haven't tried it yet. does it do purchases? if not i can't imagine what the delay was other than trying to use their customers as pawns in a battle with apple....
Yeah, you have to wonder how much money they lost in potential Prime subscriptions with that spat-based decision. Doubtful they made up the difference in additional Fire TV sales.
To be fair, it was a business decision. The same kind of apparent short sighted business decisions Apple sometimes makes. Many here want to blame this delay on Amazon solely, when there were clearly technical hurdles Apple was addressing with the ATV 4K. Add to that the HD version Amazon released for the Gen 3 device, which was likely a port of a basic Android version, and probably existed long before they needed support for auto HDR, and frame rate matching. Apple has to push the ATV 3 version, so why not offer it to customers before the 4K version was ready? Likely Apple's business decision not to undermine the 4K box and push sales. People can believe what they want but it's unlikely Apple shares no blame here.
What hurdles? Everyone else has had Apple TV apps for years but you claim there were issues in the 5th gen Apple TV that didn’t allow the app on the 3rd gen device until day? Bullshit.
Finally.. but the UI is kinda meh. I think Hulu has the best UI for video apps on Apple TV.
The UI is the same as it is on FireTV boxes, minus the advertising for other Amazon products.
Hulu? What?!
Hulu is an abomination, because they've tried to shoehorn too much into it. They'd rather people watch LiveTV through it, although I don't know anyone who does, and they've done this at the expense of making bingewatching harder. If I need to view a list of episodes for a show, it's 5 clicks on the remote to get there. Hulu is not among the top 5, much less the best.
The best part of Hulu is that it works with the TV app so you don't actually have to interact with Hulu.
Fpr now, the only way I have to play a supposedly 4K/HDR video such as The Grand Tour, is to manually switch the Apple TV 4K to 1080p. Of course it will not play in 4K with those settings.
That's a start. But this thing does not seem to be ready. Let's hope it will be pretty soon.
Fpr now, the only way I have to play a supposedly 4K/HDR video such as The Grand Tour, is to manually switch the Apple TV 4K to 1080p. Of course it will not play in 4K with those settings.
That's a start. But this thing does not seem to be ready. Let's hope it will be pretty soon.
The Grand Tour played for me and I didn’t have to manually adjust settings. I’ll see what it looks like when I get home.
Fpr now, the only way I have to play a supposedly 4K/HDR video such as The Grand Tour, is to manually switch the Apple TV 4K to 1080p. Of course it will not play in 4K with those settings.
That's a start. But this thing does not seem to be ready. Let's hope it will be pretty soon.
What does this mean? If your ATV video output is set 4k, and you play The Grand Tour, you get an error? Or nothing? This doesn't make sense...
Does anyone know if there is a difference between the options: "Sign in and start watching" and "Register Apple TV Online"?
Just two ways of signing in. If you go to www.amazon.com/code, after signing in with your Amazon Prime credentials, you enter the code displayed on your ATV. Otherwise you can simply sign in with your Prime credentials on the ATV.
So Amazon made their deadline, but it's probably buggy and missing features to make their self-imposed deadline. I just hope they fence off their free-to-stream and rentable content so they don't overlap.
"missing features"? Well it looks like it. For one, I cannot get subtiles... although it's supposed to be supported...
I just pulled a copy videos and it works for me.
It’s not an Amazon app setting item, but using the Apple TV UI where you swipe down from the top of the Siri Remote to switch Subtitles and Audio options.
Thanks for feedback, but I am not sure I understand what you mean... You mean in Settings, right? I just found something related to Subtiles under "Settings > General > Accessibility", but I had that setting enabled already... Thanks for help!
No. In any video you’re playing you swipe down from the top edge of the Siri Remote to get to Subtitles and Audio.
I think you can change the default for these in the Apple TV Settings under Video and Audio, too, if you want the change to be the default.
OK, got it. It does work. I big Thank You for the help!
I was trying that gesture earlier on, and it didn't seem to work, maybe my gesture was too approximate, not sure, but now it does indeed. [EDIT] The gesture doesn't need be from the top actually, all is needed is a Swipe Down... BUT it only works WHILE playing a video. That's what I wasn't doing, now it's obvious. [/EDIT]
That setting is also available in Settings, just not under "Accessibility", but under "Video and Audio > Subtiles language", which was puzzling to me. I was looking for an ON/OFF switch, not a choice of language!
I had the language set to AUTO, which means no English subs when audio is in English, while I thought AUTO would make the subs automatically match the spoken language. But now I get it... the UI paradigm assumes English-speaking people don't need English subs. One could say "Duh !" but this is ignoring that some people have hearing difficulties and ALWAYS need subs. Another issue is not mastering the language fluently enough to always pickup fast speech, strong accents, or unfamiliar cultural expressions, and in those cases the subs help enormously.
So OK, I can select English and then I do have the subs, but then they are always in English, which is not what I want. When a movie is in Spanish, French or Portuguese, I want it in that language because I understand it. So I need to switch manually for every movie (something I thought Auto would prevent). IMHO this is not the most ergonomic UI, but I guess I need to send feedback to Apple for any (small) hope of improvement.
Well, anyway, problem solved for now, and thanks again!
haven't tried it yet. does it do purchases? if not i can't imagine what the delay was other than trying to use their customers as pawns in a battle with apple....
Yeah, you have to wonder how much money they lost in potential Prime subscriptions with that spat-based decision. Doubtful they made up the difference in additional Fire TV sales.
To be fair, it was a business decision. The same kind of apparent short sighted business decisions Apple sometimes makes. Many here want to blame this delay on Amazon solely, when there were clearly technical hurdles Apple was addressing with the ATV 4K. Add to that the HD version Amazon released for the Gen 3 device, which was likely a port of a basic Android version, and probably existed long before they needed support for auto HDR, and frame rate matching. Apple has to push the ATV 3 version, so why not offer it to customers before the 4K version was ready? Likely Apple's business decision not to undermine the 4K box and push sales. People can believe what they want but it's unlikely Apple shares no blame here.
Nah, that’s just FUD. The prime viewer app has been out on iOS for years, and there was no reason not to launch it on the 4th gen ATV two years ago when there was no concern over 4k and they could have streamed just as other companies and services were. Implementing 4k requires some code changes I’m sure but that’s why streaming companies employ software developers and release in versions.
Your narrative is like saying Netflix couldn’t have launched on ATV 4th gen until today, because 4k and Apple. Uh, no.
amazon.com/myTV page where you enter code to authorize Apple TV is showing a Sorry Couldn't Find That page! ... overloaded maybe? Anyone else seeing this?
So Amazon made their deadline, but it's probably buggy and missing features to make their self-imposed deadline. I just hope they fence off their free-to-stream and rentable content so they don't overlap.
One of my "OCD pev peeves" about Amazon video is that no matter what device I'm using (smart TV, Blu-Ray player, Fire TV Stick, iPad, Apple TV) on my 100 Mbps internet connection, the first several seconds to minute or so of the video and audio are often terrible quality. I believe Amazon does this so the content starts playing "instantly" (albeit at low quality) until enough of the stream is buffered then it switches to high quality. Netflix, Hulu, and others start streaming "instantly" for me without this annoying characteristic.
I get this intermittently on other services. We have 45Mbps service which is enough to handle the streams we watch but other downstream factors come into play from time to time.
Fpr now, the only way I have to play a supposedly 4K/HDR video such as The Grand Tour, is to manually switch the Apple TV 4K to 1080p. Of course it will not play in 4K with those settings.
That's a start. But this thing does not seem to be ready. Let's hope it will be pretty soon.
What does this mean? If your ATV video output is set 4k, and you play The Grand Tour, you get an error? Or nothing? This doesn't make sense...
It does not play. Grey screen and have to force quit the app. Tried with episodes from The Grand Tour Season One and TheMan In the High Cast Castle Season Two. But 1080p content plays. That is why I say it is not ready. And I am also wondering whether all those who make big comments have tried it.
It now works! Including HDR. But still stereo sound, although content is advertised as 5.1 Let's hope they fix it soon.
I like the price. Free is good. But I've sort of moved on. I have a TCL 4k HDR smart TV that has a Roku interface I like, and that has always included a Amazon app. I've not turned on my ATV4 in months.
Now if only I can get the promised RokuOS 8 that was promised a few months ago.
So Amazon made their deadline, but it's probably buggy and missing features to make their self-imposed deadline. I just hope they fence off their free-to-stream and rentable content so they don't overlap.
What an arbitrary thing to say given that you probably have zero inside knowledge of Amazon's development schedule. For all we know, the app has been sitting there ready for months or more, just waiting for Apple and Amazon to hash out the business terms. Further calling your statement into question is the fact that they could have waited another 15+ days and still made their self-imposed deadline if they felt the code was too buggy.
So Amazon made their deadline, but it's probably buggy and missing features to make their self-imposed deadline. I just hope they fence off their free-to-stream and rentable content so they don't overlap.
What an arbitrary thing to say given that you probably have zero inside knowledge of Amazon's development schedule. For all we know, the app has been sitting there ready for months or more, just waiting for Apple and Amazon to hash out the business terms. Further calling your statement into question is the fact that they could have waited another 15+ days and still made their self-imposed deadline if they felt the code was too buggy.
So, limiting to 2.1 is neither a bug nor a missing feature, but an innovation?
Comments
Hulu? What?!
Hulu is an abomination, because they've tried to shoehorn too much into it. They'd rather people watch LiveTV through it, although I don't know anyone who does, and they've done this at the expense of making bingewatching harder. If I need to view a list of episodes for a show, it's 5 clicks on the remote to get there. Hulu is not among the top 5, much less the best.
The best part of Hulu is that it works with the TV app so you don't actually have to interact with Hulu.
Of course it will not play in 4K with those settings.
That's a start. But this thing does not seem to be ready.
Let's hope it will be pretty soon.
What does this mean? If your ATV video output is set 4k, and you play The Grand Tour, you get an error? Or nothing? This doesn't make sense...
I was trying that gesture earlier on, and it didn't seem to work, maybe my gesture was too approximate, not sure, but now it does indeed.
[EDIT] The gesture doesn't need be from the top actually, all is needed is a Swipe Down... BUT it only works WHILE playing a video. That's what I wasn't doing, now it's obvious. [/EDIT]
That setting is also available in Settings, just not under "Accessibility", but under "Video and Audio > Subtiles language", which was puzzling to me. I was looking for an ON/OFF switch, not a choice of language!
I had the language set to AUTO, which means no English subs when audio is in English, while I thought AUTO would make the subs automatically match the spoken language. But now I get it... the UI paradigm assumes English-speaking people don't need English subs. One could say "Duh !" but this is ignoring that some people have hearing difficulties and ALWAYS need subs. Another issue is not mastering the language fluently enough to always pickup fast speech, strong accents, or unfamiliar cultural expressions, and in those cases the subs help enormously.
So OK, I can select English and then I do have the subs, but then they are always in English, which is not what I want. When a movie is in Spanish, French or Portuguese, I want it in that language because I understand it. So I need to switch manually for every movie (something I thought Auto would prevent). IMHO this is not the most ergonomic UI, but I guess I need to send feedback to Apple for any (small) hope of improvement.
Well, anyway, problem solved for now, and thanks again!
Your narrative is like saying Netflix couldn’t have launched on ATV 4th gen until today, because 4k and Apple. Uh, no.
But 1080p content plays.
That is why I say it is not ready. And I am also wondering whether all those who make big comments have tried it.
It now works!
Including HDR.
But still stereo sound, although content is advertised as 5.1
Let's hope they fix it soon.
Now if only I can get the promised RokuOS 8 that was promised a few months ago.