#AMAZON FIRE TV FOR FREE#
#AMAZON FIRE TV PS3#

On one hand, I love the convenience of getting just about anything in the world shipped for free to my front door. I'm an Amazon Prime subscriber and I'm conflicted about it. Most of them did have a TV set, but they were connected to the Internet rather than to cable or satellite. were labeled Zero TV homes, up from 2 million in 2007, according to Nielsen. In 2013, 5 million households in the U.S.

#AMAZON FIRE TV PS3#

Otherwise, you can stick with your current entertainment 'system': Use your PS3 to stream Netflix, your DVR to record your favorite TV shows and your smartphone to watch cat videos on YouTube.įor lots more information on the future of TV, check out the related HowStuffWorks articles below. If you already watch most of your TV and movies online - 34 percent of millennials watch no broadcast TV at all - and you have an HDTV sitting around idle, then a streaming set-top box is a relatively inexpensive way to supersize your viewing experience. Why then, do we need streaming set-top boxes at all? Honestly, many of us don't. Twelve percent of American households already own a smart TV, but only 70 percent of those TVs are actually connected to the Internet.

The Roku Streaming Stick is similar, but includes a TV remote and more channels.Īnd then there are so-called 'smart TVs,' Internet-enabled TVs that can stream online content without the help of any outside box or device. With it, you can stream content wirelessly from any laptop, tablet or smartphone straight to the TV. Google's Chromecast, for example, is an inexpensive thumb-sized device that plugs directly into the HDMI port of your TV. Set-top boxes are not the only way to watch streaming video on TV. That's a potential con for many users.Īnother issue has to do with the very concept of the set-top box itself. If you prefer to watch streaming video from a wider variety of sources - Netflix and Hulu Plus, for example - then you have to load each of those apps individually and search within them for movies or shows.

That's because Amazon's voice search only shows results from. Īs we mentioned earlier, Amazon Fire TV makes perfect sense for existing Amazon Prime subscribers who already watch a lot of streaming content from Amazon's online entertainment library. Reviewers also note that the Amazon device is faster and smoother than other set-top boxes thanks to its beefed-up processor and memory. The only truly unique features offered by Amazon Fire TV are voice search and a few gaming titles. All three allow you to access free and subscription streaming video services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Watch ESPN, YouTube, Crackle and Showtime Anytime on your TV. Amazon Fire TV is in direct competition with existing set-top boxes like Apple TV and Roku.

Amazon fire tv