Streaming TV questions

Matthew

Matthew

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Matthew
I suppose this question applies to pretty much any streaming service -

Looking to move to Google Fiber and away from U-Verse and their TV service. With U-Verse, I have a box that connects to the TV, it's also a DVR.

If I go streaming with Google and a service like YouTube TV, and my main TV is not a smart TV, how do I connect to the outside world? Does that require a Chromecast or Roku?
 
Or a PC. I just use a PC for everything TV
 
I'm a big fan of the Roku sticks.

I have three Roku Streaming Stick+ sticks. Even though my TVs are smart, the TV gets old and it's streaming platform will reach a point where it doesn't support the latest app updates and/or the performance will suffer.

The Roku is a streaming device and nothing else. It is fast, easy to use, and stays up to date. If, at some point, the stick's hardware can't keep up with the newest apps, I can replace it for under $75 while continuing to use the same TV.

I did just buy a Roku TV made by TCL for a bonus room. It's integrated very well as the Roku interface is the interface for the TV. The various TV inputs, DVR, BlueRay, etc. are accessed just like streaming apps. Don't know if the TV hardware will keep up over a 10+ year life of a TV but we'll see.
 
Matthew said:
how do I connect to the outside world? Does that require a Chromecast or Roku?
Click to expand...
Yes. Roku and Amazon Fire Stick seem to be the most popular in my neck of the woods. As mentioned above, I have 2 TCL Roku TVs and use Roku boxes for the 3 other unsmart TVs. I also have an attic mounted OTA antenna plumbed in just in case the internet goes down.
 
Bell206 said:
Yes. Roku and Amazon Fire Stick seem to be the most popular in my neck of the woods. As mentioned above, I have 2 TCL Roku TVs and use Roku boxes for the 3 other unsmart TVs. I also have an attic mounted OTA antenna plumbed in just in case the internet goes down.
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Thanks.

I have one Chromecast and one Roku on dumb TVs, and the third is a smart with built-in wireless. One of the two dumb TVs also has an antenna that works pretty well for pulling in local channels. We don't have that one connected to the UVerse, since UVerse requires a box for each TV.

I'm thinking the only thing holding me back from making the call today is to verify what happens to our ATT email account.
 
I baked off all the seven day (or whatever) trials from various companies when I ditched the Dish for the newly installed gig fiber. I for sure looked at:

YouTube TV
ATT/DirectV
Hulu
Fubo
Sling.

I use a combination of AppleTV players, Android TVs, and just plain web browsers.

The DirectV was going to be a pretty clear cut winner except they offered no AndroidTV app (at the time). That was a disqualifier.
The others all have various problems mostly due to lack of programming I wanted.

I settled with YouTube TV and have been pretty happy with it. They did improve the player just recently. I specifically like the "stats for geeks" you can turn on for diagnostic purposes.

I can't even begin to express my contempt for MLB TV and the general congressionally sanctioned antitrust-exempt fraud they perpetuate. When I looked in to subscribing here in North Carolina (we're five hours from any major league city though we have tons of minor league options here), they told me that Atlanta would be my blacked out city. No big thing. I'm not a fan there. When I actually signed up, I find not only no Atlanta, but no Washington or Baltimore (or Chicago, go figure). They blame this on their contracts with MASN. Of course, there's no way for me to get MASN here (which stupidly doesn't sell its streaming directly unless you have a cable TV hookup). Took me weeks and getting AMEX involved to get my subscription fee back on that subterfuge.

I may have to go to some friend in Florida and have him subscribe for me and hope they don't catch on to where the feed is going.
 
Streaming sports is perhaps the biggest difficulty when cord-cutting. Mileage may vary depending on the sport, but most of them seem to be stuck in the late 20th century.

But to add to the above, my Windows PC that's hooked up to my TV can get virtually anything else with ease. Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon, YouTube, and anything else that is accessable via browser. Plus it's nice to sit on the sofa with wireless mouse and keyboard and surf the web and not have to worry about some crappy proprietary interface and remote (especially when needing to enter text).
 
Get whatever goes with your ecosystem. We're mostly Amazon and Ring, so replaced the old Rokus with Fire Sticks. We also have a FireTV Replay DVR hooked up to an antenna in the attic for live TV.
 
Larry in TN said:
I'm a big fan of the Roku sticks.
Click to expand...

I have two of 'em plus a Roku-based smart TV. They work well, but I was not thrilled with the e-mail received just this morning from Roku:

Dear Roku Streamer,

Thanks for being such a loyal Roku user! You’ve been streaming with us a long time and we’re glad you’ve been enjoying your Roku player. While your current device will continue to stream and receive critical updates, it will soon stop receiving feature updates.

What does this mean?

This device will no longer get new features or streaming channels, updates to existing channels, or other software-related updates. You can keep using your Roku player to stream the channels you currently have. However, you may lose access to some channels over time as those channel partners make updates.

We want you to enjoy the best streaming experience possible. If you haven’t already upgraded to a new device, check out our newest players.

Happy Streaming!™
Roku
Click to expand...

IOW, we haven't seen any of your money for a while. Time to pony up for new sticks, sucker. :mad:
 
Pilawt said:
I have two of 'em plus a Roku-based smart TV. They work well, but I was not thrilled with the e-mail received just this morning from Roku:



IOW, we haven't seen any of your money for a while. Time to pony up for new sticks, sucker. :mad:
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Got that today as well. I’ll wait an see what happens. They got all those programmers on payroll so they just give them something to do that provides zero benefits to the audience but keeps cash flowing. Same as any software intensive company.

Cheers
 
flyingron said:
I can't even begin to express my contempt for MLB TV and the general congressionally sanctioned antitrust-exempt fraud they perpetuate.

<snip>

I may have to go to some friend in Florida and have him subscribe for me and hope they don't catch on to where the feed is going.
Click to expand...

My sports of regular interest are NCAA Basketball, NCAA Football, and the NFL. For the first two, I look to fan sites that point to an online feed of some sort for that day's game of interest.

For the NFL, I use a VPN. I subscribed to the International Game Pass (India seems to be the cheapest option) and then stream from an IP in Central or South America. This avoids all blackouts, no matter where I may physically be located at the time. You could probably do something similar for MLB.

All this is done with an HDMI cable from laptop to TV.
 
MLB um, I’ve heard, works without blackouts if you use a vpn. If you stream through a mobile device then it also checks device location. I’ve heard you can use an unlocator which spoofs your location.

yttv is best streamer by far (I’ve used them all) but the rate has gone from $35 to $65 and all they added are unimportant channels (aka non sports)
 
I'm looking at YouTube TV. It has the ESPN channels so I can catch college basketball, and it has the normal channels we usually use so it's nearly a direct replacement for what we are getting right now. I know that a lot of their price, and price increase, is due to licensing with ESPN. But if they don't offer ESPN, they'll lose a lot of subscribers.
 
New bigten contract will be, if you believe the leaks, on fox broadcast, fs1, nbc or peacock, cbs, (possibly Amazon prime and/or apple) and btn of course.

iow- no espn
 
I don’t particularly LIKE YTTV, but it sucks less that Hulu, Fubu, and ATT for live streaming. Unfortunately it seems the best we can do is pick what sucks least. Unless you’re OK with shelling out $300 a month or more to the local cable company, which I’m not going back to.
 
I use a combination of a dumb tv, roku, and an outside antenna and amplifier for the local channels. Works great. I don't know if they're still available, but I like the Roku with the radio wireless remote much better than the IR one. Their IR remote system is kinda finicky. Even with a smart TV, I believe I'd still treat it as a dumb tv and feed it via HDMI.

I can't comment on the availability of professional sports. To me, it's like watching different corporations playing, I don't see it as an actual sport representative of local teams. But then again, I'm a get off the lawn type.
 
Albany Tom said:
I use a combination of a dumb tv, roku, and an outside antenna and amplifier for the local channels. Works great. I don't know if they're still available, but I like the Roku with the radio wireless remote much better than the IR one. Their IR remote system is kinda finicky. Even with a smart TV, I believe I'd still treat it as a dumb tv and feed it via HDMI.

I can't comment on the availability of professional sports. To me, it's like watching different corporations playing, I don't see it as an actual sport representative of local teams. But then again, I'm a get off the lawn type.
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The Roku I have doesn't have an IR remote - there's an app on my phone that lets me work it, and the remote has some sort of RF transmitter, not IR.

With Google Fiber (not available everywhere), plus YTTV, looks like we will save quite a bit. UVerse charges and fees (like the HD fee, the fee for each TV connection that uses one of their wireless connectors, the fee for the DVR, the fee for whatever) all add up pretty quickly. Plus we'll move up into gigibit territory. Should have done this a long time ago. But I really need to see what's going to happen to our e-mail accounts we've used since forever.
 
we mostly stream through our smart tv now days
but we have been tivo users for years and still use it quite a lot. Great to DVR over the air stuff and stream most everything else through them too.
We also have amazon fire sticks
used to use a roku box and before that the apple TV box
 
Roku box from the electronics store, it uses hdmi to connect to your tv. Either wired or wireless to your home network. From there, it’s turning it on and finding the channels you want from the channel store.
 
I have settled on Roku, very happy.

For "traditional" TV, I have a Tabo box with outdoor antenna, and it streams the live TV to the sets all over the house wirelessly (Roku Tablo App); I have Philo for Celia's Most Critical Channel, Hallmark. Amazing how rarely I use the live TV any more, but pretty much everything plays through a Roku app.
 
bflynn said:
Roku box from the electronics store, it uses hdmi to connect to your tv. Either wired or wireless to your home network. From there, it’s turning it on and finding the channels you want from the channel store.
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We have the Roku plugged into the TV now, we use it for Netflix and Amazon Prime, among other things. It works well. But it doesn't work with my Harmony universal remote, since that remote is IR only. So using the Roku means trying to find yet another remote, or using the phone app.
 
Apple TV and YouTube TV. At the other house Chromecast and YouTube TV. I haven’t missed Dish or Suddenlink.

I tried Hulu TV and Sling TV. For my life YouTube TV is better. I can travel and it always works. Except in Europe. And there? Who cares!
 
I run MythTV in my house for OTA programming and then use smart TV features for streaming services. I have a rental property also running Myth which records cable shows and transmits them to my primary home thereby avoiding paying for cable TV 2X. I rarely watch TV live, but, the remote Myth machine doesn't start transmitting until the show is done recording and then transmission takes about .5 the time of the recording. So, for an hour long show, the earliest I can watch it is 30 minutes after the broadcast completes. I've been meaning to look into open source streaming options. This thread is spurring me.
 
I had YouTube TV for a while. Started getting ads that were from YouTube itself that could not be skipped, even if program was DVR'd. Looking now at getting each network through a combination of Hulu, Paramount etc. Think the total is less than YTTV. I don't watch league sports so no biggie there and I can get the golf majors streamed and the Tour de France on regular free youtube.
 
Hang 4 said:
I had YouTube TV for a while. Started getting ads that were from YouTube itself that could not be skipped, even if program was DVR'd. Looking now at getting each network through a combination of Hulu, Paramount etc. Think the total is less than YTTV. I don't watch league sports so no biggie there and I can get the golf majors streamed and the Tour de France on regular free youtube.
Click to expand...
I'm starting to look into piecemeal streaming too. 90% of YTTV is stuff we don't watch... ever. I'm looking at the stuff we actually use it for and looking for alternatives, to see if I can find a better way.
 
We use Roku devices on all of our tvs at home, plus we now have a "travel" Roku that we take on vacation. It was an idea we had on our last trip when we noticed hotels and other vacation rentals are slowly downgrading or eliminating their traditional cable packages, and instead are pushing for you to log-in to your personal streaming services. Rather than log-in to someone else's device, we found it easier to just bring our own and plug into the tv.
 
Cut the cord 7 years ago.
Was running a tivo ota but switched to Silicon Dust Flex 4K. 4 tuners 2 4K 2 HD. Haven’t set up a dvr app yet.
Upgraded my old Roku to an Ultra. It controls power and sound on the tv. Wife has ONE Remote and is much happier. Really only run paid apps on the Roku. Sports are ota, NFL+ (replay one hour after any game, no commercials), and Prime.
Once Starlink has proven itself I’ll ditch ComSuck.
 
Been very happy with YTTV for the past 4 years or so. Only thing we really miss from them is Tennis Channel
 
I need to clean my glasses.... First glance, my brain read title as "Screaming TV"...
 
I think YTTV has a free trial. If it does, I'll sign up and we'll live with it for a few weeks and see what happens. It takes the Google about a week to get out and bury the fiber, then set up the indoor install. In the next few days I have to figure out the ATT email account situation.
 
midwestpa24 said:
We use Roku devices on all of our tvs at home, plus we now have a "travel" Roku that we take on vacation. It was an idea we had on our last trip when we noticed hotels and other vacation rentals are slowly downgrading or eliminating their traditional cable packages, and instead are pushing for you to log-in to your personal streaming services. Rather than log-in to someone else's device, we found it easier to just bring our own and plug into the tv.
Click to expand...

I do the same with a Roku streaming stick when I’m in CO for the winter.

Some places I rent for a couple of weeks in other places have a wide variety of streaming services but most are lousy. I use the stick a lot and its easy to connect.

Cheers
 
Roku really ties things together, even the Plex app if you want to store some things on your pc.
The really nice thing is the interface and apps can be the same regardless of the age of your “smart” TVs.

but our roku has a Ed remote, not IR. I had to eventually give up my Logitech programmable remote.

save your free trials, it can be a little overwhelming all at once.
 
I also have an HD antenna in my attic for locals, it’s nice to just turn the tv on in the morning. Of course mine has a tuner.
 
We bring in the local games with the antenna, the rest is smart TV or Roku. Cheaper than the cable and way way way more stuff to watch.
 
I sort of miss Willow from when I was a Verizon Fios customer. You can buy Willow streaming a la carte, but it is really expensive and I'm not quite THAT into cricket. Down here there's no cable. My choices are streaming (fortunately we now have fiber internet) or one of the dishes. I was plenty ****ed at DishNetwork by the time I was able to switch. They seemed to be constantly in a ****ing match with the stations and dropping more and more as time went on.
 
I just signed up for YouTube TV free trial. I have until the end of the month now. So I'll use it for a week, then get Google Fiber run to the house, and then cancel our current cable/internet company and the savings will come pouring in.
 
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