Nearly all the key VOD services are onboard – BBC iPlayer, ITVHub, All4, My5 and UK Play, as well as OTT heavy hitters like Netflix and Disney. Atmos isn’t a new innovation, we’ve had it on the previous generations of Fire TV, but it’s always reassuring to see an AVR recognise the stream.
#AMAZON FIRE STICK DOLBY 5.1 SERIES#
This currently only hasĪ few shows in the format, most notably the action series Jack Ryan. It’s also powerful enough for quite polished gaming, as evidenced by the Sega classic collection now available through Amazon.ĭolby Atmos is available out of the box from the Amazon Prime streaming service.
#AMAZON FIRE STICK DOLBY 5.1 TV#
This short lead may also prove useful if you’re connecting directly to a screen, as the device will likely stick out past the edge of a bezel on smaller sets with side-mounted ports.ĭriving the Fire TV Stick 4K is a quad-core 1.7GHz processor, which delivers quicker load times, and seemingly faster stream optimisation, than previous generations.
The housing is too wide to fit a standard HDMI input board, but thoughtfully Amazon supplies an extender which gets around the problem. For this audition, I plugged it into the back of an AV receiver. Installing the Fire TV Stick 4K is fast and painless, taking just a few minutes. The stick automatically detects a such cable connection during setup. While there’s no room for a dedicated Ethernet connection, you can always pick up a third-party USB power cord with a break-out Ethernet port to hardwire. When it comes to audio, the stick supports Dolby Digital Plus, which delivers both Dolby Digital 5.1/7.1 and Dolby Atmos streams where available. This is clearly more convenient than switching between multiple interfaces. The value is that you don’t have to fire up separate applications, allowing you to stay within the Amazon Fire UI environment. Of course, the reality is that the relevant client apps, be they Netflix on a Dolby Vision-enabled screen, or Amazon on a HDR10+ panel, will already have the ability to deliver the same service. You’ll still require a telly that’s compatible with one or the other. It’s merely a conduit for those metadata encoded streams. Available for the bargain price of £50, it's hard to find a reason not to buy one.īefore you ask, adding this Amazon streamer to your 4K TV will not magically bequeath HDR10+ or Dolby Vision compliance. This upgraded dongle is noticeably longer than the previous Fire TV Stick, but with multi-HDR support (not only does the device handle HDR10 and its dynamic variant HDR10+, it’s also Dolby Vision compatible), Alexa voice control and dual-band, dual-antenna MIMO Wi-Fi reception, it packs a heck of a lot into its matt black shell. Amazon’s latest HDMI streaming stick is an absolute stonker.