
[8/31/16] Discontinued my CBS All Access subscription after I finished watching Supergirl and CSI: Cyber (the available episodes anyway) and I saw that Netflix picked up all the Limitless. One of the questions they asked when exiting was the reason for discontinuing. Too much commercials was one of my options.
Now I see they have a commercial free plan for $10/month. Commercial free sounds good. But $10/month? I guess that's not that bad, but that's the same price as Netflix. I guess we're all spoiled by the Netflix price.
[6/9/15] Decided to try out CBS All Access a couple of weeks ago because Letterman was going off the air and I missed the last couple of weeks. (And it wasn't On Demand on Oceanic.) I've been using it mostly on my Roku, but sometimes on my iPad or computers.
I found out that I could use my CBS Rewards to get a free month (and that I needed to use it because CBS Rewards was going kaput). So I redeemed it and tried to apply it. But I don't know if it worked because the screen hung up when I put in the code. And when I try to access my account on CBS.com, my credit card is not available (bad sign). I get the following message: "Your Account, Billing and Payment Information is currently unavailable. Please call customer service for assistance: (888) 274-5343." Another bad sign. So we'll see when my card gets charged.
Hey, but I guess the free month code worked because I see a message in my CBS All-Access account area saying "Enjoy your Free Trial Through June 28, 2015".
Anyway, here's what I noticed so far.
The picture seems a little dark for some reason.
Sometimes there's buffering. Sometimes there's a lot of buffering. And sometimes there's a long wait as it buffers. Sure my internet speed isn't that fast. And sure I'm using an old, slow Roku HD. But don't have this problem on Netflix or Hulu Plus.
And there's a lot of commercials. A lot more than Hulu Plus. And you get the same commercials over and over. Currently Expedia is the one that keeps playing over and over. It's a snappy commercial but after watching it seemingly every five minutes, it gets a bit tiresome after the fourth or fifth time. And all this time watching it, I still can't make out all the words that the woman is singing.
And you can watch what's on CBS Live, but only in selected areas (not in Hawaii).
You get all this season's episodes for current CBS shows. NCIS fans will be happy to know that all 24 episodes of season 12 are available. Also all this season's episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans. And Scorpion and Hawaii Five-O, and Elementary, etc.
But not all the shows. For example, only 7 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, 7 episodes of CSI: Cyber, 7 episodes of 2 Broke Girls, 7 episodes of Mom. 6 episodes of The Mentalist. And now only 2 episodes left of Late Night with David Letterman (and counting down).
They do have some "classic shows", like Everybody Hates Chris, Star Trek, MacGyver, and a bunch more. But most of these (if not all of them) are also on Hulu.
After I finish watching the Scorpion finale (and maybe some CSI Cyber and NCIS: Los Angeles), I'm on the fence about renewing.
[4/7/15] CBS's internet TV service is arriving on Roku today. For $5.99 a month, Roku owners will be able to subscribe to CBS All Access, which gives subscribers streams of many current and past CBS TV series and allows viewers to actually watch CBS as it's live on the air, so long as they're within certain areas. It's the exact service that people who want to ditch cable are looking for, making this an important grab for Roku. Though All Access has already been available on the web and through iOS and Android apps, the addition makes Roku — which already has a huge number of online channels — an even more compelling option for those looking for a device that'll let them cancel cable.
For now, CBS All Access' killer feature — the ability to watch CBS as it's airing live — is only available in 14 markets. That includes New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. CBS says that more locations are coming "soon," but it doesn't mention where or exactly when. Notably, those live streams do not include NFL games, though other sports content is available.
CBS does mention that you can expect to see All Access on more platforms very soon. "The launch of the CBS All Access channel marks the first of many connected device platforms we’ll be bringing this service to in the coming months," Marc DeBevoise, a CBS Interactive exec, says in a statement. One would expect the Apple TV to be among those, but Apple has exclusives of its own for now: for the next three months, it's the only streaming box that's going to have HBO Now. There's a good chance that'll be more of a sales hook that CBS.
[10/16/14] Netflix got even more competition this week, a day after HBO revealed that it will introduce a stand-alone streaming service in 2015: CBS released a digital subscription video-on-demand service, "CBS All Access," on Thursday.
Now I see they have a commercial free plan for $10/month. Commercial free sounds good. But $10/month? I guess that's not that bad, but that's the same price as Netflix. I guess we're all spoiled by the Netflix price.
[6/9/15] Decided to try out CBS All Access a couple of weeks ago because Letterman was going off the air and I missed the last couple of weeks. (And it wasn't On Demand on Oceanic.) I've been using it mostly on my Roku, but sometimes on my iPad or computers.
I found out that I could use my CBS Rewards to get a free month (and that I needed to use it because CBS Rewards was going kaput). So I redeemed it and tried to apply it. But I don't know if it worked because the screen hung up when I put in the code. And when I try to access my account on CBS.com, my credit card is not available (bad sign). I get the following message: "Your Account, Billing and Payment Information is currently unavailable. Please call customer service for assistance: (888) 274-5343." Another bad sign. So we'll see when my card gets charged.
Hey, but I guess the free month code worked because I see a message in my CBS All-Access account area saying "Enjoy your Free Trial Through June 28, 2015".
Anyway, here's what I noticed so far.
The picture seems a little dark for some reason.
Sometimes there's buffering. Sometimes there's a lot of buffering. And sometimes there's a long wait as it buffers. Sure my internet speed isn't that fast. And sure I'm using an old, slow Roku HD. But don't have this problem on Netflix or Hulu Plus.
And there's a lot of commercials. A lot more than Hulu Plus. And you get the same commercials over and over. Currently Expedia is the one that keeps playing over and over. It's a snappy commercial but after watching it seemingly every five minutes, it gets a bit tiresome after the fourth or fifth time. And all this time watching it, I still can't make out all the words that the woman is singing.
And you can watch what's on CBS Live, but only in selected areas (not in Hawaii).
You get all this season's episodes for current CBS shows. NCIS fans will be happy to know that all 24 episodes of season 12 are available. Also all this season's episodes of NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans. And Scorpion and Hawaii Five-O, and Elementary, etc.
But not all the shows. For example, only 7 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, 7 episodes of CSI: Cyber, 7 episodes of 2 Broke Girls, 7 episodes of Mom. 6 episodes of The Mentalist. And now only 2 episodes left of Late Night with David Letterman (and counting down).
They do have some "classic shows", like Everybody Hates Chris, Star Trek, MacGyver, and a bunch more. But most of these (if not all of them) are also on Hulu.
After I finish watching the Scorpion finale (and maybe some CSI Cyber and NCIS: Los Angeles), I'm on the fence about renewing.
[4/7/15] CBS's internet TV service is arriving on Roku today. For $5.99 a month, Roku owners will be able to subscribe to CBS All Access, which gives subscribers streams of many current and past CBS TV series and allows viewers to actually watch CBS as it's live on the air, so long as they're within certain areas. It's the exact service that people who want to ditch cable are looking for, making this an important grab for Roku. Though All Access has already been available on the web and through iOS and Android apps, the addition makes Roku — which already has a huge number of online channels — an even more compelling option for those looking for a device that'll let them cancel cable.
For now, CBS All Access' killer feature — the ability to watch CBS as it's airing live — is only available in 14 markets. That includes New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. CBS says that more locations are coming "soon," but it doesn't mention where or exactly when. Notably, those live streams do not include NFL games, though other sports content is available.
CBS does mention that you can expect to see All Access on more platforms very soon. "The launch of the CBS All Access channel marks the first of many connected device platforms we’ll be bringing this service to in the coming months," Marc DeBevoise, a CBS Interactive exec, says in a statement. One would expect the Apple TV to be among those, but Apple has exclusives of its own for now: for the next three months, it's the only streaming box that's going to have HBO Now. There's a good chance that'll be more of a sales hook that CBS.
[10/16/14] Netflix got even more competition this week, a day after HBO revealed that it will introduce a stand-alone streaming service in 2015: CBS released a digital subscription video-on-demand service, "CBS All Access," on Thursday.
The new product -- which costs $5.99 per month -- will be measured by Nielsen, the network said.
"All Access" offers episodes from the network's current season, previous seasons and classic shows on-demand. Viewers are also able to stream local CBS TV stations live in 14 of the biggest U.S. markets, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Miami, Denver, Sacramento, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.
The service is currently available at CBS.com and on mobile devices through the CBS App for iOS and Android. Non-subscribers will still be able to access to the most recent current episodes of CBS programming on CBS.com, select CBS Audience Network partner sites and through the CBS App.
Here's what is included at launch, per the press release:
- Full current seasons of 15 primetime shows with episodes available the day after they air.
- Unprecedented ability to live stream local CBS stations in 14 of the largest markets at launch, with more to be added as affiliates join the new service.
- Full past seasons of eight major current series, including THE GOOD WIFE, BLUE BLOODS and SURVIVOR.
- More than 5,000 episodes of CBS Classics, including every episode of STAR TREK, CHEERS, MACGYVER, TWIN PEAKS and CSI: MIAMI.
- Access to exclusive additional content for CBS Television's biggest special events, such as THE GRAMMY® AWARDS, THE ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS and THE VICTORIA'S SECRET FASHION SHOW.
- Ability to stream the BIG BROTHER 24/7 Live Feeds service for no additional fee when the show returns next summer.
- Advertising-free environment for all CBS Classics.
***
Don't you get a lot of this now with their app and website. Well, I guess you get only the most recent shows and not all of their classics.
Actually most, if not all, of the CBS Classics are currently on Netflix. So I'm wondering if they're going to pull them off. And interestingly I don't see NCIS or the new Hawaii Five-O mentioned as a series with full past seasons. Well, going to NCIS, it says you can "watch the full season" with All Access. No such mention for Hawaii Five-O or The Mentalist. Blue Bloods says "Watch Full Seasons". Hawaii Five-O and The Mentalist just says "Watch It Live Watch It Later".
Actually most, if not all, of the CBS Classics are currently on Netflix. So I'm wondering if they're going to pull them off. And interestingly I don't see NCIS or the new Hawaii Five-O mentioned as a series with full past seasons. Well, going to NCIS, it says you can "watch the full season" with All Access. No such mention for Hawaii Five-O or The Mentalist. Blue Bloods says "Watch Full Seasons". Hawaii Five-O and The Mentalist just says "Watch It Live Watch It Later".
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
a new epoch
Humanity’s impact on the Earth is now so profound that a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared, according to
an official expert group who presented the recommendation to the
International Geological Congress in Cape Town on Monday.
The new epoch should begin about 1950, the experts said, and is likely to be defined by the radioactive elements dispersed across the planet by nuclear bomb tests, although an array of other signals, including plastic pollution, soot from power stations, concrete, and even the bones left by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken are now under consideration.
The current epoch, the Holocene, is the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during which all human civilisation developed. But the striking acceleration since the mid-20th century of carbon dioxide emissions and sea level rise, the global mass extinction of species, and the transformation of land by deforestation and development mark the end of that slice of geological time, the experts argue. The Earth is so profoundly changed that the Holocene must give way to the Anthropocene.
Evidence of the Anthropocene
Human activity has:
Pushed extinction rates of animals and plants far above the long-term average. The Earth is now on course to see 75% of species become extinct in the next few centuries if current trends continue.
Increased levels of climate-warming CO2 in the atmosphere at the fastest rate for 66m years, with fossil-fuel burning pushing levels from 280 parts per million before the industrial revolution to 400ppm and rising today.
Put so much plastic in our waterways and oceans that microplastic particles are now virtually ubiquitous, and plastics will likely leave identifiable fossil records for future generations to discover.
Doubled the nitrogen and phosphorous in our soils in the past century with our fertiliser use. This is likely to be the largest impact on the nitrogen cycle in 2.5bn years.
Left a permanent layer of airborne particulates in sediment and glacial ice such as black carbon from fossil fuel burning.
The new epoch should begin about 1950, the experts said, and is likely to be defined by the radioactive elements dispersed across the planet by nuclear bomb tests, although an array of other signals, including plastic pollution, soot from power stations, concrete, and even the bones left by the global proliferation of the domestic chicken are now under consideration.
The current epoch, the Holocene, is the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during which all human civilisation developed. But the striking acceleration since the mid-20th century of carbon dioxide emissions and sea level rise, the global mass extinction of species, and the transformation of land by deforestation and development mark the end of that slice of geological time, the experts argue. The Earth is so profoundly changed that the Holocene must give way to the Anthropocene.
Evidence of the Anthropocene
Human activity has:
Pushed extinction rates of animals and plants far above the long-term average. The Earth is now on course to see 75% of species become extinct in the next few centuries if current trends continue.
Increased levels of climate-warming CO2 in the atmosphere at the fastest rate for 66m years, with fossil-fuel burning pushing levels from 280 parts per million before the industrial revolution to 400ppm and rising today.
Put so much plastic in our waterways and oceans that microplastic particles are now virtually ubiquitous, and plastics will likely leave identifiable fossil records for future generations to discover.
Doubled the nitrogen and phosphorous in our soils in the past century with our fertiliser use. This is likely to be the largest impact on the nitrogen cycle in 2.5bn years.
Left a permanent layer of airborne particulates in sediment and glacial ice such as black carbon from fossil fuel burning.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
html to pdf
Some of my old statements are in html format rather than pdf.
I recently came across this website that can convert html to pdf files.
[9/16/16 - I'm using it to convert amazon order invoices which are in html format to pdf. Seems to work best on firefox. Save as Web Page, HTML only.]
Let's see how well it works on my files.
The first one I tried was in mht format which is Microsoft's extension to html. It's not compatible.
OK, I found a .htm file. It converted it, but the graphics didn't come over. The text came over OK.
Well, I guess I'll live with the mht files.
***
Hey, here's another site that can supposedly convert mht files to pdf.
Well, it converted without any error messages. But the text is pretty small on the converted document. I guess I'll stick the the mht files.
So much for that.
I recently came across this website that can convert html to pdf files.
[9/16/16 - I'm using it to convert amazon order invoices which are in html format to pdf. Seems to work best on firefox. Save as Web Page, HTML only.]
Let's see how well it works on my files.
The first one I tried was in mht format which is Microsoft's extension to html. It's not compatible.
OK, I found a .htm file. It converted it, but the graphics didn't come over. The text came over OK.
Well, I guess I'll live with the mht files.
***
Hey, here's another site that can supposedly convert mht files to pdf.
Well, it converted without any error messages. But the text is pretty small on the converted document. I guess I'll stick the the mht files.
So much for that.
Tuesday, August 09, 2016
Goodbye free Hulu, Hello Yahoo View
The streaming service, which launched in 2007 with ad-supported content, will be transitioning to having all users pay to play, it announced Monday.
It's a move that's not entirely shocking given the company's recent investments in original content and in expanding its film and TV library.
Users seeking free Hulu content aren't being completely shown the door, however. There will still be ad supported programming available courtesy of the streaming platform's growing distribution partnerships.
On Monday Yahoo also announced the launch of Yahoo View, a new site which will offer users free access to Hulu's content.
"Yahoo View is the extension of Yahoo's long-standing distribution partnership with Hulu and will offer thousands of TV, anime, Korean drama and movies including full episodes, films, and clips for free," the announcement's press release states. "This further emphasizes Yahoo's commitment to create an experience for people to consume content they care about while being able to connect with a community of like-minded fans."
The Yahoo TV-watching site is billing itself as "the best place to watch the last five episodes of ABC, NBC, FOX (8 days after original broadcast) and other network sitcoms."
Wednesday, August 03, 2016
Amazon Fire TV and generic remote?
To my surprise, I just happened to be press some button on my generic universal remote (my Philips universal remote in Panasonic TV mode) and the Fire TV responded.
The left, right, up, down, select buttons worked as well as the back button. Couldn't find out an equivalent to the home button or the menu button though, so it's not a complete replacement.
It didn't work when I had the remote pointed away from the TV, so I thought this means that the Fire TV supports IR remotes. But reading further, maybe it's controlling it via HDMI-CEC? Not sure.
OK, let me try test it by pointing the remote directly at the Fire TV vs. the Panasonic TV.
But now that I'm trying it, the Fire TV doesn't respond. It's like I was dreaming the whole thing. Beats me. Strange..
... later that day
OK, I wasn't dreaming. It worked again as I was watching TV and switched the input to the Fire TV. Apparently it is HDMI-CEC or at least it's not IR. That's because I could control the Fire TV when pointing directly at the TV. But not when I moved the Fire TV to the floor and pointed the remote directly at the Fire TV.
The left, right, up, down, select buttons worked as well as the back button. Couldn't find out an equivalent to the home button or the menu button though, so it's not a complete replacement.
It didn't work when I had the remote pointed away from the TV, so I thought this means that the Fire TV supports IR remotes. But reading further, maybe it's controlling it via HDMI-CEC? Not sure.
OK, let me try test it by pointing the remote directly at the Fire TV vs. the Panasonic TV.
But now that I'm trying it, the Fire TV doesn't respond. It's like I was dreaming the whole thing. Beats me. Strange..
... later that day
OK, I wasn't dreaming. It worked again as I was watching TV and switched the input to the Fire TV. Apparently it is HDMI-CEC or at least it's not IR. That's because I could control the Fire TV when pointing directly at the TV. But not when I moved the Fire TV to the floor and pointed the remote directly at the Fire TV.
Tuesday, August 02, 2016
Netflix getting stuck on Fire TV
In the last day or so, I've encountered an odd problem running Netflix on my Fire TV. After I exit Netflix and try to go back in, the Netflix progress circle keeps spinning and spinning and won't go in.
I thought it might have been a problem with my Netflix account. I tried uninstalling Netflix and reinstalling. After reinstalling, I can get into Netflix, but I have to log in with my account data.
I tried restarting the Fire TV. I can get into Netflix, but it locks again after I exit and re-enter.
I tried restoring the Fire TV to default. Same thing. I can get into Netflix initially, but after exiting and trying to go back in, it locks.
Netflix doesn't do this on any of my other devices. I tried it on my iPad and my Fire tablet and my Roku Stick and even on my Fire Stick.
Initially I had an error on Netflix on the Roku Stick with error code ui-800-3, but I reset Netflix to its original state (it was an option on the error code window) and it worked after that.
Sometimes after Netflix locks up trying to get back in, I also get errors on Hulu, youtube, and even on Amazon video (the other three main apps that I use). If I get the error on Amazon video, there's a message saying a restart might clear it up.
So after experimenting some more, it appears restarting the Fire TV is the simplest way to allow me to get back into Netflix.
So now my procedure for running Netflix on the Fire TV (after the first time) is to first restart the Fire TV from the system menu. It's not that bad as it takes less than a minute for the Fire TV to restart and another 20 seconds or so to get back into Netflix.
I'm thinking that running Netflix either corrupts the Fire TV memory or leaves in an unstable state. I suspect it could be the Fire TV hardware starting to fail. Since the warranty has long been expired (this is the original Fire TV that I bought from Best Buy in May 2014), I guess I'll do it this way for now.
I've been switching back and forth lately from the Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV.
I like the Fire TV because it can run Netflix, Hulu, youtube, and Amazon video. The Roku can do that too, but I like the captions on Hulu better on the Fire TV. One drawback is that it doesn't have certain apps, like NatGeoTV for one.
Actually I like the captions the best on the Apple TV, but it doesn't play Amazon video (though I can Airplay it from the iPad). Apple TV also doesn't have certain apps, like HGTV for example.
Roku supports the most apps, but I like its Hulu captions the least.
***
Fooling around some more... After reading this thread, I tried clearing cache, force stop, and run application. That worked. And actually I'm finding that you don't even need to clear cache. Just do a force stop and run application. So that's even faster than the system reset.
This solution (clear data from Amazon video) from Brad Lee seems to be popular too. (Didn't work for me though.)
***
And a few hours later... Netflix doesn't appear to be locking up any more. Well, wait 'til next time..
*** [8/3/16]
The next day... Stopped working again. It even seemed to affect a youtube video that couldn't play. Tried clearing cache and force stop on both Netflix and Youtube, but it didn't work. However a restart of the Fire TV cleared up the problem.
*** [8/3/16 aftenoon/evening]
OK Netflix is now behaving more responsively. Sometime when I exit Netflix and immediately try to re-enter, it immediates goes back to where I exited. It appears it's leaving the status in memory someplace and when I go back it's able to access the status and resume what it was doing. I think before when it hung up, it was accessing the previous status but then got stuck trying to resume the previous state. That's because I would sometimes notice a quick flash of a previous screen and then Netflix would get stuck.
But it doesn't always immediately resume the previous state. In this case it would take about 10 to 15 second of the circle spinning going to the Netflix profile screen (where you chose what profile you want to use). Too early to tell whether the stuck Netflix problem has been solved, but it looks like there's progress.
I'm guessing they're tweaking the Netflix app as the problem reports come in.
I thought it might have been a problem with my Netflix account. I tried uninstalling Netflix and reinstalling. After reinstalling, I can get into Netflix, but I have to log in with my account data.
I tried restarting the Fire TV. I can get into Netflix, but it locks again after I exit and re-enter.
I tried restoring the Fire TV to default. Same thing. I can get into Netflix initially, but after exiting and trying to go back in, it locks.
Netflix doesn't do this on any of my other devices. I tried it on my iPad and my Fire tablet and my Roku Stick and even on my Fire Stick.
Initially I had an error on Netflix on the Roku Stick with error code ui-800-3, but I reset Netflix to its original state (it was an option on the error code window) and it worked after that.
Sometimes after Netflix locks up trying to get back in, I also get errors on Hulu, youtube, and even on Amazon video (the other three main apps that I use). If I get the error on Amazon video, there's a message saying a restart might clear it up.
So after experimenting some more, it appears restarting the Fire TV is the simplest way to allow me to get back into Netflix.
So now my procedure for running Netflix on the Fire TV (after the first time) is to first restart the Fire TV from the system menu. It's not that bad as it takes less than a minute for the Fire TV to restart and another 20 seconds or so to get back into Netflix.
I'm thinking that running Netflix either corrupts the Fire TV memory or leaves in an unstable state. I suspect it could be the Fire TV hardware starting to fail. Since the warranty has long been expired (this is the original Fire TV that I bought from Best Buy in May 2014), I guess I'll do it this way for now.
I've been switching back and forth lately from the Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV.
I like the Fire TV because it can run Netflix, Hulu, youtube, and Amazon video. The Roku can do that too, but I like the captions on Hulu better on the Fire TV. One drawback is that it doesn't have certain apps, like NatGeoTV for one.
Actually I like the captions the best on the Apple TV, but it doesn't play Amazon video (though I can Airplay it from the iPad). Apple TV also doesn't have certain apps, like HGTV for example.
Roku supports the most apps, but I like its Hulu captions the least.
***
Fooling around some more... After reading this thread, I tried clearing cache, force stop, and run application. That worked. And actually I'm finding that you don't even need to clear cache. Just do a force stop and run application. So that's even faster than the system reset.
This solution (clear data from Amazon video) from Brad Lee seems to be popular too. (Didn't work for me though.)
***
And a few hours later... Netflix doesn't appear to be locking up any more. Well, wait 'til next time..
*** [8/3/16]
The next day... Stopped working again. It even seemed to affect a youtube video that couldn't play. Tried clearing cache and force stop on both Netflix and Youtube, but it didn't work. However a restart of the Fire TV cleared up the problem.
*** [8/3/16 aftenoon/evening]
OK Netflix is now behaving more responsively. Sometime when I exit Netflix and immediately try to re-enter, it immediates goes back to where I exited. It appears it's leaving the status in memory someplace and when I go back it's able to access the status and resume what it was doing. I think before when it hung up, it was accessing the previous status but then got stuck trying to resume the previous state. That's because I would sometimes notice a quick flash of a previous screen and then Netflix would get stuck.
But it doesn't always immediately resume the previous state. In this case it would take about 10 to 15 second of the circle spinning going to the Netflix profile screen (where you chose what profile you want to use). Too early to tell whether the stuck Netflix problem has been solved, but it looks like there's progress.
I'm guessing they're tweaking the Netflix app as the problem reports come in.
Friday, July 29, 2016
internet growth is now flat
Growth of internet users worldwide is essentially flat, and smartphone
growth is slowing, too. Those sobering insights were among the
hundreds packed into the much-awaited Internet Trends report, an annual tech industry ritual led by Mary Meeker, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Developing countries have proven harder to capture than expected because internet access remains inaccessible or unaffordable for many, the report said. Here are some other highlights from the report:
Developing countries have proven harder to capture than expected because internet access remains inaccessible or unaffordable for many, the report said. Here are some other highlights from the report:
Developing countries have proven harder to capture than expected because internet access remains inaccessible or unaffordable for many, the report said. Here are some other highlights from the report:
Developing countries have proven harder to capture than expected because internet access remains inaccessible or unaffordable for many, the report said. Here are some other highlights from the report:
- India is the one country where internet usage is growing, up 40 percent compared with 33 percent a year ago. India passed the U.S. to become the No. 2 global market behind China in 2015.
- The Asia Pacific region represented 52 percent of smartphone users globally in 2015. The rapid growth in recent years has begun to slow, dropping to 23 percent in 2015 from 35 percent in 2014.
- North America, Europe, and Japan represented 63 percent of global GDP in 1985. By 2015, their contribution dropped to 29 percent. China and emerging markets in Asia represented 63 percent of global GDP last year.
- Online advertising is still not very effective. Advertisers are spending an outsize amount on legacy media.
- Global birth rates are down 39 percent since 1960. So where will technology growth come from? Who knows, but at least there's this: Global life expectancy is up 36 percent since 1960.
Monday, July 04, 2016
to GMO or not GMO?
More than 100 Nobel laureates have a message for Greenpeace: Quit the G.M.O.-bashing.
Genetically
modified organisms and foods are a safe way to meet the demands of a
ballooning global population, the 109 laureates wrote in a letter posted online and officially unveiled at a news conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Opponents, they say, are standing in the way of getting nutritious food to those who need it.
“Greenpeace
has spearheaded opposition to Golden Rice, which has the potential to
reduce or eliminate much of the death and disease caused by a vitamin A
deficiency (VAD), which has the greatest impact on the poorest people in
Africa and Southeast Asia,” the laureates wrote in the letter.
Proponents of genetically modified foods such as Golden Rice, which contains genes from corn and a bacterium,
argue that they are efficient vehicles for needed nutrients. Opponents
fear that foods whose genes are manipulated in ways that do not
naturally occur might contaminate existing crops. And, they say, the
debate distracts from the only guaranteed solution to malnutrition: promoting diverse, healthy diets.
“Corporations
are overhyping ‘Golden’ rice to pave the way for global approval of
other more profitable genetically engineered crops,” Wilhelmina
Pelegrina, a campaigner with Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said in a statement.
“This costly experiment has failed to produce results for the last 20
years and diverted attention from methods that already work.”
Richard J. Roberts, one of two winners of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, spearheaded the letter-writing effort to set the record straight.
“There’s
been a tremendous amount of misinformation being put out by
Greenpeace,” he said. Some plant scientists have been “attacked so
fiercely” over their views that they’ve gone silent, Dr. Roberts said.
In
the letter, the laureates — all but 10 of whom earned their prizes in
the fields of physics, chemistry or medicine — contend that G.M.O.s have
consistently been found to be safe. The Washington Post covered the group’s efforts on Wednesday.
“Scientific
and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and
consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be
as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of
production,” the group of laureates wrote. “There has never been a
single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals
from their consumption. Their environmental impacts have been shown
repeatedly to be less damaging to the environment, and a boon to global
biodiversity.”
In a report released in May, the influential National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that
genetically engineered crops appear to be generally safe to eat and
safe for the environment. It resisted broad proclamations, however,
calling such sweeping statements “problematic” because of a variety of
factors that affect such an analysis.
Consumers Union, a policy division of the nonprofit Consumer Reports, has approached the issue with caution, calling for labeling and federal scrutiny to better understand foods that contain genetically modified components.
In 2014, the Pew Research Center found an enormous gap
between the public and scientists on the issue. Just 37 percent of
adults in the United States said genetically modified foods were safe to
eat, while 88 percent of scientists connected to the American
Association for the Advancement of Science said the same.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
not a lizard
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted his first-ever Facebook Live
Q&A On Tuesday. The Q&A went quite well, revealing quite a few
things, but one key tidbit that came out from the event was the most
memorable: Zuckerberg is not a lizard person (or so he says).
For a long time, there have been conspiracy theorists who believe that most of the world’s powerful personalities are actually lizards posing in human form. British conspiracy theorist David Icke is among the most popular person to believe that almost all powerful figures are, in reality, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids.
But Facebook’s CEO has made it clear that he is not one of them. Clearing up any doubts, the CEO said, “Mark, are the allegations true that you’re secretly a lizard? Um… I’m gonna, I’m gonna have to go with ‘no’ on that. I am not a lizard.”
For a long time, there have been conspiracy theorists who believe that most of the world’s powerful personalities are actually lizards posing in human form. British conspiracy theorist David Icke is among the most popular person to believe that almost all powerful figures are, in reality, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids.
But Facebook’s CEO has made it clear that he is not one of them. Clearing up any doubts, the CEO said, “Mark, are the allegations true that you’re secretly a lizard? Um… I’m gonna, I’m gonna have to go with ‘no’ on that. I am not a lizard.”
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
7000 floppy disks
Nimbus Hosting, a web hosting company, have found out that although
we are storing colossal amounts of data, thousands or even millions of
times more than ten or twenty years ago, but the cost of storing it has
dropped enormously.
For example, to store amount of data equaling one episode of Game of Thrones, it would have cost you £27,200. The same amount of data can be stored for free on services like DropBox or Google Drive.
To store one episode of Game of Thrones, we would need:
https://www.nimbushosting.co.
For example, to store amount of data equaling one episode of Game of Thrones, it would have cost you £27,200. The same amount of data can be stored for free on services like DropBox or Google Drive.
To store one episode of Game of Thrones, we would need:
- 6,666,667 punch cards
- 348 magnetic tapes
- 7273 8″ floppy disks
- 556 3.5″ floppy disks
- 0.4 of a DDS-1 Tape
- 5.71 mini discs
https://www.nimbushosting.co.
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Roku 3
[6/15/16] got my hands on a Roku 3 from Sue via Howard and tried it out. Here's the play-by-play.
Got a picture but no response from the remote
Check batteries. Felt a little "wet".
Wiped with napkin.
OK now it works
Connect to network
change from 1080p to 720p
System
model 4200X - Roku 3
software version 6.2 - build 3332
system update
last check June 15 2:37 a.m. (it just got checked)
last updated Apr 7 2:47am
Home Screen
Netflix Amazon Instant Video Hulu Plus
Vudu Amazon Music Angry Birds Space
Blockbuster Target CBS News
Pandora Weather Underground GLF (gofightlive.tv)
ESPN Quello Concerts Sportsfishing with Dan Hernandez
UFC TV
try out Netflix - error
Amazon -error
Hulu - no account; try login, exit
now only the above three channels are on the home screen / lots now missing on the menu options on left
system restart
still same screen - I think it wants me to log on with my Roku account
try sign into Amazon
Hulu doesn't run now
ok, let's log into my account
Stream channels - get started
roku.com/link on computer
channel update (on Roku) * of 94
ok now everything's updated with the regular menu on the left + 89 channels
check system info
software version 7.1.0 build 4062-04
Netflix error
reset Netflix to its original state
(now it works)
Howdini doesn't run (later I check on the Roku TV and it didn't run there either, so apparently it's the app)
Roku 3 has the same problem as the Roku TV
sometimes the back button doesn't go back (sometimes up works to do that)
have to press the home exit to exit certain applications
try the other roku remote
didn't work at first, but then it paired by pressing the button in the battery compartment
that was the Roku stick remote
so the Roku stick remote works with the Roku 3 (not mentioned on the Roku website)
haven't tested whether the Roku 3 remote works with the Roku stick
the Philips remote and generic remote work without pairing, but they are IR so you need line of sight. The Roku Stick and Roku 3 remotes are RF so don't need line of sight.
Wikipedia says the remote uses wi-fi direct. So is wifi direct the same as RF? Looking here, wifi uses the 2.4 GHz UHF and 5 GHz SHF ISM radio bands. So apparently it's using the RF band to communicate.
I kind of like the Roku 3. It seems a lot faster than the Roku HD and Roku 2. The Roku 3 runs at 900 MHz. The Roku 2 (model 2720) runs at 600 MHz. The Roku HD (model 2500) runs at 405 MHz. And it actually feels about as responsive as the Roku Stick (3600) which is Quad Core.
The remote is solid and more hefty than the other models. It supports motion control (which is why Angry Birds Space defaults to the menu). The remote also has a headphone jack which I haven't tried yet. But on the Roku 2, it seems to drain the battery and doesn't always work.
As far as captions, I still prefer the Netflix captions on the old Roku HD, but I prefer the Hulu caption on the Roku 3 vs. the Roku HD (after your adjust the caption size to small in the system menu). But I still prefer the Netflix and Hulu captions on the Apple TV, followed by the Fire TV. For other apps, I generally prefer the Roku captions over the Apple TV.
All-in-all, I give the Roku 3 a thumbs up. However if you want to save a little money and aren't interested in the headphone jack and motion control, you might want to go for the current Roku 2 (model 4210) which is the same speed as the Roku 3. The Roku 3 is currently $99.99 compared to $69.99 for the Roku 2. The Roku Stick is an even better bargain at $49.99. ( Actually these three models are all currently discounted $10 for Father's Day.) So I would recommend the Roku Stick over the Roku 2. The drawback for me is that you can't use an IR remote with the Stick (so I can't use my universal remote). The Roku 3 works with both IR and Wifi Direct.
The current Roku 2 (4210) is IR whereas the old Roku 2 (2720) was both IR and wifi direct.
Looking further at Wikipedia, the current Roku 3 is model 4230 which came out in April 2015. The only difference I see in the specs between the 4230 and the 4200 is that the newer model comes with a remote that supports voice search. Maybe the only thing they changed was the remote?
What about the Roku 4? Well it's the only one that supports 4K, so you have 4K that's the way to go. It looks like the Roku 4 uses the same remote as the Roku 3.
*** 6/19/16
Hooked back my Roku Stick. Booted up really fast but didn't recognize any remotes. Good thing I had the Roku app on my iPad. So I went to the remote control section in settings and pressed the button in the battery compartment to pair it. (Come to think of it, it might have paired even if I wasn't in the remote control section. Or not.)
Then I tried pairing the Roku 3 remote and that worked too! Even the headphone jack worked :) So yes, the Roku 3 remote works on the Roku Stick. Looking at the remote section in the settings, my Roku Stick remote model is RC80. The Roku 3 remote model is RC03.
Got a picture but no response from the remote
Check batteries. Felt a little "wet".
Wiped with napkin.
OK now it works
Connect to network
change from 1080p to 720p
System
model 4200X - Roku 3
software version 6.2 - build 3332
system update
last check June 15 2:37 a.m. (it just got checked)
last updated Apr 7 2:47am
Home Screen
Netflix Amazon Instant Video Hulu Plus
Vudu Amazon Music Angry Birds Space
Blockbuster Target CBS News
Pandora Weather Underground GLF (gofightlive.tv)
ESPN Quello Concerts Sportsfishing with Dan Hernandez
UFC TV
try out Netflix - error
Amazon -error
Hulu - no account; try login, exit
now only the above three channels are on the home screen / lots now missing on the menu options on left
system restart
still same screen - I think it wants me to log on with my Roku account
try sign into Amazon
Hulu doesn't run now
ok, let's log into my account
Stream channels - get started
roku.com/link on computer
channel update (on Roku) * of 94
ok now everything's updated with the regular menu on the left + 89 channels
check system info
software version 7.1.0 build 4062-04
Netflix error
reset Netflix to its original state
(now it works)
Howdini doesn't run (later I check on the Roku TV and it didn't run there either, so apparently it's the app)
Roku 3 has the same problem as the Roku TV
sometimes the back button doesn't go back (sometimes up works to do that)
have to press the home exit to exit certain applications
try the other roku remote
didn't work at first, but then it paired by pressing the button in the battery compartment
that was the Roku stick remote
so the Roku stick remote works with the Roku 3 (not mentioned on the Roku website)
haven't tested whether the Roku 3 remote works with the Roku stick
the Philips remote and generic remote work without pairing, but they are IR so you need line of sight. The Roku Stick and Roku 3 remotes are RF so don't need line of sight.
Wikipedia says the remote uses wi-fi direct. So is wifi direct the same as RF? Looking here, wifi uses the 2.4 GHz UHF and 5 GHz SHF ISM radio bands. So apparently it's using the RF band to communicate.
I kind of like the Roku 3. It seems a lot faster than the Roku HD and Roku 2. The Roku 3 runs at 900 MHz. The Roku 2 (model 2720) runs at 600 MHz. The Roku HD (model 2500) runs at 405 MHz. And it actually feels about as responsive as the Roku Stick (3600) which is Quad Core.
The remote is solid and more hefty than the other models. It supports motion control (which is why Angry Birds Space defaults to the menu). The remote also has a headphone jack which I haven't tried yet. But on the Roku 2, it seems to drain the battery and doesn't always work.
As far as captions, I still prefer the Netflix captions on the old Roku HD, but I prefer the Hulu caption on the Roku 3 vs. the Roku HD (after your adjust the caption size to small in the system menu). But I still prefer the Netflix and Hulu captions on the Apple TV, followed by the Fire TV. For other apps, I generally prefer the Roku captions over the Apple TV.
All-in-all, I give the Roku 3 a thumbs up. However if you want to save a little money and aren't interested in the headphone jack and motion control, you might want to go for the current Roku 2 (model 4210) which is the same speed as the Roku 3. The Roku 3 is currently $99.99 compared to $69.99 for the Roku 2. The Roku Stick is an even better bargain at $49.99. ( Actually these three models are all currently discounted $10 for Father's Day.) So I would recommend the Roku Stick over the Roku 2. The drawback for me is that you can't use an IR remote with the Stick (so I can't use my universal remote). The Roku 3 works with both IR and Wifi Direct.
The current Roku 2 (4210) is IR whereas the old Roku 2 (2720) was both IR and wifi direct.
Looking further at Wikipedia, the current Roku 3 is model 4230 which came out in April 2015. The only difference I see in the specs between the 4230 and the 4200 is that the newer model comes with a remote that supports voice search. Maybe the only thing they changed was the remote?
What about the Roku 4? Well it's the only one that supports 4K, so you have 4K that's the way to go. It looks like the Roku 4 uses the same remote as the Roku 3.
*** 6/19/16
Hooked back my Roku Stick. Booted up really fast but didn't recognize any remotes. Good thing I had the Roku app on my iPad. So I went to the remote control section in settings and pressed the button in the battery compartment to pair it. (Come to think of it, it might have paired even if I wasn't in the remote control section. Or not.)
Then I tried pairing the Roku 3 remote and that worked too! Even the headphone jack worked :) So yes, the Roku 3 remote works on the Roku Stick. Looking at the remote section in the settings, my Roku Stick remote model is RC80. The Roku 3 remote model is RC03.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Amazon Fire TV audition (vs. Apple TV vs. Roku) / caption battle
[5/16/16] Now that CBS All Access is working on the Fire TV, I have started to use my Fire TV as my main streaming box over my Apple TV and Roku.
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).
So though I had been leaning toward the Fire TV, the Roku 2 is actually the machine that solves my problems with my Roku HD. None of the systems display the NatGeoWild youtube captions properly on HDMI. The Roku 2 and Roku HD both display it on 16:9, but the Roku 2 is less sluggish than the HD (though still sluggish). The second problem was that on my Roku HD, Hulu Plus videos tend to lock up when turning on captions. The Roku 3, Roku 2, and Fire TV all seems to display Hulu Plus captions similarly but the Fire TV lags on some shows.
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 2. Netflix is fine. Hulu Plus with captions play OK, but response a little sluggish. Youtube sluggish but faster than Roku HD. Captions display OK on 16:9. 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.
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.
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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