# Rumors of an Amazon music service, TV set-top box swirl yet again



## Athlon646464

*Rumors of an Amazon music service, TV set-top box swirl yet again*

We're still not sure whether Amazon's truly launching a music streaming service, but if it does, you might only be able to access songs and albums for a limited time. According to the Wall Street Journal, the e-commerce company hopes to offer music streaming as part of Prime to justify an annual membership (from $79 to $119) price increase. Unlike other services like Spotify or Pandora, Amazon's end goal is to entice people to download tracks from its MP3 store, hence, the time limit....

According to GigaOm, if a set top box does become available, it'll come loaded with Netflix and Hulu Plus in addition to Prime Instant Video. It's also intriguing that Amazon appears on a list of companies registered to use the DIAL protocol pushed by Netflix and YouTube....

Full Story Here


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## dmspen

The letter I received from Amazon said it was an increase from $79 to $99, not $119.


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## Athlon646464

Same here - it came today.......


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## umdetred

Yep, $99, not $119


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## Cholly

Not thrilled, but I do enough purchasing to make it worthwhile.


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## ziggy29

What's really needed is for these online video streaming players (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu and others) to combat the growing dominance Big Cable has in providing residential Internet service. As long as Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, TWC and others control most of the residential Internet market, they have no interest in making "cutting the cable" cost-effective for the folks who want to rely on these other streaming services without a $100 monthly cable bill. And with net neutrality seemingly dead, what's to stop these cable companies from throttling traffic from these services, demanding a much "higher toll" to carry their traffic or imposing low monthly bandwidth caps which disproportionately hit the "cable cutters" who regularly use these services?


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## Athlon646464

*Update: Amazon's streaming device is reportedly a dongle with gaming support (April release?)*

We've been hearing rumblings about Amazon's set top box plans for quite a while now, and according to the folks over at TechCrunch, that gadget more closely resembles Google's Chromecast. The possibility of a USB-style product should come as no surprise given the popularity of the aforementioned $35 option and Roku's recent release. In addition to the dongle form factor, the report also suggests that the device will feature support for streaming PC games in order to compete with the likes of Xbox, PlayStation and Steam for all types of living room content consumption.

Full Story Here









_Engadget_


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## TBoneit

I believe they and Google are missing a fair amount of sales by going with a Dongle. I have three HDTVs in the house. Not one has USB.


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## sigma1914

TBoneit said:


> I believe they and Google are missing a fair amount of sales by going with a Dongle. I have three HDTVs in the house. Not one has USB.


You don't need the USB, that's for power. You can use that or a power adapter. The stick goes to the HDMI.


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## Athlon646464

*Update: **Amazon likely to announce media streamer at April 2nd event*

Amazon's name has been circulated pretty heavily in the rumor mill as of late, especially when it comes to a streaming music service and set-top box. So we aren't necessarily surprised to see the company send us an invite to an event April 2nd for "an update to our video business." That's the only clue we have -- unless you count the image of a couch as a hint -- but given the aforementioned rumors, it seems very likely that we're going to see the set-top box that's been rumored for so long....

Full Story Here


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## wilsonc

They just announced Amazon Fire Tv. They obviously need to check out firetv.com. This has got to be the biggest blunder of all time.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using DBSTalk mobile app


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## Athlon646464

*Amazon Fire TV Released!*

Streaming 1080p media player with voice search, Netflix, Amazon Prime Instant Video, games, and more.

Voice search that actually works-Simply say the name of what you want to watch and start enjoying in seconds.

Instant streaming-Exclusive new feature ASAP predicts what movies and TV episodes you'll want to watch and buffers them for playback before you hit play.

With Amazon Fire TV, you can stream movies and TV shows in up to 1080p HD. With Dolby Digital Plus up to 7.1, enjoy rich, cinematic surround sound via HDMI or optical out.

From the responsive interface and instant search results, to smooth gaming and ultra-fast streaming, everything about Amazon Fire TV is fast and fluid. It's all thanks to a quad-core processor with 3x the processing power of Apple TV and Roku, a dedicated Adreno 320 graphics engine, and 2 GB of memory-4x that of Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast.

See It Here


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## ziggy29

So really, it doesn't give much of anything *new* above Roku and AppleTV (maybe a little faster, more memory, but still, the same functionality). The predictive stuff may or may not be good, but because some people have bandwidth caps you'd better be able to turn it off. 

I continue to be underwhelmed at new entries into this space without a dual-tuner OTA DVR integrated onboard. The only entrant there right now is the TiVo Roamio, and it comes with high TiVo fees. An *integrated* box with online streaming apps and OTA DVR capability would put me "all in" and would be the Swiss Army Knife of the cable-cutters.


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## grunes

The Amazon page does *NOT* say it has

1. A web browser. 
2. A DVR 
3. Hulu free, which right now is only on Windows PCs (I think) - too bad it doesn't
4. The ability to interface with a rooftop antenna to get and record normal HDTV.
5. Google Play - so what you see from Amazon is all you get.

It has 8 GB internal - so even if they add DVR, its only about 8 hours HDTV.

Access to Amazon instant video is nice, but otherwise you might be better off with Chromecast, which also has the big basics - Hulu+ and Netflix, but adds expandability through Google Play..

Perhaps this is not the magic box that people looking to cut cable is looking for.


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## airedale

Anyone know if this Fire TV can stream local media? If it can w/ out having to go through a PC (to be transcoded, etc...), this will be a winner in my camp!


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## djlong

I'd love to see a Plex client on this box. Since it seems to be Android-based, that shouldn't be too difficult. I have a Plex client on my Kindle Fire HD that works very well (when it logs into my server - getting that to happen seems to be a bit of a crapshoot).

For those who don't know, Plex is a really good client/server for local media and more. It's what MS's Media Center (my previous favorite) *should* have graduated into.


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## Athlon646464

I believe Plex is a supported app.


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## airedale

I don't want to keep a PC running if I can just have a file share being served off of my router. I can appreciate PLEX, but if I make sure my videos are supportable formats, I don't want to run a full blown PC.


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## Athlon646464

Just speculation here, but my guess is you will find out from the Plex forums before you will find out from Amazon what files types will be supported using Plex on Fire TV with a NAS.

I have a Synology NAS and it serves nearly any kind of file I can throw at my WD Live+. The Live+ has a lot more processing power than the Roku 2 or Roku 3. Plex won't work at all with local files on my NAS and my Roku 2. Amazon claims the Fire TV has stronger processing power as well.

It will be interesting to see how well it works in the wild.


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## Rich

But, and this is a big But, does it upscale? If it doesn't, I don't want it. I'm able to upscale very well using my Sammy BD players and I'll not regress.

Rich


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## nmetro

One on order; comes tomorrow. I like the voice control capbility to search; that is a big plus.

It does have a USB port, so one could add a drive if the want to.

Scroll to near the bottom: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CX5P8FC/ref=amb_link_1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=gateway-center-column&pf_rd_r=1BGYN8ZBE3R1WN8SXSHA&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1769963382&pf_rd_i=507846

Has USB, HDMI, Optical Audio, Ethernet. Also has 2.4/5 Wireless.

Some of the reviews, I found, were positive.


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## maseace

Could have been the perfect media player to replace my WDTV Live if only it had MKV support!


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