Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours review & best price

Do you need FIre TV with it? Enjoy your favorite entertainment anywhere—reliably stream your live and recorded shows in HD from Fire TV Recast to your compatible devices. Get involve in live sports, local news, late night shows, and other can’t miss TV from channels available through an HD antenna. Get details in Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours review.

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In the box

Fire TV Recast,
50W Power Supply,
Quick Start Guide

Pros & Cons – Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours

PROS

Easy to set up
Plenty of DVR space.
Seamless integration with Fire TV and Alexa voice commands
Lets you record and watch OTA channels anywhere
Reliable streaming performance
No subscription needed
Reliable recording

CONS

RMobile app isn’t nearly as good as Fire TV experience
equires a Fire TV device, Echo Show, or Fire TV mobile app
Limited to two concurrent streams
BYOA (bring your own antenna)
No way to watch from a computer
Even HD broadcast television looks soft on recent 4K TVs

Specs – Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours

Output resolution supported: Up to 1440x720p
Storage: 1 TB up to 150 hours of HDTV
Memory: 2 GB
System requirements: Fire TV streaming media player, Fire TV Edition television, or Echo Show, and compatible mobile device.
Processor: Dual Core
ATSC Tuners: 4 Tuners
Transcoders (for playback): 2
Voice support: Fire TV Recast can be controlled using voice through supported Alexa endpoints like Echo Show, and the Alexa Voice Remote on Fire TV devices and Fire TV Edition televisions.
Size: 7.1” x 7.1” x 2.9” (180 mm x 180 mm x 73 mm)
Weight: 2.4 lbs (1066 g)
Wi-Fi Connectivity: 2.4 G Wi-Fi 2×2 Wi-Fi b/g/n and 5 G Wi-Fi 2×2 Wi-Fi a/n/ac
Surround Sound FormatsDolby Digital Plus, DTS:X, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, Dolby AC-4, Dolby Digital Live, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Digital Surround EX, Dolby Surround
Audio/Video OutputsHDMI

Fire TV Recast best price

It comes in two versions: a two-tuner model for $229.99 and a four-tuner model for $279.99. The two-tuner Recast has a 500GB hard drive that can record 75 hours of high-definition content, and the four-tuner Recast has a 1TB hard drive with a 150-hour capacity.

To put that in perspective, putting usability aside, how does the Recast compare to other DVR services in terms of cost and storage space?

Fubo TV gives a similar deal. They include 30 hours of DVR in their $59.99 monthly subscription fee, and you can get an additional 500 hours for $9.99 per month.

You can get Hulu with live TV starting from $54.99 per month, and this includes 50 hours of DVR space as standard. If you need more, you get an additional 200 hours of DVR space for an extra $9.99 per month.

Philo, the new budget live TV streaming service, does offer unlimited DVR storage, but you can only keep things on there for 30 days. This means that you might not have enough space if you go on a lovely three-week holiday.

AT&T TV offers the most comprehensive DVR service, offering 500 hours as part of their standard monthly subscription fee of $55 per month. You can only keep the content for 90 days and there are no options to upgrade, but with 500 hours a month, that doesn’t seem like a big problem.

With Sling TV, you get only 10 hours of DVR space with the $30 standard monthly subscription fee. If you need more space, an additional 50 hours will set you back $5 per month.

What is Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours?

The Recast is basically Amazon’s 2018 take on the Slingbox; it’s a chunky device that’ll let you watch live TV anywhere or record shows to a DVR for later viewing. The Recast is designed to integrate seamlessly with Amazon’s Fire TV streaming devices; your live TV channels show up in their own row on the Fire TV home screen

Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours review

Design

The Fire TV Recast is a 2.9-by-7.2-by-7.2-inch (HWD) black plastic box, clearly designed to be tucked far out of the way from your home theater setup and positioned near your router, or wherever you set up your antenna.

Ports

The front panel has a series of perforations, presumably for venting, with a colored indicator LED hidden behind one of the holes on the lower right corner. The back panel holds an antenna connector, a pairing button, a USB port, an Ethernet port, and a plug for the included power adapter.

1 x Type A USB 3.0 (storage supported on compatible external hard drives only),
TV Antenna Input,
Gigabit Ethernet, Power

Antenna

The flat, sheet-like antennas designed for digital OTA signals are readily available for around $20. If you can place the Fire TV Recast near your router, that’s even better; it can connect to your network over dual-band Wi-Fi, but the Ethernet port enables a faster, more stable connection.

Apps

The Recast only works with over-the-air (OTA) channels that it pulls down via a connected antenna. You can’t hook up a cable box to it. But rather, the big selling point is that the Recast will give you watch-anywhere access to ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, plus PBS and a couple dozen filler channels. Other companies (namely Tablo and Dish) have tried their hand at this, but Amazon’s attempt is part of a much bigger vision.

Resolution

Video maxes out at 720p/60 fps, which is about all you need for broadcast content. (The TV interface will tell you when a channel/show is in HD, but the mobile app doesn’t.) And the Alexa voice commands — Alexa, tune to NBC; Alexa, record This Is Us; Alexa, how full is my DVR?; Alexa, show me my recordings — are straightforward and helpful. Once you set the Recast up, live TV is something that the Fire TV just gets and knows when to use. I’ve experienced few pauses or buffering interruptions so far.

How to use Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours?

The DVR has its own menu on the Fire TV interface, detailing shows you’ve recorded, as well as settings for future recordings. Creating a recording requires either telling Alexa to record a show (Alexa, record Meet The Press) or finding the show in the Guide and pressing the menu button on the remote followed by record. You’ll be prompted if you want to record just one instance of the show or all new showings.

It’s also possible to stream content from the Recast, live and recorded, using the Fire TV app on a mobile device.

Alexa can handle requests to pause a show, tune to a channel, or show the TV Guide, either through a connected Echo device or the Alexa Voice Remote. My kids especially enjoy telling Alexa to “tune to PBS” in the morning before heading off to school.

Signal strength

The Fire TV Recast seems to have an excellent channel scanner and signal quality measurement system, because every live show I tuned to and recording I accessed looked clear and free of the blocky digital artifacts that indicate a weak signal. From our test lab in lower Manhattan, that includes dozens of broadcast channels. Of course, this is a very strong location for broadcast television, and what channels will be available to you, and how strong their signals will be, depends on your location and antenna placement.

Setup – Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours

You need to use a mobile device with the app to set up the Recast. The app previously only functioned as a remote for Fire TV devices, but the newest version adds support for the Recast and enables watching live TV and recordings on your mobile device.

Under the device list in the app, select Set Up a New Fire TV Recast to begin the process. The app will walk you through all the steps needed to plug the device in, properly place the antenna, and connect to the ad-hoc Wi-Fi network the Recast generates. When all of those steps are done, you simply enter your Wi-Fi network information (or use an Ethernet cable) and link the Recast to your Amazon account.

After all of that, the Fire TV Recast will scan the airwaves for any digital OTA signals. Channels with a strong-enough signal will appear on the Recast’s list of channels you can tune to or record from. The Recast enables a free channel guide on linked Fire TV devices, the Echo Show, and the Fire TV app, letting you see what’s currently on and what will be on over the next two weeks. No subscription, including Amazon Prime, is required to use the Recast’s channel guide or DVR features.

Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours customer review

Simple, works, Nice

Basically long story short there is not much in terms of customizational options you can do to this black box.
However, once it is setup it effectively can turn every amazon enabled device with a screen into a TV screen for basic TV.
I will say one minor issue. This box does have software to block cable providers. My HDHomeRun picks up local unencrpted channels just fine. This thing will straight up show nothing whatsoever when plugged in. So keep that in mind, it LITERALLY forces you to use a antenna, which isn’t too much of a hassle, but it is disappointing because in a way, those channels are freely obtainable.
Oh and also, something to note, the channel guide will automatically update itself accordingly, but in some locations you’ll need to manually, and forcefully set a different zipcode where you want your channels. I had to call amazon to fix my box, and after 48 hours it was fixed and everything worked flawlessly.
I would actually buy a second one of these, since I have 6 TVs but, we don’t use all of those units at once, and secondly, you for some reason can only have ONE recast at a time, which is disappointing, but hey. I’m not that upset over it. Still worth the money.
By Xeiyros at Best Buy

Alternate of Fire TV Recast over-the-air DVR 1 TB 150 hours

AirTV 2

The AirTV 2 has its pluses, especially as it’s the cheapest of our OTA DVR recommendations and it works without incurring a monthly charge. Yet, this OTA DVR is really designed to complement a $35-a-month Sling TV subscription by adding local channels. And you need to add an external hard drive (not included) to make the AirTV 2 function as a true DVR, though it lacks live TV pause. If you’re looking for a device that works without paying more per month, the similar Amazon Fire TV Recast offers a better overall experience.

While I haven’t reviewed the AirTV Anywhere it adds an onboard 1TB hard drive for $200.