Im in the final stages of of building and finalizing my home theater and setting up the equipment. What box do you guys think does the best job streaming Amazon Prime Shows/Movies from an Audio and Video quality point of view?

I'm installing an Xbox One X and an Apple TV.

There's no competition. If you want Prime video, and all its functionality, only the FireTV 4K stick will do. Its also the cheapest. AppleTV is useless for Prime members. Quality-wise it isn't going to make much difference.

So as far as Video or Audio quality there is Zero difference between Xbox One X and FireTV 4k Stick?

What functionality am I missing by using the XBOX One X instead of a FireTV?

I find the Fire Cube to be superior. Ethernet support plus more.

Superior in which ways? Ethernet is standard on all 3 boxes right? I'm just trying to get the opinions out of the way and simply get any facts about the differences in streaming Amazon Prime on a 3 platforms.

What does "boxes" mean? Differences among Fire devices are plainly listed on their web site.

My original question was about the Xbox One X and Apple TV4k and how does it stream Prime vs a Fire TV...….those are the 3 "boxes" I'm talking about...…
I got two responses so far:
1) Someone said there is no competition,
2) You said Fire TV is way superior....


I'm trying to understand the whys behind those statements....that is all

I have both a FireTV box and a Roku Ultra. Other than the Fire's voice commands bringing up shows within Prime Video, they both provide comparable access to Amazon's services - both video and music.

The Roku includes many more services than either Amazon or Apple devices, as Roku, which does not sell content itself, does not exclude anyone else's services, which both Amazon and Apple do.

It is also the most configurable in terms of the location of services on its home page.

A lot more in researching this thread.

I'm thinking about getting a Fire Stick 4k. I have a sony x900f and use a harmony IR remote to control all devices.

Does the Fire Stick's HDMI-CEC work properly? I see conflicting information online with several people saying the fire stick locks up, not all remote buttons work etc. Thanks.

Finished "The Feed" last night on Amazon. There are 10 episodes. The first 4 did drag a little bit as if stretched to get 10 episodes but the remaining were paced quite well. This is a dystopian sci-fi series where there are no smartphones, instead it's all built into your head and things go awry. It's based on a 2002 young adult novel but this is not a "young adult" series by any means and quite well worth a watch. It's one of the better sci-fi series of the season. Available in 4K.

I watched a little bit of this. Just the first 2 episodes so far. As you said, it does feel a little bit slow and unsure in its pacing so far. I'll stick with it and watch a bit more based on your comments.

Try the Roku Ultra, on sale now for $50.

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/roku-st...k-plus-review/


Ian

Be aware that the Roku Ultra has a MAJOR bug with 4K support on the current 9.2 firmware. Several threads about it on the Roku forums.
http://forums.roku.com/

I'm an Ultra user, and this is the first I've heard of such a bug.

Your link is of not very informative, since it's just to the top of the site.

How about pinpoint links to the threads that talk about this?

https://community.roku.com/t5/Roku-D...ood/m-p/524983
https://community.roku.com/t5/Roku-D...ure/m-p/524988
https://community.roku.com/t5/Commun...ems/m-p/524893
https://community.roku.com/t5/Playba...9-1/m-p/524854
https://community.roku.com/t5/Roku-D...0hz/m-p/524961
https://community.roku.com/t5/Roku-D...750/m-p/523049

Hmm..doesn't seem like Philnick got the update.





Ian

Just checked my two month-old 2019 Ultra this morning and it's working fine. It's plugged into a Yamaha RX-A3070 AVR (many of the AVR-using complaints there involve Denon/Marantz AVRs - and they're the same company), and from there into a JVC projector. I turn my system on projector first, then AVR, and if I'm playing a disk, then my Oppo 203.

Both streamers (I also have a 3rd gen Fire TV) and the cable box stay on all the time, and everything runs through the AVR. Generally, by the time my projector warms up, it comes up showing the Roku's 4K aquarium screen-saver. I keep my Roku forced to 4K 60p - for a while it was falling back to 1080p but a software update a week or two ago - maybe this very one - cured that.

Is there a way to block updates on the Roku? I didn't check the firmware version number, however, because I was there before reading through all those posts.

The only problem I have - and it's an epidemic right now, is with HDR from Apple TV+:

For the past week, no one can get DolbyVision (which I can't use anyway, because I have a projector) and only AppleTV hardware even gets HDR10. Nor only Rokus but also Fire TV devices are only getting SDR from AppleTV+.

Just fired up my system, JVC projector, then Yamaha AVR (the Roku is always on) and saw not the 4K Roku aquarium screensaver but the Yamaha's 1080p "strings of a grand piano" screensaver.

The Roku was unresponsive to its remote, so I disconnected and re-connected its power cable.

It came back up and behaved itself, including showing me UHD/HDR10 from Disney+, so I went into setup and found its firmware version - 9.2.0 build 4750-46, which it apparently installed since yesterday. 9.2.0 and 4750 are the versions folks are complaining about in those threads.

Changing inputs back and forth didn't cause any problem, nor did turning the AVR off and on, so I have my fingers crossed that the need to power cycle the Roku was just part of the update process.