The Fire TV Recast DVR is a great addition to your Fire TV viewing experience. It displays and records live over-the-air TV. In this guide, we show you how to set it up and use it.
What You Need
To use Fire TV Recast, you need the following equipment:
How to Set Up a Fire TV Recast
Once you have all the necessary gear, take these steps to set up your Fire TV Recast:
Use Recast with Fire TV
After Fire TV Recast is installed, a DVR category appears on the top menu bar of your Fire Edition TV or TV with a Fire TV stick/box connected.
Make sure your smartphone, Fire TV device, Echo Show, and Fire TV Recast DVR are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
Open the Fire TV app on your smartphone.
Select Set up a Fire TV Recast when prompted and proceed through the welcome screens.
Enable Location Services and select the range of your antenna, then select Next.
If you don’t know the antenna range, continue anyway.
The Fire TV app guides you through antenna connection and placement tips. If you have an indoor antenna, placing it near or on a window offers the best performance. Also, place Recast where the antenna cable can reach it and place Recast near an AC power outlet.
Connect the antenna and plug the Recast into AC power. The LED on the Fire TV Recast should start blinking white. Hold the Fire TV Recast Connect button (located on the back) for eight seconds.
Connect the Recast to your network (Wi-Fi or Ethernet). After the internet connection confirms, Fire TV Recast registers and checks for firmware updates. If updates are found, it takes several minutes to download and install the updates. Don’t perform any other tasks during this time.
After the updates are installed, Fire TV Recast scans for available over-the-air TV channels. The progress displays on the app screen. The number of receivable channels depends on the distance and physical barriers between the TV station transmitter and your location.
Move the antenna to receive more channels and repeat the channel scan process as many times as needed. You can also re-scan later manually if you add a new indoor or outdoor antenna.
To perform a manual channel rescan, go to the Fire TV smartphone app and access Settings > Fire TV Recast > Channel Management > Channel Scan. On a Fire TV device Fire Edition TV/Fire TV stick or box, select Settings > Live TV > Live TV Sources > Fire TV Recast > Channel Scan.
Fire TV devices and Fire TV Edition TVs should automatically pair when a Fire TV Recast is detected. If the Fire TV device and Recast don’t pair automatically, open the Fire TV app and go to Settings > Live TV > Live TV Sources > Fire TV Recast > Pair a Fire TV Recast and choose your device.
If you don’t see these options in the app, go to Settings > My Fire TV > About > Check for System Update and make sure you have the latest Fire TV software version.
Once the above steps are completed, the Fire TV Recast DVR is ready for use.
On Now lists shows airing for received channels. Select one to watch or to set a recording.
Use a Fire TV remote or Alexa voice commands to open the DVR category to see and use Fire TV Recast features.
When watching Live TV using Recast, you can pause, rewind, and fast forward up to 90 minutes using Alexa or the player controls on Fire TV devices, Echo Show, or Fire TV app.
Watch recordings that you made by selecting them from the My Recordings bar using Fire TV remote buttons or Alexa.
The Fire TV Recast can’t record from streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video, and Hulu. It only allows the recording of live over-the-air TV broadcasts.
The On Now row may also list any live TV services from internet streaming apps or Prime video. Since these aren’t provided through an antenna, the Recast can’t record their content.
To further explore what’s available to watch or record, Fire TV Recast includes a 14-day channel guide. Select it from the DVR Manager row or tell Alexa Go to Channel Guide. The guide includes TV listings for available channels. You don’t need to enter a channel number. Just use your Fire TV remote to select it.
Schedule recordings up to 14 days in advance. Also, you can record single TV shows or an entire series as the episodes become available through on-screen prompts.
After setting up a recording, it’s placed in the Scheduled Recordings/Recording Priority list, which is accessed via the DVR Manager.
Depending on if you have the two or four tuner Recast, you may be able to record two or more programs airing at the same time on different channels. You can also watch a program or previous recording, and record one or more programs at the same time.
If you need to access additional Fire TV Recast settings, use the DVR Manager.
Use Fire TV Recast With Echo Show
If you have an Echo Show, Fire TV Recast is added to your Live TV viewing options.
Say Alexa, go to channel guide. It shows you On Now for all your available channels. To show more, say Alexa, next. Go to a channel when you say something like Alexa, tune to CBS.
Start a recording by saying the program’s name, for example, Alexa, record Gotham. The Echo Show records all upcoming episodes unless you cancel them.
Echo Show can display recordings that are made. Tell Alexa to pick one by number and play it.
Use Recast With the Fire TV Smartphone App
In addition to using the Fire TV smartphone app to set up Recast, you can use it as a remote control to initiate play, pause, FF, RW, and more. You can also control over-the-air live TV through On Now, access the list of your recordings, play them back, or start a recording once a program starts (you can’t schedule recordings in advance).
Use the app to record a live show when away from home, and watch recordings you made as long as you are in communication with your home network through a Wi-Fi or cellular connection.
Access more Recast settings from the Fire TV smartphone app.
You can’t download recordings from the Recast to your smartphone to take with you for offline viewing.
Additional Fire TV Recast Setup and Use Tips
Here are a few more things to keep in mind when using Fire TV Recast:
Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day
