Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV


Woodenskye

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I have been looking at the different options in trying to get rid of cable/satellite TV.  Currently for Directv we are spending approximately $150 a month, plus $40 for internet.  I was curious to see what people are using, if you have gone this route.  Some of the questions I keep having are, what equipment do you need? Do you have to buy subscriptions to the different content provides?  Do you get local channels or sports?  How much do you actually save going this route?

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I'm glad you brought this up Bryan and I hope some folks chime in who are more helpful than those who frequent the chat room.  Because I asked the same questions there and they're worthless. :D

I just had a knock-down-drag-out with my cable provider yesterday.  I guess they're all rapists because I was paying about what you're paying...$185/mo for cable and internet.  Outrageous.  They knocked $30 off a month by the end of our "talk" but I'm still not happy.

I've been trying to find an acceptable way to cut the cord but my problem is I watch a lot of cable news and the three major networks seem to be unavailable through any format other than subscription cable.  Honestly that's about all that's holding me back at this point.  My wife watches brain rot on MTV and VH1, I'm embarrassed to say, but I would have no problem breaking her of that habit.  The kids watch Nick Jr. and Disney Jr., and we also like Discovery, History, A&E and a couple others...but they all seem fairly available through various cord-cut avenues.

I have two Amazon Fire boxes and I like them, but there's not enough content to survive on just through AZ alone.  If we cut the cord we would need to at least add Netflix and one other app that offers some of the network content.

You can get an HD antennae and receive local channels through that.  I haven't looked into the sports much because I don't really care.  I know a lot of it is available through paid apps but I think it's expensive.  Could be wrong.  Go to the nearest neighborhood baseball fields and watch little league games.

I look forward to hearing ideas in this thread.  The cable problem has been gnawing at me incessantly lately.  I hate those bastards.

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I have the ATV and a Raspberry PI. The latter runs KODI which used to be called XBMC. This can play on your TV videos, music, movies, tv programmes which you may have stored on your computer, NAS or some other hard disk.

The Rasberry Pi costs peanuts to buy but you do need to fiddle with it to set it up. Any computer savvy person can set it up easily.

The ATV can stream lots of different services, NetFlix, Amazon Prime, iTunes including any iTunes music you have on your computer or Istore.

We also have Smart TVs with all the apps built into them Netflix, Amazon, all the UK services, many European services and much more. So all bases are covered. Heck we can even watch live TV on that!

We also have unlimited streaming with no caps on usage for internet.

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We just cut the cord relying on Netflix and Amazon, and ppv for the rest.

 Don't really watch a lot of TV in our house except for kids programming, for which Netflix is phenomenal.  Don't really watch a lot of sports except the Tour de France which I'll get ppv.

Only thing I'm not sure of is CNBC which my license from DirecTV permitted me to stream online.  I have heard Etrade gives me the same access, but haven't tried it yet.

We use ATT Uverse for Internet, so we pay specifically for the bandwidth we desire.

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I know Sling TV allows streaming of more live TV including some news and sports channels, and cost depends on package.  So for those on Amazon, do you get unlimited content with AZ Prime?  How much is Netflix?  Do you need an AZ Fire box for each tv in the house?  I guess is it really a better option.  Obviously there is an upfront investment, but by the time you add Sling, Hulu, Netflix, etc., is it really a big savings.  

I agree getting off TV would be great, we limit our son and he hardly watches.  Outside of sports, I currently DVR most shows I watch.  I am sure we will need to relocate where our internet and router are, and may need to upgrade as well.

if I remember correctly, I think Marc wrote an article about this, does anybody recall that?  Have a link?

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We are happy with cable internet alone. I get better bandwidth than promised (and more than we truly need) with Comcast. It costs us $75-ish a month to get that $30 service absent phone and TV over the cable. Amazon and Netflix keep us happy most of the time. Renting from Amazon or iTunes satisfies some more. The only downside for most is sports viewing, but I rarely ever even want to watch sports. 

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Amazon service is free with prime.  I think we have the premium Netflix package (with blue ray/DVD mailed to us) and it is under $20 a month.  My experience is most modern devices (tvs, BR players, game consoles, etc) can stream internet services so you may not need to buy anything.  I use a PS3, which streams Amazon Netflix, is a bluray player and a game console to boot.

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For the player, I prefer Roku. Better smartphone apps generally (the Fire app is worthless), dead simple layout, no Apple tax, and is content/provider/platform agnostic. The Roku 3 if you can get it for around $70 is the best value around, IMO. The revision of the third, and the fourth coming out now has voice search, headphone functionality in the remote (priceless), and the fourth one will even find the remote when you lose it.

I'm lucky in that I still get basic cable with my internet package. That, along with Sling covers me for most live sports anymore. I don't care about cable news, because of the internet, and it wasn't that compelling to me to begin with.

When you're only paying $20 a month over your internet rate, you decide to be less picky about what you get. Only bad thing is that I'm in one of Comcrap's naughty zones where I get dinged going over 300GB a month. You stream for your entertainment needs primarily, you can certainly get close or go over.

I relegated the Fire Stick to the shop, where I don't have to deal with it on a daily basis. If I did, Jeff Bezos would become pretty uncomfortable.

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Sadly, the only complete cord-cutting option is piracy. Use either a Roku running the plex app or a Raspberry PI to serve content to your tv. 

I'm not saying you should pirate, but that is just the sad truth. Like you all, I look forward to the day when I can tell Directv to go to hell. But the world isn't there yet. It's coming though. I use netflix and amazon prime as well. I'm paying for three services, at least $200/month when you add it all up.

 

For the player, I prefer Roku. Better smartphone apps generally (the Fire app is worthless), dead simple layout, no Apple tax, and is content/provider/platform agnostic. The Roku 3 if you can get it for around $70 is the best value around, IMO. The revision of the third, and the fourth coming out now has voice search, headphone functionality in the remote (priceless), and the fourth one will even find the remote when you lose it.

I'm lucky in that I still get basic cable with my internet package. That, along with Sling covers me for most live sports anymore. I don't care about cable news, because of the internet, and it wasn't that compelling to me to begin with.

When you're only paying $20 a month over your internet rate, you decide to be less picky about what you get. Only bad thing is that I'm in one of Comcrap's naughty zones where I get dinged going over 300GB a month. You stream for your entertainment needs primarily, you can certainly get close or go over.

I relegated the Fire Stick to the shop, where I don't have to deal with it on a daily basis. If I did, Jeff Bezos would become pretty uncomfortable.

Sadly I'm rocking Comcast at 800+ gb/month. Not in one of the "Zones of Suck" though, so they don't throttle or charge me extra.

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Only bad thing is that I'm in one of Comcrap's naughty zones where I get dinged going over 300GB a month. You stream for your entertainment needs primarily, you can certainly get close or go over.

Sadly I'm rocking Comcast at 800+ gb/month. Not in one of the "Zones of Suck" though, so they don't throttle or charge me extra.

This pattern will only continue and worsen. As more and more people "cut the cord" they're just going to shift all the cost over to the Internet side.  We'll be buying data packages for home like we do for smartphones now. 

I don't get the appeal until the services get a lot better or some magical integration box makes it all work.  You have to sign up, pay for, and login to a dozen services just to get everything you want...by the time you pay for all that and the cost of the hassle, do you really save?

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Maybe I'm backwards down here, but in Australia we have free to air tv channels galore. I used to have foxtel but cancelled it because there was too much repetition of content. I watch some things via streaming on my computer but......honestly, I am not much of a tv watcher other than music videos, movies on DVD or hard drive, or youtube. The rest of the time I am playing in my shed or outside working in the garden. Call me a weirdo!

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This pattern will only continue and worsen. As more and more people "cut the cord" they're just going to shift all the cost over to the Internet side.  We'll be buying data packages for home like we do for smartphones now. 

I don't get the appeal until the services get a lot better or some magical integration box makes it all work.  You have to sign up, pay for, and login to a dozen services just to get everything you want...by the time you pay for all that and the cost of the hassle, do you really save?

I'm hopeful that services like Google fiber will force Comcast to change their ways. They need to understand that 250-300gb is really not that much. If you stream 4k, which I think Netflix now offers, that's a few movies.

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For the player, I prefer Roku. Better smartphone apps generally (the Fire app is worthless), dead simple layout, no Apple tax, and is content/provider/platform agnostic. The Roku 3 if you can get it for around $70 is the best value around, IMO. The revision of the third, and the fourth coming out now has voice search, headphone functionality in the remote (priceless), and the fourth one will even find the remote when you lose it.

I'm lucky in that I still get basic cable with my internet package. That, along with Sling covers me for most live sports anymore. I don't care about cable news, because of the internet, and it wasn't that compelling to me to begin with.

When you're only paying $20 a month over your internet rate, you decide to be less picky about what you get. Only bad thing is that I'm in one of Comcrap's naughty zones where I get dinged going over 300GB a month. You stream for your entertainment needs primarily, you can certainly get close or go over.

I relegated the Fire Stick to the shop, where I don't have to deal with it on a daily basis. If I did, Jeff Bezos would become pretty uncomfortable.

I have been looking at the Roku for about a month now.  All 4 networks have apps, one is 6/month, the others are free and sling would cover the rest.  This has been the first trustworthy post I"ve read.  Probably after Black Friday (hoping for a deal) I'm gonna get the Roku 4 which is now available.

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I'm hopeful that services like Google fiber will force Comcast to change their ways. They need to understand that 250-300gb is really not that much. If you stream 4k, which I think Netflix now offers, that's a few movies.

LOL.   They fully understand how much data the stuff uses, and consumers need to understand bandwidth isn't free. 

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LOL.   They fully understand how much data the stuff uses, and consumers need to understand bandwidth isn't free. 

It's not as much about bandwidth as it is their need to keep revenue streams going as more people decide that TV isn't worth it. It's the same with their unlimited surcharge - a guaranteed source of revenue vs paying for actual use. Comcast themselves have said the data caps are not about bandwidth. http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/08/comcast-caps-not-about-congestion/

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...it is their need to keep revenue streams going as more people decide that TV isn't worth it.

Yes I agree...that was my original point that as more people "cut the cord", the miscellaneous costs, pay-per-use, limits, throttling, etc are going to continue and expand on the data side...they'll be switching all their revenue sources over to that side.

 

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LOL.   They fully understand how much data the stuff uses, and consumers need to understand bandwidth isn't free. 

There is a big difference between paying for what you use and getting the crap gouged out of you by a local monopoly. Cell carriers do this same thing. They take a service like texting and throw it on a signal that gets sent regardless if you are sending a text or not. It costs them almost nothing to provide, but they'll charge you 20 cents per message if they can.

I mean, basically nobody really knows actual cost vs what cable companies charge customers, but if you think they aren't raping us - you sir are the most positive person I've ever met. There are plenty of things out there that go over this in as much detail as possible, and while I have read them, I have not committed it to memory so I can't really quote any numbers at this time.

 

When do you guys find the time to watch so much damned TV?   Between work, kids, family and social commitments, and shop time I don't think I have 3 free hours a week.  Maybe I need to re-prioritize a bit?   I watch about one Bulls game a week with my kids and that is it.   Outside of basketball season I probably watch 30 mins of TV a week, if that.  

 

I watch tv about 3 hours per week night and probably 5 or 6 on the weekend days. I have no kids and never will. I hate going out because everywhere sucks (I'm very snobby like that!) My wife and I like to spend our time together watching tv. So when I get home from work (3pm. 4 if I am working ten hour days to make up days I took off) I do woodworking or side programming projects until she gets home around 5:30. Then we get dinner ready and watch tv until we go to sleep. I sleep 6-7 hours.

I don't know if I watch too much tv or not. I don't much care because I enjoy doing it.

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Yes I agree...that was my original point that as more people "cut the cord", the miscellaneous costs, pay-per-use, limits, throttling, etc are going to continue and expand on the data side...they'll be switching all their revenue sources over to that side.

 

Got you. Probably crossed the streams accidentally.

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There's no question that providers will find new ways to charge people to keep revenue flowing.  I expect that.  They exist to make money...the fact that they provide a service is incidental to them.

What I would like to see, and what I think is also reasonable to expect, is more flexibility.  I don't wanna pay for 300 channels I never use.  Give me X,Y, and Z and let me pay for X,Y, and Z.  That's what I want.  Choices.  And less waste.  Everything should be a la carte.

Anyway, that's what I want...not so sure that's what we'll ever get.  The best way for them to screw you is to package everything up in smoke in mirror bundles and tack on BS charges.  During my argument on Saturday with my provider, I told them, "I don't need the third DVR you're charging me for...I only watch live TV on that TV."

"Oh, well you're paying for 'two to four' DVR boxes, so you might as well keep it."

Mmmmhmmm.  Of course. :rolleyes:

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