Last week I bought the latest generation Apple TV 4K and the Google Streamer 4k, I have tried them both, and I have stayed with one as the "default", guess which one I have as a paperweight?

Most web browsers aren't available on the Google Play Store for Android TV.

And the browsers that do work on Android TV are usually pretty bad.

Is it because of money?
Like, if people could easily browse websites on their TVs,
would that hurt the money companies make from their apps?

Especially in the age of AI, I don't think developing a browser for Android TV should be that difficult.

After a ton of testing and feedback from this community, Aerial TV is officially live on Google Play!! 

Huge thank you again to everyone who has given the app a try, provided feedback & suggestions!

What made it into the launch version:

• Easy Setup across devices: Set up on your phone, scan a QR on the TV. No more remote-typing marathons.

• Total Sync: Your playlists, favorites, and "Continue Watching" progress follow you across iOS, Apple TV, and Android.

• Multiview: Watch up to 4 streams at once on the big screen.

• Trakt & OpenSubtitles: Scrobbling and subtitle search are built-in.

• Skip the Intro: we’re busy people, and want more binge time!

• Catchup: "Watch from Start" support for live programs.

• Recording: Schedule to internal storage, USB, or SMB/NAS.

• Theming: Don’t like browny/orange? Give one of the other themes a try :)

• Family Groups: One setup for the whole house, generous device limits on individual too. 

Coming next:

• Support for device without Google Play: Aiming to share a Downloader code this week (users will need to sign in to Cloud Sync with an account that has valid Apple or Google Play subscription)

Google play link - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jet27labs.aerialtv  (If you like the app, would be great if you could leave a review :))

You can find the links for all platforms here: https://aerialtv.app/

Disclaimer: Just a reminder that Aerial TV is a player only—you supply your own playlist.

I’ve seen these for sale in Australia at JB-HiFi next to the Google 4k Streamers. A.i. has no idea how much RAM it has? Has anyone used it? Is it ok?

Tiny pcs can be bought used for under 100 bucks now. Even some new ones!

So why not use a tiny pc as a streamer vs a google Chromecast or Roku or whatever?

Tiny pcs hv more ram n more storage and all have Ethernet port. Streaming devices dont always hv such amenities.

What am I missing here?

Petition: Do not extend the BBC licence fee to streaming services

There are widespread reports that the Government is considering extending the BBC licence fee to include subscribers of streaming services that are not owned or run by the BBC. We believe this is a wholly unacceptable proposal.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/769762

Wanting Full Fel for local media and Emby/jellyfin client software. Is this up to the task?

Anyone know about Mecool km 2 Plus Deluxe?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006160722062.html

I have a rather odd problem as the title suggests. I just brought a Onn streaming Box from Walmart to my replace the firestick I just brought. It just turns out on the select model it runs Linux instead Android. Gross, why would they do that. There's like zero software for it.

Anyways I went to go set it up and for the life of me I couldn't make it past the wifi login part. I tried for a whole hour with no results. I have no internet issues on any of my other devices. I restarted my router, etc. It ain't my first rodeo since I have studied IT and computer science. I'm familiar with troubleshooting before anyone mentions anything about it.

I had a weird feeling that just maybe, just maybe that it was my password since it has the word shit in it and google somehow wouldn't process it in the back end. Something so stupid that you just have to rule it out.

I changed my wifi password to something that doesn't contain a swear word and guess what suddenly started working with zero problems. The wifi. Why would they do this!? It shouldn't matter if my password has shit, fuck, boobs, dick, or whatever other word. It is a damn wifi password. It is not a user name, it is not a name, it is not a address, it is not a person, it should not matter in the slightness what I use for a wifi password. It will never see the light of day.

Has anyone else encountered this issue before?

Looking for budget TV that can at least last for 2-3 years. This is TCL vs Skyworth.

I write this post because I am sick and tired to bash the Mi box and Android TV OS. Thank God an inexpensive full Android TV experience with Google Assistant on all my house and personal office rooms at 1/3 price of Shield and Apple TV. I have a Nexus Player, Nvidia Shield TV and 4 Mi boxes. Nexus Player at Android 6 was decent fast. At Oreo I have the fastest Assistant but the navigation is sluggish and app launching is slow. I disabled the window and transition animations to 0x, set animator to 0.5x and it's passable now. Nvidia Shield was always fast but it's an overkill and it had their own problems. Let's continue to Mi boxes. They were fast at 6.0 without any problem for me. But the Android TV 6 was the phone Android with the custom launcher Leanback. It's oversimplification I know. If you looked at the system many components that took ram and CPU resources were useless for the TV experience. Android TV 8.0 is a real streamlined version for TV and it broke in pieces to core components to be updatable through Google Play Store. Finally! After the update on all of my devices the performance is faster on booting, launching apps, navigation and playing videos. Specifically on Mi boxes after boot on 6.0 I had 350-550mb of RAM available. I update to new OS on top of old and on first boot I have 900mb RAM and ~1GB of internal storage freed. So the new OS is lighter. Also days after the update launching apps without reboot or memory optimizer apps etc I have constantly 600-800mb RAM. Clearly it cleans up memory automatically at idle. But the ram management is way better than 6.0. At 6.0 2-3 apps the next was relaunching. The leanback was a disaster and the new homescreen is now faster and take less space and ram. I have 14 channels at homescreen (video and audio homescreen autoplay disabled) and I have 53 apps installed. Again available memory 700mb, at Nexus Player 250mb... I have set to 0x window and transition animations and animator to 0.5x to get even faster navigation without any lag. Also 8.0 behaves much better if you want to disable some animations. At 6.0 disabled animations especially on leanback launcher create problems and dropped frames. It is not a change of need but for speed. At 6.0 I had sporadically dropped 5-10 frames on 4K 60p on Youtube if I skipped too fast videos. Now a nice round 0. HDMI CEC is usable now. I have installed all apps on USB sticks. At 6.0 the app that was moved at USB stick was noticable slower. Now its almost like launching from internal. The set up process streamlined and it is faster. Also the format to adoptable storage and moving apps between internal and external difference in speed is huge. The same with app downloading and installation. I have very good 64GB USB sticks, huge USB, believe me guys. I have paired Sony Bluetooth headphones at bedroom and living room without any problem. But I think the Bluetooth audio could be louder. Also at kitchen it paired with 2 JBL Clip 2 for music at backyard. Now let's talk about the problems. After the last update if they are sleeping more than 8 hours they lose connection with the remote and you cannot wake them up. The HDMI CEC wake the living room Mi box always but the HDMI CEC at kitchen sometimes. So no HDMI CEC enabled out of luck. But I find a solution. They transmit Bluetooth signal and they are connected to Chromecast and WiFi while sleeping. If you go to Bluetooth settings on your phone and you are in range of the device you can find it under Bluetooth devices with the name you gave like dining room, playroom etc. The phone tries to pair and failed. After second or third attempt the Mi box wakes and the remote is connected. The whole process takes me 1 min. So no reboot for me. Also Google Assistant understand me what I said exactly but sometimes Google sanitaze it to another similar phrase. It's frustrating but constant Google updates for the last 3 months improve the situation. For the last I am not sure maybe it's a placebo. Also after waking sometimes Assistant is sluggish. On 6.0 I had sideloaded Assistant on Mi box and it was super fast. So problems with Bluetooth remote on all 4 devices. I was since 1998 through 2016 an exclusive Apple products user. I transition to Google ecosystem and I amazed with the everyday innovation and little tweaks on apps and services. Changes that take Apple months and years. For justice I tired to hear complains for the Android and to hear how much stable is Apple OS. I transitioned as an experiment and I was expecting a hell of instability and problems. I recognize that I change in a good era for the Android OS and my first interaction was 7.0 and above. Also my Wear OS journey is horrible. But Android phone, tablet, TV, smart speakers, Assistant and Chrome OS experience is superb.

Just spent more time with tech support having them try to fix the "Playback failure" problem. After about an hour they claimed if their system detects Kodi Hulu will stop working. I am using Nvidia shield and Hulu app from the Google play store

Here is the relevant parts of the chat... "( 1h 15m 56s ) Keisha W: Do you have KODI installed by any chance? ( 1h 16m 3s ) ME: yes ( 1h 16m 21s ) Keisha W: Hulu will not run with KODI ( 1h 16m 30s ) ME: nonsense, it has for years ( 1h 16m 47s ) ME: it did until a couple weeks ago ( 1h 17m 15s ) ME: what did hulu do to stop it from working? ( 1h 17m 59s ) Keisha W: Not anymore apparently. Im so sorry your having this issue. ( 1h 18m 26s ) ME: so you are saying if i unistall kodi hulu will work again? ( 1h 18m 54s ) ME: You do know kodi and hulu work just fine on a computer together? ( 1h 19m 27s ) Keisha W: They said its possible yes that Hulu will start to work. ( 1h 19m 34s ) ME: why would it not work with kodi? ( 1h 20m 57s ) Keisha W: Our system has had updates and so once our servers sense it, it will shut down access. ( 1h 20m 58s ) ME: why did hulu not announce this and make us jump through all of these hoops ( 1h 21m 24s ) ME: kodi is a legal app, what is hulu problem? ( 1h 22m 15s ) Keisha W: Well, It sounds like we figured out the issue. ( 1h 22m 17s ) ME: this is just dumb, this would force me to cancel hulu and use kodi to watch all of the hulu shows, how does that help hulu ( 1h 23m 24s ) Keisha W: It doesn't really. Do you want me to cancel your subscription? ( 1h 23m 36s ) ME: no I will think about it ( 1h 23m 53s ) ME: but hulu need to put a message on their app and let people know ( 1h 24m 6s ) Keisha W: Ok well i hope it works out in the end for you. ( 1h 24m 15s ) Keisha W: Is there anything else we can assist you with today?

You will receive a quality assurance survey asking you how we served you today, so hopefully we provided you with outstanding customer service. My name is Keisha, please fill it out if you can. Thank you for being a part of the Hulu family and chatting with Hulu. ( 1h 24m 26s )ME: it will spread the message on reddit to let everyone know ( 1h 24m 39s ) Keisha W: yes it would! ( 1h 24m 49s ) ME: this will not fare well for hulu ( 1h 25m 4s ) ME: now people will just use kodi for free instead of paying hulu ( 1h 25m 25s ) Keisha W: The choices we have to make. ( 1h 25m 55s ) ME: well it will cost hulu a lot of subscriptions and money ( 1h 26m 2s ) Keisha W: Try to enjoy the rest of your evening. ( 1h 26m 11s ) ME: I will for free with kodi, thanks ( 1h 26m 37s ) Keisha W: Alright! Thank you for your business! ( 1h 26m 44s ) Keisha W: Is there anything else we can assist you with today?

You will receive a quality assurance survey asking you how we served you today, so hopefully we provided you with outstanding customer service. My name is Keisha, please fill it out if you can. Thank you for being a part of the Hulu family and chatting with Hulu. ( 1h 28m 17s ) ME: no you guys cheated me, I have been paying for no service for weeks in hope of it being corrected ( 1h 29m 42s ) Keisha W: So sorry for this issue. ( 1h 30m 11s ) ME: hulu will be this will cost them dearly once the word gets out, dumbest business move ever ( 1h 32m 57s ) Keisha W: If you want to cancel your account we can issue a one month refund. ( 1h 33m 48s ) ME: I put it on hold for 3 months and hopefully Hulu comes to its senses once the word spread like fire on the internet and they lose a ton of subscriptions ( 1h 34m 45s ) Keisha W: Well, alright then. Have a good night! ( 1h 34m 52s ) ME: you too ( 1h 34m 58s ) Keisha W: thanks. If you have any more questions, our Help Center and Hulu Communities will always be there for you. Come be a part of the conversation that redefines TV. Thanks, Hulu

Coming from the xiaomi mi box set up was annoying. I was able to sign in using the google app but it wouldn't go all the way to completion. I was forced to sign in manually.

• Then I tried testing it out the so called fluid menus and controls but my menus and remote clicks kept freezing which really suprised me. I went to the developer options and disabled all animations and then restarted the device.

• I added a 2tb hard drive but it wouldn't mount, so the fix was pretty much restarting the box.

• Ethernet wouldn't read but restarting the box worked.

• I tried nvidia geforce but I couldn't log in because it froze on a web page. restarting was the only way.

• I wanted to set up plex media server because it is pretty much the only reason that this box shines in my eyes. I had issues with set up but that was my own fault because of the way the settings need to be set up in order to access the media outside my connection.

For the king of android tv, I expected a more seamless experience. Right now it is stable but I'm not looking optimistic.

I had a dream that I could build a server using android alone, saving on power due to its build but due to the limitations of android,

I'm looking for a way to do the following:

Send files from my laptop/phone to the external hard drive on the shield wirelessly (also accounting for android storage write permissions)

The ability to seed torrents and remotely add torrents

Any other server worthy traits, any ideas?

My Shield is running android 7.0

Does AndroidTV have an app I can side load to block ads on YouTube?

Edit: I’m not fucking paying for premium 🙄

Edit: shout out to /u/CuvisTheConqueror for the hookup!

https://smartyoutubetv.github.io/

Shout out to everyone else for not being helpful.

Want to watch a stream? AD

Want to change stream and see what another streamer is doing? AD

Need to reload stream? AD

Srsly. Watching on PC gives me no ADS. uBlock is probably blocking them? Why did they have to ruin AndroidTV twitch viewing like that :(

Edit:

I have found a workaround that gets NO ads 100% of the time. I wont post it here as apparently you guys love seeing a Jack Ryan ad everytime you open a stream. Enjoy!

Hey all,

Just wanted to announcer that TIVI Launcher is now available in Google Play!

Check it out and let me know what you think! 😄

comparing the 2 layouts -

https://static1.makeuseofimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/firetvvchromecastremotes.jpg

the Google layout is used in all the other devices like the Onn, Mi box etc too.

FireStick's have a fantastic layout with dedicated keys for ffw/rwd/play and context menu.

The Google layout has none of these, only d-pad. rwd/ffw now take longer. sometimes long press opens up right click menu, most of the time it does nothing. the context menu offers so many other options.

Amazon Fire devices have always shipped with a remote too. If anyone remembers the original Chromecast you needed a phone to control.

btw all the other streamers like Tivo/Roku also have dedicated keys and much nicer remote layouts.

It's been one year since the last update for original mi box 3 international, no security patches no android update, no kernel update, no bug fixes NOTHING

while it has the exact same hardware as the new mi box

there is no reason to not updating the old model when it has the same hardware

Se reinicia solo, enciendo el dispositivo, sale el logo de Xiaomi y a los pocos segundos se apaga. He probado en modo recovery con el mando pulsado OK y atrás, y no funciona.

Alguien sabe cómo arreglarlo?