Cord Cutting - Amazon Firestick and Roku options
- Thread starter Briansol
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You might not ever notice. I have the nighthawk AC1750 and I don't think I've ever touched the upperbounds.
chances are you need an AX card and router to notice any real differences aside from distance.
It's been about a month now. Here's the experience update.
- I end up watching older reruns of stuff i've already seen instead of new stuff i have on as background noise in bed/etc (ancient aliens, gold rush, hells kitchen, tiny house nation, rv shows, etc etc) Eventually, it will be 'new' to me as i haven't seen it on cable
- the roku channel is ok. I prefer Pluto and Plex tv more, though.
- my bedroom tv is 4k capable, as is the roku stick i got, and it sucks all the bandwidth out of the network at times. my bedroom is the furthest away from any router or mesh point in my house, so the mbs there is greatly reduced. I haven't found a way to reduce it to 720p to reduce bandwidth usage. I can lower my tv itself but the roku still tries to stream the 4k bandwidth file. I really don't need 4k in there at night half-watching it while phone'ing it up. Along the same lines, i'm watching my comcast use as they are putting the 1200gb cap on use soon. My wife and i work from home these days and we're both on calls over IP all day as well. something is clearly wrong with xfinity tracking. If anything, i used far more in feb than i did previous months. lol either way, we'll keep an eye on it but so far so good here.
- i never subbed to any apps. I wanted discovery+ and amc+. I decided that when i get bored/run out of stuff to watch that's free, i'll get one at a time and bomb through all that channel's stuff for a month or two before cancelling it.
- i miss local news. I can get some nyc stations on apps, but that's usually national. I don't get anything over antenna here. the one i tried is a few years old and it just cuts in and out every other second for most channels. I'm too far away and on the other side of a big hill to get their service.
Bill came in as expected at $95 out the door. So, that's nice. Saving $80 a month for not the same but a good enough experience.
- I end up watching older reruns of stuff i've already seen instead of new stuff i have on as background noise in bed/etc (ancient aliens, gold rush, hells kitchen, tiny house nation, rv shows, etc etc) Eventually, it will be 'new' to me as i haven't seen it on cable
- the roku channel is ok. I prefer Pluto and Plex tv more, though.
- my bedroom tv is 4k capable, as is the roku stick i got, and it sucks all the bandwidth out of the network at times. my bedroom is the furthest away from any router or mesh point in my house, so the mbs there is greatly reduced. I haven't found a way to reduce it to 720p to reduce bandwidth usage. I can lower my tv itself but the roku still tries to stream the 4k bandwidth file. I really don't need 4k in there at night half-watching it while phone'ing it up. Along the same lines, i'm watching my comcast use as they are putting the 1200gb cap on use soon. My wife and i work from home these days and we're both on calls over IP all day as well. something is clearly wrong with xfinity tracking. If anything, i used far more in feb than i did previous months. lol either way, we'll keep an eye on it but so far so good here.
- i never subbed to any apps. I wanted discovery+ and amc+. I decided that when i get bored/run out of stuff to watch that's free, i'll get one at a time and bomb through all that channel's stuff for a month or two before cancelling it.
- i miss local news. I can get some nyc stations on apps, but that's usually national. I don't get anything over antenna here. the one i tried is a few years old and it just cuts in and out every other second for most channels. I'm too far away and on the other side of a big hill to get their service.
Bill came in as expected at $95 out the door. So, that's nice. Saving $80 a month for not the same but a good enough experience.
Cutting the cord was never about a good experience. It's always been a hassle. Loading apps, buffering, limited channels, annoying channel changing lag and piss poor guides. It's gotten better but more expensive. With cable tv you are paying for convenience. You turn the TV and bam, you are watching TV. $80 is a good savings though. That's about what i was saving when i first cord cut. It made it worth it.
ATT TV is actually pretty close to having cable. I turn my Box/TV on and it goes right to the last channel i was watching on live TV. No need to load an app. And then of course it's a hub for all your subscription services. With ATT TV($95), Cox Internet($84) and Netflix($15) i pay $194. I'm just glad I can watch the Yankees now. In the off season ill probably switch to the lower package for 5 months and save $15 a month.
If you can find a few other friends and family to split YoutubeTV with you could get your locals back for a few bucks a month. You are allowed up to five accounts on one YoutubeTV subscription. I have my Parents and a family friend who uses it at their cabin. Cost per month is 64.xx you can split it up to five ways.....
I'd never be able to get away with this with in my house.
Hell, bro in law has a massive server I connect to on Plex and stream movies/content. He has ALL disney and I use it often for kiddo but the buffering once in a while causes pain. We got disney plus now....
Hell, bro in law has a massive server I connect to on Plex and stream movies/content. He has ALL disney and I use it often for kiddo but the buffering once in a while causes pain. We got disney plus now....
Little late to the game here. I cut the cord probably 3 years ago now. One thing I found is that in my area comcast is cheaper if you add a tv box than it is just for internet, unless you can live with 25 mb speeds. I've got 1gb down with a box and 120 channels plus local sports for 135 a month. I also have an outdoor antenna on my detached garage that runs to all the TV's in the house and a Tablo 2 tuner OTA DVR to take care of the local stuff. My wife likes her Grey's Anatomy and This Is Us, but it also allows me to watch live local news, super bowl, etc, and supports remote streaming if I'm at work. It's a central unit with an app you can access on Android/firedevice/Iwhatever. I had run 220v service out there a couple years ago and when I dug the trench I ran some extra conduit with a couple coax lines and a CAT 5.
I have the tv box in the garage, because I still have a tube tv out there, and honestly I never use it. It costs me 10 bucks a month, but having the "cable subscription" allows me to access all the apps I use that require a sign in. ESPN, AMC, DISCOVERY, TBS, TNT, FOX SPORTS, HISTORY, to name a few. I figure it's worth way more than 10 bucks.
As far as the devices, we have 3 firetv's. It was the big brother to the firestick. The one in the living room is the original with the ethernet port on it. I have an external hard drive connected to it to store apps, as it was giving us the "storage full" message. The other 2 are the newer pendant style and I had to buy the ethernet adapters for them. Slightly inconvenient to hide behind a wall mounted tv but I still prefer the stability of a hard wired connection. And honestly we never even use them anyways. I think firetv went away when the cube or what it's called was introduced.
I have the tv box in the garage, because I still have a tube tv out there, and honestly I never use it. It costs me 10 bucks a month, but having the "cable subscription" allows me to access all the apps I use that require a sign in. ESPN, AMC, DISCOVERY, TBS, TNT, FOX SPORTS, HISTORY, to name a few. I figure it's worth way more than 10 bucks.
As far as the devices, we have 3 firetv's. It was the big brother to the firestick. The one in the living room is the original with the ethernet port on it. I have an external hard drive connected to it to store apps, as it was giving us the "storage full" message. The other 2 are the newer pendant style and I had to buy the ethernet adapters for them. Slightly inconvenient to hide behind a wall mounted tv but I still prefer the stability of a hard wired connection. And honestly we never even use them anyways. I think firetv went away when the cube or what it's called was introduced.
Google TV is what we're doing instead of broadcast and/or cable television now.
The trees keep growing, and now I can't get clear LoS to any broadcast towers... Anyone want to buy a tablo? Lol.
The new google chromcast is sweet, that's what we're using for a media platform/player.
