Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Roku, Kodi and the like

[inkman]

So I've cancelled Directv. I'm done with it. I'm hesitant to go back to time Warner as all their hardware sucks. So I'm looking for alternative methods to get what I like to watch.

 

Let me preface this with, I barely ever watch network TV. My programming is essentially sports, AMC shows, HBO and Showtime series. So what's my best options?

[ubkev]

Oh man! I've thought about it for the last 2 years. Can't do it. I need my MLB Network, YES network, TNT, TBS, Comedy Central. The wife needs Hallmark and the like. FS1, NBC sports... they've got me by the balls.

[Weave]

Sports is gonna be tough.  It's my only regret cutting the cord.  You'll need to be resourceful.  And you'll probably miss some stuff now and again that you wanted to watch.  Reddit will get you started.

 

We use Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime to watch what we like.  It was an adjustment initially, but I don't miss cable/satellite.

[Sabel79]

I'm currently doing Hulu live tv, gets me pretty much all the sportz I need (national tv). Still do NHL.tv and MLB.tv, plus Fox soccer online, but i was doing that when I had cable anyway.

[inkman]

Sports is gonna be tough. It's my only regret cutting the cord. You'll need to be resourceful. And you'll probably miss some stuff now and again that you wanted to watch. Reddit will get you started.

 

We use Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime to watch what we like. It was an adjustment initially, but I don't miss cable/satellite.

I hate to do this to you, as much as my inquiry as to which whiskey I should choose, but can you give me a short description of each. Like what's available, how easy is it to use. Anyone please respond as I hate tasking we've with this.

[Weave]

I hate to do this to you, as much as my inquiry as to which whiskey I should choose, but can you give me a short description of each. Like what's available, how easy is it to use. Anyone please respond as I hate tasking we've with this.

I’ll respond tomorrow evening when I’ve got a keyboard. Unless all I can offer has already been posted.

[LTS]

So I've cancelled Directv. I'm done with it. I'm hesitant to go back to time Warner as all their hardware sucks. So I'm looking for alternative methods to get what I like to watch.

 

Let me preface this with, I barely ever watch network TV. My programming is essentially sports, AMC shows, HBO and Showtime series. So what's my best options?

 

Your best bet is to go with Amazon Prime and add HBO and Showtime channels.  The AMC will be tough as you will either need a cable subscription or to pay for another service like YouTubeTV, Hulu, etc. that offers it.  I had Sling for a few months and it worked well.  I only had it as an augment during the Olympics to what I get with Spectrum.

 

Here's the thing.  You can hate their equipment but you don't have to use it.  Use an Amazon Firestick and then just open the app of each of the cable services you want and watch from there.  I watch NBC, FXNow, etc. all by signing into my Spectrum account. (The Spectrum app is not on Amazon Firestick).  You can also choose other "boxes" such as Roku, Xbox, etc.  Of course the apps for the same service may run differently on different platforms.  The Sling app on Xbox sucked but on Amazon was really good.

 

With my basic package on Spectrum I get MSG so I can also use MSG>Go and stream Sabres games.  You get NBCSN so you get those channels to through the NBC Sports App.

[Wyldnwoody44]

Between Netflix and Hulu on lost any device I get by fine... I also don't watch much TV, I have friends with a hacked roku and the sky is the limit and you can actually hack them watching 10 minutes of you tube videos, sports, movies, you name it

[Thwomp!]

So I've cancelled Directv. I'm done with it. I'm hesitant to go back to time Warner as all their hardware sucks. So I'm looking for alternative methods to get what I like to watch.

 

Let me preface this with, I barely ever watch network TV. My programming is essentially sports, AMC shows, HBO and Showtime series. So what's my best options?

We cut the cord about 10 years ago so we've been through all the you and downs of it. Over the years we've pieced together everything we need.

 

My suggestions:

 

Digital antenna gets you all the assorted over the air channels and can get you most of the national big sports broadcasts and assorted other things. There are a surprising amount of channels you get with an antenna. We get about 20 here.

 

Get a roku box, fire stick, and/or Chromecast.

 

Once you get your device you basically add apps to the device similar to a phone setup and watch things through those apps.

 

I think of the 3 main providers as: Netflix is great for movies and a lot of original content, movies and TV shows. Hulu is the best of the 3 for current TV programming, some movies, and more and more original shows. Amazon Prime is a good mix of both.

 

You'll have to play around with it and see what works best for what you want. Reddit is a huge help for help and optimization, hints, setup, etc.

 

Google and Amazon don't play well together for example so if we want to watch something on prime we use a Roku. You can also cast your computer to a Roku, I just find the Chromecast easier for that.

Edited April 11, 2018 by Thwomp!

[Thwomp!]

Had to step away, but I can't emphasize enough that Reddit is your friend.  There's people out there who have done all this and can guide you through the process step by step.  You don't have to figure it all out on your own, which can be daunting.

 

After the initial investment of purchasing your streaming devices, all you pay is for your internet connection and your choice of providers.  We pay about $20 a month for all the tv we can handle and more.

 

My kids also like this setup through their xbox or chromecast, they watch whatever they want to, with parental controls set of course.  My kids have no idea what channel-surfing is, they just know Netflix.

Edited April 11, 2018 by Thwomp!

[inkman]

I should have prefaced this with my current equipment. I have a old flat screen, probably 15 years plus and an Xbox 360. I'm willing to upgrade the TV if I have to but I'd obviously rather not if not needed.

[Thwomp!]

I should have prefaced this with my current equipment. I have a old flat screen, probably 15 years plus and an Xbox 360. I'm willing to upgrade the TV if I have to but I'd obviously rather not if not needed.

 

That could be a problem!  Does the TV have USB ports?

[inkman]

That could be a problem! Does the TV have USB ports?

Not sure I'll have to check after vaca...

[Thwomp!]

Not sure I'll have to check after vaca...

If it does any of the streaming devices hook to the TV through the USB, which will allow you not to have to upgrade your current TV.

[sabills]

I hate to do this to you, as much as my inquiry as to which whiskey I should choose, but can you give me a short description of each. Like what's available, how easy is it to use. Anyone please respond as I hate tasking we've with this.

 

Hulu -

 - Has a lot of shows from Fox and NBC that are currently running, along with shows that used to run on those networks, and shows from other networks. New episodes of currently running shows will show up either the next day, or sometime within the following week.

 - It has a few original TV shows, none of which I've watched yet, but A Handmaids Tale has gotten some play with the critics, and my wife likes it. Some original movies as well, but I haven't watched any of those, either, and haven't heard about them.

 - Hulu has commercials, unless you pay for their big package. There are generally less of them than watching cable, but they are the same 3-5 commercials every break, every episode, which can be annoying.

 - Hulu has quite a bit of content, and its growing. They even have some pretty good movies and such on there. 

 

Netflix -

 - No new episodes of TV as the season is running; they usually get new seasons around when the DVDs would have come up; well after the season ends, often shortly before the new season.

 - Lots of great Original shows. Of all the networks, I think the only shows I watch regularly are on AMC, HBO, and Netflix. They have a wide variety of different styles and types of show. Bojack Horseman (weird/depressing/darkly funny animated show), Ozark (Breaking Bad in the Ozarks but with money laundering instead of meth and starring Michael Bluth), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Tina Fey produced sitcom with her quick paced, joke-a-second style and oddly upbeat), Stranger Things (Goonies, but Sci-fi/horror), and a bunch of others. Its all very, very good. They also have in-house movies, and I've tried a few and they were good, but they're not up to the level of the big movies houses yet, IMO. They have a sort of indie feel to them, if that's your thing.

 - No commercials on Netflix

 - Netflix has a lot of content, though as their in-house stuff grows they're losing a lot of their external content. More and more networks are making their own streaming services and pulling stuff off of Netflix (mostly NBC and FOX, who have invested heavily in Hulu). Honestly, as long as they keep up the quality of the Netflix produced shows I don't think they'll start really hurting. And they still have a LOT of other content anyways. They do also have their DVD service which can get you even more, but I don't know anyone who still uses that.

 

Amazon Video

 - I have this, but I rarely use it, so I can't comment very well. I only have it because we have prime (which my wife makes uses of every week buying stuff off of amazon).

- I don't think they have any currently running shows from the networks. They do have a lot of older HBO shows (Deadwood, the Wire), but we got HBO-GO last year so I haven't used it for that. But if you don't want to pay for HBO (honestly, you should, its worth it) you can still check out some of those if you missed them.

- They have some original stuff now, though not much very acclaimed. However, they just invested A LOT of money into pilots from every fantasy and sci-fi writer you've ever heard of, including a new series set in Middle Earth (but before the time of Lord of the Rings). So this could be something they really get into in the future. 

- No commercials

- They have a fair bit of content, but I've yet to look for something I've really wanted to watch and find it on Prime when it wasn't somewhere else. YMMV of course. Honestly, Prime is probably worth it for the free 2-day shipping alone if you buy a lot online, so this is a bonus.

 

HBO-GO-

 - You can get this now without having the cable subscription for a slightly lower price. We did the free trial just to watch the last month of Game of Thrones last year and planned on cancelling it, but there's so much good stuff on there that we kept it. I think I've watched this more than any of the others since. You had HBO, you know what they had. Its worth it.

 

 

I didn't go into "easy to use" to  on this because, unfortunately, every device you play it on has a slightly different app and their ease of use changes accordingly. Hulu is the exception; they came out with a single app across all platforms recently. Let me rank the different companies apps, generally, as I see them from best to worst, Deadspin style:

 

Netflix

HBO

Amazon Video

Being slowly eaten by a million red fire ants as I lay in the desert sun

Hulu

Edited April 11, 2018 by sabills

[inkman]

Wow lots of good info here. Gotta see what options are hardware wise.

[Thwomp!]

It's a new frontier and wave of the future. Many new TVs are smart TVs that have the apps included in the TV. Kind of restrictive when wanting to customize or cast though.

 

It's all very much up to what works for you. Lots of options and individual possible setups. You'll save a lot of money over what cable costs though.

[That Aud Smell]

I've come to realize that my family watches very little television. Busy, busy, busy.

 

The word today is that the local cable company is going to start dinging us for some piece of converter hardware that's going to add $140 to the cable bill annually. No bueno.

 

I saw the mention of Hulu live tv up above and, man, colour me intrigued. Looks to me like I can get all of my live sports (Euro soccer, mostly). No Sabres, but, dammit -- I'll figure that out when they're worth watching again. I figure that next season I can patch together what I want from NBC broadcasts, hackish streams

 

My family has Amazon Prime (and we are therefore complicit in that company taking over the world). That has some content for us through the kids' gaming system or whatever.

 

There's a chromecast stick in the side of a newish TV.

 

Is that all I'd likely need?

 

Timely thread, inky!

Edited April 11, 2018 by That Aud Smell

[Thwomp!]

I've come to realize that my family watches very little television. Busy, busy, busy.

 

The word today is that the local cable company is going to start dinging us for some piece of converter hardware that's going to add $140 to the cable bill annually. No bueno.

 

I saw the mention of Hulu live tv up above and, man, colour me intrigued. Looks to me like I can get all of my live sports (Euro soccer, mostly). No Sabres, but, dammit -- I'll figure that out when they're worth watching again. I figure that next season I can patch together what I want from NBC broadcasts, hackish streams

 

My family has Amazon Prime (and we are therefore complicit in that company taking over the world). That has some content for us through the kids' gaming system or whatever.

 

There's a chromecast stick in the side of a newish TV.

 

Is that all I'd likely need?

 

Timely thread, inky!

Yes Chromecast and Roku are my personal favorites. Amazon and Chromecast don't play well together but it sounds like you already have that part figured out. You can add Netflix, Hulu, and/or Kodi to your Chromecast. You can cast a stream from a chrome browser to your Chromecast. I can't recommend Reddit enough for information, help, suggestions, and live streams.

[Doohickie]

Having just moved, we changed from Spectrum cable and phone plus DirecTV for television, to an all-Spectrum suite (which ends up costing less than using two different companies due to introductory offers and bundle discounts).  While setting up the Spectrum account, I asked about wireless boxes and the rep said that if I wanted that, I could get Roku boxes.  The Spectrum account requires one TV box, but in all other rooms we have Roku.

 

I haven't had a chance to watch too much Roku TV, but I have one of them set up with it so far, and it's simply a box that streams TV over my internet connection.  Just like with a phone, you use the app you need for the service you want to watch.  I log into Spectrum and I can see most of the same stations I get on my Spectrum subscription.  I also have a Netflix account so we have that app on the Roku box too.

 

Our local sports are on Fox Sports Southwest and there are multiple channels for that.   I noticed the only one that comes across on Roku is the one that typically shows the Dallas Mavericks.  I finally figured out that I need to load the Fox Sports Go app to Roku, then log in using my Spectrum account and it gives me all the Fox Sports content I have on my Spectrum box (including the regionals and FS1, FS2, etc.).  Looking at the Roku box, it seems like Center Ice will be the same thing- subscribe through Spectrum, then use the Center Ice app on Roku and sync it with the Spectrum subscription.

 

I kind of look at this next year as an exploratory one with respect to the whole TV thing:  We have Roku and if I figure out a cheaper way of seeing what I want to see at lower cost than what I'm paying with Spectrum, I'll switch after the Spectrum introductory offer expires.

I should have prefaced this with my current equipment. I have a old flat screen, probably 15 years plus and an Xbox 360. I'm willing to upgrade the TV if I have to but I'd obviously rather not if not needed.

 

Depending on the size of your TV, if you replace it with a low-end one you can get them pretty cheap at places like Best Buy (for about $250 for a 40-ish inch screen).  Catch them on sale and you can do better (I got one for $200 just before Christmas for a Best Buy house branded Insignia).  Then you'll have the HDMI connections for Roku or other streaming box.

Edited April 11, 2018 by Anordning

[darksabre]

Here's what I'm currently doing:
 

Internet through Spectrum-TW. Using my own high speed modem so I don't pay a rental fee. $67/mo for just internet. 

 

YouTube TV ($35/mo), Netflix (Josie's parents account), Amazon Prime Video (so cheap that I don't care), all on my Xbox One. This gives me most of the TV and movies, including a decent amount of sports coverage.

For watching the Sabres, I'm using NHL.tv on my PC. I use Private Internet Access as a VPN and Kodi with the NHLtv Add-on to watch. Kodi is a must for streaming MSG feeds because MSG feeds are terrible quality compared to everyone else so you need to use Kodi to turn the bit rate down manually or else the feed will be choppy because a browser like Chrome is trying to stream as fast as possible but MSG is too crappy for that. 

[Doohickie]

No Sabres, but, dammit -- I'll figure that out when they're worth watching again.

I'm not 100% sure but I think maybe you can get Center Ice directly onto your streaming device.  It looks that way on my Roku.  I'm  not sure but I don't think you need a cable subscription.

[Lanny]

I have Directv, $77 a month, and add on Sunday Ticket and NHL Center Ice (I live outside the Buffalo market), both of which were free this past season. 

 

My only frustration is that the OnDemand functions for Directv don't work well, or at all in many instances. 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Lanny

[Kr632]

I cut a few years ago. Couple friends and I each got a subscription to a few streaming apps and we share them between us. With kodi on firestick and the apps we pretty much get everything besides sabres games. Wish there was an msg go app for xbox or firestick it's tough watching sabres games on a phone

 

Hulu has a 5-6 good shows and a bunch of crap.

 

Netflix is prob the best.

[Sabel79]

I'm not 100% sure but I think maybe you can get Center Ice directly onto your streaming device.  It looks that way on my Roku.  I'm  not sure but I don't think you need a cable subscription.

 

NHL.tv has an app for pretty much all streaming hardware.  I use it on Apple TV, works like a charm.  

 

 

I've come to realize that my family watches very little television. Busy, busy, busy.

 

The word today is that the local cable company is going to start dinging us for some piece of converter hardware that's going to add $140 to the cable bill annually. No bueno.

 

I saw the mention of Hulu live tv up above and, man, colour me intrigued. Looks to me like I can get all of my live sports (Euro soccer, mostly). No Sabres, but, dammit -- I'll figure that out when they're worth watching again. I figure that next season I can patch together what I want from NBC broadcasts, hackish streams

 

My family has Amazon Prime (and we are therefore complicit in that company taking over the world). That has some content for us through the kids' gaming system or whatever.

 

There's a chromecast stick in the side of a newish TV.

 

Is that all I'd likely need?

 

Timely thread, inky!

 

Yeah, I do Hulu live TV.  I ditched Sling for it because sling was hot garbage.  Channel lineup varies by market (I don't get ABC live because they don't have an agreement with the local affiliate, for instance) but I also get the Washington regional sports channels, I'm sure they have that nailed down in most markets.  No NHL Network, but eh, that's only a few games a year.