Android MiniClient - Amazon Fire TV - Installation Issues/Questions

[Daweeze]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I think I might grab one of the firetv sticks to play around with. Even if it can't work perfectly with sage I'll still use it.

I can help test some of this stuff too.

Amazon Refurb of Fire TV Gen 2 (4K) is $65 today. I picked up another 3.

-Travis

[Daweeze]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Do you have handle on what is different in the Amazon port of ExoPlayer? I don't have much success with the "main" ExoPlayer But, I'm glad it's working well for you on FireTV.

My "window" of working on this has passed for this weekend, but, maybe I start that branch next weekend. It would be good to have this as an option for FireTV users.

Hey Stuckless,

Just curious if you were messing around with a FireTV Branch this weekend?!?!

Thanks for all of your efforts...

-Travis

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Daweeze

Hey Stuckless,

Just curious if you were messing around with a FireTV Branch this weekend?!?!

Thanks for all of your efforts...

-Travis

Unfortunately, my only windows to do anything is sat/sun (mornings), and this wekend I have family from out of town, and next weekend is the same... So it's likely it'll be 2-3 weeks before I can even look at this

[daminc]

Finally got a fire stick, and thought I would share my experience

... sage navigates about equal to an hd100. only one video in my recorded tv directory will play correctly.. All videos after the first, will only play audio with a blank screen until you restart sage, and then the same problem.. All my saved movies and shows in my movies folder all play fine. all my stuff is saved on the same drives on the network.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by daminc

Finally got a fire stick, and thought I would share my experience

... sage navigates about equal to an hd100. only one video in my recorded tv directory will play correctly.. All videos after the first, will only play audio with a blank screen until you restart sage, and then the same problem.. All my saved movies and shows in my movies folder all play fine. all my stuff is saved on the same drives on the network.

That sounds about right for regular FireTV (although the navigation on a FireTV is pretty decent), but Amazon has made it difficult to do video playback for sure.

[evilpenguin]

Sorry meant to post this a long time ago but life got *very* busy. Here's an apk that people can try on their FireTV's (Tested on all models, works great on newest box/stick. Older box works decent and older stick *technically* works but isn't a great experience.)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j7ml899ml3...lient.apk?dl=0

To get it to work make sure you go into the settings on the server picker screen and check "Use Exoplayer".

Works:
* Standard TV formats (Mpeg2-TS/PS w/ac3 audio)
* h.264 in mp4, mkv

Known Issues:
* Deinterlacing is terrible, only really a problem in sports.
* Subtitles don't work
* Changing audio tracks doesn't work

[stuckless]

Thanks for posting... I got tied up into other things so I never did get a chance to pull in the Amazon ExoPlayer updates

Do you know if Amazon has any plans on upgrading to the 2.x ExoPlayer release?

[evilpenguin]

I don't know when they plan on porting the amazon changes to the 2.X branch, but until they do its probably easier to just leave FireTV forked. That new FLIRC stuff you're doing now won't work on it anyway so its not a big loss in the short term.

[Daweeze]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Thanks for posting... I got tied up into other things so I never did get a chance to pull in the Amazon ExoPlayer updates

At least it is still on the list....I am getting by with it on the Fire TV as is. I am curious what might be the realized advantage using Amazon ExoPlayer? The main issues I have at this time with the MiniClient are as follows:

1) The interlacing issue noted above...horrible with sports.
2) The video pauses between on the hour mark when a show spans multiple hours.

Thanks again for the work on this regardless.

-Travis

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Daweeze

At least it is still on the list....I am getting by with it on the Fire TV as is. I am curious what might be the realized advantage using Amazon ExoPlayer? The main issues I have at this time with the MiniClient are as follows:

1) The interlacing issue noted above...horrible with sports.
2) The video pauses between on the hour mark when a show spans multiple hours.

Thanks again for the work on this regardless.

-Travis

Do you get that "pause" on an HD300? I don't see that second one as being a client issue... seems like there is something going on with the server.

I don't know if ExoPlayer would help with #1... I suspect not.

[daminc]

I tried to install the miniclient apk file on firestick, and it keeps failing half way through on the install from my Mac


Problem solved... had to uninstall the previous miniclient. log file said error because of downgrade when trying to install

[AzJazz]

I have been trying to get the MiniClient working on my FireTV2 (2015) boxes. I have tried the latest MiniClient release (v1.2.4) and evilpenguin's APK (v1.0.7) in this thread.

So far, not much luck.

One problem I have is that I don't see any video when playing back my recordings (I have audio). I tried enabling/disabling Exoplayer, and then I would get is no audio at all.

Another problem I run into is that when I try to get to my imported videos (located on my NAS device), the MiniClient screen locks up. Sometimes, I can see the videos on the NAS, but usually I get the lock-up instead.

AzJazz

[uberpixel]

Just got my Amazon Fire TV stick last night as part of a 1 month DIRECTV Now promotion.

I loaded up the latest SageTV client from the Amazon App Store and gave it a whirl. At first it didn't work so I clicked the EXOPlayer switch in the settings and watched recorded content without any problems.

I immediately loaded Gemstone and found that menu navigation is not as snappy as my HD300 (but still plenty fast). Turned off animations but didn't make a big difference. I'll try the stock UI tonight as a baseline check.

I'm not really sure if this is the latest and greatest version of this Client for Fire TV (is there a side-load version out there?), but my 5 minute lazy approach to making it work resulted in a couple of hours of solid viewing. I did notice a few blips while watching basketball - could be the de-interlacing issue I've seen mentioned?

Overall I'm liking the FireTV stick. It's practically on top of my router and the picture and stream was totally solid for Amazon Originals and SageTV.

I need to try watching live TV and some converted movies tonight but so far I'm thinking this may be a better platform for SageTV than some of the previous comments led me to believe.

-uberpixel

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

I need to try watching live TV and some converted movies tonight but so far I'm thinking this may be a better platform for SageTV than some of the previous comments led me to believe.

-uberpixel

Okay - my initial enthusiasm has been tempered. Tried watching some mpeg2 files last night (from my OTA HDHR) and found that they did not play. Using EXOplayer the playback was heavily stuttered and unwatchable. No joy with IJK either.

Ripped Blu-ray played okay but for some reason it defaulted to the director's cut audio and I couldn't figure out a way to change the track.

Also noticed that there is an audio sync issue when watching live TV (H264) on both the FireTV Stick and the MiBox. I rarely watch live TV unless I'm catching up to a sporting event so I've never noticed this before on the MiBox but tried a side by side comparison to confirm.

Tried watching live TV on a H264 stream that was protected by Parental Controls and couldn't get the on-screen keyboard to go away. I backed all the way out of the SageTV app and still couldn't get it to go away. Had to power cycle the FireTV stick to fix it.

I realize that FireTV is not a platform that has been a focus for this MiniClient so not sure what to say here other than - it sure would be cool if it worked better on FireTV... I have yet to find one streamer to do everything I need (SageTV, Amazon Prime, Youtube, DirecTV Now). The MiBox is close but the lack of a proper Amazon Prime app is annoying.

-uberpixel

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

Okay - my initial enthusiasm has been tempered. Tried watching some mpeg2 files last night (from my OTA HDHR) and found that they did not play. Using EXOplayer the playback was heavily stuttered and unwatchable. No joy with IJK either.

Ripped Blu-ray played okay but for some reason it defaulted to the director's cut audio and I couldn't figure out a way to change the track.

Also noticed that there is an audio sync issue when watching live TV (H264) on both the FireTV Stick and the MiBox. I rarely watch live TV unless I'm catching up to a sporting event so I've never noticed this before on the MiBox but tried a side by side comparison to confirm.

Tried watching live TV on a H264 stream that was protected by Parental Controls and couldn't get the on-screen keyboard to go away. I backed all the way out of the SageTV app and still couldn't get it to go away. Had to power cycle the FireTV stick to fix it.

I realize that FireTV is not a platform that has been a focus for this MiniClient so not sure what to say here other than - it sure would be cool if it worked better on FireTV... I have yet to find one streamer to do everything I need (SageTV, Amazon Prime, Youtube, DirecTV Now). The MiBox is close but the lack of a proper Amazon Prime app is annoying.

-uberpixel

FYI, ShieldTV just added an official Amazon Prime app .

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

FYI, ShieldTV just added an official Amazon Prime app .

I was excited about that... until I took the update and there is no Amazon Prime app I guess even though we can watch Amazon Prime (in a browser) in Canada, it didn't make to the Shield's Firmware... I'm guessing they use a different firmware for Canada

[Daweeze]

Originally Posted by uberpixel

Okay - my initial enthusiasm has been tempered. Tried watching some mpeg2 files last night (from my OTA HDHR) and found that they did not play. Using EXOplayer the playback was heavily stuttered and unwatchable. No joy with IJK either.

Ripped Blu-ray played okay but for some reason it defaulted to the director's cut audio and I couldn't figure out a way to change the track.

Also noticed that there is an audio sync issue when watching live TV (H264) on both the FireTV Stick and the MiBox. I rarely watch live TV unless I'm catching up to a sporting event so I've never noticed this before on the MiBox but tried a side by side comparison to confirm.

Tried watching live TV on a H264 stream that was protected by Parental Controls and couldn't get the on-screen keyboard to go away. I backed all the way out of the SageTV app and still couldn't get it to go away. Had to power cycle the FireTV stick to fix it.

I realize that FireTV is not a platform that has been a focus for this MiniClient so not sure what to say here other than - it sure would be cool if it worked better on FireTV... I have yet to find one streamer to do everything I need (SageTV, Amazon Prime, Youtube, DirecTV Now). The MiBox is close but the lack of a proper Amazon Prime app is annoying.

-uberpixel

Curious if the FireStick you received is the original version and not the recently released unit with a bunch more power.

-Travis

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I was excited about that... until I took the update and there is no Amazon Prime app I guess even though we can watch Amazon Prime (in a browser) in Canada, it didn't make to the Shield's Firmware... I'm guessing they use a different firmware for Canada

Bummer, they must have regional firmware. The app shows up for me in the US and works nicely in brief testing. Much nicer than the app on my BluRay player I was using before.

[uberpixel]

Originally Posted by Daweeze

Curious if the FireStick you received is the original version and not the recently released unit with a bunch more power.

-Travis

It's the newest version.

-uberpixel

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I was excited about that... until I took the update and there is no Amazon Prime app I guess even though we can watch Amazon Prime (in a browser) in Canada, it didn't make to the Shield's Firmware... I'm guessing they use a different firmware for Canada

I didn't have to do this in the U.S. but this is said to work to get the Amazon app on the Shield in other locales:

disable location services in Settings -> Location, and change your system language to "English (United States)