Fire TV Recast is Amazon’s OTA DVR

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Dennis Restauro

President at Grounded Reason LLC

Dennis is the editor in chief at Grounded Reason. Before writing about using technology to save you money he spent 20 years working in the tech sector as a sysadmin, an analyst, and an enterprise architect.

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Amazon is releasing an Over the Air (OTA) DVR to record broadcast TV from your TV antenna and watch on your Amazon Fire TV Device. You can preorder now, but the official release date is November 14th 2018. The device will cost $229 for the 2 tuner, 500GB version and $279 for the 4 tuner, 1TB version. However, a guide is included making it the cheapest way to get a premium OTA DVR. This means you won’t need to purchase an additional subscription guide.

How Fire TV Recast Works

Similar to the Tablo OTA DVR, recast connects to your antenna and router. Then, you operate Recast through your Amazon Fire TV or Fire TV Stick using the Fire TV app on your mobile device. You can also pair Fire TV Recast with your Fire TV or Echo Show and ask Alexa to search for shows, change over-the-air TV channels, control playback, plus browse, schedule, cancel, and delete recordings.

Since the Recast stores your TV shows on it’s local hard drive and doesn’t need to connect to your TV, you can locate the Recast near your antenna to minimize signal loss between the Antenna and recast. Your recordings are then read from the Recast and viewed over your home network using an Amazon Fire TV or Fire TV stick.

The number of shows you can record at once are based on whether you purchased the 2 or 4 tuner recast.

With a 2-tuner Fire TV Recast, you can:

• record 2 programs at once,
• watch a live or recorded program while recording another; OR
• watch 2 live or recorded programs on different devices at once.

With a 4-tuner Fire TV Recast, you can:

• record 4 programs at once;
• watch 1 live or recorded program while recording 3 other programs in the background; OR
• watch 2 live or recorded programs on different devices at once while recording 2 other programs in the background.

Fire TV Recast Specs and features

In order to use the Recast you will need the following

• A TV Antenna (Check our guide to choosing a TV antenna)
• A Fire TV or Fire TV Stick streaming media player or Echo Show
• Access to the free Fire TV app on a Fire tablet (5th Gen or above), or an iOS 10 (or above) or Android 4.4 (or above) mobile device

The Amazon Fire TV Recast provides the following features:

• Fire TV Recast is a DVR that lets you watch and record over-the-air TV at home or on-the-go with a Fire TV, Echo Show, or compatible mobile device—with no monthly fees.
• Watch and record live sports, local news, late night shows, and other can’t miss TV from channels available through an HD antenna (sold separately) like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, and The CW.
• Record up to 2 shows at once, with enough storage for up to 75 hours of HD programming with the 2 Tuner Recast. The 4 tuner version allows recording of 4 Shows with  150 hours of HD storage.
• With a compatible Alexa-enabled device, you can use your voice to search for shows, manage and schedule recordings, and help with other requests. Say things like “Alexa, open Channel Guide” or “Alexa, record ‘Riverdale.’”

Below is a picture of the Recast to give you an idea of it’s look and size.

Size: 7.1” x 7.1” x 2.9” (180 mm x 180 mm x 73 mm)
Weight: 2.4 lbs (1066 g)
Processor: Dual Core
Wi-Fi: 2.4 G Wi-Fi 2×2 Wi-Fi b/g/n and 5 G Wi-Fi 2×2 Wi-Fi a/n/ac
Ports :1 x Type A USB 3.0 (does not support storage), TV Antenna Input, Gigabit Ethernet, Power

This is what we know thus far. I’ll be sure to provide more details when I get a hands on look at the newest OTA DVR.

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