Fire stick / Chromecast / Pi / etc?
Discussion
When abroad I usually carry an HDMI cable so I can plug my laptop in to a telly and watch downloaded files or streaming TV. I now have an apartment for the next 6 months or more so would like a more user friendly set up, and with Black Friday sales coming in a few weeks, what is my best option?
Firestick:
Presumably I won't be able to get at iPlayer when abroad but could it do the ITV equivalent?
My wife has a prime account, and as a linked account I get the prime delivery but not my own amazon prime video, I assume we could use her account for video but we'd need to be careful that I don't access it here at the same time as she accesses it in the UK?
Can it play streaming media from a computer or drive on the network?
Chromecast:
Does this just mirror my laptop screen on the TV?
If so I assume I use it just like the HDMI cable connection but don't need a physical connection to the TV?
What's the picture quality like on a reasonable sized TV?
If it's from my laptop then it has the advantage of iPlayer being an option through the VPN.
Pi
I have a Pi2 at home that I use the for streaming from the network and watching TED talks, but bought a Zero when they first came out, only to find OSMC didn't work on it at the time. I plan to bring that over next week to try, but can I get decent streaming TV apps on it?
Google suggests it might be possible to set up PureVPN on OSMC to watch iPlayer.
Any other decent options?
Firestick:
Presumably I won't be able to get at iPlayer when abroad but could it do the ITV equivalent?
My wife has a prime account, and as a linked account I get the prime delivery but not my own amazon prime video, I assume we could use her account for video but we'd need to be careful that I don't access it here at the same time as she accesses it in the UK?
Can it play streaming media from a computer or drive on the network?
Chromecast:
Does this just mirror my laptop screen on the TV?
If so I assume I use it just like the HDMI cable connection but don't need a physical connection to the TV?
What's the picture quality like on a reasonable sized TV?
If it's from my laptop then it has the advantage of iPlayer being an option through the VPN.
Pi
I have a Pi2 at home that I use the for streaming from the network and watching TED talks, but bought a Zero when they first came out, only to find OSMC didn't work on it at the time. I plan to bring that over next week to try, but can I get decent streaming TV apps on it?
Google suggests it might be possible to set up PureVPN on OSMC to watch iPlayer.
Any other decent options?
For Chromecast many apps such as Google Movies, YouTube and Netflix have in-built cast functionality meaning it will stream directly from the Chromecast. Therefore it does not require you to leave your laptop or phone open. Prime Video is the exception which means the streaming can be patchy and will drain your phone battery. I never cast from my laptop so if you could leave it plugged in, that will be less of a problem.
Firestick all day long, I'm a big fan and have five of the buggers. Cheap, works out of the box (life is frankly too short to bugger about with a Pi these days), and good app support, so long as you don't want YouTube anyway.
Prime Video obviously works great and you can watch up to three streams concurrently on different devices, Netflix support is first class. You can sideload Kodi for watching media that is stored on your local network. Not sure about VPN support, never tried but I suspect will be difficult.
Tried a Chromecast for a while but never really got on with it, it was too limited in the native apps and streaming direct from a phone or tablet never really worked very well for me.
Prime Video obviously works great and you can watch up to three streams concurrently on different devices, Netflix support is first class. You can sideload Kodi for watching media that is stored on your local network. Not sure about VPN support, never tried but I suspect will be difficult.
Tried a Chromecast for a while but never really got on with it, it was too limited in the native apps and streaming direct from a phone or tablet never really worked very well for me.
deckster said:
You can sideload Kodi for watching media that is stored on your local network.
Does that mean Kodi is on it as an app and the rest of the firestick functionality remains unchanged?MYOB said:
You can watch amazon prime from your wife's account. Just link your accounts in settings. At least that what I did before.
We already have our Amazon accounts linked, so can see each others Kindle books and Echos, are you saying I should be able to watch prime video when logged in as me rather than having to log in as her?I've just discovered PureVPN have Firestick app so iplayer might be a possibility.
RizzoTheRat said:
We already have our Amazon accounts linked, so can see each others Kindle books and Echos, are you saying I should be able to watch prime video when logged in as me rather than having to log in as her?
I've just discovered PureVPN have Firestick app so iplayer might be a possibility.
Yes, I'm pretty sure there's something in the settings so that you can share amazon prime videos. I can't recall how I did it but I managed to a few years ago. I've just discovered PureVPN have Firestick app so iplayer might be a possibility.
I'm not really bothered about hooky streaming services. If I can get iPlayer and the like, it'll cover most of what I want to watch, but would need the VPN for iPlayer despite paying for a TV licence. Amazon Prime would be a bonus but not really essential, but streaming from my network would be good as I've got "backups" of a lot of my DVDs.
Looks like a Fire Stick + Kodi is winning at the moment, I assume they do some good discounts on them for Black Friday or January sales?
Looks like a Fire Stick + Kodi is winning at the moment, I assume they do some good discounts on them for Black Friday or January sales?
Chromecast is great because you can cast from your laptop using Chrome as browser. The only thing that sucks (and they might have changed it recently) is that when you have a playlist in youtube and you play it through Chromecast as a direct stream if you pause it for long enough for it to go to screensaver Chromecast loses the playlist.
Chromecast will let you stream iPlayer, Netflix, and youtube very easily.
From your phone or laptop you just find what you want, then just hit the cast button and the Chromecast connects to the service and plays.
Your device is then no longer looped into the streaming. The Chromecast is receiving the stream direct.
Its also compatible with Plex if you have a Plex home server running your media but I've not tried that yet.
We have 4 of them dotted around the house. It's great just to be able to cast from any of our devices to any of our TV's.
I've not tried any of the other devices so I can't offer an opinion nor the others.
From your phone or laptop you just find what you want, then just hit the cast button and the Chromecast connects to the service and plays.
Your device is then no longer looped into the streaming. The Chromecast is receiving the stream direct.
Its also compatible with Plex if you have a Plex home server running your media but I've not tried that yet.
We have 4 of them dotted around the house. It's great just to be able to cast from any of our devices to any of our TV's.
I've not tried any of the other devices so I can't offer an opinion nor the others.
NordVPN have a great app for the Firestick. Used it recently in Italy and worked fine for iplayer and demand 4 (or whatever they call it now)
I used Plex for media streaming. There’s an app you can get for the fire stick (no side loading needed) and that’ll stream anything from my home PC anywhere around the world.
I used Plex for media streaming. There’s an app you can get for the fire stick (no side loading needed) and that’ll stream anything from my home PC anywhere around the world.
Have you looked at Roku ?
I have the roku 3 on the non-smart tvs in the house, but recently bought a much cheaper Roku Express as budget option for our caravan - needs line of sight for the remote where the 3 doesnt, but its small so is easily hidden and for it's price is great value for money (c£25)
iplayer, Plex, Netflix, youtube,NowTV,TED, AmazonPrime etc, the interface is great and easy for anyone to use.
there's no VPN on it so you'd need to tether wifi from a VPN on your laptop for anything region specific lie iplayer, but roku has stacks of native apps out the box.
I have the roku 3 on the non-smart tvs in the house, but recently bought a much cheaper Roku Express as budget option for our caravan - needs line of sight for the remote where the 3 doesnt, but its small so is easily hidden and for it's price is great value for money (c£25)
iplayer, Plex, Netflix, youtube,NowTV,TED, AmazonPrime etc, the interface is great and easy for anyone to use.
there's no VPN on it so you'd need to tether wifi from a VPN on your laptop for anything region specific lie iplayer, but roku has stacks of native apps out the box.
FireStick seems OK after a week of use. Plugged into a PC monitor. Monitor audio is dreadful, but FireStick supports BlueTooth speaker.
There's complaints of audio stuttering from some users. Happened on mine, fix was to turn off 5GHz wifi on the router so stick only connects to 2.4Ghz. Er....
Iplayer now needs a sign-in. Kodi works fine, lots of apps like Sky News. NetFlix is excellent on it. There's a 'remote' FireStick app in the Android store. Pinball games good. ;-) Tune-In radio is good.
Annoyances are that the remote doesn't have a volume control there's a new one that does. Occasionally boots to a screen full of 'snow'. Reboot cures it.
There's complaints of audio stuttering from some users. Happened on mine, fix was to turn off 5GHz wifi on the router so stick only connects to 2.4Ghz. Er....
Iplayer now needs a sign-in. Kodi works fine, lots of apps like Sky News. NetFlix is excellent on it. There's a 'remote' FireStick app in the Android store. Pinball games good. ;-) Tune-In radio is good.
Annoyances are that the remote doesn't have a volume control there's a new one that does. Occasionally boots to a screen full of 'snow'. Reboot cures it.
I have Chromecasts on a couple of TVs and a FireTV stick in the lounge as well. I use the Chromecast for everything apart from Amazon Prime Video, because it doesn't work on Chromecast.
Everything you listed apart from Amazon runs on Chromecast with no issues, plus anything you find on the internet can be bounced to Chromecast. Lots of stuff won't play on Fire TV, but most of the main services are there as Apps.
The problem with those Apps on the Fire Stick is that you have to navigate to the Apps, and Amazon try very hard with the UI to keep you watching their stuff, wait while the app opens, then find the thing you wanted in the App, which is usually search and type it on the none-keypad remote because BBC etc want you to watch their flagship programmes, not the Childrens Cartons you're looking for. Then find the series, episode you want and ask it to play.
If you have Chromecast, you just open the App on your phone, which isn't an underpowered piece of crap running a 'do we really have to support this?' app, so it gets you to the search bar in seconds. And you can login and save your favourite shows and you have keyboard to search from, so you can get to the programme you want in seconds.
Amazon support on Chromecast is the inverse of the above, except it's worse because they only support Chromecast on the Music App, so no TV to Chromecast. So really the best user experience is one of each and use the Amazon App to find Amazon stuff to play.
Note that the Amazon App search function only searches Amazon content and they often have other providers free content that they'll try to charge you for.
If you download stuff to play, I'd highly recommend dropping Plex server onto your laptop and then using the Plex app to cast it to Chromecast, it's just a better user experience than opening files on your laptop. I run Plex Home Theatre on a Raspberry Pi too, that basically does the same except it's hard-wired to the network so is a bit more reliable for me and you can control it from the TV remote.
Everything you listed apart from Amazon runs on Chromecast with no issues, plus anything you find on the internet can be bounced to Chromecast. Lots of stuff won't play on Fire TV, but most of the main services are there as Apps.
The problem with those Apps on the Fire Stick is that you have to navigate to the Apps, and Amazon try very hard with the UI to keep you watching their stuff, wait while the app opens, then find the thing you wanted in the App, which is usually search and type it on the none-keypad remote because BBC etc want you to watch their flagship programmes, not the Childrens Cartons you're looking for. Then find the series, episode you want and ask it to play.
If you have Chromecast, you just open the App on your phone, which isn't an underpowered piece of crap running a 'do we really have to support this?' app, so it gets you to the search bar in seconds. And you can login and save your favourite shows and you have keyboard to search from, so you can get to the programme you want in seconds.
Amazon support on Chromecast is the inverse of the above, except it's worse because they only support Chromecast on the Music App, so no TV to Chromecast. So really the best user experience is one of each and use the Amazon App to find Amazon stuff to play.
Note that the Amazon App search function only searches Amazon content and they often have other providers free content that they'll try to charge you for.
If you download stuff to play, I'd highly recommend dropping Plex server onto your laptop and then using the Plex app to cast it to Chromecast, it's just a better user experience than opening files on your laptop. I run Plex Home Theatre on a Raspberry Pi too, that basically does the same except it's hard-wired to the network so is a bit more reliable for me and you can control it from the TV remote.
I've got Plex on my PC at home, think I used to use it for the Playstation to stream stuff but stopped using it when I got the Pi, so happy to have that set up on something.
It's starting to sound like I want both a Firestick and a Chromecast to do what I want, but I can't help thinking if I need to sue my laptop to stream to Chromecast, I may as well just leave the laptop plugged in to the telly.
How does Chromecast work with multiple devices? I'm renting a place where the wifi is shared with the Landlord so don't want to find he's got one as well and I'm accidentally streaming to the wrong TV
Not looked at Roku, lack of VPN would mean no iplayer unless I download first to the laptop, in which case I'm back to the Chromecast issue, but at first glance it seems like a more robust and user friendly version of my Pi running OSMC/Kodi. Is that fair or does it do a lot more?
It's starting to sound like I want both a Firestick and a Chromecast to do what I want, but I can't help thinking if I need to sue my laptop to stream to Chromecast, I may as well just leave the laptop plugged in to the telly.
How does Chromecast work with multiple devices? I'm renting a place where the wifi is shared with the Landlord so don't want to find he's got one as well and I'm accidentally streaming to the wrong TV
Not looked at Roku, lack of VPN would mean no iplayer unless I download first to the laptop, in which case I'm back to the Chromecast issue, but at first glance it seems like a more robust and user friendly version of my Pi running OSMC/Kodi. Is that fair or does it do a lot more?
RizzoTheRat said:
I've got Plex on my PC at home, think I used to use it for the Playstation to stream stuff but stopped using it when I got the Pi, so happy to have that set up on something.
It's starting to sound like I want both a Firestick and a Chromecast to do what I want, but I can't help thinking if I need to sue my laptop to stream to Chromecast, I may as well just leave the laptop plugged in to the telly.
How does Chromecast work with multiple devices? I'm renting a place where the wifi is shared with the Landlord so don't want to find he's got one as well and I'm accidentally streaming to the wrong TV
Not looked at Roku, lack of VPN would mean no iplayer unless I download first to the laptop, in which case I'm back to the Chromecast issue, but at first glance it seems like a more robust and user friendly version of my Pi running OSMC/Kodi. Is that fair or does it do a lot more?
There’s nothing you want to do that you couldn’t do on the Firestick. Running both a Firestick and a chromecast is crazy. It's starting to sound like I want both a Firestick and a Chromecast to do what I want, but I can't help thinking if I need to sue my laptop to stream to Chromecast, I may as well just leave the laptop plugged in to the telly.
How does Chromecast work with multiple devices? I'm renting a place where the wifi is shared with the Landlord so don't want to find he's got one as well and I'm accidentally streaming to the wrong TV
Not looked at Roku, lack of VPN would mean no iplayer unless I download first to the laptop, in which case I'm back to the Chromecast issue, but at first glance it seems like a more robust and user friendly version of my Pi running OSMC/Kodi. Is that fair or does it do a lot more?
Get a Firestick, get NordVPN on it as well as iplayer, plex, Netflix etc and it’ll all just work. You won’t even need to open you laptop
Amazon appear to have the Fire TV Stick with 1st Gen Alexa Voice Remote, and the Fire TV Stick 4K Ultra HD with All-New Alexa Voice Remote
Obviously the latter's 4k while the former's 1080p, and it looks like the 4K ones remote can be set up to control compatible TVs, which the first gen can't, but does anyone know if there are other differences?
Obviously the latter's 4k while the former's 1080p, and it looks like the 4K ones remote can be set up to control compatible TVs, which the first gen can't, but does anyone know if there are other differences?
deckster said:
Firestick all day long, I'm a big fan and have five of the buggers. Cheap, works out of the box (life is frankly too short to bugger about with a Pi these days), and good app support, so long as you don't want YouTube anyway.
Prime Video obviously works great and you can watch up to three streams concurrently on different devices, Netflix support is first class. You can sideload Kodi for watching media that is stored on your local network. Not sure about VPN support, never tried but I suspect will be difficult.
Tried a Chromecast for a while but never really got on with it, it was too limited in the native apps and streaming direct from a phone or tablet never really worked very well for me.
Express VPN now have an app available on the Firestick for Gen 2 +Prime Video obviously works great and you can watch up to three streams concurrently on different devices, Netflix support is first class. You can sideload Kodi for watching media that is stored on your local network. Not sure about VPN support, never tried but I suspect will be difficult.
Tried a Chromecast for a while but never really got on with it, it was too limited in the native apps and streaming direct from a phone or tablet never really worked very well for me.
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