New Firestick 4k Select

[Thunderthud]

Supposedly launched today with new Vega operating system, based on Linux. Incompatible with Android.

Just curious if you plan to support Vega in the future.
Haven't noticed any mentions here.

Thanks!

[nickk]

They are not available until Oct 15.

It requires a completely new app implementation. Once we have one here we will verify if the OS provides the features and level of access needed to be useful.

[gtb]

They are not available until Oct 15.

It requires a completely new app implementation. Once we have one here we will verify if the OS provides the features and level of access needed to be useful.

This response suggests that Amazon did not reach out to SD to assist you in a migration before the announcement (The Vega transition was an open secret, and they even had job openings posted for engineers). They clearly engaged with the "mainstream" streaming services, for which their apps should be ready at initial release.

In any case, you and your team can peruse the link at: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/vega/0.21/vega.html for information about their SDK and it's capabilities should you choose to do so.

[skipper76]

Based on the specs for this new device - I can not think of any reason to even have it.

Less ram
less memory
older WIFI
no sideloading

[nickk]

This response suggests that Amazon did not reach out to SD to assist you in a migration before the announcement (The Vega transition was an open secret, and they even had job openings posted for engineers). They clearly engaged with the "mainstream" streaming services, for which their apps should be ready at initial release.

That is not how Amazon approached the rollout.

Rather than work with vendors before release Amazon has taken the approach of providing a cloud service so Android apps can be installed in the cloud and streamed to the Vega OS device. Vendors have been told they have 9 months to release a Vega OS app or start being changed for the cloud service. We were informed of this just this week, the same time the product was announced.

This obviously won't work with the HDHomeRun (or at least I sure hope it doesn't work as it would require a network bridge between your home network and Amazon to work).

[signcarver]

My understanding amazon "enrolled" all the "streaming" apps in its app store into such as well as a few others and notified the vendors of such (after doing so) to get more apps out quickly without even developing a vega app... my understanding also is that such may make it available on the currently available vega products (i.e. echo show) which unlike the stick won't have a store to actually get the app installed. The idea behind that would essentially have a virtual remote android device "cast" the display back to the user through the cloud. I do not believe such would work for playing "local" url's but such might surprise me (though i have even more doubts discovery could be done with such cloud based app)

However i do think a true vega app might be possible, including offering some features expected in an andtoid based app but though the development guide mentions even being able to write/include ones own player (or even include/use commercially available players) most likely everything will be using it's built in player(s) and though the tech specs mention hardware accelerated mpeg2 and implies dolby only via passthrough, the developer guide seems to imply the opposite in no mention mpeg2 codec in player (though does mention other codecs, even using TS for direct url playing) and dolby (ac3, eac3, ac4, atmos) being available in player. And it seems to strongly prefer hls or dash. Much of the reading seems like I have read the same material for roku or webos. It also mentions it can only handle 1 drm stream at a time (so be sure to properly close it before starting another) and that some may require audio (or other tracks) to not be encrypted when the video is.

Currently I believe the tools are linux and mac only but mentions visual studio code plug-ins available. It will probably be a month or two before I can really look into such development.

[jasonl]

True as it ever was.

[nickk]

My FireTV Stick 4K Select arrived.

The HDHomeRun app does not show when searching the app store.