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Hello everyone, I kinda feel dumb asking this question, but I'm looking for a good and easy to use app to control the TV's in my home with my E4GT.
I have:
1 42" Plasma HDTV downstairs connected to a Comcast digital cable box. No built in wifi. I'd love to be able to use just the basic controls on this one, no need to use it to access DVR... I will use the regular remote for that (bonus if I can though).
1 32" Vizio LCD HDTV upstairs in my bedroom, with just a basic digital adapter. This TV has built in wifi so I can stream Netflix/youtube/etc... and would love to use my phone so I can type in to search easier with a keyboard.
I saw this app, and it looks to me like it would work, just wanted to see if anyone has experience/recommendations for apps to do the purpose I want. It's perfectly fine if it's a paid app, I don't mind supporting developers for a solid, well working app.
Since most of your devices don't have wifi and the Vizio doesn't have any IP control capabilities and the E4GT does not have an IR out, you would need to use some sort of intermediary device, such as a Peel. I have never used one so I can't vouch for it at all.
link- http://www.peel.com/index.php?gclid=CJTFmsqOuq4CFcNrKgodIjehnA&
And actually now that I think of it, Comcast has their own app that will allow you to control their cable boxes with your phone. I used it with my iPad and it is very slow, but it does work.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.xfinity.tv
_MetalHead_ said:
Since most of your devices don't have wifi and the Vizio doesn't have any IP control capabilities and the E4GT does not have an IR out, you would need to use some sort of intermediary device, such as a Peel. I have never used one so I can't vouch for it at all.
link- http://www.peel.com/index.php?gclid=CJTFmsqOuq4CFcNrKgodIjehnA&
And actually now that I think of it, Comcast has their own app that will allow you to control their cable boxes with your phone. I used it with my iPad and it is very slow, but it does work.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.xfinity.tv
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So does Dish Network and I believe DirecTV
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Can't comment on your specific situation, but I have a sling loaded dish dvr and the dish app works great. Almost instantaneous.
Sent from my Galaxy S2
It works with my googletv.
Alright so i have an idea here. A friend gave me his old incredible and at first I just used it as an voip house phone. Now that boxee is such a pita I had the thought that maybe I could use the dinc for that aspect of entertainment. Here's the plan: I have an older TV (read rca hookups only) in the bedroom. The TV out cable goes usb to rca right? Hook that puppy up with a charger and the tv, put netflix app on it and it's a media center! Get the tablet remote app to control it from the bed using my rezound with bluetooth? IDK if this setup would work as I don't have the tv out cable and i'm not willing to spend the dough on it if this doesn't work. (I'm a cheapskate.) Thoughts, comments, concerns? Thanks ahead!
Edit:
Nevermind, it seems that the tablet remote doesn't work so well. Although I may set it up and just disregard the remote control part. Unless of course anyone has other options...
You could also setup a windows media server on your pc, and then use an app called Homedia to stream your music pictures and vidoes to your phone connected to your tv. You could do both and have netflix and all of your personal vidoes pics and music. Then you wold have a true media center, tv, streaming, personal media.
Thanks, but really I'm looking for something dirt cheap and micro-machine small. I had a laptop set up with boxee and xbmc for a while, I just don't really have room for even that amount of clutter. All I want is netflix on an old tv, I'll probably end up just putting the dinc up there and getting up to manually change shows. Beats rabbit ears and fine tuning the uhf dial like when I was a kid though lol.
Edit: I looked back attention post and I see what you're saying but the laptop I have from 2005 is the only pc I have and I can't dedicate it as a media server. The one I was using as a htpc crapped out on me finally, it was a 2004 hp so it gave me more than I ever expected. So my options are very limited for now.
Sent from my Rezound
Hey guys...
I've bought a Fire TV to setup a easy to use XBMC based streaming device for my father in law, he does not have a HD TV yet so I had to find a way to convert the HDMI to RCA.
I've bought this converter, but it's giving me multiple issues, since we have root now I was hoping there was a way to fix these issues.
http://www.dx.com/p/playvision-hdv-...FuIVP5QJEdbgJkLvoj-ZI0Osx3Xw_wcB#.U6DPePldVKc
The Fire TV won't pass by startup screen when it is booted with HDMI connected to Converter (problem with HDCP handshake?)
When I boot the FTV with HDMI connected directly to my own HD TV it loads fine, removing the HDMI from my TV plugging it into the converter will push video through the RCA cable but images is black and white and distorted.
Does anybody have any experience with this ? Would downscaling to 480 help if possible ? or does anybody know another solution to get this working on a older TV ?
Thanks in advance....
Edit:
Looks like http://forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=334644 made a fix for some Samsung devices with a similar Snapdragon 600 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2621550
Not sure if that would be something that could be adapted for use on the Fire TV though.
It's going to be a challenge, because the copyright police are all over HDMI and what can cannot be output from HDMI.
I see a very few HDMI to analog video output devices. I'd expect to pay about 50-60 bucks for a good one.
I'm picking that price because it's what Monoprice charges (more or less) for a box that takes HDMI in and outputs HDMI and audio over RCA jacks. You basically need a video DAC!
The other option would be to move to a Sony or similar smart tv, one that has both Netflix and Prime built in. Granted it's more expensive to do but your dad may well find it worth the simplicity. At our house we currently have remotes for the Fire, the TV, the bluray player and the preamp. I can manage most of it from the IR blaster on the tablet, the glaring exception being the Amazon box which uses Bluetooth, won't pair with the tablet and actually works better with not just a remote but keyboard to boot.
It's a giant PITA for the uninitiated.
Userr12, I think I have the same adapter, here is the one I bought.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008FO7PQA/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I actually have the Fire TV connected to an HDMI splitter, one port goes my main HD TV, the other to the HDMI2AV adapter linked above. An interesting side effect is when I turn off the HD TV the second output cuts out for 2-4 seconds, then comes back.
That said, when I initially setup my Fire TV, I tried an HDMI to DVI cable on a Dell monitor to see what would happen, but couldn't get through the setup. Direct HDMI was the only way I could get the intro video to show. Not sure why.
Sent from my TouchPad using XDA Premium HD app
I've played around with the unit a bit more and it's actually working
I was using a old LCD TV I have laying around but realized there is also a RCA input on my HD TV, when I use this input in combination with the converter it works, I will have to try this still on my father in laws TV, but the FTV to RCA/Composite works at least on some TV's
The image quality is doable, the color of the menu's in FTV and XBMC are a little flat and pixelated, video is more clear though, think the quality looks like what should be expected from a analog display.
Sound works fine, although I used a different USB power source to power the converter, I think there might be a power delay (or something else funky) happening with the USB port on the FTV, creating a nasty static, this static did interfere with the video image as well. (creating some distortion what seems to be running at the same Hz)
According to my experience, iDealshare VideoGo is the best one to Convert Amazon Fire TV unsupported WAV, FLAC, AIFF etc to Amazon Fire TV supported AAC or MP3.
I used a converter made by Bleiden, which I got on Amazon. The Amazon sku is B01MQGHNAR (just search in amazon or google for that and you'll find it).
I had to buy an HDMI cable to connect my Fire TV to the converter, but the converter itself worked without any problem. There were no restrictions on what I could or couldn't play. No video distortion, other than what you'd expect watching a 16:9 picture on a 4:3 TV.
Hdmi to av convertor for amazon fire stick fix
use a 5v usb adapter with twin ports plug in both amazon fire stick and the Hdmi to the same adapter,now your amazon fire stick will work fine
I can't figure this one out: Running SpeedTest.net on my hard-wired desktop computer which is a foot away from my Xfinity router, I'm getting around 175mbps download speeds. Then, running the Speed Test app on my Fire TV out in the living room (about 20' away), I get around 70mbps using WiFi. But then when I run a brand new 50' Cat-6 Ethernet cable straight from the router to the Fire TV, I'm getting around 30mbps. I don't understand why my WiFi speeds are over twice what my hard-wired speeds are, nor why the hardwire speeds drop all the way from blazing 175 to a relatively wimpy 30mbps. Any suggestions?
The Ethernet on the Fire TV is only Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps) so with overhead and all that, 70 Mbps is about what you should expect. The 802.11n on the Fire TV can theoretically hit 300 Mbps. Yeah... the latest wireless is quite a bit faster than older wired standards.
Update: Sorry, I mis-read. I thought you were getting 70 Mbps over wired. Yeah, 30 is a bit slow.
Is this with the gen 2 version?
I upgraded my first gen to the new one and spent all night trying to sort out buffering issues with kodi that I never had with the first one. I've always preferred using Ethernet to stream from the NAS. I thought what the hell to trying with WiFi, and all the problems completely disappeared. I now only use the WiFi and haven't looked back.
I suspected there is something seriously wrong with the Ethernet driver, although it's not a wide spread issue so perhaps I just have a dodgy unit.
Personal experience with gen 1, wifi always test much higher than ethernet. But in the rare instancrs that i have buffering issues, its the aftv on 5ghz, not the one thats hardwired.
I find these pretty tricky to diagnose. In some instances its my fairly low powered NAS with too many processes running. But Id say 90% of the time ethernet is better despite what speedtest says. Theres much less interference.
Thanks for the replies here.
This is for a first-generation Fire TV.
I'm wondering how accurate the SpeedTest.net app is on the Fire TV? I've taken the Cat-6 cable, plugged it into my computer, and still gotten around 170mbps on the computer using that cable. It's just when I plug it in to the Fire TV and launch the SpeedTest app that I get the slow speeds. So either there's an issue with the FireTV itself and its ability to handle high-speed Ethernet, or the SpeedTest app isn't accurately reporting the connection speed.
Klit75, are you suggesting that I might be better off going with a hard-wired ethernet connection, even though SpeedTest is telling me it's half the speed of WiFi?
Raymondo17 said:
Thanks for the replies here.
This is for a first-generation Fire TV.
I'm wondering how accurate the SpeedTest.net app is on the Fire TV? I've taken the Cat-6 cable, plugged it into my computer, and still gotten around 170mbps on the computer using that cable. It's just when I plug it in to the Fire TV and launch the SpeedTest app that I get the slow speeds. So either there's an issue with the FireTV itself and its ability to handle high-speed Ethernet, or the SpeedTest app isn't accurately reporting the connection speed.
Klit75, are you suggesting that I might be better off going with a hard-wired ethernet connection, even though SpeedTest is telling me it's half the speed of WiFi?
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I wasn't sure where else to post this so figured I would post it here. I have the Fire TV 2 and my connection speeds are horrible even compared to my Fire TV 1 connected to the same router both by ethernet... On my Fire TV 1 I average 28-36 in speed tests. On the Fire TV 2 I can never get past 21 in speed tests, and on wifi the connection speed is almost non existent....I'm on a 50mps connection through my ISP... has anyone else noticed this on the Fire TV 2?
thanks
dk1keith said:
I wasn't sure where else to post this so figured I would post it here. I have the Fire TV 2 and my connection speeds are horrible even compared to my Fire TV 1 connected to the same router both by ethernet... On my Fire TV 1 I average 28-36 in speed tests. On the Fire TV 2 I can never get past 21 in speed tests, and on wifi the connection speed is almost non existent....I'm on a 50mps connection through my ISP... has anyone else noticed this on the Fire TV 2?
thanks
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Maybe it's your Ethernet cable
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
tonyt3rry said:
Maybe it's your Ethernet cable
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Thanks for the reply, but I tried different ethernet cables. Also it is almost unusable on wifi. Even my Fire Stick has a faster connection over wifi. I'm running the speed tests using Speedtest.net...It is connected to ethernet using a powerline adapter, but my Fire TV 1 was connected to the same powerline using the same ethernet cable in the same location and never had a problem. It would average between 28-38 consistently.
dk1keith said:
Thanks for the reply, but I tried different ethernet cables. Also it is almost unusable on wifi. Even my Fire Stick has a faster connection over wifi. I'm running the speed tests using Speedtest.net...It is connected to ethernet using a powerline adapter, but my Fire TV 1 was connected to the same powerline using the same ethernet cable in the same location and never had a problem. It would average between 28-38 consistently.
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I got the fire TV 4k today when I had the stick I couldn't play HQ or HD streams on genesis now I can play HD and HQ with no stuttering or buffering now I'm using ethernet
Sent from my Amazon Fire 2015
tonyt3rry said:
I got the fire TV 4k today when I had the stick I couldn't play HQ or HD streams on genesis now I can play HD and HQ with no stuttering or buffering now I'm using ethernet
Sent from my Amazon Fire 2015
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Yes I have no problem with video playback, in Genesis or any other streaming app Netflix etc. Because even though I'm not getting the connection speed I think I should be getting it's still more than fast enough to stream HD content. I just want to know why the connection speed seems to be capped on the Fire TV 2. Like I mentioned when my Fire TV 1 was on the same tv, same powerline adapter same router everything the speeds were consistently between 28-38 mbps, where as the Fire TV 2 maxes out at like 17 mbps. That can't be right. If no one else is seeing the same thing on their Fire TV 2 I'm wondering if it isn't my specific device?
dk1keith said:
Yes I have no problem with video playback, in Genesis or any other streaming app Netflix etc. Because even though I'm not getting the connection speed I think I should be getting it's still more than fast enough to stream HD content. I just want to know why the connection speed seems to be capped on the Fire TV 2. Like I mentioned when my Fire TV 1 was on the same tv, same powerline adapter same router everything the speeds were consistently between 28-38 mbps, where as the Fire TV 2 maxes out at like 17 mbps. That can't be right. If no one else is seeing the same thing on their Fire TV 2 I'm wondering if it isn't my specific device?
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I'm not sure maybe try connecting directly to the router and checking to see if the power line isn't causing it even if your ftv 1 had better speeds
Sent from my Amazon Fire 2015
tonyt3rry said:
I'm not sure maybe try connecting directly to the router and checking to see if the power line isn't causing it even if your ftv 1 had better speeds
Sent from my Amazon Fire 2015
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Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah that was gonna be my next step. Didn't really want to have to do that because of where my Fire TV 2 is. Think I'm gonna have to try it though, if for no other reason to rule out the powerline.
Thx
dk1keith said:
Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah that was gonna be my next step. Didn't really want to have to do that because of where my Fire TV 2 is. Think I'm gonna have to try it though, if for no other reason to rule out the powerline.
Thx
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Yeah I've always wanted to go power line but seen that some factors can cause latency like how old the wireing is in the house
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tonyt3rry said:
Yeah I've always wanted to go power line but seen that some factors can cause latency like how old the wireing is in the house
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Yeah I have a few powerline adapters and they work really well. I did connect my Fire TV 2 directly to the router via ethernet and the speeds hit 61mbps....connected to the powerline i can't get more than 18mbps on Fire TV 2. However, when I connect my Fire TV 1 to the same powerline I get speeds of 28-38 and higher consistently. Although I'm not having any buffering issues on the Fire TV 2 I would like to know why the speedtest results are so low. Is it a driver issue on the Fire TV 2?
Last week I bought an antenna, HD Homerun Extend, and 2 Amazon Fire TV boxes to go along with my Nvidia Shield I already owned. On Wednesday night, I watched a TV show on NBC that I recorded on the DVR the night before. The picture quality was poor. Parts of the picture flashed brightly in 1-second intervals. This "flashing" did not happen on the commercials but started again as soon as the program started. I watched this recorded show on my Amazon Fire TV (box) with my wife and then went downstairs and watch a basketball game on my Nvidia Shield.
After the game I wanted to try to watch the TV show again and see if I could fix it. To my surprise the picture quality was perfect. The picture quality of live TV is superior on the Nvidia Shield too. I sent a trouble ticket to HD Homerun last night and did a little research. From what I read, Fire TV does a poor job of processing MPEG2. I still didn't hear from the HDHomerun people but Amazon support told me that HDHomerun is not compatible with FireTV2.
Is there a fix for this? Why does the picture behave this way? Why does the flashing occur on the TV show but not the commercials?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Frank