Amazon Fire TV Stick mistakes mean you’re not getting 4K quality – four checks to make every time

IF you’re hoping to watch some 4K movies on your Amazon Fire TV Stick, make sure you’re not making any mistake.

There are plenty of reasons why you might not be getting a 4K picture.

1

What is 4K?

The terms 4K, Ultra HD, and UHD all mean roughly the same thing.

And they relate to how many pixels there are on your TV screen, or the detail of a piece of video content.

Imagine someone gave you a grid with nine squares (3 by 3), and said you could paint each one any single color you like.

It would be impossible to make a very good picture with just nine squares.

But if someone gave you 900 or even 9,000 squares, you could start to make something more detailed.

That’s basically how TV display pixels work, but on a much more dense level.

A High Definition TV would have 1,280 pixels across and 720 pixels vertically, coming in at 921,600 pixels in total.

Move to Full HD and you’re looking at 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, or 2,073,000 pixels in total.

And 4K or Ultra HD has 3,840 x 2,160 pixels for a display total of 8,294,400 pixels.

So a 4K display has roughly four times the number of pixels of a Full HD TV.

It means more detail can be packed into what you’re watching.

How to get 4K from your Amazon Fire TV Stick

The first check to make is whether your Fire TV device even supports 4K.

Not all Amazon Fire Stick models do, so look for 4K, Ultra HD or UHD in the name of the device.

If it’s not in the product name then you’re not getting a 4K image out of no matter what you do.

Secondly, make sure that your TV has at least a 4K resolution.

If your TV isn’t 4K, Ultra HD or UHD then you won’t get 4K even if you’ve bought a 4K Amazon Fire TV Stick.

Thirdly, ensure that you’re actually trying to watch 4K content and not something else.

Netflix, for instance, only serves up 4K content on higher-tier plans.

And many TV shows and movies on streaming platforms aren’t in 4K.

Fourth, if you’re trying to stream in 4K, you’ll need a decent internet connection.

Netflix recommends an internet connection of 15Mbps (megabits per second) to stream 4K.

That’s triple the recommended speed for Full HD streaming on Netflix.

And it’s five times the recommended speed for regular HD streaming.

Of course, you might question whether you even need a 4K picture.

If you have a very small television, the difference between Full HD and Ultra HD might not be enough to invest in 4K TV subscriptions.

Similarly, if your TV is very far away from you, the effect of 4K will be lessened because it’s harder to notice pixel density at a distance.

This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk