"bcf has made his point and has pulled back to an unbelievably reasonable tone".



"bcf has made his point and has pulled back to an unbelievably reasonable tone". Ernie, wtf are you talking about?

I like a good grade school fight. Let 'm play.

Just saw the ifixit teardown of the Fire TV. Definitely no ir receiver. Highly doubt there will be any open ip protocol to be able to ingrate with it either. That's too bad, looked like a decent box.

There is not even an Android app to control the damn thing. WTF? I am sure there will be one at some point but come on. Maybe they have an app for use on the Kindle tablets. And maybe they can build a USB -> IR dongle to use that currently useless USB port.

I need something, but it will not be the Fire TV box. Nor will it be Apple TV 3, or Roku 3. I guess I will wait until the next versions all come out and compare then.

Roku is pretty phenomenal. I can't imagine what you want to do that Roku wouldn't accomplish.

My boss got one today. UI is terrible. Long way to go.

I have heard that the UI lacks flair. The thing that the Roku will not do is extend my mac mini desktop. I download F1 torrents and would love to not have to unplug the mini and hook it up to the TV to watch them. :) Chalk it up to pure laziness on my part. Other than that 1 feature, I would go get a Roku 3 tonight. I will wait to see what Apple TV 3s or New Apple TV or whatever name they will come up with for it has to offer.

Why don't you have a Chromecast and cast the F1 races to your TV?

I stream them from a buddy running a Plex server to my Chromecast using the iPad as a remote.

Hopefully they will listen and update the USB port to support a USB ir receiver

Just got mine . I really like it so far . Dedicated GPU makes a difference , movies look really good in full 1080p hd . I would have to disagree with Mac - i kind of like the UI , plus it's really fast and responsive . Voice search is right on , it beats typing letters via on screen keyboard ( although available as well ) . Games are a nice touch and look better than the ones on Roku ( dedicated xbox type controller helps ) . I am positive that sooner rather than later most control systems will have IP drivers / modules available as well , Fire TV is just a " flavor " of Android after all . Yes , it lacks some services i.e HBO GO , but that thing has just been released , give it another couple of months - it has great potentials .

I think Mac was referencing my out of the gate opinion after 5 minutes of playing with it. I'm less critical of it now, but let's just say it's not refined.

The search function is spectacular.

My biggest complaint revolves around the lack of easy filtering to free Amazon Prime content. Throughout the interface they mix Amazon Prime free content and Amazon paid content. But as a Prime member I want a simple means to see what I can watch free as part of my Prime subscription, same as with Netflix.

Just think of what a giant pain Netflix would be if as you were surfing through it all over the place free content was right next to paid content. I'm not saying the two should never meet, but there should be a very easy way to browse all free content, and just know that everything you are seeing is available to watch at no charge.

I think I see what you're saying there Ernie, you're only interested in watching non-engineers who masturbate. Honestly Ernie, whatever floats your boat as long as it's all between consenting adults, but for the love of God could you please just keep it to yourself?

The only thing stopping me from getting one yesterday, is the lack of an IR sensor or IP control. However, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before something is figured out... :-)

They should have some means of control other than bluetooth, but the reason they went with bluetooth is obviously that the voice search function requires it. Even if it can be integrated via IP, it won't work very well for whole house applications because people would lose the single most unique selling feature.

You know all this of course, it's just a shame because the voice search is very cool.

im loving the box so far.. its FAST.. Even video plays near instantly ( granted i get around 180 megabits down )

im lucky the rack is semi close to the tv area. I still see some issues when you press buttons fast so i have to press buttons at a normal rate or else it flips out

the voice search is COOL

The performance is the best of any device I've used. Definitely seems snappier than Apple TV, Boxee, Western Digital and Roku.