Amazon Prime Instant Video - Page 30

The answer is no. Amazon has refused to offer it to Oppo.

Or are they just asking for too much in licensing fees for what is basically a rather small company?

I always thought the idea of the ap was to get it into as many devices as possible, thus selling more monthly plans ..

Support costs being what they are, Amazon has apparently decided that it's not worth it to them unless you sell players by the millions. Oppo is not alone here, some much bigger players are also locked out or at least on terminal delay. And there's also the issues of infrastructure, server loads, etc.

Yep, I guess the support cost vs benefit is the key .. didn't think of that ..

However, I don't personally see how infrastructure / hardware would play in .. smaller companies like OPPO would put minimal if any strain on the system ..

Actually Amazon is now one of the largest providers on infrastructure.

Yes, I suspect that the support costs are the key. Oppo would certainly add Amazon if they could, even given that the costs would weigh far more heavily on Oppo than on Amazon. Rest assured they have tried, Amazon just isn't interested.

works great on the Xbox - just installed recently. West Wing in HD!

How often are new movies added to Amazon Prime? I go to "Recently Added" screen on my Sony Blu-Ray player and for several months there has been nothing new, even the order movies are showed in is the same.

Even "Crackle" with its tiny catalog seems to add new movies more often (for those who don't know - this is an ad-supported VOD provider available via their app on Sony devices, not sure about other brands).

Is Netfilx any different in that respect?
Edited by JoeSchmoe007 - 12/10/12 at 3:33pm

You can see a list here.

Don't know what's wrong with your Sony but I just resurrected my old Roku HD and after updating the firmware I noticed that on Amazon that it now had my Watch List and Recently Added titles. I was able to see a list of all of the newly added titles as on the link provided by Gary J.

However I did run into a puzzling problem with a few movies that Amazon Prime Instant Video listed as being HD with 5.1 sound - they would only play in stereo. Other 5.1 titles played just fine. Has this been noticed by anyone else?

I noticed that on my UT50 TV that sometimes watchlist is available as a menu and other times not, but the interface is better than my Sony BDP - same for Netflix for that matter. Sony's interfaces for Amazon and Netflix and pretty sucky compared to other companies' GUIs.

Sony's interface for Netflix isn't Sony's--it's a UI developed by Netflix and deployed on many different platforms. I have a TiVo Premiere, PS3, Sony BDP-S390, Panasonic DMP-BDT220 and -BDT110, all using that same UI. Since switching to an HTML5/Webkit based UI, Netflix has been able to throw different UIs at customers without changing platform firmware and they tested a bunch of different designs and settled on this one. I imagine that it provides maximum functionality in a memory footprint which fits in the largest range of devices (Netflix has posted presentations about this in their tech blog here and here).

Amazon Prime is developing their own pilot shows...for better or worse.

Story link.

I think it's a good idea, might get something original for a change. Netflix did a series of their own last year called "Lilyhammer" and it was good. Supposed to be coming back for a second season.

Netflix has produced a second original series called House of Cards.

To be picky, it wasn't a Netflix-only series. It was a joint production with a Norwegian broadcaster that aired in Norway just before Netflix carried it.

Can anyone here confirm that two Rokus at different locations can be associated with the same Prime account? I asked on the Roku user group and was told by other users that two Rokus could use the same Prime account at the same time - they just couldn't view the same thing at the same time.

I have a Roku at home near the beach in South Carolina and one in a vacation in the North Carolina mountains both on the same account.

Sounds a little picky to me LOL. I'm sure that Amazon isn't going to shoot their own series either, but they will be exclusive and I do like the idea.

Thanks!

I just starting using Prime Instant Video with a Sony BDP-S580 Blu-ray player and a Pioneer VSX-52 receiver. For the audio, it appears I can only get PCM 5.1 or stereo to the Pioneer receiver. Is this correct? There is no specific bitstream setting for the Sony player, and I think I have the settings correct (based on researching here, Audio (HDMI) - Auto, BD MIX Setting - Off, Audio DRC - Auto, Downmix - Surround).

So my question for this thread is should I be able to get something other than PCM for 5.1 sound? Thanks.

The player in my S390 bitstreams DD from titles which feature it. I don't have it plugged in so I have no idea what its settings are. Can you see titles marked as having 5.1 sound in the S580's player?

It has been reported that the newer 590 (and others in x90 series) do ... but the 580 ? ... maybe not.

 

See one page back (another 580 user trying to get 5.1 bitstream)

 

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1311425/amazon-prime-instant-video/840

How do we contact Amazon to let them know we want them to add Oppo?

Here you go.

Titles are added but we don't know because Amazon's 'Recently Added' list is non-sense. Doesn't matter the platform, even amazon.com is out of wack:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=PIVHPBB_Categories_RecentlyAdded?ie=UTF8&docId=1000758591&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-1&pf_rd_r=18K6214MWFG20FMM0WNK&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1474385662&pf_rd_i=2676882011

Don't see Justified listed in the 'Recently Added' group, but see many that have been there for ages.

Sometimes I can catch newly added titles by looking at Most Popular, but that's not exactly accurate either.

I add non Prime titles I want to watch to my Watch List and scroll that waiting for them to go Prime. Even that is flawed because sometimes Prime titles are not tagged as Prime (see Avatar).

bummer

I have run Amazon for almost a year thru a 2012 Panasonic 3D Blu-Ray 220 player and now a Panasonic 3D HDTV and there is no High Quality audio (HQ = Dolby Digital Plus 5.1+) available - period! Yet! And if you look over the latest Amazon Prime HD movie offering - The Hobbit - nowhere is there any reference to HQ audio.

Here’s an example of an HD Amazon offering: Falling Skies the tv series is one I have been watching via Prime and there is NO HQ audio on my Panny. It has nothing to do with the bandwidth because mine is running on average at about 10Mbps and other posters are running even faster but not getting HQ audio. Unfortunately, the lack of HQ audio is one of those very important facts that Amazon seems to prefer obscuring since they seem to be unwilling or unable to do HQ audio like NetFlix or Vudu. Some believe it’s the player manufacturer’s fault but I am leaning toward it being the provider’s choice. Netflix at least clearly shows which offering has HQ audio with 5.1 listing.

I have used Vudu once for their HD version of Hugo (excellent blu-ray-like quality) and Netflix all the time, and when Netflix lists that it offers 5.1+ audio I get it! So apparently Panasonic units (as well as some other manufacturers) regardless of whether it is a Blu-ray player or Smart HDTV may not ‘currently’ offer HQ audio. I just ran Thor the 2011 movie on Amazon and it did NOT offer HQ audio whereas Netflix did offer Dolby Digital Plus 5.1+. HOWEVER the video stream on Amazon was full HD 1080p while Netflix's video was only 720p. Netflix's offering filled my Panasonic's HDTV screen while the Amazon full HD was letter-boxed. So NetFlix is kinda cheating when they say it’s HD – the actual video may be downsized to 720p.

So the choice for some is full HD video and HQ audio but not necessarily both depending on the home portal device. Is Amazon more likely to work with Panasonic fixing the lack of HQ audio or for that matter NetFlix working with Panny so that Full HD is streamed? One poster believes that its up to the manufacturer's to figure it out. I am not convinced since both full HD video streaming AND HQ audio Dolby Digital Plus 5.1+ do work thru both of my Panasonic devices into my Yamaha receiver. The pressure should be put on both providers - Netflix & Amazon Prime to offer the same top quality if the portal device in your home has that capability. My reasoning is that basically when you select Netflix, or Amazon Prime, or Vudu, or whatever provider that you have basically made an online internet connection to them – they are now in control.

The Panasonic DMP-BDT220's Amazon player cannot play the Dolby Digital (standard DD, not DD+) audio available on some titles. Also, HD video streamed from Amazon is 720p. I've been told that some HD downloads to TiVo are 1080p, but the last I tried it wouldn't let me download the HD TV episodes that I own to my TiVo. The BDT220's Amazon player also lacks the ability to let you use Amazon's "Watchlist" feature, being a queue of title's you've marked as being ones that you want to watch (like Netflix's Instant Queue). I own a BDT220 and I've looked for these features to turn up in every new firmware release to no avail. I just installed and checked firmware v1.53--no dice.

My Roku 2, Roku 3, Sony BDP-S390 and PS3 all have Amazon players which can play 5.1 sound from Amazon titles which feature it and can access your account's Watchlist. If you want 5.1 sound from Amazon, play it using some other device.

Anybody else having trouble viewing ANYTHING on Amazon Prime? I've had probably a dozen emails and calls and chats with them about the fact that on my Samsung un55es7100 (which I'm NOT happy with, btw - SmartHub is very frustrating), I can't watch anything - same with Netflix. As soon as I get to 'play', it gives me an error that it can't play. Amazon says that it is working on a fix to this, that their 'engineers' are doing an update, and that eventually it will be done and I will be prompted to install an update on the Amazon app, but this still hasn't happened, and I don't believe them. How can only my system be messed up?

It used to work great - for about 3 weeks - then just stopped, no reason that I can see. I can search the entire library, I did speed tests on the system, I can use the browser, I can order movies on the SmartHub (when it's not down for maintenance like now), but I can't use Netflix or Amazon Prime instant video anymore. Any help??