Except the PS3, that also serves as a pretty good non-BD media device.

I don't count Game Consoles in that comment as they cost substantially more than either. They're also the best overall choice for most people, though the lack of IR support on the PS3/PS4 puts them at a slight disadvantage. (I think the PS3 has a USB one, but you have to power it on with the game pad still right?)

Yep, you do. I picked up a refurb PS3 500GB for $125, so in the range of a regular blu Ray player. But you're right, I've always seen that as a disadvantage, the lack of IR .

I thought Blu Ray players were way cheaper now.

If HBO would stop being so isolationist with Go and let me use it on the damn player or Amazon would stop being idiots and work with Chromecast, it'd be a hell of a lot easier. But I still have to switch it out with the 2 HDMI ports in my expensive new plasma. But I wish I'd known that before I spent $200 on the custom player and $30 on Chromecast.

They are, but I wanted a region-free one, so I had to pay an extra $100 for the modifications. I also wish it did better upscaling . But hey, you live, you learn. The BD Player's Amazon interface is really weird, it doesn't display things in rows like my iPhone and my dad's Smart TV do, and it only displays the bitrate instead of the resolution of the video.

First world problems .

Stick is $34 for a "limited time."

Do Netflix and/or Amazon Instant Video break into the end credits on the FireTV stick?

I've actually noticed recently watching M*A*S*H on it that the next episode starts right after the opening credits. The closing credits downsize and show the next episode and the countdown to the next one.

That's completely unacceptable- you can set it to not automatically play the next episode (which I actually don't mind) but on my Roku 1 it will still darken the screen during the end credits which is why I don't use Amazon (it even does this on movies you've PURCHASED!) Netflix still plays fine on it, but the unit has been glitchy lately and I'm looking for something else. If I can't get something that won't downsize the end credits, I'll just drop Netflix altogether.

When I use Netflix on my Apple TV it doesn't skip the opening credits of the next episode which I can't stand. You'd figure they could figure that out and get it working, unless I just don't have it set up correctly. But then again, I didn't do anything different on the Fire Stick and it just started working recently.

From what I understand, Netflix has far less control on the Apple app and can't add features like that easily.

Netflix REALLY needs to make their playback more customizable- my Sharp TV skips over the openings of shows too, but scanning backwards to see them isn't as annoying as having to hit a button just to see the end credits the way they should be (which doesn't happen on my TV, but it can't output Dolby Digital Plus to my receiver so I can't watch anything that uses that with it). I want a "don't fuck with my content in any way, shape or form" setting.

Yeah there's a small but very vocal crowd that agrees with you. They need to make it so when you shut off post-play it does that.

I hated that my ps3 had the feature (minimizing credits, auto play episodes, etc; ) and my Roku 3 didn't for like six months so much so that I almost returned that thing.

BGR reports that the Fire TV Stick will be on sale for $24 to Amazon Prime Members only during their "Prime Day Deals" event on Wednesday, July 15th:

http://bgr.com/2015/07/14/amazon-pri...s-sale-prices/

I was going to get one but can't even get on a waitlist. Nice Prime Day.

Fire stick has dropped to $34 ($5 off). Not sure why or for how long.

^ I saw that this morning, so I picked one up to turn into an XBMC stick (or whatever the re-branded name is now). Will be nice to have alongside my Roku on business trips.

Seems to drop like that every couple of months...

I'll wait for it to go below $30. I've heard there's some interesting hacks for it.

Camelx3 says it did drop to that price in June, but that was the only time since their current chart started in October.

Yeah, I bought a handful of these for $20 - $25 and gave them out as gifts, I think they're good at < $30. The occasionally flaky Wi-fi and buggy software (depending on how you use it, you may not notice as much) definitely make it feel second tier despite being extremely feature rich.

September/October is the time of year that Amazon announces the new Kindle models. That's probably why there have been so many Kindle sales the past few weeks.

I wonder if they'll update the Fire TV devices?

Mine arrived today, and converting it to XBMC (well... it's called Kodi now) was a piece of cake. I didn't even have to sideload anything, there's a Windoze program you can use that will find the Stick on your network and preload just about everything you need in 5-10 minutes.

I decided to leave Kodi as an app that I can select rather than have the Stick boot directly into Kodi, but it's working flawlessly and I've been able to easily add some of the "unapproved" add-ons (like 1Channel, IceFilms, and so forth). Watched White God, a recent Simpsons, and the final Hammond-May Top Gear episode this evening. All I need to do now is get a small case to put the Stick, Remote, and power adapter inside for travel purposes.

Yeah, the WiFi is definitely flaky. The Stick is sitting just 4 feet away from my primary router, and it sees it fine, but when I tell it to connect the Stick "loses" that router's signal. Ditto for my secondary router downstairs. After some trial and error, I discovered some very confusing behavior...

1 - If it's never connected to a particular network before, it will connect just fine once you provide the password.
2 - If you reset/reboot the Stick (like one has to do after a firmware update, or after modding a Kodi setting), any network it was connected to will be lost.
3 - If you try to reconnect to a previously-connected network, the Stick will lose that network's scent during the connection process - which will ultimately fail.
4 - If you "forget" a network, then attempt a reconnect, the Stick won't connect.
5 - But if you immediately reset/reboot after doing step 4, it will connect. Usually.

Does Kodi have 5.1 sound?

Some add-ons do, some don't. I bought it for use in hotels so I didn't research whether DD5.1 or 2.0 was the norm. I'm running the Kodi 15.1 (Isengard) build for Android/ARM, you can research it at kodi.tv