Speaker 1: All about cord cutting and Amazon's fireTV. What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm rich Damiro. This is rich on Tech. Joining me
Speaker 1: today is Elias Saba. He is the creator of aftvnews
Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker 2: Good to be here.
Speaker 1: So fan of the website, obviously, you are kind of
Speaker 1: the king when it comes to all things Amazon and
Speaker 1: Amazon devices. Tell me how you started this site and
Speaker 1: what you concentrate on.
Speaker 2: Well, essentially started because I was out of a job,
Speaker 2: didn't really want to polish my resume and start, you know,
Speaker 2: going out there looking for another job. Want to see
Speaker 2: if I could start my own thing, give myself a
Speaker 2: little more flexibility. The fire TV, the very first one,
Speaker 2: back in twenty fourteen, was released. I was interested in it.
Speaker 2: I bought it. I liked it. I thought there was
Speaker 2: a lot more you could do with it, a lot
Speaker 2: more that people didn't know about. And so I started
Speaker 2: the site just kind of on a whim, almost out
Speaker 2: of just boredom, started writing about it, and it slowly
Speaker 2: started picking up speed, and then you know, started growing,
Speaker 2: and just kind of been doing it ever since. And
Speaker 2: now it's my full time job and never touched that
Speaker 2: resume since it is literally every day. I wake up
Speaker 2: every morning see what happened while house as sleep to
Speaker 2: see if there'snything I need to cover, and then I
Speaker 2: go from there, and when there's nothing new to cover,
Speaker 2: I try to figure out interesting things people would want
Speaker 2: to know about or want to do with fire TV devices.
Speaker 1: So Amazon has this new device, the fireTV Recast, which
Speaker 1: is sort of a DVR for your local over the
Speaker 1: air channels. What do you make of this device?
Speaker 2: I think it's a pretty good device. It's not the
Speaker 2: be all, end all best DVR over the air solution
Speaker 2: out there, that's for sure. You know, they're still missing
Speaker 2: a few key features here. It still needs a little
Speaker 2: bit of polish, especially on the software side. I think
Speaker 2: the hardware is really solid. It gives you what you want.
Speaker 1: There two tuners HD recording. You can record two shows
Speaker 1: at once or four shows right depending on the one
Speaker 1: you get.
Speaker 2: There are two models. There's a five hundred gigabyte two
Speaker 2: tuner model and then there's a one terrible four tuner model.
Speaker 2: With that four tuner model, you can record four things
Speaker 2: at once with the two tune or two things. Obviously,
Speaker 2: both of them are limited to streaming to only two
Speaker 2: devices at once, regardless of which one you buy. So
Speaker 2: you can technically be watching two pieces of content that
Speaker 2: you've recorded and be recording four different channels at the
Speaker 2: same time. So there's six different things going on there,
Speaker 2: but you can only watch from two different devices simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Set up process. How do you think they did on that,
Speaker 1: like just physically setting up? And what do you need
Speaker 1: for this to work?
Speaker 2: So what you need is the fire TV recast. Obviously,
Speaker 2: you technically don't need a fire TV because the fire
Speaker 2: TV recast is compatible with smartphones, so you can watch
Speaker 2: the content through an Android or an Apple smartphone or
Speaker 2: a tablet. You can also watch through an Amazon Echo Show.
Speaker 1: That's kind of cool, so I can have an Echo
Speaker 1: Show on my desk and that could literally be a
Speaker 1: little TV that I can just keep a live stream
Speaker 1: on all day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. If you've got that Echo show device and
Speaker 2: you say that voice assistant name that al Exa, and
Speaker 2: you literally just say tuned to a certain channel, that
Speaker 2: channel will pop right up. You can even tell it
Speaker 2: to start recording a certain show for you and it
Speaker 2: will just automatically record that show for you. You can
Speaker 2: ask it to bring up your recordings that you've already
Speaker 2: recorded and either use the touchscreen or use your voice.
Speaker 2: So if you've got the device sitting there in the kitchen,
Speaker 2: you can be cooking something or washing the dishes and
Speaker 2: just use your voice to pull up anything that you've
Speaker 2: recorded or anything that's airing live over your broadcast channel.
Speaker 2: So there is that aspect of it. If you do
Speaker 2: want to watch your content, your over the air antenna
Speaker 2: content on your television right now, you have to have
Speaker 2: a fire TV device. Any Fire TV model that has
Speaker 2: ever come out from twenty fourteen to now is compatible
Speaker 2: with this, So it isn't you don't have to buy
Speaker 2: one of the newer devices that just got released or
Speaker 2: anything like that. But if you have a Roku, if
Speaker 2: you have an Apple TV, or any of those competing
Speaker 2: media streamers right now, they're not compatible. Amazon has hinted
Speaker 2: that there are they're considering adding support and being able
Speaker 2: to watch your fire TV recast content through those competing
Speaker 2: media players, but I would say that's probably not going
Speaker 2: to happen for a little while, just because they've got
Speaker 2: a lot of polish left to do on the mobile app.
Speaker 2: That's probably going to be where their focus is going
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: So when this thing first came out, I thought it
Speaker 1: was pretty amazing because I'm a big TV guy. I
Speaker 1: used to be. I mean I back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and I got my first TV O, loved it, was
Speaker 1: a huge fan probably until about I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: five or six years ago, and I kind of just
Speaker 1: gave up on it, like altogether one hundred percent. And
Speaker 1: now I'm a cord cutter, and I love this idea
Speaker 1: because the station I work for KTLA is the only
Speaker 1: station basically that I do not receive at my house
Speaker 1: through direct TV now, and so I thought this was
Speaker 1: a great way to kind of plug that open hole, right.
Speaker 1: But the one thing I noticed is that you cannot
Speaker 1: download a show from the recast to your device, which
Speaker 1: to me is the killer is the killer feature, Like
Speaker 1: if I take a plane flight, I just want to
Speaker 1: download a show like a couple comedies from you know,
Speaker 1: local new or local show or maybe some local newscasts, whatever,
Speaker 1: sports game. Who knows? Why can't I do that with
Speaker 1: the fire with the recast?
Speaker 2: Well, most likely the answer to that is because Amazon
Speaker 2: didn't have time to add that feature in. That's That's
Speaker 2: probably the main reason I've heard the exact same feedback
Speaker 2: from from my readers where they all kind of want
Speaker 2: that feature. I myself, I'm actually planning to to take
Speaker 2: apart at the Fire TV recast see if I can
Speaker 2: get to that hard drive inside to see if there's
Speaker 2: actually a way, you know, for for the the really
Speaker 2: you know, geeky enthusiast out there who wants to get
Speaker 2: nitty gritty with with it, you probably will be able
Speaker 2: to pull off that content. Amazon has said they've They've
Speaker 2: told me that they don't they don't protect the recordings
Speaker 2: in any way. They're not copy protected. They just don't
Speaker 2: provide any kind of interface, any kind of way to
Speaker 2: get to that content. So whatever's coming out of the antenna,
Speaker 2: it's just getting recorded to a regular old rob video file.
Speaker 2: And so if there's some way to pull that file off,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be able to watch it offline on your devices.
Speaker 2: It's just I think Amazon just hasn't had the time
Speaker 2: to bake that feature in there. They have said that
Speaker 2: they are going to soon add the ability to plug
Speaker 2: in an external hard drive into the Fire to recast
Speaker 2: to expand the internal storage, so it has that five
Speaker 2: hundred gigabyt or one terrorbyte hard drive built into it.
Speaker 2: And so if you want to record even more than that,
Speaker 2: those hard drives for people wondering, the five hundred gigabyte
Speaker 2: will record seventy five hours of HD content, whereas the
Speaker 2: one terabyte will double that to one hundred and fifty hours.
Speaker 2: And so if that's not enough for you or you
Speaker 2: want to save that, you know, you know that that series,
Speaker 2: that ten ten year long series, and you don't want
Speaker 2: to compromise and give up any of that recorded content.
Speaker 2: You'll soon be able to plug in a hard drive
Speaker 2: and record onto that hard drive. And now a feeling
Speaker 2: once they're able to do that, Now you've got this
Speaker 2: content kind of free floating away from the recast. So
Speaker 2: you might be able, we don't know yet, to plug
Speaker 2: that hard drive into a computer for example, maybe even
Speaker 2: into a smartphone and offload that content onto other devices.
Speaker 2: We'll have to see, you know again, don't hold your breath. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's that TiVo.
Speaker 1: I feel like TiVo always made it so complicated. Even
Speaker 1: when you could, you know, attach an external drive, You're
Speaker 1: never able to just tap into those recordings, pull them all.
Speaker 1: There's just no way you had to use their special
Speaker 1: trans coding software, which was a nightmare and it took
Speaker 1: like an hour of like a five minute show or
Speaker 1: something ridiculous. Well, let's hope that Amazon does not go
Speaker 1: down that path. So the other thing about this device
Speaker 1: is it too late because we have people getting into
Speaker 1: the world of cord cutting, but they've kind of found
Speaker 1: a lot of these solutions. So if someone gets this,
Speaker 1: do I ditch my direct TV now? Because now I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't really need all those channels. I just kind
Speaker 1: of wanted my locals.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's too late because the fire TV
Speaker 2: recast basically it fills a hole that these other services
Speaker 2: don't provide. Like you were saying, there's no way to
Speaker 2: get your local you know, KTLA broadcasts from these big
Speaker 2: nationwide internet TV solutions like Sling TV, like DirecTV now,
Speaker 2: and so really, if you want all that content, you know,
Speaker 2: something like PBS for example, you're not gonna be able
Speaker 2: to stream that through those nationwide services, and you know,
Speaker 2: connecting antenna to a device like the fire TV recast
Speaker 2: is literally your only option right now. And so if
Speaker 2: you want that full, you know, top to bottom solution,
Speaker 2: the fire TV recast is there for you, and so
Speaker 2: it's not meant to basically be the reason you cut
Speaker 2: the cord necessarily, although it can be. You know, some people,
Speaker 2: I can see a lot of people who will basically
Speaker 2: be happy just streaming from Prime Video, from Netflix, from
Speaker 2: HBO now and then getting their local stations from their
Speaker 2: fire TV recast and really not caring about those fifty
Speaker 2: or so network cable channels that they get from you know,
Speaker 2: their local cable or satellite you know service with TVO,
Speaker 2: with all the other DVR tableau, even HD home Run,
Speaker 2: which is kind of more of a role of your
Speaker 2: own solution, there's always a subscription fee with those devices.
Speaker 1: Telling about the fireTV at large, this is this is
Speaker 1: a pretty big player on the streaming platforms. You've got
Speaker 1: the Apple TV, You've got the fire TV, You've got Roku,
Speaker 1: and sort of Chrome cast. Android TV as a platform
Speaker 1: is kind of like not really there anymore. We haven't
Speaker 1: really seen a new product. It's kind of all focused
Speaker 1: on the Chrome Cast. So where do you see this
Speaker 1: as the best platform out there? And what are the
Speaker 1: shortcomings of the fire TV versus some of the other
Speaker 1: ones out there.
Speaker 2: I mean, I do personally think to the best because
Speaker 2: you know, I'm the one who chose it and is
Speaker 2: running the whole site on it, but it's definitely not
Speaker 2: the best for everybody. The streaming media player you know,
Speaker 2: market right now is very you know, split between all
Speaker 2: of these advices, Like you said, the fire TV, the Rokus,
Speaker 2: and the Apple TV's kind of are the three big ones.
Speaker 2: Andrew TV is still there. They've got you know, Nvidia
Speaker 2: Shield TV is a very good, good product, but it
Speaker 2: is on the pricey side and it does quite a bit,
Speaker 2: but for most people they don't need all that functionality.
Speaker 1: The biggest difference that I can think of at this
Speaker 1: point is that fire TV has a web version of YouTube.
Speaker 2: There's no service that isn't available on there as much
Speaker 2: with the fire TV, you know, like you were saying,
Speaker 2: there is that issue with YouTube, but it's almost a
Speaker 2: misconception because while there is no native app, you know,
Speaker 2: to access YouTube on the fire TV, you're going through
Speaker 2: a browser to access the TV browser interface of YouTube.
Speaker 2: But really on the Roku's, on the Apple TVs, even
Speaker 2: on Google's own Android TV devices, those dedicated real quote
Speaker 2: unquote YouTube apps, all they are are accessing that exact
Speaker 2: same web YouTube interface, and so if you put those
Speaker 2: two devices side by side, the Fire TV and app
Speaker 2: Google's own Android TV devices, and you access YouTube, the
Speaker 2: interface looks identical and the feature set is almost identical.
Speaker 2: One thing you miss with the fire TVs on YouTube
Speaker 2: specifically is you don't get sixty frames per second playback.
Speaker 2: You're limited to thirty frames per second, but you do
Speaker 2: get four K playback. But on the Android TVs you
Speaker 2: do get that sixty frames per second four K playback,
Speaker 2: and so there is a slight advantage there. I'm not
Speaker 2: sure about rocoan Apple TV whether they handle that sixty
Speaker 2: prints per second, But with YouTube, you actually are getting
Speaker 2: an equivalent, you know, nearly nine nine percent equivalent option
Speaker 2: on fire TV. I don't you know. It's it's hard
Speaker 2: for me not to sound like a cheerleader for the
Speaker 2: fire TV. I know, because I like the.
Speaker 1: Way I wrote the site. Basically, I basically, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know TV news dot Com.
Speaker 2: I know, I know everything about the device, so I
Speaker 2: can't help but just talk about all the nitty gritty details.
Speaker 1: What's your recommendation from buying a fire TV this holiday season?
Speaker 1: Which one do I get?
Speaker 2: I think definitely the Fire TV stick four K. It's
Speaker 2: basically their middle product. It just came out. It has
Speaker 2: the most powerful process or even more powerful than they're
Speaker 2: much more expensive hundred and twenty dollars Fire TV cube.
Speaker 2: That little four K stick is actually more powerful than
Speaker 2: that cube. You know. I did a whole benchmark about
Speaker 2: it just to just to you know, prove that to everybody,
Speaker 2: because people just couldn't believe it. But it's it's a
Speaker 2: great little device. It's only ten dollars more expensive than
Speaker 2: their their base ten ADP Fire TV stick, So you
Speaker 2: might be tempted to go for that one, but I
Speaker 2: say it's well worth that extra ten dollars mostly because
Speaker 2: you get the newer remote control with that, the newer
Speaker 2: Alexa Voice remote that comes with the Fire TV Stick
Speaker 2: four K that does not come with the base Fire
Speaker 2: TV stick has power buttons, volume buttons, and new buttons
Speaker 2: on the remote.
Speaker 1: That's big.
Speaker 2: That's big. That's huge. People have been asking that ever
Speaker 2: since twenty fourteen, when that very first Fire TV came out.
Speaker 2: Amazon finally put that out there. Just came out a
Speaker 2: couple weeks ago, and and something that a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't even realize a lot of big tech reviewers
Speaker 2: didn't even cover in their review is that that remote.
Speaker 2: It has universal remote capabilities built in. On top of
Speaker 2: being able to control power, volume and mute for your TV.
Speaker 2: You can actually speak into the remote, tell it change
Speaker 2: HDMI input three, you know, tune two KTLA for example.
Speaker 2: It will actually turn on your TV, turn on your
Speaker 2: receiver or soundbar, change inputs, control your cable box, tune
Speaker 2: into the right channel, all with that one single command,
Speaker 2: all through that little remote control. And you're getting that
Speaker 2: for that extra ten dollars over the base Fire TV stick.
Speaker 2: So it's well worth it. I definitely say go for that.
Speaker 1: And how much is it?
Speaker 2: Fifty dollars forty nine ninety nine is the retail price?
Speaker 1: All right? Elias Saba tell people how to get in
Speaker 1: touch with you.
Speaker 2: To avnews dot com. If you like anything that we
Speaker 2: talked about. There's much more detail there. You can follow
Speaker 2: me at alias E l I A. S On Twitter.
Speaker 2: Also just started Instagram, so at ESAVA. I guess I'll
Speaker 2: go ahead and throw that in there. I'll probably post
Speaker 2: some pictures of our little interview.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me today on the podcast.
Speaker 1: If you want links, you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: writing it down. Just going to the website richon tech
Speaker 1: dot tv, or you can check the show notes. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Let me know what you think
Speaker 1: of the show. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: rich tamiro. I'll talk to you real soon