I’ve givin up on cable. I have Apple TV with Netflix and Hulu. If I want to watch the debates or something, I can use my computer, phone or iPad and shoot it directly to the tv I HD. No need for $220.00 a month anymore.
TWC is, in only a few locations, letting people use a Roku instead of cable boxes. But they did say it was a beta test and not mobile or OTT. Thus one still couldn’t log into account out of residence.
Mrs p6 and I enjoy our Xfinity triple play, HD and SD TV with On Demand, DVR that can record 6 programs at once, remote with voice search and more. Phone and internet Blast service is included. Blast on Ethernet is around 100mbps, on WiFi around half that.
Total cost is $180/month.
As far as the box goes I don’t recall the monthly charge if any but for what we are getting we are happy.
This from a couple who have cut the cable for many reasons and even now don’t have cable TV in the bedrooms. Of course we do have OTA TV but we are in a terrible reception location. If there is something on cable we do want to watch in a bedroom we can use a tablet, phone or laptop and cast it using the Xfinity apps.
I should add recording methods needs to improve online for steaming content and apps. And it be good if video was stored on some cloud based service hat was easy to use and not cost hundreds extra to upload large video content. I find space can be an issue recording HD content or trying to save video to CD/DVDs.
Probably twenty percent of Americans, at a minimum, simply don't have access to the broadband connections (and no, wireless capped at 20meg per month will NOT work) to do this.
Of course the set top box is now also a DVR and isn’t going away any time soon.
R O K U...olla!!! Shout it from the hilltops!
Sorry but it is so way past time that there are a plethora of free streaming sites. Some of these are even operated by the content providers.
Like the RIAA, the cable/dss industries have no one to blame but themselves. The genie is out of the bottle and they will need an extreme paradigm shift in order to survive.
Personally we dumped the cable / satellite seen over ten years ago and haven’t looked back. Anything I wish to view or listen to is readily available across the internet.
Thanks for posting this. I have been considering dumping the box for sometime. Here is my issue. I have some viewers in the house that are not “tech savvy”. Switching the big screen over to Roku isn’t done out of - well I actually am not sure why and can’t get a straight answer. So, I need basically a one stop option that doesn’t require more than one remote to used. I am open to ideas, suggestions.
“Full-fledged pay TV service should just be an app, like Sling TV, that runs on your phone, your Roku or even the TV itself”
Why, so cnet can host it and put tracking, data mining malware
and load it up with packaged software no one wants.
I enjoy these discussions from people who live in Cable Land. Many of us do not. We generally have two choices: wireless point to point or satellite. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
The biggest issue with wireless is the distance and line of sight to the nearest tower. Look at any map of coverage and you find lots of little circles with many gaps in between. For those in fringe areas, download speeds are seriously degraded. It’s like cell phones in the early days, lot’s of dead spots once out of population centers.
Satellite service has greatly improved, especially those that us Ka Band satellites (ViaSat/Excede), but all services limit total bandwidth which makes many of the streaming services problematic. Latency is bad news for gamers. Storms remain a problem, just like satellite TV.
Living with these limitations is part of the package when you choose to be in the country. I’m not planning on leaving.
A-friggin-men
Misleading. My internet is provided by TWC and I have a Roku device and I can download the TWC app to the Roku. However, the app only works to get TV if you are already a TWC "Standard TV" customer.
I have a ROKU3 box and have Sling TV. I also added PLEX.
I noticed later it is now on my LG smart tv as an app to setup.
I installed MediaPortal this weekend but cannot figure out how to view the contents of my pc on my tv as I can with PLEX. It is too nerdy.
If those that create these apps want people to use them then they have to make it easy to setup.
PLEX https://plex.tv
MediaPortal http://www.team-mediaportal.com