Internet speed necessary for decent streaming on Amazon TV?

December 4, 2014 5:40 PM

Just bought Amazon Fire TV for an antennae television at a house we visit on occasion. What cable internet speed do we need in order to have decent streaming? Hate to spend a lot of monthly money on something seldom used, but know the frustration it will cause if streaming is spotty.
posted by bartlett to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

You should get HD even at lower broadband speeds (i.e. the first tier offered by most providers). The bottlenecks which will plague you are 1. net congestion between you and the content provider, 2. your house's wifi, which is probably substantially slower than your net connection (try to plug your device directly into your router via ethernet, if there's a jack for it), 3. usage by neighbors on the same system, especially at peak hours, and 4. hijinks as cable companies try to force Amazon/Netflix/Hulu/etc to pay up in order not to have their data passed through outdated switching equipment which slows it down (pure extortion: "nice programming you got there; I'd hate to see anything bad happen to it!").

#4 is maddening, and extremely prevalent (Netflix is completely unusable for me at peak hours on Fios).

Faster/more expensive internet packages from your cable provider won't help any of these problems.
posted by Quisp Lover at 6:01 PM on December 4, 2014

I have clearwire and my internet speed hovers around none to 1.5mps. Using a Sony bluray to stream I can watch Netflix flawlessly on a huge tv as long as I'm averaging 1.0. Albeit in regular d, not hd.

Apparently this sorcery is all about the buffers in the streaming device, which I hear are good on the Fire TV. Disclaimer, I don't know much about this but my crappy internet/ good blu Ray player is noticeably faster than my neighbors high speed internet/ Apple tv combo.
posted by fshgrl at 6:03 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

seconding what fshgirl says. netflix is very smart about choosing a bitrate it can sustain, and the buffer is really what matters. amazon noticed this matters, and put in a plenty big one.

i have reasonably fast, and very fast for the US internet(50+mbps, sometimes up to 60) and i get rebuffering fairly often on my stupid smarttv i've never bought. my partners parents have a chromecast i got them as a present, which has a tiny buffer, and it's connected to slow ass DSL over weak wifi and it works great.

i had a similar experience having terrible 1.5-3mbps DSL and streaming on my PS3, xbox, and macbook pro.

anything over about 2mbps is fine. i've had crappier experiences than fshgrl with clearwire, but the amazon boxes do seem to be great at this from what i've seen and heard. even the "stick" model has 1gb of ram!(and seriously, just get that one, it's easy to find for under $30)
posted by emptythought at 6:08 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hi! Do you have an Android Smartphone with unlimited data plan?

I'm pretty sure you can stream through your phone's internet connection. I think you need the Fire App (or the Amazon Fire USB Stick?) to this.

My neighbor does it all the time.

iPhone won't cast through Amazon Fire TV, but it will cast to Chromecast.
posted by jbenben at 6:27 PM on December 4, 2014

Yeah Netflix streams better via my blu Ray player to the big TV than it does to my freaking computer. Over WiFi. I'm so glad I didn't buy a cheap streaming stick with a small buffer.
posted by fshgrl at 6:32 PM on December 4, 2014

Response by poster: "iPhone won't cast through Amazon Fire TV, but it will cast to Chromecast."
Well shoot... I have an iphone, so that option is off the table.
posted by bartlett at 6:49 PM on December 4, 2014

Return your $85 to $99 Amazon Fire TV and get a $35 Chromecast!

I only ended up buying Amazon Fire to "personalize" it. Heh.

I've been VERY content with the Chromecast and still use it daily. Do you know how many awesome documentaries and movies are on YouTube for free? TONS. And Netflix is easier through Chromecast than through the Amazon TV.

Don't do this if you don't have unlimited data plan on your phone.

Seriously. Don't get WiFi with a monthly bill just for streaming to a TV you barely watch. Cast from your phone!

I guess this doesn't work if you need wifi for your computer tho, YMMV
posted by jbenben at 8:25 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

A very, very important thing to consider when talking about casting from your iPhone in lieu of installing wifi is the quality of your cell provider's signal at the location you're in. Spotty? You're going to have a lot of trouble streaming.

Even if signal is good, most data plans have caps or throttles, even if they're sold as unlimited, where the provider limits speed after a certain amount of data is used. You may find you can stream one or two Netflix movies fine by casting and then it mysteriously stops working or is of miserable quality until the end of the month.

So, can casting to a Chromecast or Apple TV work without getting wifi at that address? Sure. But will it, in your scenario? You'll have to go and see how much speed you can get out of your cell provider at that location, whether it's consistent, and how long it will last.
posted by eschatfische at 9:15 PM on December 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have pretty meh internet, my Chromecast is connected via WiFi rather than a hard line, and I share said meh Wifi with two sets of neighbors. The router isn't even in my apartment! And still, glorious glorious Chromecast streaming Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc to my TV. And it does this while I continue to use the internet.

I'm not sure if Amazon TV is as brilliantly foolproof, but in general I find that the glut of streaming options for everything these days is tied in neatly with how little bandwidth it really takes.
posted by Sara C. at 9:40 PM on December 4, 2014

Response by poster: Hmmm, interesting dilemma. We do have unlimited data, but there is sometimes an issue with spotty reception; the Fire TV was on sale for $69, so in truth we could get also get Chromecast and still be saving money in the end. Our next guests (read, our children) have both iphones and smartphones. Plus, there's the free antennae tv. Maybe this is the solution until a time when it makes more sense to pay for monthly internet. Thank you everyone.
posted by bartlett at 6:51 AM on December 5, 2014

Response by poster: So... got the Chromecast for $30, and gave it a try at the infrequently occupied house. No go. Was informed by provider (Virgin Mobile) that we'd have to create a personal hot spot ($15/month) in order to stream from the phone. Sort of deflated my hopes. On the plus side, we've been using the Chromecast at our residence quite successfully.
posted by bartlett at 6:43 AM on December 31, 2014