Amazon’s 3rd generation Fire TV Cube is generally known as a streaming platform for apps like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+. But this upgrade to the Fire TV Stick has some handy features built into that discreet USB port on the back. If you thought it was largely just accessories, you might have forgotten that it also unlocks a lightweight, built-in media player for offline files.
With the right configuration, your Cube can play local media files directly from a USB drive, turning it into a compact media hub. You can use it to display everything from videos you’ve taken on your phone to downloaded TV shows, movies and music, or even photo collections from your latest vacation, on any TV the Cube is connected to. If you have a huge media collection and/or an unstable internet connection, the media player can be a real godsend, despite the fact that Amazon almost never talks about or promotes it. If you were lured by Roku’s superiority over the Fire TV streaming platform, this could be the straw that broke the camel’s back to lure you back into the Amazon ecosystem. Its media hub functionality is another feature that makes the Cube one of the best streaming devices.
How media playback works on the Cube
The USB port on the 3rd Gen Fire TV Cube will recognize just about any external storage formatted as FAT32. This is one of the most common file system formats, but it cannot accommodate files larger than 4 GB. While this should not be a problem for most media, it does mean that some movies, especially longer films in high resolution or high fidelity formats, may be too large.
Plug in a FAT32 drive and the Cube will automatically recognize it and display a prompt to open it. You can also find the media player at any time by accessing the input menu. The Fire TV Cube supports a wide range of popular video, audio, and image formats, including MP4, MKV, MP3, AAC, and JPEG. The player will display your media in thumbnail form and allow you to sort them by type (videos, images and audio); simply select and click on what you want to see/listen to and the player will launch automatically.
