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I would like to sound in defense of the new device. One important feature for this device is low(er) cost HEVC or H.265 hardware decoding. The H.265 was announced fro fire stick 2, but it never worked right in Kodi or elsewhere. The only amazon device so far that supported HEVC was fire tv 2, but it is $89. This device is a cheaper alternative to fire tv 2 that supports HEVC. I would not call it fire tv 3, but instead fire stick 3. Under SPMC DD,DD+ and DTS work fine. Bitsreaming did not work, oh well. I am also surprised that auto resolution switch is not implemented. But none of these features worked well on the stick anyways.
Another useful feature is that now one can use this device with computer monitors. Computer monitors traditionally are set up to expect full range RGB (0-255). Both fire TV 1,2 and sticks 1,2 output limited RGB (16-235), resulting in washed out picture when used with most computer monitors. The new device outputs full range color (0-255) when set to YCbCr.
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honcho
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1080p HEVC works fine for me in kodi 17 with a fire stick 2. Not sure what you are talking about?
If the file is resized a certain way, you can get a green bar at the bottom, but most everything else works fine.
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I'm no expert, but I got this new Fire TV yesterday. Running ARMv7a release. H.265 HEVC 1280x528 24FPS does not play smoothly at all. I'll be sending this back and try to find another FIre TV 2nd gen as it plays all videos fine. Plus the unit gets hot as a firecracker. Wish DTV Now would offer something for Shield. I may keep it just cuz its cheap and plays DTV now but this is not a step forward if you have an H265 library like I do. Definitely a step back.
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the new 4k hdr fire tv is showing 1.39gb instead of 2gb in system info, even in fire os debug mode shows it at 1.39gb.
kodi at 4k with this fire tv runs at 18fps, if you want to get better results then change it to 1080p in the fire tv display settings, then it'll run at 60fps.
4k and hdr seems to run fine with amazon video so my guess is either kodi is not optimized for the new fire tv cpu/gpu or the fire tv is not optimized for 3rd party apps like kodi for 4k. the performance of this fire tv is between the 1st gen and the 2nd, this should be the fire tv 1.5.
anyone else can confirm this or having these issues.
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I'm having the same problems with 4k too, stock 4k apps work fine but watching any 4k content in kodi, using different sources, results in lag with audio and stuttering in video. Image quality looks great but without it being smooth makes it pointless. Think this new fire TV might be fixed with an update or should I return it while I can? I really only bought it for 4k kodi. I have 4k apps on my TV that work fine. I have several firesticks that work great, pretty disappointed in performance with this new fire TV. Glad I found this thread, I was going crazy trying to get the settings just right trying to fix it.
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2017-11-03, 11:45
(This post was last modified: 2017-11-03, 16:34 by wrxtasy.)
Does the 2017 Fire TV or the Xiaomi Mi Box have a built in Ethernet port ?
Is there a Kodi Logo on either box's packaging ?
They are virtually the same hardware internally.
Both boxes are designed to stream relative low bitrate 4K video with DRM Apps over N or AC WiFi and that is about it.
If Amazon or Xiaomi wanted you to stream high bitrate 4K Kodi they would have included an Ethernet port at the very least and tested 4K Kodi video playback.
No one should be buying either device for 4K Kodi video playback period - that is definitely not what they are for at all.
Return it and get an AMLogic S912 device and run LibreELEC Kodi Krypton - where 4K HDR Kodi video playback actually works properly with auto everything. S912's will also be faster Kodi boxes when used with a Wireless remote.
A Firmware update will very likely NOT fix 4K Kodi problems with the 2017 FireTV.
Amazon are not interested in bug busting for improved Kodi compatibility at all.
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my 2nd gen fire tv will stream a 60gb movie 4k via wifi (ethernet is too slow at 100 it's the same with the optional for the new fire tv) The new fire tv will not stream the same file via wifi or the optional ethernet adapter buffers over and over. They should have named this the fire stick 3. the 2nd gen fire tv is better. i would return it, if 4k is why you bought it. I ended up getting the shield tv last week does everything and DTS-HD TrueHD audio 1gb ethernet also.