I stumbled upon this device while looking through black Friday deals. I wanted to cut one of my live streaming services and I thought this device would do it. I opted for the 4 tuner 1tb model as I figured this would hopefully future proof the device for the conceivable future. I ran into the first snag today, however, I went to turn three of my TVs in my home to the news as I moved about the house and I received an error that the tuners were busy. Thinking it was incorrect I called Amazon support and they informed me that the 4 tuner model can only record 2 shows and watch 2 shows even if you are watching the same channel. I find this to be kind of a big flaw that they don't mention in the description. I think 'four tuners' is false advertising as one would assume you could use all of them at the same time or any combination of watching or recording that adds up to 4. I won't echo the other comments about the user interface on the fire TV devices being lacking. However with my criticism I think this device has a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing what it becomes as an early adopter.
I've been looking for the perfect solution for Local TV DVR plus program guide "forever", but none of the solutions on the market appealed to me. Recast looked to be exactly what I was looking for and for the most part has exceeded my expectations. The tuner(s) seem to pull in more channels than any DTV I have ever connected to my antenna. Playback quality looks very good, haven't run into any device freeze-ups or reboots, program guide seems to be accurate ... extremely promising. My only complaint is a laundry lists of things that Amazon should improve over time. Maybe some of these features exist but I just haven't found them yet ... and by the way another minor complaint is that I haven't seen any kind of online user guide or handy-dandy how-to videos from Amazon ... so far I've just been slowly discovering features by poking around. That being said, here is the current list of dirty laundry (assuming you are watching via a Fire TV):
- Can't page through the program guide a day at a time. You have to scroll through hour-by-hour. Please fix this!
- I haven't figured out what good it does to mark channel as a "Favorite" other than a little heart shows up next to the channel. Near as I can tell you can't flip through favorites, or sort the program guide by Favorites, or do anything by Favorites.
- If a program fails to record for any reason, you get a very informative message that says merely "Failed to Record". Really guys?
- You have to go to Settings in order to see how much free space you have.
- Can't tune directly to a station
- Can't see the signal strength of your stations. This would be EXTREMELY useful for antenna pointing and supported by just about every DTV tuner.
- When I first set it up, Channel Scan from the iPhone FireTV app failed with no explanation. Thought the tuner was completely broken until I tried Channel Scan from my Fire TV.
- If you have multiple sources for a network (i.e. ABC), not very obvious which channel you are watching, and whether recordings will take place only from the channel you are on when you create a series recording. What if the same show is on both ABC's at the same time? is it going to try record from both channels at once? probably so, and I don't think there is any way to control this.
- DVR recording options are very primitive. I gotta believe this is a known limitation and Amazon just wanted to get the product out the door (which I totally agree with)
- List of recorded shows is very primitive. I think I would prefer it sorted by newest-to-oldest, but even better would be multiple options for sorting.
- No way to search through the channel guide, near as I can tell.
- Kinda confusing how you access OTA channels and/or the channel guide in the first place. You can get to the most recently-viewed OTA channels from the "ON NOW" category on the home screen, and maybe or maybe not from "RECENT", and ... surprise ... you can also get to the program guide from the DVR menu which is pretty weird. But you can't get directly to the program guide from the home menu ... you have to somehow find an OTA channel and then press the "Options" key. [Update: another owner pointed out that from the "ON NOW" category you can navigate left to get to the program guide. Well hidden!]
I could go on but you get the point: it's a solid product, thank you Amazon SO much for building this, but please don't stop working on it until it's better than a 15-year-old cable box. Right now it's not even up to that level of features.
THE BACKSTORY
Amost two years ago I "took the plunge" and joined the cord-cutting ranks with a Playstation Vue subscription. I have been happy overall with Vue, but the local channels have always been the question mark. The networks that are available do not work the same as the other Vue channels (for example, in my area ABC and NBC has content that is delayed by anywhere from a day to a week; it is impossible to predict what will be on when, and has been completely frustrating). I am a big Olympics fan, so this last winter when the 2018 games were on NBC, I invested in a cheapie TV tuner and recorder that accepted an external USB drive to serve as a DVR. I had a 10-year old drive, plugged it in, and it sort of worked some of the time. The interface was terrible, the video and audio would be a couple of seconds out of synch, and the recording would mysteriously just stop sometimes, but it was good enough to limp through enjoying two weeks of Olympics. So when I saw Amazon was finally releasing a solution for the local channels problem, I was thrilled and immediately pre-orded the 1TB model. I don't really need 4 tuners (which means the device can record 4 stations at the same time), but 150 hours of space is nice (and I have no doubt will fill up quickly). I have unboxed and setup the unit and been using it heavily for about a week.
PROS
- The unit is much smaller than expected; I had myself convinced it would be the size of a home theater receiver, but it is just 7" x 7" x 2" (just a little bit bigger than a Wii console, for example). Add the fact that the box can bet setup wirelessly anwhere in a house (recommended to be close to the antenna which should go on an upstairs wall or window), and you have a nice sleek setup. I set mine up in an upstairs bedroom and have the box hidden under a bed.
- Embraces the Amazon ecosystem; I have a Fire Box and Fire Sticks for the TVs in my house, and this unit "feeds" the signal to all of these. In addition, I have an iPhone 7, which can also be used to watch TV in the house OR remotely anywhere. So in other words, I can now watch live or recorded local TV on my phone (no more missed football games if they are only on local TV). AND best of all, Alexa / Echo really works well for setting up recordings (just simply hold down your Fire remote button to "talk" to Alexa, say "record Saturday Night Live", and next thing you know SNL shows up in my future recordings list!
- Setup is easy for anyone with just a little technical proficiency. Basically, first you download the app for your phone (search App Store for "Fire TV"), sign in, plug in an antenna to the box (I am using a cheapie one I found on Amazon that I have placed against a window), plug in the power to the box, follow the instructions on the app, and you are up and running. It does take about 10 minutes for the box to calibrate (find the channels, which mine found 22 local channels, with probably 5 that I actually care about being the major networks and PBS), and my Fire Box forced a strange update that claimed to take 2 minutes but locked up the box and remote for about 5 minutes. In summary, just download the app, follow the instructions, and be patient.
- There is a surprisingly good built in program guide (has pictures, thorough descriptions of TV programs, and seems to be very accurate).
- As you would expect, you can truly pause and rewind "live" TV while watching. Obviously you can't fast forward when watching truly "live" TV (I am still waiting on the Amazon Time Machine box).
- Closed Captions works well, even on recordings, and even on the phone app.
- Truly integrated with the Fire Stick (or Fire Box) experience. There is now a "DVR" menu option (at the top of the screen) that just magically showed up on my Fire Box, which is how you access the program guide and recorded programs. When I click on that, I can scroll through and see all of the channels, INCLUDING the ones on my Playstation Vue service. Amazon has truly merged the multiple sources into one convenient location (although one minor annoyance is seeing duplicate programs, one for local channels over the air, and the other for local channels through Vue).
- There truly are no ongoing fees or hidden costs, no subscriptions, and no BS (yippee!).
CONS
- UPDATE - I originally stated that a bunch of extra recordings show up for NON first-run episodes. I was corrected on this by others that you can specify to record only new episodes. BUT I have found that this is NOT true. YES you can put the "preference" to first-run, BUT the device still records everything with the title of the show. I now have 27 recordings of Modern Family chewing up my space on the DVR, with no way to ONLY record first run episodes. I am deducting a full star because of this.
- You still are subject to glitches that seem to happen over the airwaves. Every 10 minutes or so my signals seem to drop for maybe half a second and I will see blocks on the screen; this may be a function of signal strength, but regardless it is a hiccup I am not used to seeing frequently with my cable box (or Vue, or Prime Video streaming). Still, it is perfectly acceptable and goes with the territory of "over the air" broadcasts, but is more glitchy than a pure cable stream.
- Slow response time for rewinding and fast forwarding (much slower response time than even streaming Prime Video); honestly my cheapo setup using an ancient hard drive is much faster to pause, rewind, and fast forward. Again, this is something that can probably be improved with a software update.
- For the price, I would have expected a larger drive for the DVR (and suspect within a year Amazon will release a product with double the storage for less money). It wouldn't surprise me if there are some online hacks to come out soon that show how to swap out the drive with a 4TB or 8TB drive. There is a USB port on the device that is not used, and cannot be used for storage (haven't figured out what the port is for, except maybe enablement of future capabilities that would require a USB port).
- When using the app, you cannot schedule recordings or access the full program guide (so cannot see what comes on TV even later the same day); the app ONLY allows you to watch live TV or watch recorded shows.
- You cannot access the device using a web browser on a Mac or PC (I am used to being able to watch Prime Video and Playstation Vue using a web browser, but this feature is not supported for the Recast, at least not yet).
CONCLUSION
So my initial impression is that the box delivers as promised; although there isn't a true perfect comprehensive alternative to the cable companies, this is one big fat nail in the coffin and combined with other services provides that missing link of an easy-to-use and effective method of watching and recording local TV channels. If I run into issues or have further gripes, I will be sure to update the review. Thanks for reading and happy local TV watching!
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.
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!
Feature Product
- 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 2 tuners, you can record up to 2 shows at once. Plus, store up to 75 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.
Description
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!
I was going to replace my Tivo Bolt and its ridiculous subscription fees when I purchased this Recast along with a necessary media streaming product, a couple new Fire TV 4k Sticks. The Tivo user interface whose priority is the TV broadcast and DVR features versus the Fire TV which is much more leaning towards online streaming with a very secondary priority of the DVR functions. It tries to valiantly to make up for the inferior menu structure by the use of the Alexa voice interface in the Fire TV 4K stick but you can tell it still early in its development and the overall feel seems still a little awkward for me. I am sure that Amazon will make great improvements in the interface and look and feel but for someone that knows what the competition has to offer for a 4K DVR solution, I think I would look long and hard at the Tivo Bolt OTA before making a decision.
My home entertainment system doesn't use cable or satellite and currently uses an LG 65in OLED TV, Sony A/V amp, Tivo Bolt, Roku 4k Premium, Harmony Hub remote,, roof mounted HD antenna. We watch for the most part basic OTA channels, and stream Netflix, Prime Video and Vudu
PROS
-very competitive pricing, responsive and doesn't lag when operating the remote
-very easy to setup including the new remote to be used as a universal control of my entertainment system. Nicely done Amazon. Comparing this to my Harmony Hub setup I would say Logitech could learn from you.
-Yea! NO subscription fees! (but your program guide info only goes out for a few days so of like the Tablo does for its free version)
-Hands-Free Voice commands with my Echo Dot; Using the new Fire TV 4k Stick I got limited Alexa voice control when I connected to my Echo Dot for hands-free operation as well as the using the dedicated remote.
-Easy to use Dedicated Remote; the new Fire TV 4k Stick remote has very few dedicated buttons like volume control but this minimalistic design is not overcome with the Alexa voice features. Hopefully in the near future upgrades will help out. The Tivo remote has much more functionality like Tivo's commercial Skip, frame by frame, slow motion, Quickmode, etc.
CONS
-Program Guide only goes out a few days so your ability to set up future recordings for the first time stinks but remember there is no subscription fee so I am willing to try.
-4 tuners yes but after speaking with tech support there are only two transcoders meaning you can only view a max of two simultaneous shows.
- a very basic user interface without lots of the functionality available on Tivo like commercial skip, slow motion, frame by frame, full-featured remote controller, etc.
- no 4k Vudu app for Fire TV. The inferior workaround is you can sideload the Vudu app but I could only get HDX as my highest quality stream although I have 4k Vudu content
- the 4k video out from FireTV 4k Stick absolutely fails on my LG OLED screen. I uploaded two pictures running credits (black background / white text) of the same movie. One picture shows the "black" of the screen almost greyish while the other picture is the same movie credits but through my Roku 4K and the black is as it is supposed to be on OLED which is all true black. THIS IS THE DEAL BREAKER for me. See my picture comparison.
I am hoping now that TiVo will offer a free version with no subscription fees offering because of this product. I will absolutely give this a go in the future to see how Amazon fixes the bugs and shortcomings on its DVR offering.
First, Amazon is a stand-up company for crediting me $60 since they put the device on-sale a week after delivering the device. I probably gave an extra star for that.
Second, it was pretty easy to setup since my antenna was already up and working.
As for the software, it seems like they may have released a minimum viable product and hopefully plan MUCH more to be released in updates. Here’s why:
1. The channel guide is buried in the fire tv menus. It should be much more prominent.
2. No channel guide search. Really?!
3. No channel guide in fire tv app. All you can see is what is on each channel right now.
4. I can’t find where you can see how much space is available on the DVR. It might be there but it’s escaping me.
So far I’ve watched some football and the quality is great. Playing recordings on the fire tv app is also easy and good quality.
One final concern is the bandwidth it takes up on my network. I have gigabit internet service but have had a few strange situations while playing off the recast where my other devices slow to a crawl while browsing internet. I might need to put it on its own router.
Set up was easy once I reinstalled the iPhone app.
Was a bit disappointed that the resolution was limited to 720p.
Hopefully this will change with a future firmware update.
One cannot set it to record a program from your IOS device. So you have to be in front of your tv at home to do this.
What an odd omission, especially in this “connected” age.
I am one of the first to own this device and hesitate to review it so early because I am expecting (hoping) a lot of bug fixes will come out. The system has quite a few bugs/glitches and user experience issues to work out. For example, changing the priority of recordings is throwing an error "update_priority failed with status 1500" so dialing in my settings isn't currently very feasible. I'll be surprised if they don't fix it in the coming days or weeks and I'm willing to live with it as such for now. Another buggy area is choosing new items to program.... sometimes the request fails (and fails after some delay). Also trying to change recording settings like number of episodes sometimes the settings seem to take and other times it isn't so clear and/or it seems like it fails. Lots of little issues like this. BUT THE OVERALL FUNCTIONALITY AND POTENTIAL IS FANTASTIC! I would recommend you get the 4 tuner version if you live in a midsize to large city. I'm in Los Angeles and the scan brought in 150 channels or so. MANY are uninteresting to me but there is far more content than I expected to find. So if you want to watch live TV while you are also recording more than 1 other program, you need the 4 tuner version. My 4 tuners are all being used more than I expected.
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