Firestick

My first task was to figure out how to play videos from my linux home computer.

DLNA is extremely unreliable. Both KODI (side loaded) and VLC (from amazon firestick app store) see the DLNA server randomly. VLC on my android phone and tablet does not have this problem, the same server on the same wifi network is always visible and works fine. Don't ask me to figure out why. (Possibly the problem is the minidlna server I'm using, but there doesn't seem to be any simple alternative out there).

SMB seems to be the most reliable way to play media from my home computer, but you have to configure SMB so it allows public access without passwords (a totally counterintuitive and cryptic process only possible using the miracle of google). No attempts to put credentials into VLC worked under any circumstances.

Comparing KODI and VLC play over SMB, I find one glaring deficiency in KODI - if I stop a video then come back to it later, it starts playing from the beginning. In VLC, there is a "recent" collection, if I start playing the recent entry, it picks up where it left off. The VLC user interface is annoying with all the giant icons instead of simple lists like KODI uses, but resuming play where I left off is vital, the icons are merely irritating. There is some indication in google search that this is simply a KODI bug, but it is a bug that doesn't exist in VLC, so VLC is the one for me.

Having figured out how to play videos from my home computer, I then wondered about how to use apps on my phone which the firestick doesn't have (like TiVo playback).

The AirScreen app apparently can't do miracast (it's avowed main purpose), but can do DLNA, and was the only DLNA app that never had a problem talking to the server. Unfortunately it has the infinitely larger problem that it stops playing and inserts ads at random times. No thanks.

Turns out that I don't need an app to do miracast, the firestick supports it directly if you dig down through enough menu items (Settings, then Display & Sounds, then Enable Display Mirroring). My samsung galaxy s9+ can do miracast (pull down from top, then pull down the little dash to see even more settings, then swipe left to see even more settings, then click Smart View), and it seems to talk to the firestick OK. My Huawei tablet claims to support miracast as well, but it doesn't seem to work (the TiVo app, for instance, displays things like the pause/play controls on the firestick, but not the video, which is kind of useless). Also there seems to be a conspiracy to make absolutely certain that every single device never uses the word "miracast", instead they all call it something completely different on every single device to insure you have no idea how to connect things.

More silly things: I initially setup the firestick in HDMI port 1 on my old samsung LCD. After getting the TV mounted on the wall, port 4 is the one I need because it is on the side, not the back. Everything worked till I did a voice search, at which point the TV flipped back to port 1 (to which nothing is connected). Apparently the HDMI port is something the firestick figured out during setup (google tells me it is in some vendor specific EDID chunk). When I told it to change TVs and re-ran setup from port 4, the problem went away. It stays on port 4 now after a voice search.

This is not a 4K TV or a 4K firestick, but I accidentally played the 4K version of Good Omens, and rather than simply telling me I'm an idiot, it tried to play it, but the speed was slowed way down so Frances McDormand sounded like Darth Vader on Xanax. Took a while to notice what was going on.