Couple of questions about fire stick

[Shooty* 4]

Hi all,

 

Apologies in advance: I've searched the forum, and I've googled, but would be grateful if someone could clarify the following for me. I also look forward to ebr pointing out my cretinous search fails in his own inimitable way. I've not been around the forums much for some time: was happy with my HTPC set up, but the Fire stick has got my tech gland going.

 

First off, pretty excited about getting a FireTV stick to replace my HTPC. Partially for power draw reasons, partially for noise reasons (no cooling fans)

 

1. I gather it doesn't play VIDEO_TS files? Not a big problem, can easily turn them into MKVs. I doubt there's any plan to include VIDEO_TS/ VOB support in upcoming releases, but please confirm.

2. Does the version of Emby on the stick have themes?

3. If not, is it planned to have them at some point?

4. Either way, is it still possible to have Movies/ TV, etc in Poster View, and series in Detail, etc?

5. Can you configure to turn off overlays/ icons/ badges for unwatched count, etc? 

6. Has anyone looked into setting up a WakeOnLan thing for FireStick, equivalent to LightsOut? I'm guessing lots of you use LightsOut or similar. Not suggesting it should be a feature of Emby, just interested what anyone is doing for those times when their server is not needed.

7. I've read up that the server end does the transcoding. My current set up is a lower powered server piping my media to my HTPC which has a Nvidia GPU/ Card. If I replace the HTPC with a stick, I'm planning on moving the GPU into the server. That'll help with transcoding time, right? (assuming that I have all relevant codecs installed, which I do).

 

Think that's about it. A couple more screenshots of the thing in action would be great: like the aforesaid Poster view. Thanks in advance.

 

Shooty*/ Rob.

Edited July 5, 2015 by Shooty*

[Vidman 589]

7.GPU card does not help with transcoding atm but may at some point in the future...i think not anytime soon tho.

 

I'm not sure if the firestick can run kodi well. ..but if you do have a device that can run kodi you will find it solve most of questions . Ie it has plenty of skins/themes that are all highly configurable to you tastes and kodi direct plays almost everything so very little load/transcoding on your server

[ebr 14910]

Yeah, given all of those questions I would say get an actual Fire TV instead of the stick (twice the capabilities really).  Then try out our Fire app.  It won't have many of the customizations you are asking for but it may still do the job for you.  If not, then you can install Kodi on it and have a tinkerers playground.

[Shooty* 4]

Good morning both,

 

Thanks for the replies. Clearly, I have a lot of reading up to do.

 

I'm probably going to go for the stick over the box as it's cheaper. The £35 I can justify. £80 for the full box: Not so much.

 

 

In particular, thanks Vidman re: transcoding: My server is running a single core CPU at the moment (Athlon LE1640), so it looks like the upgrade I've just ordered will be well worth it (7850 x2 black edition).

Edited July 6, 2015 by Shooty*

[Vidman 589]

Ok Just be aware... You get what you pay for...

[Shooty* 4]

LOL. A sound lesson for life, that one.

[Vidman 589]

Haha yea I just mean it seems like a false economy to get a cheaper device that must transcode more which means your sever needs to be more powerful, if you invest more in clients that will be able to direct play/stream your content you can keep you lower cost/power server and will have a better experience to boot as when transcoding all operations are slower and less fluid such as seeking and starting a stream etc

[mickodonnell 0]

Kodi works on Fire Stick. Just a chore clicking through the menu to start it.

Emby on Fire Stick appears to be evaluation only. At end of evaluation period, notice comes up requesting payment to Emby for lifetime support etc, Otherwise, cannot do anything. Why Fire Stick only?  All other versions I have seen, Emby Theatre or Android app, for example,have no pop up request for payment. Is it an Amazon thing?

 

By the way, Fire Stick from Argos, £25.

Edited July 8, 2015 by mickodonnell

[ebr 14910]

Kodi works on Fire Stick. Just a chore clicking through the menu to start it.

Emby on Fire Stick appears to be evaluation only. At end of evaluation period, notice comes up requesting payment to Emby for lifetime support etc, Otherwise, cannot do anything. Why Fire Stick only?  All other versions I have seen, Emby Theatre or Android app, for example,have no pop up request for payment. Is it an Amazon thing?

 

By the way, Fire Stick from Argos, £25.

 

You can also unlock the app for a small in-app purchase.  This was just the best way we found of having a paid app that was also free for supporters and provides a full-feature trial period.  Other apps on mobile platforms will follow this model (free for supporters or small unlock fee).  

 

The Android mobile one is a partial exception just because the previous version was made free by the former developer and we didn't want to start charging people for something they had previously had for free.  It does require the unlock for some new features (Live TV, Sync).