Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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Jocephus
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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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ublock origin will block just about anything when using site

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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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BottenFieldofDreams wrote:I worry about signing up for YouTube Premium, because then I'd miss out on an ad for signing up for it every 15 goddam seconds I'm on the platform. [expletive] off YouTube. I have to swipe past an ad literally every time I go to the site/app and at this point there are so many goddam ads it isn't that often--but still more often than I'd like. (It can be a very useful tool)
I have YouTubeTV but it is tied to my personal Gmail address so any time I end up on YouTube on my laptop, I get offered a free trial of this or that from YouTube since I'm automatically signed in on my work account on my browser.

So I pay for the flippin' service and STILL have to see all of those ads!

Somebody else mentioned sharing where each person pays for one and shares their password with the others. I share my YouTube TV account with the maximum number of people for free. I'm stupid. I should start charging them! At least since I don't charge them they can't complain if I decide to kick them off to share with somebody else though so there is that. And one couple does buy me a bucket of beer once a month or so for letting them use it so I guess they pay for their access.

My biggest complaint with YouTubeTV only started popping up recently. It has happened three times now where I have been watching a game and suddenly I'm booted out with an error that you can only have three streams of the same thing going. That's fine and a small price to pay for them letting me share it with people who clearly aren't family and don't even all live in St. Louis but they really need to change it so that the person who actually PAYS for the account is not the one to get the boot. If I pay for it, kick somebody else out of the stream. I don't even care who, just not me!!! Thankfully every time I've had that happen I only miss a minute or two of the game which isn't a big deal in baseball and I can always rewind and catch back up.

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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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netflix got seinfeld series starting in 2021. it's on hulu currently i believe.

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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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Freed Roger
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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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What is the best streaming portal device of these 3 (or whatever they are called) - roku, apple, amazon fire?

We have Roku, and I don't have any problem with -they don't bury the other competing apps that have proprietary stuff. Roku remote does it all.

I was setting up two tvs in my daughters apt and I got a small dose of Fire and Apple TV and had an unfavorable initiial impression.

one has fire built in, and it hides the apps -such as spectrum for basic cable channels.

Her other Tv has apple tv box - and I didn't play around with it too much because i don't have an iphone (my daughter does) and wouldnt let me do much there. It looked ok, i found the spectrum app in apple, but seemed sort of obnoxious.

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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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Freed Roger wrote:What is the best streaming portal device of these 3 (or whatever they are called) - roku, apple, amazon fire?

We have Roku, and I don't have any problem with -they don't bury the other competing apps that have proprietary stuff. Roku remote does it all.

I was setting up two tvs in my daughters apt and I got a small dose of Fire and Apple TV and had an unfavorable initiial impression.

one has fire built in, and it hides the apps -such as spectrum for basic cable channels.

Her other Tv has apple tv box - and I didn't play around with it too much because i don't have an iphone (my daughter does) and wouldnt let me do much there. It looked ok, i found the spectrum app in apple, but seemed sort of obnoxious.
I have all 3 of those

everything we have is apple (iPhones, iPad, iWatch, iMac, MacBook, appleTV), so obv have always used an appletv since we figured it'd just be easier since everything else was as well...the price sucks balls (esp when compared to the competition), but as a long time user of apple products, I do think it's the best.

Last year I wanted to start streaming on our outdoor tv, but wasn't going to pay $150+ for an Apple TV sitting out in the elements (it's covered and out of the way...no rain or anything can get to it where it's situated, but the extreme heat/cold in north TX I figured can't be good)...so the fire stick was on sale so I got one of those. It's...not good IMO. takes forever to load up/wake up, and the interface, I don't know...just seems clumsy. it's ok for the price though I guess.

The 2 older kids just had a tv/blu ray in their rooms so was going to get them a streaming device for their rooms and Roku turned out to have a Black Friday (around then somewhere) sale and was marked down to I think $15-20 (think it's normally 25-30 originally?) so as the cheapest at the time, and it wasn't going in a room I use (all main areas have an Apple TV) I said screw it and got them that. I actually really like the Roku. it was easy to set up/imput everything, and was very fast esp compared to the fire stick. if that fire stick goes out outside, I'll be grabbing a Roku for out there.

Apple TV is what we've always have had, so have had every version that comes out. I obv like it the best just because I'm used to it, and it integrates so well with everything else we own. Def the fastest (Apple TV 4k) IMO as well.

Something I did not know till I bought the fire stick and Roku (and it may have been this way all along and I just never knew it because I've always had apple products)...is everything I've bought and downloaded (no matter if it's on competing iTunes or what) is all right there on the Roku and fire stick. that's huge for someone like me who everything I've bought/downloaded has been through iTunes..and one of the big reasons I kept buying apple tvs, was I thought all of my movies/shows I've bought were only going to be available through an apple product. not true as they're right there for me to watch on the fire stick and Roku...so the price? $150+ vs $20ish for a Roku? I do like my apple tv's, but if one goes out, I may be getting a Roku.

but if price wasn't an option/just what I think is the best product of the 3 I have? 1. Apple TV; 2. Roku; 3. fire stick...way behind the other 2 IMO

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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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Thanks cardfantx. My lack of familiarity and the price with Apple was why I don't care for it.

One more question.
my daughter has spectrum cable (streamed) - to dvr stuff, it appears she needs a traditional spectrum cable receiver and DVR. Is there any cloud based dvr capabilities thru apple tv.

As the designated AV dept for my home (and my in laws too ) I really can't learn three different streaming portal devices well enough to trouble shoot and find whatever the family wants. Not worried about my younger daughter - she gets it.

With the others it will be, where do I find Hallmark Channel, Blues game from last night, that one series everyone is talking about.

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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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We've had a Fire TV stick for a couple years and are quite happy with it. When we had ludicrous speed internet in downtown St Paul, I never noticed speed problems with the device. We got ours for like $20 on Black Friday back in 2017. Newer faster versions are available now. There's also the option of the Fire TV box rather than just the USB stick, which runs like $100 pre-BF pricing but has a much faster processor and a bigger hard drive. Another option you may want to look into is a ChromeCast. Essentially the same as a Fire TV stick except it's made by Google instead of Amazon, and therefore uses Echo instead of Alexa or Siri.

Admittedly, now that we live "out in the sticks" and are stuck with slow AF 7 Mbit DSL as literally our only option for internet, I do see speed problems with the device when it is trying to load or install an app. I suspect a good chunk of those problems are related to internet speed rather than the device itself. We also use it on a plasma TV that I bought in 2007 - there's not a smart feature on that machine whatsoever.

As for Hallmark Channel, not sure if Apple TV/Roku/ChromeCast offers this, but on the Fire TV you can purchase individual apps/channels. Hallmark runs like $3/month. That's what I did for the first couple holiday seasons for the wife.

A couple months ago we switched from using Hulu for cable TV to Philo, which runs $20/month and has most of the channels we watch (including both Hallmark Channels). Unfortunately it does not include either CNN or C-SPAN, so it's limited me from watching as much of the impeachment coverage stuff as I'd have liked over the past few weeks.

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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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not sure if it's been mentioned before but pluto tv is another free site..well, has commercials but is essentially free. has "live tv" and movies but obviously depends on what your interests are. i would say most of the programming is not interesting to me but if you sift through it you could probably find something.

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Re: Cutting the Cable/Satellite Cord

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Does Pluto TV have Me.TV? I'm specifically looking for Hogan's Heroes. I generally watch that from 9-10pm each night but last night the weather was messing with my reception and it annoyed me. Otherwise I think I have everything else I could possibly want, and way too many subscriptions.

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