Try XBMC If You Have Root and Are Having Trouble Streaming Amazon

[cordoba]

I don't know if this is of interest to anyone here...

I've been trying out XBMC as an alternative to flash streaming because flash has been kind of wonky for me. They have a version for Android: Downloads | XBMC
There's an add-on repository with a plugin for Amazon: repository.bluecop.xbmc-plugins.zip - bluecop-xbmc-repo - addon for repo - Repository of XBMC video plug-ins - Google Project Hosting
You can give the add-on your Amazon username and password, and it will stream (but not download) the shows/movies that you've rented/bought (or the ones you get with Amazon Prime). But, Amazon streaming doesn't work well unless you update a library in XBMC, and you need root to do that (you can't access the library directory unless you're root).
Instructions to update the library are here: HOW-TO:Update librtmp - XBMC
The updated library (librtmp.so) can be found in a link from this post: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=108124&pid=1305618#pid1305618

Watching stuff in SD works beautifully, HD is still a little choppy. I think there are third party versions of XBMC trying to fix that, but I haven't been able to get those to work.


There are a lot of plugins for XBMC for streaming from other sites; some seem sketchy. Be careful out there!

 

[arbarnhart]

This one claims to be more user friendly:
Introducing the First End User Friendly Release of XBMC for Android ? Must Have! | XBMC ANDROID

and I would assume it would not need root, but that is subject to confirmation...

Also, I assume that the a2109 is non NEON, since I have no idea what NEON is. I would appreciate confirmation on that also.

 

[cordoba]

This one claims to be more user friendly:
Introducing the First End User Friendly Release of XBMC for Android ? Must Have! | XBMC ANDROID

and I would assume it would not need root, but that is subject to confirmation...

Also, I assume that the a2109 is non NEON, since I have no idea what NEON is. I would appreciate confirmation on that also.

The A2109 is actually NEON. I tried that one you linked, but it didn't work with Amazon. I couldn't add the repo with the Amazon plugin in. But the other streaming was in HD unlike the original XBMC.

 

[arbarnhart]

It is really amazing to me that Amazon hasn't taken the time to try to make their player for Fire more generic. Several people on other Androids (not the a2109) report success with side loading the Fire player (it's in the wild and easy to find searching) so I would think it is pretty close to being a generic player. In the meantime, Amazon is driving people with other androids over to Play to rent movies. I am currently on a free trial of Prime and will cancel before it gets charged. I have watched a few things using Flash but it is just not a good setup from a functionality and dependability standpoint.