Streaming Amazon Prime Video

I tried a free 1 month subscription of Amazon Prime over the holidays. Tis the seaon, buying in time for the 25th and all that. One of the side benefits was the streaming videos, which of course I tried.

We are pretty much just watching Netflix and the OTA we record with our Tablo here, so our selection of newer movies is pretty slim, and something I would like to enhance.

I did catch some pretty good movies with the free Amazon Prime trial, and almost signed up for a year as I was ending my free trial. The big thing that held me back from doing so was the app on Roku 3.

Being use to Netflix and Tablo, just trying to rewind to a spot that I wanted to see again was almost impossible. I am sure that if I watched it through a fire stick or something it would have been much more pleasant, but I can’t justify buying new hardware just to try a new streaming provider.

In my opinion they lost a customer because their app sucked on Roku, because they want to sell you an Amazon device.

Last but not least, IMHO Tablo’s interface with thumbnails, its navigation on a Roku
3, etc. put Amazon to shame. Thanks Tablo dudes for adding thumbnails, over a year ago now I think . It is soooo… nice to have them.

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Uh… APV does thumbs on the Roku 3.

http://endlessnow.com/APV

Yeah I meant to say that navigating through the thumbnails on the Roku 3 was cumbersome and confusing, and I ended up either going ahead way too far, or not far enough. I would highlight the fast forward icon get it rolling and then not be able to stop it, etc. Much easier when the buttons on the remote get the job done.

I agree completely, the Amazon app was great until they decided to “upgrade” it around November. It does work a bit better on the newest Roku models (Ultra) as its more responsive but still, they made it overly complicated and losing the ability to scrub frame by frame is a HUGE loss…

I have had PRIME for years for the 2 day shipping anyway (and I really enjoy a few of the PRIME originals) so I will put up with it, but I use it a lot less than I did when the channel was simple (but functional).

I guess I stand alone. Have no problems with fast forward, rewind and thumbs with Amazon Prime Video on Roku 3. As for the UI, as with most, Amazon wants their experience (or lack thereof) to be uniform across platforms.

Previous to the most recent version, you had the option of using FFW / RW, or you could click the left / right arrow buttons on the D-Pad and scrub frame to frame.

On All channels that support it, I use the directional arrow to skip forward or backward, it brings a lot more control than hitting FFW and trying to resume at the correct second.

The other changes are annoying mainly because they are slower but the loss of the frame to frame scrubbing is my #1 complaint.

Truth be told I don’t think they did frame by frame (Tablo doesn’t do this either), that would be pretty expensive, but probably did offer something a bit more granular at some point. And I’m guessing you get this feature with FireTV, right? I’m just trying to get it clear in my head the actual complaint that made you drop APV.

My mistake, its not EXACTLY frame by frame, sorry about that…

Prior to the most recent Roku update, the left and right arrows of the D-pad in the Amazon Prime Channel acted exactly as they do for Tablo… Not Frame by frame but a very granular step through each thumbnail.

THAT is what I am missing, the same control Tablo provides with the D-Pad, on Amazon Prime.

Got it. Thanks.