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1512
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8/20/2006
Location
Ventura/LA County, CA
US
MelonFan123
4/11/2018 1:09pm
4/11/2018 1:09pm
ok two parter here...looking for advice and suggestions.
First, I'm in the market for a new TV. Last one we bought (5 or so yrs ago) "Smart TVs" were just coming out and we just got a standard hi-def LED. Back then 1080p was the best and thats all I remember looking for. Now there seems to be A LOT more "stuff". i'm told to look for a good Refresh Rate? Anything else to know? Not looking to spend a lot (under $1k) in fact the whole reason in getting a new one is to save money, which brings me to the next point...
Second, I want to get rid of the high monthly cable bill. What route does everyone recommend going? We have Netflix and Hulu accounts which are great for watching movies and original shows. But we still like watching regular cable TV as well - local news, and specialty channels like Discovery, A&E and of course Fox Sports for supercross.
Anybody use Slingbox? What about Firestick? Apple TV? Can you pick and choose channels from any of these a-la-carte style?
First, I'm in the market for a new TV. Last one we bought (5 or so yrs ago) "Smart TVs" were just coming out and we just got a standard hi-def LED. Back then 1080p was the best and thats all I remember looking for. Now there seems to be A LOT more "stuff". i'm told to look for a good Refresh Rate? Anything else to know? Not looking to spend a lot (under $1k) in fact the whole reason in getting a new one is to save money, which brings me to the next point...
Second, I want to get rid of the high monthly cable bill. What route does everyone recommend going? We have Netflix and Hulu accounts which are great for watching movies and original shows. But we still like watching regular cable TV as well - local news, and specialty channels like Discovery, A&E and of course Fox Sports for supercross.
Anybody use Slingbox? What about Firestick? Apple TV? Can you pick and choose channels from any of these a-la-carte style?
Install Netflix and Hulu apps on Fire TV box as well.
Save money.
The end.
2,500 movies
35,000 mp3's
Over 300,000 family pictures.
Kodi is the ultimate manager of your home media.
The Shop
I spent a lot of time copying all of my cds into mp3 format. And took me even longer to copy my dvd library. But now that it’s all done I have an amazing media hub with endless music, movies, and pictures/videos.
Roku as far as pre-installed smart tv software goes - never had any issues with it - no gripes about bugs - lots of apps also that seem to work flawlessly.
I also have a Kodi box(I have an Infinity pro 4k box with keyboard & mouse & remote) I like it - it's a good setup.My favorite thing about it is,I found a way to make my own channel lists and I can add ace content ID's to it and get tons of channels that aren't even available by providers in my area.
I upgraded to another Roku, for another TV, and I hooked up HDMI 1.4 from surround to TV, and now control it all with the one Roku remote.
Also trying to organize pictures. Which is a bitch with a few hundred thousand. But I can do them in decent sized batches. It’s tedious and take a long time but nice to have everything organized.
I will never go back to DirecTV.
For me roku, netflix and philo.
no sports on philo but all the good channels like paramount, discovery etc. $16
That and a HD antenna.
F direct tv!
Throw in the other things you might like.
UFC App
Nbc sports app for motocross in HD
YouTube
Crackle
Etc etc
I can get a great Tv package from PlayStation VUE that includes HBO, Showtime, and Epix, for like $75 a month. Over half the price of DirecTV for that alone.
I can get all of this legitimately and cheaply from my FireTv box.
Honestly these things don’t cost much so why steal it? And lots of the illegal sources don’t have the same quality either. Not to mention it’s illegal.
Just really no point anymore.
Same reason why places like Napster and Limewire don’t exist. 1. It was illegal. 2. Once prices of legit licensed music crashed in price thanks to places like itunes, there really wasn’t a reason to pirate music anymore.
Same thing for movies and tv shows now.
I'm on about 6 months now on the Firebox with Amazon prime and PS Vue , with Netflix and Kodi setup......and don't miss Direct TV at all. One thing to mention is that the PS Vue has one hell of a powerful PVR setup. Basically just " Add to my list " on any show , movie , ect.....it's unlimited as far as I know. BUT......not all channels let you watch previous shows. Noticed this on motor sports stuff. Like F1.....you have to watch it live , as it won't let you watch it later.
Went to lowes. Bought an old style TV antennae, the kind people used to put on their roofs.
Was about 60 bucks.
Mounted it upside down in the attic, in a way I can spin it 360 degrees,
Ran a coaxial cable from the antennae to the cable tv fitting on the back of the TV, marked input.
Had to get an adapter, also at lowes, to go from the 2 wires on the antennae to the coaxial cable.
Set the TV, using the remote, input, to antennae. Mine has hgtv1, hgtv2, dvr and antennae.
Then slowly turn the antennae in the attic until you pull the most channels, with the best picture.
Have someone watch the tv while you turn it,
The TV should load what what channels it can see.
I get maybe a dozen channels. Pittsburg to Morgantown, some Ohio, some Maryland.
Now, I live on a ridge, in a town that sits on a pretty high plateau.
No History Channel, no BEIN, no A&E. None of that stuff.
It's picks up signal straight from the station, no box or account of any kind.
National news, ABC, CBS, NBC, national TV, yes, local weather and driving conditions, yes. That's what we use that one for, mainly weather and local news. FS1, Discovery, BEIN, History Channel, we get that with satellite and Dish on other TVs.
I could live on antennae only. Totally free, totally legal.
The way it was before cable and satellite.
Pit Row
It’s definately an awesome PVR system they have.
Btw......did you see that Direct TV now has an app on the Firebox? So funny , but that app showed up , literally 1 day after I cancelled my service. Don't know much about it though.
https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Moto-Related,20/Cord-cutters-guide-to-20…
https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Moto-Related,20/NBC-Sports-Gold-is-Magik…
Thanks.
Right now my kodi box is in my home office room hooked up to my TV in there.
Chromecast came installed on that TV.
I have also have kodi on my Galaxy S9 plus phone i use to mirror every now & then.
Another method I would use to watch TV channels on that chromecast TV before I got that kodi box, is I had Mobdro installed on my phone and then I could just cast to it from Mobdro. It worked pretty well.
You can mirror a device that Kodi can run on over to Roku but that’s about it. Which sounds like you are doing that already.
I’ll stick with VUE.
Gotta love it.
If you are a developer, do you want to develop your app for a 200 million device eco system (Android) or a 10 million device eco system (Roku).
Pretty obvious what the answer is.
Kodi supports a ton of languages and platforms already. But it would be a monumental task to port it to BrightScript and at the end of the day it's just not worth it. And also Roku is locked down similar to iOS. Where as Android is opensource.
hey TXdirt, why the Firebox over say the AppleTv if you already have it installed?
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