Amazon Fire Stick/Sony BRAVIA TV compatibility problem – one solution

Intro
There is a very long discussion of this topic on Amazon.com. Sony BRAVIA models more than five years old may not work perfectly with Amazon’s Fire TV stick. I have this problem and I’ll mention my workaround.

The details
My Sony TV model is BRAVIA XBR 32XBR6. I suppose it’s about five years old. I also have it connected to a Sony Blueray player, which can also play Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu Plus, etc. But it isn’t nearly as well designed as the Fire Stick and so I bought the Fire Stick, which has better WiFi support and a faster user interface.

Initially the Fire Stick appears to work with the TV and all is good.

Second day: same thing. All is good.

About the third usage, however, and when playing on-demand content I hear what I’m trying to play but I only see a blue screen with the letters HDCP. I think that indicates a digital copy protection mechanism has kicked in.

Powering down the Fire Stick doesn’t seem to work. Turning the TV off and on doesn’t seem to help.

In my case I had the option to switch to watch the same content through my Blueray player (which never displays this problem). Then next time I went back to the Fire Stick (usually days later) all was good.

So I became suspicious about cause and effect and I shortened the cycle.

Get the HDCP problem. Switch HDMI ports to the Blueray player (using the remote). Initiate the Amazon video service connection on the Player (but don’t bother to actually play anything). Switch back to the Fire Stick’s HDMI port. HDCP problem gone!

This solution was not too painful. I also have a Raspberry Pi connected to yet another HDMI TV port. I’ll see if switching to that will do the trick as well – that would be a cheap option that’s not too painful.

2017 update
I never get this HDCP problem any more. The main difference is that I never use my Sony Blueray player for on-demand programming. The Firestick is superior so I always use it. I only use the Blueray player for DVD playback.

October, 2017 update
I got my birthday present – the updated Fire TV stick with Alexa voice remote, but on the same Sony TV. It does seem to work better. The old one was button press, nothing happens, button press, nothing happens, button press, finally it gets the idea. The new one does seem to be better about that.

July 2019 update
Just go the latest and greatest: fire tv stick 4K on Prime Day a few days ago. On this same, now rather old Sony TV model mentioned above, it works really and surprisingly well! I thought surely this older model will not support newer features such as volume control – but it does. And surely it will not support power control of the TV – but it does! And since volume control works (and you can see it is controlling TV volume, not some kind of HDMI or other volume) of course the mute button also works. All these features had required me, up until now, to schlep around two remote controls: the one for the TV plus the Firestick. Now I’ll just need the one. I could probably use Alexa voice commands but I don’t think I’ll want to.

And, it’s just plain more responsive. Previous models were often a bit slow to react to key presses. This does much better on that front. One last thing, it comes pre-configured with your account already set up so you can be up and running much quicker.

I have no idea about the 4k-ness of the picture quality, but the other features alone make me glad I got it.

I wish I could answer all the questions raised in the comments but I just don’t have access to any of those models. I would think it ought to work with any Sony TV made in the last 10 years, but maybe it’s not so simple.

Upgrading to a newer Firestick – what to do with your old one
Now you’ve got a Firestick on all your TVs and you want that latest model, and your relatives don’t want your old one either even though it worked just fine. Around here we’d be tempted to send it to a second-hand store, or worse case, to an electronics recycling program. But remember it has all your logins to Amazon (for sure), maybe Hulu, HBO Now, AT&T Now, Netflix, etc. So you better take an extra few minutes to factory reset it. This is a terrific article that gives five different ways to reset your Firestick to factory defaults: Five ways to reset your Firestick. I just wanted to repeat one. You have to have it connected, unfortunately. Hold the right and back buttons of your remote simultaneously for at least 10 seconds. Then follow the prompts. I have tried it and it works. The reset itself takes about 15 minutes on an older Firestick.

Tip for infrequent users

If like me you only watch a few hours a week because you are that busy, and yuo’ve subscribed to a variety of services (Netflix, Youtube Red, Amazon, …), I have this tip to save little of your precious time. You could see pop-ups suggesting to update to the latest version. I suggest to ignore those and wait until you have a bigger block of time. If you only have an hour you don’t want to waste the first five minutes upgrading an app you may have only used once (happens to me a lot). Let’s face it, these things don’t boot up quickly as it is.

2021 tip for US users wanting HBO Max

HBO Max is now available for Firestick. In 2020 it wasn’t for a long stretch.

2021 Tip: Changing Firestick from one TV set to another

I moved my Firestick from a Sony TV to an Insignia brand TV. I thought no big deal, it’s already set up – should just work. Wrong! Yes, the display worked. I could move between apps like usual, but the TV control functions – power on/off, volume, and mute – did absolutely nothing. What gives?

I always assumed that the infrared signal from the Firestick remote only communicates with the Firestick, and that the HDMI protocol included a side channel for power and volume commands. Apparently that assumption is totally wrong. In order to effectuate those things, the Firestick actually acts as a simple remote for your TV set and interacts directly with the TV’s infrared receiver. Who knew? Hence, if your set is a different brand than before, you may have to revive the infrared signal the Firestick puts out. It’s a bit obscure but not difficult. Go to

Settings > Equipment Control > Manage Equipment > TV > Change TV

Then follow the prompts. It actually knows about Insignia TVs and gets it right, by the way.

Related to the above, I recently bought a new Firestick and tried to do the initial setup on that same Insignia TV. I managed to see “Fire” on the screen, and that was it! Nothing else was possible. So I set it up on that Sony Bravia TV, then moved it over to the Insignia. Worked great, except for that On/Off/volume kind of TV controls. And that was simply fixed by the above recipe.

Android and Windows 10 screen mirroring

What I’ve decided to go with is to put the HBO Max app on my Android phone and cast the screen to my Firestick (screen mirroring). There’s a little more setup than you’re used to each time, but it’s not terrible compared with sideloading. In Firestick’s setup Screen you can enable casting. On a Samsung Galaxy pone you have the Smartview app in Settings: pull down from the top twice rapidly to get to Smart View. The Firestick screen should show up as an option. Choose it, then go back to your HBO Max app and play whatever content you like – it should be casting to your TV. I think you can also do screen mirroring from a Windows 10 laptop. Click on Notifications in the far right of the taskbar, you get all those little squares, click expand if needed, until you see Project. In Project look at the bottom and click on Connect to a wireless display.

Conclusion
A solution is offered to the dreaded HDCP problem for Amazon Fire Stick/Sony BRAVIA TV. More research needs to be done to reduce the solution to its essence.

References and related
Here’s the link to that lengthy discussion: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/forums/ref=cs_hc_g_pg_pg1?ie=UTF8&forumID=Fx1SKFFP8U1B6N5&cdSort&cdThread=Tx1A10FFQXCSZ2M&cdPage=1

Fire TV Stick (2019 model). This is the regular model. You probably don’t need the 4K model unless you have a super TV…

How to reset your (old) Firestick because you’ve upgraded: https://www.guidingtech.com/reset-fire-tv-stick-factory-settings/

Out-of-sync video and audio? Check this suggestion.