The mere existence of Amazon’s Fireplace TV Recast is a testomony to how fashionable cord-cutting has turn into.Over-the-air DVR was as soon as the area of geeks whose residing rooms ran on Home windows Media Heart. However as extra folks have dropped cable TV, we’ve seen extra user-friendly approaches from the likes of TiVo, Tablo, Plex, Channels, and AirTV. These choices presumably helped encourage the Fireplace TV Recast, a $230 field that information free broadcast TV channels from an antenna and streams the video to Amazon’s fashionable Fireplace TV gadgets.The Fireplace TV Recast is essentially the most mainstream try but at over-the-air DVR, and it reveals in Amazon’s easy and polished software program. The Recast can be cheaper than most different choices as a result of its lack of subscription charges. Nonetheless, Amazon’s DVR has a number of main limitations—most notably the necessity for a Fireplace TV gadget to look at on televisions—that may make it a non-starter for a lot of cord-cutters. One factor hasn’t modified through the years: The right cord-cutting DVR nonetheless eludes us.Low-hassle setupUnlike a conventional DVR, similar to TiVo, the Recast doesn’t plug straight into your tv. As a substitute, you possibly can place it wherever in the home, and it’ll stream broadcast channels to your Fireplace TV, Fireplace tablets, iOS gadgets, and Android cell gadgets over Wi-Fi. (The Recast additionally has an ethernet port for a wired connection to the router, however you’ll want to produce your personal cable.) It’s appropriate with any antenna by its coaxial enter. Jared Newman / IDG
The Fireplace TV Recast works with any antenna, and it has an ethernet jack should you don’t need to depend on Wi-Fi. The USB port will help exterior exhausting drives sooner or later.
Amazon clearly gave some thought to the potential hassles of a networked DVR. Somewhat than making customers join an exterior exhausting drive, Amazon included a 500GB drive within the $230 dual-tuner mannequin, which is sweet for 75 hours of HD video. There’s additionally a 1TB mannequin—that’s sufficient storage to report 150 hours of HD video—with 4 tuners for $280. Whereas the Recast does have a USB port that may finally help exterior storage, it’s not essential to report loads of reveals.Talked about on this article
The Fireplace TV cell app additionally does a very good job with the setup course of, providing loads of steerage on the place to put your antenna earlier than connecting the Recast to Wi-Fi and scanning for channels. It even suggests a facet of the home for set up, utilizing your location and antenna vary to determine which course is uncovered to essentially the most broadcast towers. Jared Newman / IDG
Amazon’s Fireplace TV cell app helps you determine the perfect place to put in the Recast.
You don’t even want to put in any extra apps as soon as the Recast is about up. Any Fireplace TV gadgets on the identical community will uncover the DVR mechanically and add a brand new “DVR” part to the highest menu bar. You’ll use the identical Fireplace TV app for cell streaming that you just used for the set up.All about that interfaceThe Fireplace TV Recast’s largest downside is that you just want a Fireplace TV gadget to look at on televisions. Recast is incompatible with non-Amazon media-streaming gadgets similar to Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, recreation consoles, and most good TVs. You possibly can mirror an Android telephone’s display to Chromecast, or an iOS gadget’s display to Apple TV through AirPlay, however the display should keep centered on the Fireplace TV app your entire time. This isn’t an incredible workaround. Jared Newman / IDG
The Fireplace TV mechanically provides a DVR menu when the Recast is on the identical community.
Should you’re all in on Fireplace TV, then again, the Recast’s integration seems to be its best power. As a substitute of leaping right into a separate app, you possibly can entry dwell channels, recordings, DVR settings, and a grid-based channel information straight from the Fireplace TV’s DVR menu.Talked about on this article
Plex DVR
Amazon additionally weaves over-the-air programming into different components of the Fireplace TV interface. The “Recents” row on the house display consists of your most lately watched channel, for example, whereas the “On Now” row lists all channels. You possibly can even use the Fireplace TV’s search perform to seek out over-the-air programming by title, actor, director, or style. Amazon’s grid information additionally helps streaming sources similar to sure Amazon Channels add-ons (together with HBO and Showtime), Pluto TV, and PlayStation Vue. If extra sources like Philo and Sling TV have been to help that information, it might turn into a strong technique to get all of your dwell TV in a single place.. Jared Newman / IDG
The Fireplace TV places Recast’s over-the-air channels proper on the house display.
The Fireplace TV Recast additionally works with Alexa voice instructions, so you should utilize the Fireplace TV voice distant or an Amazon Echo speaker to launch dwell channels, play your recordings, open the channel information, delete recordings, and examine on cupboard space. When you have an Amazon Echo Present good show, you possibly can play over-the-air programming on that gadget as properly.Amazon hasn’t dominated out supporting different streaming gadgets sooner or later. (The corporate merely says it received’t touch upon future plans.) However even when the Fireplace TV Recast does finally work with gadgets like Roku and Apple TV, the expertise will all the time be higher on Fireplace TV because of its home-screen integration and voice controls. Jared Newman / IDG
Sure, there’s a grid information.
DVR choices galoreWhen it involves recording dwell TV, Amazon has a powerful grasp of what cord-cutters would possibly need.Talked about on this article
Like most different DVRs, the Fireplace TV Recast helps collection recordings, and it affords numerous granular management over what will get saved. You possibly can add begin and cease buffer occasions, shield recordings from deletion, hold solely a sure variety of current episodes, report in HD or SD solely, and keep away from recording reruns. You may as well rearrange the precedence of recordings, so when a battle arises, the Recast will provide to cancel the lowest-priority program in your record. Jared Newman / IDG
No scarcity of recording choices right here.
The Fireplace TV Recast does a advantageous job with dwell TV as properly. Everytime you tune to a dwell channel, the Recast mechanically begins making a buffer, so you possibly can pause and rewind with no need to create a recording first. Urgent down on the Fireplace TV distant additionally brings up a mini-guide, so you possibly can see what else is on with out closing or minimizing the present program.Nonetheless, Amazon’s recording choices aren’t fairly as wealthy as Plex, TiVo, or Tablo. You possibly can’t schedule recordings manually, and the utmost buffer time of 1 hour for collection recordings could possibly be a difficulty for extra-innings baseball video games. The Recast doesn’t help collection passes for particular sports activities groups, both, so that you’ll must report each NFL broadcast as an alternative of simply your house staff’s video games. Jared Newman / IDG
Amazon’s mini-guide doesn’t get in the best way of dwell TV.
The most important omission, although, is a straightforward technique to keep away from adverts, akin to TiVo’s SkipMode button and Plex’s automated advert deletion. One of the best that the Fireplace TV Recast can do is quick ahead in 30-second increments.Fixing the body price problemWith each different networked DVR I’ve examined, there’ve been issues delivering easy body charges throughout all channels.Tablo, for example, tops out at 30 frames per second for channels that broadcast in 480i or 1080i. Plex solely helps 60-frames-per-second video on these channels for sure gadgets, such because the $180 Nvidia Protect TV. Channels DVR can handle 60 frames per second on all channels, however Fireplace TV gadgets battle to deal with this except you disable transcoding, which makes use of much less bandwidth. AirTV doesn’t do 60-frames-per-second video in any respect. In sensible phrases, not having 60-frames-per-second help means video will look choppier than cable for sports activities, information, and discuss reveals.The Fireplace TV Recast solves this drawback by its highly effective built-in transcoder, which might convert interlaced channels to a most 720p decision at 60 frames per second. Each channel subsequently appears to be like as easy as it might straight from an antenna. The Recast additionally helps 5.1 encompass sound, so utilizing it doesn’t really feel like a lot of a compromise in comparison with non-networked DVRs.The one trade-off is that the Fireplace TV Recast helps solely two video streams at a time, even with the four-tuner mannequin (which might nonetheless report 4 channels directly) and with recordings that don’t occupy a tuner in any respect. Tablo, by comparability, can present as much as six concurrent streams, offered you could have the community bandwidth to deal with it. (Amazon says it thought of providing uncooked 1080i video as an choice, however determined towards it as a result of bandwidth points. Videophiles and customers with speedy dwelling Wi-Fi would possibly want the corporate would rethink.)Quirks and limitationsMentioned on this article
My time with the Fireplace TV Recast wasn’t fully devoid of points. At one level, it stopped delivering constant 60-frames-per-second video till I restarted the tuner, and Amazon’s Fireplace TV Stick 4K as soon as misplaced its capacity to quick ahead or rewind by recordings with out getting caught on a loading display. (I solved the latter drawback by manufacturing unit resetting the Fireplace TV Stick 4K.)Stranger nonetheless, the Fireplace TV Stick 4K had some picture pixelation that didn’t happen on Amazon’s third-generation Fireplace TV. That is apparently a bug that Amazon believes it has recognized, although there’s no official timing on a repair but. Jared Newman / IDG
Pixelation on the Fireplace TV Stick 4K (left) vs. full broadcast high quality from Channels DVR (proper). Amazon says that is being fastened.
The opposite limitations I haven’t talked about but pertain to out-of-home streaming. Presently, the Recast solely helps distant viewing on iOS gadgets, Android cell gadgets, and Fireplace tablets, so you possibly can’t watch native TV on a Fireplace TV Stick whereas out of city. You can also’t obtain recordings to a cell gadget for offline viewing, like you possibly can with Plex and Channels DVR, and there’s no technique to pull recordings off the Fireplace TV Recast like you possibly can with Tablo Ripper.In mild of all the things the Fireplace TV Recast doesn’t do, I can’t advocate it as the perfect DVR for most individuals. That honor nonetheless goes to the Tablo Twin Lite DVR, which is about $100 pricier whenever you think about an exterior exhausting drive and lifelong information information, nevertheless it helps much more TV gadgets, together with Roku’s fashionable streamers.Should you don’t thoughts locking your self into the Fireplace TV and Alexa ecosystems for the foreseeable future, the Fireplace TV Recast provides you with an incredible interface for over-the-air DVR, easy video, bountiful recording choices, helpful Alexa voice controls, and freedom from subscription charges. For its first shot at a DVR for cord-cutters, Amazon has accomplished its homework—and has given the incumbents rather a lot to consider.
To touch upon this text and different TechHive content material, go to our Fb web page or our Twitter feed.