Yes, Google did announce a new $35 Chromecast–via a blog post, rather than actual stage time–but it’s just a minor upgrade with a different design, 15 percent faster speeds, and 1080p video at up to 60 frames per second. (The previous Chromecast allowed 1080p video at 30 frames per second or 720p video at 60 frames per second, but not the higher framerate and resolution together.)

Notably, the new Chromecast does not support 4K HDR video. For that, you’ll need the Chromecast Ultra, which launched in 2016 and still costs $70. That’s a tough sell when Amazon and Roku are both selling 4K HDR streamers for $50 or less–and with full TV menus and proper remote controls to boot.

After the press event was over, Xiaomi announced a new $60 Android TV called the Mi Box S. It supports 4K HDR video, offers Google Assistant voice controls on its remote, and has Chromecast capabilities built-in. But in terms of internal specs, it’s nearly identical to the original Mi Box from two years ago. The main differences are a new box design and and updated remote’s with dedicated buttons for Netflix, the app launcher, and a mysterious “Live” function.

The news left me underwhelmed, so naturally I wrote a column about it. While other companies, including Amazon, Roku, and Apple are adding new features and trying new ideas, Google seems lost on where to take things next. Read the full column on TechHive.

The price drop does complicate things if you’re deliberating between the Streaming Stick+ and Roku’s new $50 Premiere+. Both players support 4K HDR video, have the same remote, and are equally powerful, but the Streaming Stick+ has a more portable design and provides better connectivity with 802.11ac Wi-Fi support. My review sorting all this out is coming soon.

Amazon and OTA: Over at AFTVNews, Elias Saba has gathered some nerdy details on over-the-air broadcast support in Amazon’s upcoming Fire TV Recast DVR and Fire TV Stick 4K dongle.

As I wrote a couple weeks back, the Fire TV Recast will record broadcast channels from an antenna and stream the video to your Fire TV devices, similar to Nuvyyo’s Tablo and Dish’s AirTV. One of the biggest problems with these products has been inconsistent support 60 frames per second video on interlaced channels, which makes sports, talk, and news broadcasts look smoother.

Saba reports that the Recast will transcode all video to a maximum resolution of 1440-by-720 at 60 frames per second, which should provide a smooth picture even for the interlaced channels that other DVRs have struggled with in the paste. Transcoding takes a lot of processing power, though, so the tradeoff is that the Fire TV Recast will only be able to stream video onto two devices at once, even with the four-tuner model that can record up to four channels at a time.

Amazon’s also giving some love to other networked DVRs such as HDHomerun with the Fire TV Stick 4K. Saba reports that the new dongle will support deinterlacing for 1080i broadcast channels. We’ll have to see how this works in practice, but it could make the Fire TV Stick 4K an ideal playback device for do-it-yourself DVR solutions such as Plex and Emby.