Fire TV Cast

[mwdxer1]

The Fire TV cast box is on sale on Amazon ($100 off), and I am thinking of buying one. It has the built in DVR, no charges. But I cannot understand how to active it. Does anyone have one? Do you like it? Since Dish does not have a guide on many OTA channels, I figured this might be a nice add on. I have two Roku's and the Fire TV. Anyway, do I need a cel phone or tablet to active it, or can I use my laptop? My cel phone is an older Galaxy S4. I do not do well figuring out things on the phone. Everything else, fine. Thanks.

 

[ncted]

The Fire TV cast box is on sale on Amazon ($100 off), and I am thinking of buying one. It has the built in DVR, no charges. But I cannot understand how to active it. Does anyone have one? Do you like it? Since Dish does not have a guide on many OTA channels, I figured this might be a nice add on. I have two Roku's and the Fire TV. Anyway, do I need a cel phone or tablet to active it, or can I use my laptop? My cel phone is an older Galaxy S4. I do not do well figuring out things on the phone. Everything else, fine. Thanks.

I think you need to be able to run the FireTV app to activate the Recast. Not sure if it will run on an S4 as I am not an Android owner.

FWIW: I ordered one today to try out. I am not overly optimistic, but I doubted I would get the chance to try one for any less money any time soon.

 

[osu1991]

FYI....Prime members only get the discounted price
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-TV-Reca...034284&s=gateway&sprefix=recas,aps,204&sr=8-3
Amazon product ASIN B01J6A6H74

 

[mwdxer1]

Okay, then I can get it. Found out that my S4 does have 5.01 android so the app should work. I did download it and ordered the Recast. For what it will do for $130 bucks is one great deal.

 

[mwdxer1]

I got the re-cast from Amazon today. After a bit of messing around I finally got it going. It is great except for one thing. Some of the OTA guide is wrong. Under KATU-ABC 2.1 it has the guide for Buzzr, and KOIN 6.3 has Decades called Start TV, which we do not have. The guide for 6.3 Decades is correct, but labeled as Start TV. I tried a re-scan and got the same thing. Hopefully this will be straightened out in time. Several of our diginets did not have a guide using the OTA tuner on the Dish vip211k, like Comet, Stadium, and Qwest, along with KPTV 12.1 FOX and 49.1 MYTV. I now do have correct guides for those channels with the recast. The guide goes out longer, at 2 weeks. I have not tried the DVR feature as yet. But it is nice, with the guide along with other live channels off Pluto and HBO.

 

[mwdxer1]

A couple hours later, I re-scanned again and I now have a correct guide, except 6.3 (Decades) is still labeled "Start TV", but the guide is correct. I re-scanned the TV, and it still comes up as Decades. I hope 6.3 is not dropping Decades. A great diginet.

 

[ncted]

I got mine setup last night. I couldn't resist the price. I set some timers. It is no Hopper3, but it might be good enough for locals. Also, if they do actually add commercial skipping as it rumored, it might become much more attractive.

Initial Impressions:

-PQ is better than I expected. Not perfect, but not bad at all.
-They don't tell you that you may have to wait a while before the DVR tab shows up on your FireTVs devices. It was upwards of an hour on one of mine.
-Still more clicks than I would like to get to the guide, recordings, and live channels. I realize Alexa is supposed to shortcut that stuff, but I dislike voice interfaces.
-Tuners seem decent. I don't have the perfect antenna setup right now, but it still was able to tune what I consider to be marginal stations reliably.
-Works fine on my current wi-fi setup. I bought a MoCA adapter for the room I put it in to get the best OTA reception, but it wouldn't play nicely with my existing MoCA setup for some reason, so I reverted to wi-fi and it works just fine. I still plan to make it work over MoCA long-term, but it wasn't required.

I am going to spend part of today playing around with it as it is beastly hot and there are thunderstorms in the forecast. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

 

[mwdxer1]

I got mine setup last night. I couldn't resist the price. I set some timers. It is no Hopper3, but it might be good enough for locals. Also, if they do actually add commercial skipping as it rumored, it might become much more attractive.

Initial Impressions:

-PQ is better than I expected. Not perfect, but not bad at all.
-They don't tell you that you may have to wait a while before the DVR tab shows up on your FireTVs devices. It was upwards of an hour on one of mine.
-Still more clicks than I would like to get to the guide, recordings, and live channels. I realize Alexa is supposed to shortcut that stuff, but I dislike voice interfaces.
-Tuners seem decent. I don't have the perfect antenna setup right now, but it still was able to tune what I consider to be marginal stations reliably.
-Works fine on my current wi-fi setup. I bought a MoCA adapter for the room I put it in to get the best OTA reception, but it wouldn't play nicely with my existing MoCA setup for some reason, so I reverted to wi-fi and it works just fine. I still plan to make it work over MoCA long-term, but it wasn't required.

I am going to spend part of today playing around with it as it is beastly hot and there are thunderstorms in the forecast. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

Thanks for posting your review. I only have the Vip211k and so far it works as well as that regarding the interface. I have not DVR'd anything as yet, but I do find if I freeze a program and come back 1/2 hour or whenever, I can easily use the button and jump ahead, not 30 sec a pop, but I can still jump through the ads. The one thing I like is a 14 day guide on all of the channels. The Vip211k does not have guides for several of my OTA channels and now several are totally wrong as the channels are moving around. For OTA, the guide in the 211k has been pretty useless for many OTA stations. Now with the recast, the guide is accurate.

 

[ncted]

Thanks for posting your review. I only have the Vip211k and so far it works as well as that regarding the interface. I have not DVR'd anything as yet, but I do find if I freeze a program and come back 1/2 hour or whenever, I can easily use the button and jump ahead, not 30 sec a pop, but I can still jump through the ads.

Not sure what you mean. If I click the FF button, it says it is skipping 30 seconds forward, and RW skips 10 seconds backward, just like every Dish DVR or client box I've ever had. Does yours behave differently?

 

[mwdxer1]

Not sure what you mean. If I click the FF button, it says it is skipping 30 seconds forward, and RW skips 10 seconds backward, just like every Dish DVR or client box I've ever had. Does yours behave differently?

Thanks. That was my error. You are totally correct. I checked it again and the Recast does skip ahead 30 seconds and back 10 seconds. In the beginning it did not seem so. The more I use the Recast, the more I love it. Having that 2 week guide and DVR function for the price is great. My vip211k OTA tuner works fine with the Dish account, but in the past couple of months, the guide has been wrong even on main networks, plus several diginets have no guide, so the Recast solved all of my issues.

 

[ncted]

I tried the out-of-home streaming this morning at work on my Fire Tablet. It worked really well. As good or better than DishAnywhere. I wish it could download for offline viewing like DA does as well though.

 

[ncted]

FYI: For the Hopper fans: It has a red recording light.

 

[ncted]

I'm watching the women's world cup final on it now on my Firestick 4K connected to my 70" UHD Sony. Gotta say, it looks pretty good - not perfect, but pretty good. Even the sea of orange, waving their Netherlands flags doesn't seem to give it much trouble. Of course, the OTA broadcast is 720p to start with, so no down-rezing necessary. In direct (or as direct as I can get, switching back and forth) comparison, I'd say it looks about as good as Dish, at least for my local Fox affiliate.

 

[ncted]

After a few days of playing around with the Recast, I can say it is a pretty decent OTA DVR with a number of good features. It is in no way anywhere near as good a user experience as the Hopper/Joey we are used to or the Tivo Roamio OTA(TE3)/Mini we used to have, but we could probably adapt to the occasional pauses and delays for things like trick play, menu navigation, etc. The real advantage I see to the Recast is simply not having to switch inputs to go from linear/DVR to streaming apps. Tablo and AirTV also offer this, albeit with somewhat less integration than you get with the FireTV platform. As we watch fewer and fewer broadcast TV shows, something like the Recast makes a lot of sense. Anyway, I am probably going to hold onto it, even if I keep Dish in the long term, as a backup in case of rain fade, and maybe eventually I'll drop local channels from Dish and use the Recast exclusively for receiving those.

 

[mwdxer1]

After a few days of playing around with the Recast, I can say it is a pretty decent OTA DVR with a number of good features. It is in no way anywhere near as good a user experience as the Hopper/Joey we are used to or the Tivo Roamio OTA(TE3)/Mini we used to have, but we could probably adapt to the occasional pauses and delays for things like trick play, menu navigation, etc. The real advantage I see to the Recast is simply not having to switch inputs to go from linear/DVR to streaming apps. Tablo and AirTV also offer this, albeit with somewhat less integration than you get with the FireTV platform. As we watch fewer and fewer broadcast TV shows, something like the Recast makes a lot of sense. Anyway, I am probably going to hold onto it, even if I keep Dish in the long term, as a backup in case of rain fade, and maybe eventually I'll drop local channels from Dish and use the Recast exclusively for receiving those.

I also have Dish and plan to keep it, but the OTA guide on my vip211K receiver is really messed up. With channel numbers moving around, the Network part of the guide is useless.. The few diginets they offer a guide for work. The guide on the recast is perfect, going out a full 2 weeks and the DVR function is very good. and all 16 OTA channels have accurate guides. The beauty of the whole thing is there are no fees, and I got it $100 off.

 

[Poke]

Youtube back on Fire Tv.

Read More below.

YouTube is back on the Fire TV, and Prime Video launches on Chromecast starting today

 

[mwdxer1]

Youtube back on Fire Tv.

Read More below.

YouTube is back on the Fire TV, and Prime Video launches on Chromecast starting today

That is good news. The You Tube work around did okay, but I am glad it is a regular app on the Fire TV now. Chromecast I also have, but except for channel apps via Windows that I cast, I don't use the Chromecast all that much. But in some cases, it does come in handy.

 

[ncted]

TBH: The interface of the YouTube app is almost identical to the interface of the youtube.com app.

 

[mwdxer1]

TBH: The interface of the YouTube app is almost identical to the interface of the youtube.com app.

I checked the old work-around and it works fine. It is the Fire Stick, but not on the Fire TV as yet. I have two Roku's and You Tube is there anyway.

 

[Bobbj]

Just got one of these, they are awesome but very confusing to set up.

Basically there is no fire tv app on the firestick nor can you download it.

You must download the fire tv app on your phone then activate your recast via your phone and put it on your network.

After this it will eventually appear “as on now” in your home area of your fire device but. Mine took about 10 minutes to show up there. Definitely a neat device