Xfinity Flex box

(software engineer here)

My guess is that some channels are more of the ‘old style’ cable TV signal, where the cable box has a ‘tuner’ that is able to traverse different spectrums on the cable for each channel, while others are ‘internet streaming’ via regular ethernet (and up, e.g. UDP/IP) protocols.

This message you see every 30 seconds, is, most likely, the way they present ‘buffering!’ when the internet transmission speed is inadequate for the quality of the stream.

If that is the case, that would be a bit disturbing, as the bit-rate needed for Newsmax shouldn’t be unusual (less than sports channels). How is your internet speed? Try speedtest.net to test your available bandwidth. If slow (<20Mbs), that’s your problem - although today, that would be absurdly slow. I get 240Mbs. This could be wiring in your home, or at the outside box, or beyond. Cable company needed.

If you have good internet speeds, I believe it’d have to be some problem with your local cable company network OR I’d try a different cable box just to mix it up.

Great question!

You buy a Roku Streaming Stick+ and plug it into one of your HDMI ports on your flatscreen. You switch your TV to the input and it walks you through connecting wirelessly to your WiFi router with your normal encryption key. Then you decide if you want to install additional apps or remove included apps. Everything is free unless you want a service that costs something. The Pluto TV app gives you Newsmax, America's Voice, InfoWars, OAN “Encore” (prerecorded stuff), and BlazeTV for free. Other apps give you other stations or many other stations (like Pluto TV). If you have Amazon Prime already, load that app and enter your information and all Prime content is free, including 4K stuff for the newest TVs.

The little Roku remote has no keyboard, so you are left hitting a lot of arrows to set up all the searches, but the Stick+ and the next more expensive one has a voice option that will do rudimentary searches for you without keying anything in. Those voice searches cover all apps that a show or movie can be seen in, so you might find several apps playing it for a cost while its free on the Roku Channel app (Roku has it's own set of rotating content).

Disney+ is $7 a month and is a great buy if you like their content options.

The options on all Roku appear may be “live” or prerecorded. For instance, you can watch every old episode of CBS's Cold Case free in the Roku Channel app, while the Pluto TV shows live channels. Disney+ and Amazon Prime are examples of prerecorded content. The Sony Channel is also basically prerecorded stuff.

There are thousands of apps and “channels” to watch, even unlisted content that Roku officially does not sanction, but which is still available to be streamed. You can get a huge number of cable channels streaming through Hulu or similar apps (with a charge).

Do be aware that you will want to check your Internet plan to see if you currently have limits that exceeding will bring extra charges. We have yet to go over 1 Terabyte (1 TB) with our daily 4K television viewing habits, but that amount on some providers could cause an extra $10 per 50 Gigabytes of overage. I will say our plan is “unlimited,” though. Do note that “speed” beyond even 50 Megabyte a second is not needed for even 4K content, meaning for normal HD, it's even less data bandwidth needed.

Cancel your cable and stop paying for CNN. You'll love it.

I have Xfinity internet. They sent me one of their boxes free. I’ve been using Firestick and Roku. You couldn’t pay me to use it, it’s complete junk. Worst UI ever.

Also never pay the monthly rental fee for the modem/router combo box that they provide. It is complete junk as well, and doesn’t even have the wifi bandwidth to provide the full speed that you pay for.

Instead, buy a quality cable modem and separate router. You’ll only have to pay once, rather than every month, will own the equipment, and will get far higher speeds.

Plug the Roku box into the wall outlet and your TV. Connect it wirelessly to your WiFi. Switch your tv to the input where you connected your Roku. Set up an account. Then watch whatever content you want.

I stream content from my Netflix account, my Amazon Prime account, and my home video server.

I don’t pay anything to Roku (after the initial hardware purchase) because I’m paying Amazon and Netflix for content. Their content is delivered over the internet to the Roku box and then to your tv.

Go to amazon and buy a 49 buck fire TV.

Fire TV sticks are on sale now and pretty much always for $29 or less. Last year we bought two of the 4K Fire Sticks for $25 a piece. We have the free xfintity flex box... I like the remote, the box is a little bit of a pain to get set up the way we like it, but it is not a bad little unit and gives access to some free stuff from Comcast and you can install most of the popular apps... it is just not my favorite unit. The flex box the original poster was having trouble with was probably just taking a bunch of updates. It should be working fine soon.

We gave up cable years ago. The first streaming devices we got were Sony Blu-Ray players with the ability to add apps. Then we got the first Google Chromecast and a Roku. When I subscribed to DirecTV Now they gave me an AppleTV. Then we started using the Amazon Firesticks and FireTVs which at this point are my favorites.

All streaming devices have limited memory, so it actually is nice to have multiple units set up for different uses connected to an HDMI switch. I like playing around with different types of units. The processing power and video output on these inexpensive and tiny devices are amazing and there are an infinite number of options with them.

I could go on and on... I also like having a small PC hooked up to a television. I have “surplus” HP computers hooked up to my favorite TVs. One is a fifth generation I5 and the other is a 5th generation I7. I have a great program for recording streaming content that works on them and saving them to large hard drives... They are much better for web surfing than the streaming devices.

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