Fire TV Recast, over-the-air DVR, 1 TB, 150 hours

Features:
  • Fire TV Recast is a DVR that lets you watch and record over-the-air TV at home with Fire TV or Echo Show, or on-the-go with a compatible mobile device—with no monthly fees.
  • Watch and record live sports, local news, late night shows, and other can’t miss TV from channels available through an HD antenna (sold separately) like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, and The CW.
  • With 4 tuners, you can record up to 4 shows at once. Plus, store up to 150 hours of HD programming.
  • With a compatible Alexa-enabled device, you can use your voice to search for shows, open and control the channel guide, manage and schedule recordings, and help with other requests. Say things like “Alexa, open Channel Guide" or “Alexa, record ‘Riverdale.’”
  • Fire TV Recast delivers the most reliable video streams over Wi-Fi of any over-the-air DVR.
Let's keep it real....

Awesome product but lets keep our expectations in check. Some reviews complain that it's not as good as their cable DVR, or the subscription based Tivo. The Recast is buy it ONE time, and you stop spending. No maintenance fees for the channel guide (Tivo), no rental fees for the DVR - one payment and done. I've owned other OTA devices and the Recast is far superior for channel guide, functionality, integration, and price. Setup was easy but initial channel scan only gave me 15 channels using an indoor square flexible antenna. So I then hooked the Recast up to a $30 external antenna and the Recast then brought in 50 FREE channels. CBS, NBC, ABC etc. are strong and clear - but that's mainly due to moving the antenna outside. 5/5 stars, but room for a little improvement. For example, the ability to record one show, one time, every week. Currently, you can ask to record a "series", but the lowest amount of recordings is 5. I don't want 5 weeks recordings of "60 Minutes" taking up storage space, I only want one. But the device is still leaps and bounds ahead of other OTA dvrs. Great device, and great integration.

Take negative reviews with a grain of salt

I pre ordered this a couple weeks before the release and it arrived the day of the release. Points there for reliable shipment, for the option to make payments, and for crediting early buyers when they put it on sale. Having read through the other reviews allow me to clarify a few things that other reviewers are having issues with. First off this is really a top notch product that works well right out of the box. In sure there is a built in preamp for the tuners and it's obviously of extremely high quality. I'm picking up all of the channels that my old hdhomerun could get plus wpxi out of Pittsburg, which is over 70 miles away. Mote importantly to me, many of the channels I am getting are just plain more reliable with this box than any other setup that I've tried. Streaming is extremely reliable and I've had zero buffering even when both kids are home and making heavy use of the network. Let's talk interface for a minute. One reviewer mentioned that adding a channel to favorites did nothing except add a star next to it. This is not true. Any channels that you have favorited show up in their own section at the top of the channel guide. I'm currently using this to filter things out a bit as I have multiple options for CBS, NBC, ABC etc and added the one with the most reliable signal for each network to my favorites. A couple other reviewers said that when you set a timer to record a series it will record all of the old episodes and doesn't have an option to record only the new episodes. This is also not exactly true, although the interface could use a little work here. When you select a show to record it will pop up a dialog asking if you want to record this episode or the entire series. It's true that it will by default record all episodes including any old ones in syndication. However, if you click the hamburger button again it pulls up the recording options screen where you can set it to record only new episodes, along with other options such a setting a buffer time before and after the recording in case the program begins early or ends late. This screen can also be found in the dvr tan under recording options. What I would like to see, however, is a way to set the options I mentioned above globally. If that functionality is there I haven't found it yet. Instead I have had to go in and set options for every series I set to record, which is a little annoying. Many people have mentioned that they are disappointed that playback is limited to 720p. I'm a little bit disappointed on this point as well, especially since there it's literally nothing in the product description mentioning this limitation. I considered taking off a star just for this. However, I'm convinced that this was a conscious design choiceby Amazon. They advertise that this box has the most reliable streaming over Wi-Fi of any OTA dvr and I'm convinced that this claim is entirely valid. My old setup used an hdhomerun tuner connected in the attic via a powerline adaptor, mythtv on my computer and kodi as a front-end. It was notoriously unreliable and not very easy to use by my girlfriend or the kids. 1080p channels would quickly saturate the network and as soon as a second recording tried to start it would fail. Playback of recordings involved buffering from time to time as well. In comparison this box has been 100% reliable in both recording and playback so far. So I understand the design choices Amazon made and tend to agree with them. Also, the picture quality is really very, very good and if I hadn't read about the resolution limit I wouldn't have known to look for it. Continuing with the interface now. This is really very well integrated with the fire tv interface. I like that there isn't a separate apo to open. I have Pluto TV and a few of those channels now show up with my OTA channels now, too (pretty much all of the news channels). I would love it if the rest would be available here as well. My understanding is that PS Vue integrates here as well which I'm sure it's nice forthose using that service. Myself, I'm using Philo and still have to open the Philo app to access my cable channels. I'm hoping that they will get on the bandwagon here. I actually switched from Android TV to the fire sticks because of Philo, and was hesitant to do so because Android's live channels app was at that time something that I loved but that Amazon had no answer for. Well, if they can get a few more of the streaming services to integrate here it will be what the Live Channels app on Android TV promised but never delivered. So to make a long story short, while the recast is perfectly functional right out of the box I have a lot of hope that the changes Amazon made to accommodate it can open up an even more seamless experience in the future. I think that a lot of the other reviewers were being unfair to this box. It's actually quite excellent and I've never seen a better rollout of a completely new electronics platform. The negatives that several people mentioned are in some cases things they could have solved by clicking around with their remote for a few seconds more. Amazon could polish the interface a little more, and I'm sure they will, but it's already usable now if you spend a minute to figure things out. In short I highly recommend the Recast. It solved all of the problems I had with ota tv in our house.

Excellent way to record and manage OTA TV

I received this on 11/14 and its been awesome so far. I haven't had any issues recording or playing back within my home network. I have a MIMO compatible router, so the Recast has plenty of bandwidth to work with. I have two 2nd gen Fire TV boxes, a Fire Stick w/Alexa, and I liked the Recast so much, I bought a 24" Fire TV Edition for my kitchen the next day. I have an ADSL connection with 25Mbps down and 1.8 Mbps up and the stream to my phone looks great, even at that low rate. Setup was straightforward once my phone app was updated. The setup assumes that you are new to OTA TV, and walks you through antenna placement and setup. Once i was though that, it scanned for channels and it was done. Now, my Fire TV menu has a DVR option. From there, your settings, channel guide, and recordings are there for you to choose watch or schedule future recordings. It turns OTA TV into a cable-like system. Central DVR serving content to wireless receivers connected to my TV's........but with no monthy fees. I have found only one thing that i hope will change in the future, it is the limitation to only stream to two devices at a time. My main tv was streaming live tv at the same time my kitchen tv was too, and my wife couldn't stream on her tablet at her office. It said that the DVR was busy. Once I stopped one stream at home, her tablet connected right up. I would like to see a clock on the display screen when you pull-up the "what's on" menu but other than that, my wife and I really like the Recast. I've read some complaints about the 720p resolution, but in Orlando 720p and 1080i is broadcast locally, so I have nothing to complain about. If you want to cut the cord or already have, you should really consider the Fire TV Recast.

ULTIMATE TV GADGET FOR ANTENNA USERS!!! AWESOME!!!

UPDATE: I'm removing my original, slightly negative introduction because this is such a great product. Suffice to say - make sure you upgrade the system software in your FireTV Stick in order for it to recognize the new Recast device. Now back to the original review... WOW!!! An OTA (Over The Air) experience that includes a real PROGRAM GUIDE, a "What's on now" channel list that shows actual IMAGES for the shows currently playing! A TOP QUALITY TUNER, useful UTILITY and MANAGEMENT screens, a FAST CHANNEL SCAN, a POP-UP CHANNEL SELECTOR, a simple UI for setting RECORDINGS, and a REAL TIME-SHIFT BUFFER!! All great core features - plus the ability to stream to your mobile devices or work with your Alexa is super cool. And best of all - NO MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION FEES! Forgive me, I'm drooling all over my keyboard. So, if you, like me, have been living with one of those ~$50 OTA "set-top-boxes" that use USB drives to record (poorly), and have frustrating and ugly UI's that look like the junk from 20 years ago, do yourself a favor and throw it in the garbage and order this today. By the way - Much of my CAREER was spent working on set-top-box software and program guide applications - TV UIs for Cisco, S-A and countless cable companies (not for Amazon though), so I'm a bit picky, and I know what I'm talking about. It almost makes me want to come out of tech retirement and go work for Amazon. THANK YOU AMAZON for finally giving us OTA folks a quality, modern, and uber-cool user experience. THANKS! DAY 3: This thing is so %$@# awesome, I almost wish I could buy it again. Forget flying cars and jet-packs, dancing monkeys, or chocolate fountains - THIS is the coolest thing ever. Seriously, it has the BEST TUNER of any TV or set-top-box I've seen (and I have about 6). I live at the very fringe of antenna reception and I've not seen a glitch yet - I'm sure I will, but this tuner is twice as good/sensitive as all the ones I've had before. DAY 62: I also LOVE that I can buy an inexpensive FireTV Stick for every TV in the house and they all AUTOMATICALLY INHERIT all of the DVR and Live TV functionality of the Recast. Fantastic. There are some areas in the UI where I think they could make things a little more efficient, such as quickly deleting large numbers of recordings, or making the program guide (or pop-up 'what's on' guide) automatically wrap around. And I'm not sure if there's a way to custom order the channel sequence, but I'd sure like to be able to group my most watched channels together (other than using the favorites filter) - it would save a LOT of navigating. I guess they wanted to leave a little room for improvement on this massively cool gadget.

This is AWESOME!

I set-up the device as soon as I got it. Setup is easy, Plug in the unit and connect the antenna. Once you do that you only have to use your fire-tv to connect and setup the device. I have 2 separate Amazon accounts and all your units have to be on the same account to work properly. I scanned for channels and only got 4 to view due to my location and the indoor antenna I had. I later installed an outdoor HD Antenna and connected it to my legacy cable wires. I connected the Recast to that cable source and now I am enjoying 40 channels! I have Fire TV's in every room of the house and I am able to watch over the air Live HD TV on all of them. I can even use my cell phone to watch Live HD TV provided by my Amazon Recast anywhere! I can watch Judge Judy live during my lunch break at work using my Cell Phone! I can also watch anything recorder on the DVR remotely on my cell phone or tablet! This unit has me ready to cut the cable!

an Amazon Prime User, Smart Home, Cord Cutter's Dream

First off, my current home A/V setup: Channel Master CM-4228HD antenna hardwired from attic to smart panel Hard wired home network (Cat5e/Cat6) with ATT GigaFiber Internet FireTV 2nd gen (two separate rooms) Coax wired throughout the home, but centralized to a smart panel in stairwell closet (along with my network & audio) Amazon Alexa devices in the home Amazon Fire Tablet devices in the home Amazon Prime member Netflix subscription Years ago I was a TiVo Roamio user, but paying $15/mo. for a UI and DVR capability for OTA channels didn't have staying power for my idealism and wallet. I went without cable for awhile, then upgraded to AT&T GigaFiber internet, which was offered in my area. As part of the deal, I signed on for DirecTVNOW and have been a customer for about 1.5 years. Basically I'm at the point now where I'm tired of paying for content that I don't watch or use. Enter the FireTV Recast! Simple setup, seamless integration with FireTV and Alexa, and 1TB of recorded storage with presumably room to grow. Sure, I still pay for content here and there (movies, etc.) but between OTA offerings, Netflix, etc. I am still saving money. The Recast will pay for itself in just a few months compared to monthly fees with DirecTVNOW. And while I don't get sports channels outside of OTA offerings, I'm confident that with Amazon's recent news RE: bidding on content rights, I'm fully convinced this will be the future of TV for me in my house hold (i.e. a-la-carte, pay for what I want TV). UPDATE: Was having issues picking up some OTA channels... swapped out my Channel Master Coax amplified splitter and now my OTA antenna picked up 120 channels! Also did some testing with streaming on my FireTV box (2nd gen) vs. my Fire Tablet 8. Minimal to no lag. The DVR recording menu is fantastic. What sets this apart are the Alexa controls. Works flawlessly. Absolutely loving this device! Now if it were to only come in a smaller form factor!

A Game Changer!

Network channels still rule TV with great shows, and one needs a DVR to record them. With 1 TB and 150 hours of recording capacity Fire TV Recast lets me record as much as I want--as opposed to seeing something like 'you have 35% space left' after having something like 15 shows--Now at least 150, a whole order of magnitude more. That's qualitative improvement. On top of that, this device comes with FOUR tuners. This means I can record four shows at the same time--some reviews suggest this is not true, I just tested it and you can record four different channels at the same time. For fast forwarding, you can jump 30 seconds, OR press and hold the fast-forward to see what you're fast forwarding, and press it again to move even faster. This is an amazing product from Amazon, and I highly recommend it. After easily installing the Fire TV Recast, a simple DVR menu option now appears in my Amazon TV home screen. Clicking on that lets me select whatever channel and asks me if I want to record this episode or the entire series.

The greatest addition to your home TV watching experience

With digital movies and streaming video services, we've found ourselves watching live TV less and less, which made it seem like even more of a waste to pay for TiVo's monthly service. This device, however, has replaced our old TiVo unit, and we're never looking back. The Recast works seamlessly with your existing Fire TV (which you should get if you don't already have). "DVR" will appear as a menu option showing your recorded TV shows. From there, you'll also have a TV Guide style programing schedule where you can select upcoming shows to record. You can also using the Fire TV's search option to look for specific shows if you can't remember what time or channel. Probably the easiest way to record a show is to use the voice search function on your remote. You can even do this while watching another show without stopping the program (though it will mute the sound). As an added bonus, you can also watch recorded shows on your phone or any other device with the Fire TV app. Perhaps the best part of the Recast is knowing that you don't need to pay any additional monthly fees after you've purchased the unit. The interface and Recast are very bare-bones in terms of features. You can see that as an advantage since you really just need to record live TV, but on the flip side, I do miss some of the bells and whistles of the TiVo. In particular, having the unit record suggestions and being able to search for shows based on genre. However, knowing that Amazon is always looking to improve their products, these feature might be coming in a future firmware update. Overall, the recast is extremely easy to use and is a great way to record live TV without having to pay for a monthly service. The unit fits well into the Amazon ecosystem, and is reason enough to get a Fire TV if you don't have one already.

Absolute home run! Great product!

Absolutely the best OTA DVR I have used. I've used TiVo which did not seem to broadcast in Dolby. Used Tablo both the original and the Tablo Lite. The Tablo light was a huge mess. The first one I recieved had a dead WiFi board, The Replacement had difficulty maintaining a Wi-Fi connection in an excellent WiFi Zone. I submitted a trouble ticket to Tablo support who asked me well can you just hardwire it and not use Wi-Fi. Ridiculous customer service. Moving on to the recast. It is everything I would want in a DVR the menus are easy to navigate the free guide is complete. Setup was easy without any problems. Channel changing is very quick as compared to the Tablo unit and now I use the recast DVR App as my primary television watching app and don't switch back to TV just to watch and change channels which I had to do with Tablo since they were so slow to change and update. I have not experienced any " new release glitches" and am 100% satisfied with this purchase.

Watch broadcast TV on the go

Fire TV Recast grabs over the air signals, and then lets you stream them to Fire TV devices in your house or on the go. It is therefore a great product for a narrow set of people who meet a set of criteria. IF 1) you're a cord cutter who still wants broadcast TV, and 2) you live in a city where over-the-air channels are numerous and have strong signals, and 3) if you have multiple devices you watch TV on, and 4) if you're a Fire TV user, then this product might be for you. I happen to fit that bill. For my family, we have two TVs with Fire TVs hooked up to both. Fire TV Recast allows us to watch broadcast TV through them by way of a single antenna. For us this is a big deal, because one of our TVs came without a digital antenna (increasingly common in today's flat screen market), and one our TVs is on the ground floor. We've put the Fire TV Recast on our top floor, so get a better signal than on our bottom floor, and it serves both TVs. Coupled with a DVR and integrated TV guide and channels on the Fire TV interface, and I suddenly feel like I did when I had cable years ago -- I know what is on the tube at any given point, and I can record shows I won't miss. Game changer for cord cutters. I've found at least one unexpected use case using the Fire TV Recast in the short time I've had it. Given that I can now stream TV to my phone from my home--even when not on my wi-fi--I now won't miss NFL coverage when I'm at swim lessons on Sunday mornings. Biggest downside I've seen so far is 1) no way to schedule DVR recordings of upcoming shows from the Fire TV app on my iPhone (maybe that's coming?); 2) the video stream occasionally drops when watching live. However, this might be because the digital over the air signal occasionally fuzzes out. If so, this is not Amazon's fault. Neither of this are enough to dampen my enthusiasm for this product.

Full Reviews

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog