As TiVo attempts to break into the streaming market, a number of early TiVo Stream 4K concerns have surfaced. Customer feedback on the TiVo and Channels communities are a bit mixed, with much of the expressed positivity directed towards Android TV (new to many), low $50 price point, and TiVo’s general aggregation of content from select app partners. On the flip side, some expect more of the aggregation, including meta data and deeper app linkage, with the TiVo guide seemingly the target of most disappointment. In fact, let’s start our run-down of issues there:
- Limited AirTV tuner support
One of TiVo’s primary Stream selling points is the presentation of Sling TV alongside TiVo+ content within their guide. Unfortunately, not all of Sling TV is available within the guide — specifically: AirTV locals are noticeably absent, requiring users to leave the TiVo interface and manually launch the Sling TV app… as they would on any other streamer, like Roku.
- HDMI CEC Issues
HDMI CEC has been flakey. Of course, it’s always been flakey, but seems particularly bad here with the TiVo Stream 4K turning on televisions that were expected to stay off. Further, CEC seems to work on some televisions, but not others. Or works… until it doesn’t. Further, it doesn’t sound like there are many IR remote control options to fall back on. TiVo indicates a CEC fix is in the works.
- All HDR
All content is forced into HDR and, as two folks commented here, it’s a sub-optimal approach that can result in inaccurate color/presentation and an adaptive SDR option needs to be made available as Apple TV and Fire TV provide.
(Thanks to Seth, again, for the photo!)
I got one a few days ago. I am love with it. So much that I ordered another one and I’m dumping the Firestick 4K. If only the Apple TV app would show up for Android TV.
Keep the Fire TV sticks in a drawer should TiVo stop updating this thing… Assuming the Xperi deal closes, they’ve got a new CEO coming – as soon next month. For me, Nick Jr is notably missing from Android TV. What can you do.
I’m trying this out, but UX, not so good compared with Fire Cube, or TiVO.
Need list of shows ready to watch, then list of subscriptions.
Will the new Android TV (or Google TV) UX do this?
Anyway, thanks for all!
Craig
I got mine Sunday, been using it since. There’s a few bugs that need to be worked out, but my impressions so far are positive…for an Android streamer. As far as the TiVo experience, it’s not really there.
I ordered one last week and for the life of me I could not get it to connect to my WiFi network. I have several other devices (Firestick 4k, Roku TV, android phone, iPhones, Roku Premiere, Xbox One, etc) that can all connect without issues, but the Tivo Stream 4k simply refused to connect. It can see the network, but after about a minute it says it cannot find the network. I tried restarting the router, restarting the Tivo, resetting it to factory defaults, nothing works. I’m hoping I just got a faulty unit, as I really wanted it to work. I have a replacement on the way, should be here tomorrow. I’ll know more then. Crossing my fingers.
Craig, thanks for stopping by, it’s always a treat! Also cool that you gave the Stream a shot.
There are two similar, but perhaps competing UI’s here. Android TV (accessed from the circle button) can surface content and does some cool tricks – my daughter often finds her stuff this way from our NVIDIA SHIELD TV However, TiVo has locked two apps in the top row and taken over the second row vs native Android TV. The other interface is the TiVo Stream app, accessed from the TiVo button. This aggregates content from select partners, but I’ve heard it’s a limited implementation in data and intelligence. The guide button is a sub-area of TiVo’s app, that provides access to the free, ad-supported TiVo+ content (and Sling TV, if you subscribe) which is a mishmash of stuff. For me, there’s too much other good stuff available in my backlog to even mess with TiVo+.
The rumored Android TV refresh sounds promising, but who knows what it’ll look like when it gets here.
A ton of people are leaving out the fact that Vudu , Fandango now and Moviesanywhere can’t stream in UHD. I think that is a very significant issue that needs to be addressed.
Dave, thanks!
I’m probably going to return the tivo, and wait for the google version.
Currently using Fire Cube.
Appreciated!
Ben, I’m surprised no one is talking about the Stream 4k not including a lifetime Sling TV sub! I mean seriously, I spent like $54.11 and waited for delivery of this thing! I only spent spent $216.49 and picked it up off the shelf from Best Buy on my 2019 Nvidia ShieldTV and got worse problems with CEC and similar usability issues than this tragedy TiVo is hawking at 25% of the price! Shame on you TiVo SHAME ON YOU!!! /S
Wait am I being trolled or something lol.
I am not even sure your comment makes sense.
I got mine last Saturday and have since returned it. I had been really looking forward to getting this but was extremely disappointed. First of all, it doesn’t give you access to any of your recordings from the TiVo DVR, secondly it plays everything in HDR 10 or Dolby Vision resulting in a colorless, dull, washed out picture and there’s no option to turn the HDR off like there is on the Apple TV, and thirdly it doesn’t have Vudu or Movies Anywhere and when I search for a certain movie that I know is in both my Libraries in Prime Video and Google Play, it only gives me the option of playing it in Prime Video, which has the worst picture quality of all of them due to the annoying HDR. Also, what happened to the hundreds of Apps that they promised? There’s a total of around 8. If they ever fix all of these problems, I might consider buying it again but for now, I can live without it.
I decided to order one out of curiosity. I do miss the Tivo remote a little, and it works with my Channels DVR. I like the Fire TV 4K stick we have now, but I’m curious to do a side by side and see which I prefer. For $50 it’s worth a look. The Tivo app looks pretty meh, but not worthless. Hopefully the issues listed above are fixed, but I won’t hold my breath.
Not Ben, my $35 4K Fire TV has never turned on a powered down television without my input. It’s true TiVo doesn’t have as many resources to bring to bear as Amazon and they only just learned about CEC in 2018. ;)
As a follow-up to my response to Craig: Someone’s figured out how to restore some native Android TV functionality and that top recommendation row … by disabling TiVo apps. ;) $50 for a 4K Android TV dongle and nice TiVo remote is a deal. Assuming some of the kinks are worked out, they keep the stick updated, and these settings don’t get re-pinned.
https://community.getchannels.com/t/channels-app-and-new-tivo-streaming-stick/22470/78
The lack of OTA integration is a bummer. The biggest complaint I get from my family is where to find the content. Jumping between apps can get confusing.
I was hopeful that the Stream 4K would fix that. It’s close, but without the OTA integration for broadcast channels, you still have to move between apps for that content.
Dave, thanks, I appreciate it!
@Michael said:
“… secondly it plays everything in HDR 10 or Dolby Vision resulting in a colorless, dull, washed out picture and there’s no option to turn the HDR off like there is on the Apple TV….”
I’ve found that you need to disable Dolby Vision and make HDR the priority in the Android TV Settings menu and then your colors and picture will look correct, and in my case at least, better than the SDR version.
They messed up Dolby Vision somehow internally so it doesn’t display properly. It appears that it doesn’t support the Sony version of Dolby Vision, Profile 5 Low Latency Dolby Vision (LLDV). I have confirmed this with an HDFury Vertex2. When I force an EDID that uses LLDV exclusively such as the Sony A1 OLED, I get the dull lifeless image you describe and the Vertex2 reports no Dolby Vision being input, even though the Stream 4K says it’s outputting DV. As soon as I select an EDID that supports the original RGB 8 bit Dolby Vision Version only, the LG C7 OLED, then the Vertex2 reports receiving that signal at its input and the image gets all pink and overblown, which is correct since my display doesn’t support that version of DV and is supposed to appear that way when receiving this type of signal.
This is the same issue (lack of Sony profile 5/LLDV support) I saw with the TiVo Edge, causing me to return it.
I just got my Stream and the activation system is all message up. Every time I try to activate it, I get the error message: “Oops. There was a problem setting up your device. Please try again later.”
Sean, I’m not a fan of the Fire TV interface but it does embed live television in prominent position from a variety of services or over-the-air (if you have a Fire Television or Recast DVR).
HarperVision, nice work potentially identifying an issue. The Channels guys also discovered some sort of GPU problem. Unfortunately, most of my TiVo contacts are gone and the guy I pinged yesterday for submitting bug reports (real details for engineering, not conversations with the call center) hasn’t responded.
@Doug Smith, I had a similar issue. I could not get the Tivo Stream 4k to connect to my WiFi network no matter what I tried. I even skipped the Google setup and just tried to connect manually entering my credentials, but no go. It can see the network and has a very strong signal, but after trying to connect it eventually times out and says it cannot find the network. I tried restarting my router, restarting the Tivo Stream, resetting it to factory default (by long pressing the button on the side), but it refuses to connect. I have several other devices that are able to connect without issues. I finally had to call Tivo and they are sending me a replacement that should be here tomorrow. I’ll know more then I guess, I’m hoping I just got a faulty unit but I’m skeptical after reading your post. I may have to return them both.
I got mine last Saturday, and was excited. Was going to use it in a room that doesn’t have a cable outlet in it. It had a screen saying that it was installing updates and afterwards, the screen just flickers from a plain black screen to a black screen with the little Tivo guy on it.
I called and after 30 mins of troubleshooting and being put on hold time and time again, they said that there are apparently node issues and that I should hear back from Tivo soon.
Tomorrow is Friday, and will reach out to them again if I do not hear from them. I will probably return it.
I got mine yesterday. I’ve had to reset it once already. The very first issue I had was getting the remote to pair, it took several attempts. The same is true after the reset. I’m also seeing the CEC issues, which is really annoying. There are conflicts with my Sony TV where inputs are inaccessible, the screen freezes and can’t get out of the problem without unplugging and replugging the television. I’m guessing it’s a conflict with the Android TV built into the set. I also had an issue where the Android TV UI in the TiVo stopped working and I had to use voice search to get into settings and force close the app in order for it to work again. Also, just the overall navigation is a bit sluggish.
Not terribly impressed at the moment, but going to continue playing with it and see how the aggregation piece works. I’m hoping they can fix a lot of these issues with software updates, though TiVo does not have the best track record on that front…
It’s s an amazing little dongle. She much so I will now get one for each tv
@Doug Smith said:
“ I just got my Stream and the activation system is all message up. Every time I try to activate it, I get the error message: “Oops. There was a problem setting up your device. Please try again later.””
This is almost certainly due to having too many TiVo devices on your account already. Try calling and having some removed or do what I did and just create a new account, solely for the Stream 4Ks.
@Dave I wonder if your HDMI CEC issue is power related. You mention a $35 Fire TV so I’m assuming that’s a stick. If the USB power comes from the TV itself, many TVs cut power to the USB port when the TV is off which would stop the stick from being able to stay powered. Try a wall wart, or a USB port on another nearby device.
@HarperVision
That was it. Too many devices on my account (all defunct except for two Tivo Roamio OTAs and one miniVox). Think they would have fixed this by now.
Scott, I don’t own the device (but hopefully savvy enough to not power it from the tv). A friend of mine has reported an issue, as have several on the TiVo and Channels forums, not to mention TiVo tweeted out that folks having problems should disable CEC and also tweeted they’re working on a fix – links for most of that in the article.
I just got one to add Chromecast for my new 4k TV. Seems like a great device to get instead of Chromecast Ultra at this price (and comes with a remote!). Looking forward to using it. Seems like this is the better deal than waiting for Google’s next Chromecast device which may come with a remote and will cost more. This is $50 now until 5/27. Might get another if I like it to replace 1st gen Chromecast on other TV.
Sorry @Dave Zatz my comment wasn’t towards CEC problems on the Stream 4K, it was in reference to your comment about a Fire TV Stick. Those guys typically need to be powered externally, and not powered by a TV USB port for CEC power on to work, since many (not all) TVs cut power to port when they turn off / go to standby mode. You’d know if yours was affected if it magically is booting up every time your TV turns on as opposed to just being at the home screen ready to go.
Over-the-air channels from your sling airtv are accessible although not in the program guide yet. You can access them by simply pushing up on your remote pad for the quick menu and scroll through. I’m watching my local over the air 10 news right now. On the bigger picture of TiVo and its future I hope they have one- I’ll make no apologies for being a fanboy for many years. To me it looks like with all the things going on in the world right now and the change up on ownership they pushed out what they could and a lot more will be rolled out. The most important thing- the concept is here and it is much better way to go (how many streaming services do you subscribe where is that show at?) plus a Chromecast will cost you about the same amount and it won’t come with the volume power or especially an INPUT button. My wishlist would be first and foremost change the my shows library screen to be able to list in detail- this would be a great spot to do it more like the DVR. The second thing I would recommend would be to allow at least a basic interface two play recordings of cable and over the air TiVo recordings from one of my Tivo’s on the same network. Either way after playing this for a couple days this will be replacing my roku and my Chromecast streamers on both my main TV sets. In the big picture of looking for something to watch or remember where that show is at it is a much better way to go plus I get to free up an HDMI port because it does the job of my Roku and my Chromecast plus all of that TiVo organizational help in there too. So if I’m not watching my TiVo DVR I’ll be streaming on this TiVo dongle, maybe one day they’ll meet on-screen :-)
I just wanted it to replace my cheap Roku. It can’t. It’s not very intuitive which used to be TiVo’s jam. I want Xfinity on demand Apple TV among others. I’ll throw it on a spare tv and use it for Netflix and Hulu et al.
Scott, we’re still not tracking. :) My point was that other CEC devices do not turn on the television unprompted. Which is what you’d expect (vs TiVo Stream).
For reference, my current config is SHIELD TV at primary television (family room) as both DVR server and a client device, Apple TV in master bedroom on a Roku TV, and a Fire Television in our new den.
Hmm. Maybe CEC just is horrible in many implementations and I’m lucky. I have an old Vizio which we moved out by the pool. It never worked reliably and I had to turn it off as the TV would just power on randomly.
But I have a couple of CEC-capable Roku smart TVs, two TCLs and a Hitachi. On two of them my Apple TV turns them on via CEC (I know because I can do it whether or not I point the remote at the TV, and I can use Siri on my Apple Watch to turn them on).
On the third I don’t know – no CEC devices it’s just what I use as a computer monitor.
Returning my two Stream 4Ks, big letdown. I hate the remote, a half-measure attempt at merging legacy TiVo peanut with a modern remote. The TiVo Stream software is pretty much equivalent to JustWatch, there’s no need for another dongle in the market. I’ll keep my FireTV sticks.
Man so many critics here… Its a brand new streaming device and only $50. I know its a little buggy, but thats to be expected with something new and with the Tivo name :) Its probably discounted since its in somewhat beta form now. I testing it for a bit and liked it, but I plan on using it for my office TV in a few months once we are back.
I have sling and the integration is nice. I liked the remote as well, hopefully it intergrates with tivo dvrs, especially since theres a live tv and skip button on it. Surprised people here are returning it because it doesent integrate with dvrs (yet)- We have known this for months! Also its android TV- you could have looked up the apps before buying this. Love having google search on it so I can use all my smart home features and more.
Anyways its a solid effort on tivo, I expected issues and I expect it to get better. Even if I didnt love it, I wouldn’t waste the time and money to return it.
As a loyal TiVo user with 3 generations of lifetime subscriptions, I’m not seeing the value in the new TiVo Streamer. I got it setup last night and for the life of me can’t see the marketing strategy. I have heard many say TiVo is dead, and from the way this is designed, I hear TiVo telling me TiVo is dead. Installing Kodi by default, just another dumb Android device and for my use the Fire stick is a WAY better value. If someone can tell me why to use/keep this thing please tell me!?!?
John, are the expectations and feedback here representative of TiVo’s sales/success trajectory with this product? TiVo’s brand isn’t as familiar or beloved as it once was and it seems we may be the crowd they need to win over first.
I’m not biting, not even for blog purposes – not because of the tech, I can weather early bugs. But because I have no faith in the company to see the initiative through given prior unmet promises and with new leadership coming onboard (that some of us assume will lead to a post-acquisition hardware or retail spin-off for even more churn).
Having said all that, $50 is a deal for a pretty good Android TV streamer given the landscape. If they resolve the CEC issues, general consumers probably won’t notice the HDR and refresh rate locks. Most consumers are probably also not concerned with ongoing set-top updates, security or otherwise.
One question that I have, that I can’t seem to find answered: Does the TiVo Stream 4K allow streaming of recorded content from my 2 TiVo Bolts on my home network? If not, then the Stream 4K is really not that useful to me.
@Dave bingo on the value. It’s a miss for me as a TiVo device, but actually at $50 a pretty strong Android TV streamer. If they fix some of the HDR issues, and hopefully get that CEC support working a bit better, unless you plan on gaming (I don’t) it might be the most attractive Android TV box out there at the moment. Certainly better than the (free to me as an Internet only customer) Comcast Flex box – which is pretty, has a good UI, adds voice search, but really isn’t made to easily run third party apps… Stream 4K has that button to drop into the Android TV interface, and then you’re pretty free and clear from what I’ve read.
On the TiVo side, head scratcher on not supporting DVR playback, but honestly, ‘if they were to keep adding integrations to their guide with other streaming services, especially additional OTT providers like YTTV or support for things like VUDU (how great would an integrated search be, with a one click rental from VUDU?) I could see using the Stream side of UI.
But I’m with you Dave. They have to prove they can incrementally, rapidly improve the box, not just shove it out there and let it languish.
My concern right now is the fact that Tivo Stream 4k has somehow set itself up to be the default startup on my TV. I have Roku, I love the interface, but don’t like the fact you can’t side load apps. Roku is my primary interface. Even if I turn my TV off after after using Roku when I start it up the next day it defaults to the Tivo interface.
What is your TV? Roku Smart TV’s, for example, let you set which is the default, either the Roku interface built into the TV itself, or one of your multiple HDMI ports. Or it could be more of the world famous HDMI-CEC issues we keep reading about… which you would probably need to either disable, or if you are powering your Stream 4K with a USB port on the TV, consider moving it to another port, since turning on the TV might be powering on the Stream 4K, which might trigger that HDMI-CEC function to change to the Stream’s input.
I got mine and set it up and man am I frustrated. It won’t work on 2 of my 3 TVs (it gets stuck in a boot loop over and over again). I raised a support ticket with TiVo and have not heard back – I’m sure they are flooded with bug fixes. On the 1 tv where I got it to work (where I don’t want to use it), I’m disappointed you can’t do Google Photos screensaver in Ambient mode :( That’s my favorite feature of Chromecasts. Was hoping to replace my old Chromecasts with this thing, but not going to do it now. Google confirmed that Android TVs with Chromecast Built-in do not support Google Photos screensaver in Ambient mode … hopefully one day they will make that a reality so that it makes this device more worthwhile to have over an “official” Chromecast.
Dave – you must be preparing a new post, but I wanted to take a few minutes to say
thanks for promoting this valuable thread for your readers. And I’ve got a few thoughts and comments myself….
I used a bunch of TiVos for years and still have three of them, since they are easy to use with cable cards and replace all those other boxes. I bought two of these new streamers looking for ways to not have to flip Apps all the time. I also have a Caavo remote trying to address these issues. I share the frustration of your readers with Sling and the other interface matters.
Best news for me: Your readers’ comments have helped me in a lot of ways. Here are just a couple, along with questions they raised. I’m hoping you and folks can amplify further…
Someone mentioned the JustWatch app and I installed that on my TivoStream. It’s become my go-to way of integrating all/most of my viewing. It allows me easily to see “what’s on” using my iPad or phone and then to turn on the TV and find it right there. This is much much easier than using the device’s own interface. I would welcome any comments and thoughts on this app and how to optimize its features.
A second favor was your readers’ suggestion to look at ButtonMapper. Seems like a great way to experiment with the android apps. I would really need some guidance on how to use ButtonMapper to “fix” the TiVo App. Maybe it would be a good idea to set up a dedicated button to get to JustWatch. If that were possible, then the whole streamer would work much better.
Can you or anyone suggest Very specifically how to remap the TiVo’s buttons to take better advantage of the features, say including JustWatch?
Really hoping there will be some more integration that can happen with all my other TiVo devices, but I see you don’t hold out much hope of that.
There are a lot of other possibilities here for people who can do some experimentation to make this device a little better…. though I see some of your readers are waiting for another device to appear on the horizon.
I know this has been a long note, but I just wanted to thank you for what you’re doing here.
Steve
I just got this thing today. There appears to have too many bugs. One of them is critical where when in HDR my picture darkens even though my fixed settings remained the same. Also, the “Dolby Vision” never really kicks in. I have a dolby vision capable tv and my internal OS picks up Dolby Vision just fine with my Hisense 2020 tv. I’m holding off using this stick and I will continue ti use my internal android OS. Hoping they fix these issues soon as I do like guide feature. I’ll check back monthly to see if it gets better. Eddie B.
@Derek: No.
I bought one to try out, but can’t use it. The CEC settings are not available, but they are definitely turned on. The Stream 4k completely takes over my entertainment system, so that I can’t watch anything else. If you switch to Live TV, the Stream 4k comes back in seconds, switch to Bluray, the Stream 4k comes back in seconds and all of my other devices work great with CEC, so I can’t just turn it off like chat support suggested. By the way, chat support said they were opening a ticket and I never got any kind of confirmation, so I sent a support email in and after a few days got one of those general responses saying to check out the FAQ and counted my issue as solved. Pretty pathetic, so I will be returning it. I actually liked it at first. I have owned Shield and a couple other generic Android boxes and was going to keep until I couldn’t watch anything else. I even tried hooking it up directly to my TV and it still took over my system, but did cause a delay. Thanks for this article though, as far as I had found, no one was talking about the CEC problem.
So I’m the jerk who always has an opinion, even when he hasn’t tried a product. ;)
I went ahead and grabbed two of these given the low price and after a day, am actually convinced.
First impressions, zero CEC problems. Both TVs are Roku TVs and to be honest they’ve always seemed to have flawless CEC implementation so if it’s going to work for anyone I’m not surprised it works for me.
The TiVo app has tons of promise. Curious to see it support Hulu and Disney+ but not ESPN+, but I assume it’s temporary. Having Netflix and Prime is awesome. When the Sling exclusive is over, if YouTube TV appears it’s perfect for me.
In the mean time, it’s worlds faster than a cheap box and worlds cheaper than the NVIDIA options. The remote has a great shape and layout. Sure, backlighting would be nice, but it’s a good remote.
I haven’t used Android TV in awhile, but the app selection has gotten much better.
I really like it so far.
Ok, three days in and for sure I’ve seen the HDMI-CEC problem. My Roku TV kept turning back on. Another Roku TV didn’t, however, the TiVo was plugged into a Caavo in that case. So it sure feels like HDMI-CEC has rampant problems with implementation, and for sure when TiVo tested, they didn’t have a huge arsenal of TVs they tested against. That said, there are two fixes. One involves ADB mode and disabling HDMI-CEC (no thanks). The other involves changing the screen saver settings as per “zudfunck” in this Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tivo/comments/giatn8/stream_4k_keeps_turning_my_tv_on/
Aside from that, a few things they need to change, and I’m not an expert on HDMI-CEC / ARC so if I get something fundamentally wrong, let me know:
1) It seems it picks up my soundbar information through HDMI-CEC (it’s ARC connected), but uses IR to control it (I need line of sight). That’s annoying, whereas my Apple TV “just works”, or at least if that Apple TV is using IR for that, it must have a much, much better IR transmitter in it.
2) My Apple TV always gets the sound bar turned on. The TiVo Stream 4K “often” gets it turned on.
3) Lots of crashes of the main Android TV app (but never the Stream app itself). Quite often it will show an all black screen when I hit home. I can use the Google Assistant to launch settings, and then reboot the box, but man, that’s awkward. Seems to happen most often if I launch an app and then immediately hit home before the app fully loads, which I do a lot, because I click on the TiVo button and then say “oh crap, wrong one” and reach for the home button.
4) This threw me… with an Apple TV you hold the Siri button down while talking. With Android TV you push the button once, and then start speaking. If you hold it down and start talking, it doesn’t work. This is not a complaint about the TiVo, as I assume all Android boxes work that way, but took me a bit to figure out. ;)
5) So I’m not one to go nuts over video quality and audio quality, admittedly. That said, if the Dolby Vision always being on is a problem, I haven’t noticed. I do the same thing with the Apple TV 4K I have, and it just looks nice / never bothers me. I believe the reports, I just think they bug the higher end users out there.
My final verdict:
1) TONS of promise if they timely update this box, fix a few things, and flesh out the TiVo guide to have a bit more support for third party apps and streaming services.
2) Not replacing my Apple TV 4Ks but I have two of these, and glad I do. We have an older Vizio 1080P TV mounted outside by the pool with an ancient Roku streaming stick. This is a nice upgrade for that. I also have a Fire TV Stick in my “go bag”, that when I travel for business I always use in lieu of the hotel’s TV service. This is a nice upgrade for that, as I still find the Fire TV, even in it’s 4K stick incantation to be sluggish at times, and I just hate the home screen interface. Also, as much as people complain about the TiVo’s static IR mapping, I have a feeling it’s largely just going to “work” in a hotel, where you don’t have elaborate A/V devices. With the Fire Stick, I need the hotel TV remote to navigate to the right input, and then I can reconfigure the stick for that brand of TV. As a germophobe, that’s the thing I least want to touch in a hotel, so I’ve been carrying a second remote, a cheap universal remote to hotels. This may let me stop doing that thanks to the auto configure feature and the dedicated input button?
Anyway, my verdict, great for secondary use cases, not QUITE ready for your main family room or bedroom TV yet. But for $50, great promise here.
I have been using JustWatch instead of the stream app to find and launch shows across All the apps. This seems to work better than TiVo stream. ReelGood would be better at going to the right episodes than justwatch but it doesn’t work so well for me. What do you think?
Have had mine for few weeks…still very difficult to navigate around the apps and interface. Had to turn off the HDMI CEC…couldn’t turn off my TV with it on.
I do like it more than my previous and archaic ROKU which they don’t update anymore…
The firmware release dropped earlier this week and fixed the CEC / power on issue. Yay!
That’s encouraging that they are actively–and reasonably quickly–hotfixing issues. The CEC thing alone would have driven me crazy.
So how does it stack up in terms of CPU horsepower? Is it beefy enough to run the Channels DVR app? (And I have to admit . . . the irony of buying a TiVo-branded product to be the hardware platform for an alternative to TiVo is kind of awesome.)
How does it compare to the mighty Shield?
If nothing else, $50 is a relatively inexpensive entree into having an Android TV device.
–Dwayne
Wow, Dwayne, long time no see! Dwayne may have been the first person I knew (IRL) with a TiVo. He also bought the Sprint Palm phone. That’s some real greek cred right there.
Supposedly, this is a solid offering. It’s not SHIELD TV Pro, but it’s 1/4th the cost. And it’s looking like a solid Channels DVR client. It can run the server software, but that seems risky. There are some hacks being posted in the Channels community and the developers are actively tweaking things to work properly (screen overlay) and to maximize capabilities (number keys).
https://community.getchannels.com/t/channels-app-and-new-tivo-streaming-stick/22470/78
By the by, Android TV should see a larger user base (and therefore more development, I need Nick Jr.) at some point as TCL is starting to sell sets with it embedded alongside their Roku offerings, but likely at lower prices.
Hey Dave, FYI re: TCL, they’ve been selling Android TV for years, just not in the US. Also, Best Buy now has a (temporary?) exclusive and TCL with Android TV is now actually available here, so not just a forward looking thing. Just the 3 series for now, so certainly nothing high end – but it’s a start.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/tcl/tcl-tvs/pcmcat1526935930973.c?id=pcmcat1526935930973&qp=features_facet%3DFeatures~Android%20TV
I initially the Stream 4K because of the built-in chrome cast feature. I’ve tried several times (unsuccessfully) to cast to my LG TV and Ruku.
At first, I liked the interface. It’s without ads (Fire Stick and Roku) and I generally like the viewing recommendations.
What’s not to like:
The guide is basically worthless unless you’re a sling customer (I’m not so I’ll have to their word for it).
The remote constantly loses connection with the dongle. It happened so offers, that I received a replacement remote. Still happens. I try to pause or rewind, and notice the orange light on the remote is not lit or flashes as if it is trying to pair. Very annoying, and honestly a deal breaker if not fixed.
The other comment about the remote is that it includes numbers. I thought this would be great since it includes an input/source button. Unfortunately, the numbers serve no purpose as for as a universal remote is concerned. Unless there is intent to control the TV’s OTA tuner, having the numbers are a waste of remote real estate.
I got mine yesterday, let it update during setup. Everything went flawlessly until it came to sound. I hook my devices up directly to Yamaha 5.1 Dolby Reciever and its not new at least 8 yrs old. My TV is 2013 3D LG model. I went to sound settings selected the formats .my system is compatible with so Uncheck Atmos In Video switch to HDR uncheck Dolby Vision. Checked for updates again rebooted. Installed my apps after an hour i decided to turn off sine if the features that at least for me added nothing to my expierence, some may like them. My favorite is the Android TV Live Channels i was able to load PlutoTV & Xumo then edit out the repetitive channels and those i would never watch. SlingTv love it dont know why it gets a bad rap, immediately ordered a version 1 AirTV on Amazon for $40 today i have live locals, Sling Blue + Total TV package and an awesome Free live channels in the Android TV channels. I haven’t figured out how to get Sling in there yet. Im so happy with it considering ordering another.