Amazon has announced that Fire TV is now available for pre-order in the UK and Germany.
The regular price in Germany is €99 from the company’s website. Amazon Prime customers placing their order by Monday September 8 pay only €49. In the UK the streaming video set-top box will retail for 79 pounds from the Amazon website, while major retailers will include Dixons and Tesco.
The first orders will be delivered in Germany from September 25, while in the UK delivery starts on October 23.
The box gives access to the local versions of Amazon Prime Instant sites as well as content from local content partners. In the UK content will include Netflix, YouTube, Sky News, Channel 5, music from Amazon Music, Spotify, and radio stations from TuneIn.
In Germany, all major catch-up and on-demand services will become available including the Mediatheken from ARD and ZDF, Arte, Zattoo, Bild.de, Servus TV, Sport1, Spiegel TV, Maxdome and many more. International content partners include Dailymotion, Vevo, Bloomberg, MUBI, Red Bull and others.
X-Ray, the metadata service using information from the Amazon-owned IMDB site, is also an essential part of the experience. This allows the viewer to use a Kindle Fire tablet as a second screen device, viewing cast and details as a movie plays. As scenes progress actor names and details appear as they enter on screen.
Amazon launched Fire TV in the US as a competitor to Apple TV and Roku. Priced at $99 (€72), the device gives access to a multitude of services including Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, WatchESPN, and Showtime.
