I just received a new Fire TV cube gen 3, because my old one is malfunctioning. I know, I hate these devices myself, but it’s the only option right now, since a new version of the Nvidia shield isn’t coming in the foreseeable future.

So, I plugged in the power chord and the HDMI cable into the cube.

When it booted up it showed a screen that it’s downloading the newest update. At first I thought this must be some typo-bug on the initial boot steps, because I haven’t even connected it to the internet yet, neither via cable nor did I go through the wifi setup.

After the update has finished, I was greeted with my real name and the cube indeed had the actual WiFi settings!

WTF?! How’s that even possible?

  • adONisOP
    1•9 months ago

    https://r-htpc.github.io/wiki/faq#what-is-hdr-video-and-what-do-i-need-to-take-advantage-of-it

    DOLBY VISION AND HDR10+ MEDIA PASSTHROUGH IS NOT SUPPORTED ON HTPCS; If you need support for these, you’ll need a media device/non-PC, like a Nvidia Shield, Fire TV, Dune HD, etc…

    I did learn a lot about my consumption, and believe me when I say, that I wish my options were broader. But it is how it is. And most of the content I watch is in HDR10+ or DV.

    But yeah, everyone’s milage may vary.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•9 months ago

      Media passthrough isn’t the same as streaming from the HTPC. IF you look directly above the quote above.

      For a HTPC, this means HDR support must be in the video, GPU, video interface (HDMI/DP) and ultimately your output device (typically a TV). HDR10 is supported on HTPCs under Windows, macOS Catalina, Android and (usually) libreelec/coreelec operating systems. Linux is NOT supported.

      So you if you have a HDR10+ source on your IntelNUC, or whatever, you can play that over HDMI 2.0 to a compatible TV without an issue.

      • adONisOP
        1•9 months ago

        yes, playback might work, but it will fall back to HDR10 or even SDR, since not all metadata is passed through.

        So to fully take advantage of hdr10+, dolby vision, 5.1, atmos, and what not… each device in the chain, from the source to the output, and the hdmi cable, have to fully support it.