Roku, Chrome cast, Apple TV? HELP!!!

Monofletch

Monofletch

Basic Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
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Which one is the best for the $$$ and why? We want to try and cut the cable and I know NOTHING about this subject.
Thanks
 
Directv just rolled out a plan with apple tv that has 100 channels, for something like 35 a month, and a few months free with sign up. Digital antenna for local channels and you are set. I'll be looking into the details tomorrow, but looks like the best deal going right now. Worth looking at.
 
I can advocate the Roku, my wife and I cut the cord over a year ago. We have Netflix, Hulu, and we also have a year of Amazon prime which gets you a lot of free shows as well and we use it to buy current movies that just left the theaters. Hulu provides a lot of current up to date shows, Netflix has older movies and shows plus they're own series, and Amazon fills in all the other gaps. Prime is $99 a year and Netflix and Hulu are both about $12 a month, I pay a little extra for no commercials and for an extra screen. I used to pay almost $170 a month for cable, internet, and phone. We never used the home phone and I believe it is the law that if you get just internet they have to give you an emergency line. At least that's what the Century Link rep told me. I got the Roku two which performs faster than the one, if you like the idea you can get the three but it's not any faster, it just has more features and the remote has an aux jack so you can use headphones.
 
I think you may find they all work well. We use Chromecast with Netflix. There is so much stuff to watch it is insane. Local channels; don't need them.
 
We currently stream Netflix through a Wii and PS3. The "kids" TV has nothing but the PS3 and Netflix and that is were the Roku will start. I know they watch Hulu also. If we like it then we will go cable less on everything but internet.

Has anyone had experience with the Playstation TV?
 
I have Dish, they have a very stripped down program with 50 channels. It's $35 but you have to pay for local channels. Not a problem if you get a digital antenna.

I also have an Apple Tv device for the TV on the deck (this is an Apple heavy homestead Lol). If I had it to do over (I'm locked in for 2 years with Dish), I would get a digital antenna for every tv in the house, super cheap about $20 apiece (for news and live shows) and hook up either an Apple tv, Roku or Netgear Neo to each one. All of these devices in basic form cost around $75.

Pay for Netflix and Hulu (about $20 or less for BOTH!) Netflix is movie heavy with some shows and Hulu is way way show heavy. I believe they play recent shows about one or two days after they air.

Get a Netgear Neo or a Roku because they are stand alone devices and don't require a separate device to feed from like the Chromecast does.
Unless your house if full of Apple devices, if that's the case get an apple TV (the Gen 3 costs around $75) and it intergrates absolutely seamlessly with Apple products and has all of the same apps as the Roku and the Neo. Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, etc etc, same as the Roku or Netgear have.

After initial costs, you should be down to $20 per month! The only drawback that I don't like for Hulu is that it only allows for one screen to play Hulu at any given time... Netflix for $9 i get to play 3 screens at once. Don't get me wrong, I'm keeping both Netflix and Hulu!
 
We have used Roku for a few years now. It's been fantastic - we maintain netflix streaming and hulu subscriptions, plus have amazon prime for the business already. All comes to much less than cable does. We have to wait a bit for things like HBO series - but if those are important enough, there are now subscription options for that as well. All in all, it's been fantastic.
 
STAINLESS90 said:
I can advocate the Roku, my wife and I cut the cord over a year ago.
Click to expand...

Same here, Roku. We cut the cord a couple months ago. After buying a Roku Stick, HBO, Starz and Hulu run us about 28 bucks a month. With the Roku you also get access to a ton of free "channels" like Tubi which is full of neat stuff.

Get an antenna for local HD TV...I got a Mohu Leaf.

Saved hundreds of dollars.
 
We still have cable at the moment, but until getting our first "smart" TV over the weekend, have been using Roku for years for Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc. It's hard to find any fault with it, compared to the frequent issues our Comcast/Xfinity X1 setup experiences, and the price is right.
 
Inazone said:
We still have cable at the moment, but until getting our first "smart" TV over the weekend, have been using Roku for years for Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc. It's hard to find any fault with it, compared to the frequent issues our Comcast/Xfinity X1 setup experiences, and the price is right.
Click to expand...

With what Roku stuff you have, and adding Sling and an antenna, you can probably lose the cable entirely.

"Cable" is dead. These streaming devices/services killed it. They do what I always wanted to do with cable, which is just pay for channels I want.

And Comcast is horrible. ptui :barf:
 
The irony is that cable companies like Comcast, by also supplying internet/wifi allowed the streaming stuff to exist. Killing off their cable TV business.

[video=youtube;yJxCdh1Ps48]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJxCdh1Ps48[/video]
 
marcinek said:
The irony is that cable companies like Comcast, by also supplying internet/wifi allowed the streaming stuff to exist. Killing off their cable TV business.

[video=youtube;yJxCdh1Ps48]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJxCdh1Ps48[/video]
Click to expand...
I was thinking more video killed the radio star, it was only a matter of time until the bubble popped and the internet took over the media market. I'm just honestly suprised it took this long.
https://youtu.be/Iwuy4hHO3YQ
 
STAINLESS90 said:
I was thinking more video killed the radio star, it was only a matter of time until the bubble popped and the internet took over the media market. I'm just honestly suprised it took this long.
https://youtu.be/Iwuy4hHO3YQ
Click to expand...

Watch Comcast/Infinity's TV ads these days...they are emphasizing internet only. Everybody is dropping their cable TV part of their packages and just keeping the internet to stream tv.

I think it all blew up a couple months ago when all the cable companies jacked their prices up (due to ESPN and FoxSports it sounds like). That seemed to be the last strw for a <LOT of people, and all of a sudden TV was full of Sling, Hulu, and Netflix commercials.
 
Have a Roku 3 for going on for about 3 years now---at the time, Roku had the most available channels so that's what I went with---don't know about now, its been 3 years since I've really looked at them. I have Netflix, HBOnow and SlingTV(orange and blue $40)---which sort of adds up but its still less than what I was paying for cable 3 years ago and I have 2 movie channels that I didn't even have at all with cable. Thinking about dumping HBO which isn't really worth the $15 a month---Game of Thrones only goes on for a couple months lol

Cox recently upped my bill a few bucks and I didn't realize what they had done until I looked at my usage meter------it went from like 300 something gigs of data to 1024 gigs for like $3 more-----I don't even come close to using it all now.
 
If you have a smart TV, look into Kodi. It is a media player for Smart TV but allows you to access basically any show or movie channel plus more. People make add-ons for it to illegally pirate media like HBO, Showtime, movies in general but it is a completely legal media player in its vanilla form. It's up to you to use discretion, but it may be worth looking into. Personally I dont have it because I do not have a smart TV.

I have Netflix and Amazon prime video on my PS4 though that I do use a lot. They're both equally good, each has its own original series which is a selling point. Technically Amazon Prime is cheaper then netflix. With amazon prime you get the 2 day free shipping on most items from Amazon, plus all the streaming video and music. Netflix comes to $9.99 a month I believe for its bottom end HD package while Amazon Prime comes to $99 a year and includes all previous mentioned. They're both good.
 
I live in a Google world so I use a Chomecast but really any of them will be fine. If you have an iPhone or Macs though I'd probably just get the Apple TV
 
I have had a LG 55" Roku Tv for a year now and love it. We stream Netflix through it with no problem. I did have to start paying for faster internet but the cost was neglegable.
 
I have a chromecast that I have had for several years -

I think, as has been said, a Roku and a supplemental QAM antenna for local HD broadcast is the ticket, make sure you have a good internet connection.

It would make me happy to see $130 cable bills go away, but I fear that they will be replaced with $130 internet fees, but for now....

best

mqqn
 
I have seen roku players places like newegg for around $20-30. I have not used the other devices, roku works well.
 
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