Posted on 03/16/2015 6:29:41 PM PDT by TurboZamboni
(I could live without it, but The Chief of Procuremenet will not.) Is Hulu, Netflix or Amazon Prime the best option for someone who has a few favorite shows? Will show be ONE WEEK behind on episodes or ONE SEASON? (assuming these shows on cable are not available right away) Dish is not an option (she won't allow it on the roof)
Will likely be getting DSL from a phone company.
“do those wacky looking hdtv attenaes really work? ( the ones that mount on a wall or window)”
I saw one at a friend’s house this past weekend. I was surprised at how well it worked. The house is about 25 miles from the city and they were able to get most, but not all local stations in HD. Between that and a Roku box you’d be set.
(They couldn’t get the local NBC station, but others were fine)
Cable or not cable is a personal decision, we got rid of it more than a decade ago and after a couple of months, we really didn’t miss it.
From a technical standpoint, if you want broadcast TV, get a regular pole antenna (I mounted mine in the attic) and run that to your cable breakout box. Every room that has a cable outlet now has an antenna outlet. I ran one amp where I dropped the antenna cable to the basement and another right before the breakout box, not sure I needed two but it was a long run from the attic in a two story house to the basement then back up two stories. It worked great, we got thirty some channels.
I used rabbit ears for awhile, they really worked well and picked up as many channels as the big antenna but my wife didn’t care for them. A set of rabbit ears would be an inexpensive way to see how many channels you will get without a big investment though.
I added the keyword NOCABLE because I’m remote and want to do something else. There have been numerous threads lately on this topic, if anybody can add keyword NOCABLE when they post a suggestion, it would be helpful for hillbillies with no broadband like me.
There is really no such thing as a ‘Digital antenna’ or a ‘HD Antenna’ - those are just marketing tools for old fashioned rabbit ears, rooftop, or attic mounted antenna. If you live in a fringe area, you probably need to add an in-line signal booster (some of the rabbit ears come with that as a built in feature). Aiming your antenna is a bit more important in the digital era than it was with the old analog signals. (Note- aluminum foil ears or balls on the ends of the rabbit ears still seems to help in some circumstances).
Unless you are rural, that should replace a surprising number of channels.
As for Hulu plus, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and other new services, I’ll leave that to others. I do wonder if the DSL will give you adequate bandwidth.
Personally I would say Netflix, then Amazon, then Hulu+. Netflix an Hulu are both monthly charges under $10. Amazon Prime is $100 for a year, but it also includes free shipping on most stuff you buy on Amazon (those that don’t qualify say so). That can pay for itself if you buy a few larger items, or a lot of smaller ones. Watch out though, shopping there is addictive!
Netflix and Amazon have mostly the same movies and shows for free, but Amazon has a lot of newer stuff you can rent or buy. Broadcast network shows are mostly there right away, cable shows may be a season behind. Movies are available on Amazon when they come out on video or sometimes before, but for pay.
You can get a free month of both of those services if you haven’t had them before, so check them out. Hulu gives you a free week. I really don’t think they have much the other guys don’t, and they don’t have stuff they have.
Rabbit ears for local, pick up all the alphabets except for NBC in my area. We have Netflix @8.99 per month coz they have alot of the educational (and a few non educational) shows that we let them watch, plus a lot of kid and family movies, and quite a few Christian movies. We have Hulu that we pay 7.99 per, and that carries a lot of the shows the Mrs and I enjoy, most are shown the next day after airing, plus the NBC shows we like that my rabbit ears don’t get. With Hulu, you get current season tv but you have to stay on top of it, because they will start dropping shows of the current season after about 5 weeks, whereas with Netflix, you can marathon previous seasons because they keep all of them, just not the current season.
The only thing I miss about cable is my baseball, and I am thinking of paaying for the MLB network on my Xbox. All my news I get from FR.
It depends how far you are from the transmitter, the terrain, etc. If you are within 10 miles of the tower you are fine. If you are farther, or have obstructions in the way they may cut out or not get certain stations.
A hearty second to that. I'll repeat a post I made last night on a similar thread: Roku is a must. Incredibly easy to set up and use, and you get hundreds of free channels, many of them really terrific (for news junkies, for example, they have a channel that streams the daily half-hour newscasts from a boatload of cities. Very interesting to watch). I Heart Radio is also free, so you get radio from all over the country, as well. And Youtube has just been added to the free lineup with its bazillion videos. If you want pay channels like Netflix, you just add them from the on-screen “channel store.” And considering Roku is a one-time $40 purchase (sometimes less if you buy it reconditioned on Amazon), I can’t think of a better value. You have to have wi-fi, of course.
That’s what I did. I started with Comcast, and they drilled holes in the base of my walls and had cables running all through my bedrooms. It worked for a couple of years, but they couldn’t catch up with current HD TV technology. And they’re not quite compatible with the Netgear wireless router, which provides a WiFi signal through your house so that you can use a tablet at home and not have to rely on the stationary desktop. So I switched to Direct TV And let them install that little dish on my roof. Now everything connects seamlessly, including the built-in virus protection. And I no longer have to deal with online tech support, which is a major pain in the a$$. But don’t take my word for it. This is just my opinion.
MLB-TV is an insane value for the baseball fan. About $30 a month for EVERY SINGLE BASEBALL GAME on all your devices. Missed a game? Watch it tomorrow, or next month. Heard about an incredible play that happened in a game last night? Skip right to the inning and catch it. I’m having a great time watching spring training games at the moment. Wow, some of those little parks in Arizona and Florida are IMPRESSIVE!
Use cable for internet and to get tv. Just not the full expensive cable tv.
Get Sling https://www.sling.com for $20 to get several cable channels. Get Netflix for $9 a month. If you have Amazon prime then use it for tv, movies, music. Roku, Amazon device. Need tv with DVI and USB connections. The more the better. Get the Roku box over the stick. It handles video better as it can use the network cable to plug instead of just wifi.
Over the air tv antenna to pickup tv. I use the Mohu Leaf square antenna. I hang it by the window facing the tv stations that are approx 30+ miles away. Perfect reception. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QK7HI8?tag=digitren08-20
Type zip code then afterward click Submit then to view a schedule for these channels, go to TitanTV.com
TitanTV shows what channels in your area
http://www.titantv.com/Default.aspx?lineupid=be7fba91-b48a-4fa9-8bdc-4b55358be368
I have ME-TV, Antenna TV, GetTV, Cozitv, Movies.
They have old tv shows. Free.
Warner Archive. $7.08 to $9.95
http://instant.warnerarchive.com/index.html
Netflix is better than the other two. Whatever you cannot stream you can get a DVD.
Keep cable. DSL may be too slow. read their fine print on what the actual speed will be.
We have a Roku and subscribe to Hulu and Netflix for a total of $15/mo. as opposed to the $100 "basic Digital" package we had at DirecTV.
It took all of three weeks for the kids to stop whining about not having DirecTV anymore and find content they liked using the Roku device.
Some of the big networks also let you watch episodes online for FREE.
We cut the cord and haven't gone back. No need to. We get regular Broadcast TV on a small, home-made HDTV antenna made out of coat hangers, some wire, and a 4' long 2x2 piece of wood. Perfect picture every time.
Roku device sas $79 one time.
$15/mo. for Huly & Netflix
Over-The-Air TV: Free.
We will never go back to Cable/Satellite TV again. Streaming what you want to see, when you want to see it is the future.
We haven't had sat or cable for a couple years. We are using Netflix and Amazon Prime but honestly we don't use either of them very much. What we are doing is watching a whole lot less TV than we used to.
And not missing it.
Usually the fine print says speed not guaranteed, may vary.
I was paying for DSL 3.0 download and never went above 1.3. They route the longest way around from the central office and my incoming phone line (underground) must be in terrible condition (couldn't hear most of the time on the telephone.)
After I changed to cable, phone volume is normal and my speed is 30.0 down, either wired or wireless. Consistently good.
I live 50 miles in each direction from a major city in a hilly terrain so no antenna worked for local tv after they went digital.
Gave up cable about a year ago.
Read lots more books.
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