One of the main selling points of the new Fire TV is that it has 4K, but not many apps beyond the big names like Netflix have come out for the Fire TV with 4K support.
Now AFTVnews has confirmed that third-party developers are not being given access to the h.265 codec that allows the Fire TV 2 to play 4K content at this time. This is a huge mistake on Amazon’s part because the Roku 4 is pumping out a few new 4K channels every week.
When it comes to online media players, content is king. If you do not have the content—in this case 4K content—then you are just going to be left behind.
This seems like a major shortfall on Amazon’s part, and we are not fully sure why. There seems to be no benefit to limit 4K support to only a few hand-picked apps; however, that is what is happening right now. For whatever reason Amazon is unable or unwilling to let app developers make 4K apps.
By doing this, Amazon is giving Roku a running start to build a huge library of 4K content while the Fire TV just sits there. Hopefully Amazon will change their mind and allow 4K apps by third-party developers before it is too late to catch up.
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