Comment by danudey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danudey | Hacker News Reader

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As a paying Prime customer, I've never asked for Amazon to restrict Prime Video to only tablets, phones, and specifically Sony Bravia Android TVs. They eventually added AppleTV support, I guess? But I have a friend who doesn't have an AppleTV and so she can't watch Prime Video on her TV.

If Amazon is trying to use Prime Video as a bonus selling point, I don't see any point in restricting their own 'TV' shows to 'anything except a TV'. Pretty sure my friend didn't ask for that.

I haven't seen a major brand smart TV made in the past ~4-5 years without an Amazon Prime Video app. My LG, Samsung, and Sony TVs have it.

Apple is an Apple problem, they usually want a cut of all sales, since Amazon Prime Video offers subscription, pay per view rental, and digital purchase of content it would mean that Amazon would have to pay Apple a share of the proceeds which might be a problem since the margins are already pretty low.

Also last time I've checked Amazon Prime Video works on any device that can accept Chromecasts so this means any Android TV even if it's doesn't have an Android app (I don't know if these even exist) if you have an Android phone, tablet, or laptop can be used to watch the content.

And lastly lets not forget that a Fire TV stick costs 40$....

> Amazon would have to pay Apple a share of the proceeds which might be a problem since the margins are already pretty low.

Not true. Amazon can still have an app on Apple TV, and Apple won't get a cut, if Amazon sells subscriptions through their website instead of the app. That's what they're already doing on iOS at least.

> And lastly lets not forget that a Fire TV stick costs 40$....

This is the problem, not the solution. Nobody wants one device per service. I don't want an Apple TV for Apple stuff, a Fire stick for Amazon, a Roku for something else, and so on. It's annoying, and my TV doesn't have that many HDMI ports.

It's not about the subscriptions it's about the rentals and the purchases, it could've changed since then but Prime Video doesn't support purchasing on mobile which makes it irrelevant for the TV.

>This is the problem, not the solution. Nobody wants one device per service. I don't want an Apple TV for Apple stuff, a Fire stick for Amazon, a Roku for something else, and so on. It's annoying, and my TV doesn't have that many HDMI ports.

Isn't it funny that this is an Apple problem always?

Yup. I have a fire stick, it's fantastic. It does everything, and if there's something it doesn't do then I can likely make it do it somehow, because it's just an android device that I'm free to sideload regular APKs on to.

I love the damn thing, best £30 I've spent in a long long time. It does Prime video, it does netflix, it does spotify, it does plex, kodi, it does sonic 2 for fuck's sake.

Whoa, I have two FireTV sticks and didn't know it had Kodi or Sonic 2 apps. Going to have to look at that when I get home

Yup, you can get Sonic 1, 2 and CD on the amazon store, IIRC you'll have to sideload kodi though, not a massively difficult task. It's as simple as turning on developer mode in the settings and then using an app on your phone to adb install the kodi APK to the fire stick. You can also just use adb in a terminal on your PC or whatever, up to you - but there's some apps on the play store that make it super easy.

I watch all my video over Chromecast. Making the TV just a screen controlled by my phone is a model that works really well for me. Alas, I've never watched any Amazon video because of that. You'd think Amazon would be more interested in really hooking me on prime instead of pushing their fire products.

Does the Prime Video app support the Chromecast protocol now? Or are you referring to a full screen cast from an Android device, that's just mirroring the device screen?

Newer Vizio TVs use what's essentially an embedded/modified Chromecast as their smart tv OS, which works really really well. But since Prime Video on iOS (last time I tried) doesn't support the Chromecast protocol, I can't watch anything from Prime Video on my TV.

No chromecast support. I don't own a smart tv so my chromecast is the life of my living room TV. It's kind annoying since I can only watch it on computer or tablet.

You have to cast it from Chrome or Android (screencasting). Any android TV/TVbox has built in Chromecast.

LeEco androidtv, and any other AndroidTV box that isnt Sony.

My NVIDIA Shield Android TV box has the App. I don't know what LeEco even is, I've googled it and it's a chinese brand do they even operate outside of China/India?....

I have a number of HD displays in my house. Some hooked to computers, some to cable boxes and Fire sticks... What are these TVs you speak of?

Sarcasm aside, my Samsung TV has an Amazon app which streams Prime Video just fine...

If her box really can't get Amazon video natively, a fairly cheap Fire stick will do the job nicely.

I can even use my raspberry pi to stream it in a pinch.

Works fine on my Vizo and Samsung TV (nether are Android - heck the Vizo is ~6 years old) so I am not sure what you are talking about?

> I've never asked for Amazon to restrict Prime Video to only tablets, phones, and specifically Sony Bravia Android TVs

It plays fine for me in ubuntu's chromium browser...

only 720p if i remember correctly.

I can watch it on my laptop, my roku, my fire tv, and my chromecast. Three of those play on my tv. What device are you unable to play it on?

How do you get it working on chromecast?

I presume, by using screen mirroring: https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6059461

I hit the chromecast icon in the upper-right corner of my chrome browser while streaming on my laptop.

They said it plays on three of those devices which probably means the laptop, fire TV and Roku

No, it plays on all 4 devices. I said three of them played on my TV. Those three were the chromecast, fire tv and roku. Although I guess the laptop could display on my tv with an hdmi cable, so all 4 methods should work.

Works fine with a 30 dollar roku. I think you are inventing problems. Not everything interacts, specifically walled gardens.

A $50 roku plays Amazon prime video just fine.

> But I have a friend who doesn't have an AppleTV and so she can't watch Prime Video on her TV.

It was recently announced that Prime video is coming to the AppleTV.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/31/11826362/amazon-acceptabl...

basically Apple would have wanted a cut of revenue and Amazon wanted none of that

I have an Amazon Video app natively on my LG OLED.

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