killing cable tv and moving to the 21st century.

[bobbymalone]

So I've been thinking about saving some money on my $140 a month tv/internet bill by killing the TV and just moving to online streaming.

We are talking about going from $140 a month to about $50. That includes the internet price and the cost for netflix and hulu+. Netflix can stream in 1080p and I think hulu is 720p so I'm not overly concerned about picture quality.

Anybody do this? I know I'll miss some Twins games and hockey but I won't miss the 280 channels of pure carp that I'm currently paying for. Most of the time when I watch TV I'm just watching re-runs anyways. And I'll still have the bunny ears for the local stations.

Just looking for opinions from people that have done this or are thinking about it.

[eyebjim]

I just went thru this. I was going to cancel all the premiums and do the streaming from netflix only. I got netflix and started using it before I changed anything. I highly recommend you try netflix for their 1 month free trial before making any changes. Netflix is great for some things. If you like watching old tv shows (which I do) it is great there is a lot of old and some not so old tv shows that have all the episodes. The movies on netflix are mostly quite old and obscure. Before I singed up for netflix I went and looked at what movies they had and it looked real good only to find that almost all of the good movies are only available for delivery by mail NOT STREAMING. So while netflix is nice and i will keep it I ended up keeping my cable premiums as netflix was not enough for me by itself. And as for HD some of the shows are and some are SD.

[Jeremy airjer W]

I bought a ROKU last month and cancelled the satellite. I have a Hulu plus and a netflix subscription for a grand total of $16 a month. If you want to watch hockey the NHL has a ROKU channel subscription. I think it runs about $80+ for the year but you get just about everything with that. Other sports a available in the same manner. If if you get a couple of those subscriptions you are still money ahead at the end of the year.

Hulu is great for tv shows

Netflix is better for movies but you can also consider amazon premium for about $80 a year also. There is a lot of comparable content between the two and there is also a fair amount of different content between them as well.

As far as picture quality for me it is better with the ROKU as I never jumped on board with the HD service even though I had the HD tv. Now that I have "HD" it will be hard to go back.

"new" channels are being added to ROKU all the time. Even if these channels are premium subscription channels I can decide if I want to pay for them or not. Unlike cable or satellite where you have to pay for 90% of content that you never watch just to get the 10 - 20 channels that you want to have.

It's an exciting time for internet based tv and as more people start to make the switch it can only get better.

My only regret is missing out on half the NASCAR season and not having the DVR to keep up with the few shows that I really enjoy. Most of those are offered for free on line, ith the exception of NASCAR and only a few of those shows. For that content I am considering the purchase of an apple tv. With that I can bring up those shows on my IPAD and send them to the apple tv where they will then be displayed on the flat screen.

Other than that I can't be happier with the switch!

[bobbymalone]

airjer, your plan with the Roku/netflix/hulu+ is 100% exactly what I'm thinking of doing.

Sounds like you're happy with that Roku box as well.

There is a MLB thing like you mentioned for NHL and I was thinking that a month worth of savings on the directv bill would pretty much pay for that. but the stupid blackout policies sound like every twins game won't be available

I could (finally) be able to catch my stl cardinals games though *ducks head* Hey hey, different league, different league, calm down guys

[Jeremy airjer W]

I wonder if you ouldn't register you roku with say an Alaskan address and get around the blackouts OR if they are tracking your ISP address?

[bobbymalone]

I wonder if you ouldn't register you roku with say an Alaskan address and get around the blackouts OR if they are tracking your ISP address?

MLB.com says your location is determined by IP address.

The whole blackout business gets my goat, big time . At least the NFL has it based on selling tickets at the stadium, I can at least begin to understand what they are trying to do.

MLB and NHL are just bowing to Fox Sports.

Games are available something like 90 minutes after they end. Which works perfectly for day games, not so much for evening games.

[JimBuck]

I also picked up a Roku box and ditched cable a few months back. I was just fed up with being jacked around by Comcast with mysterious fees every month.

No complaints so far with the Roku box. I also purchased an external hard drive to attach to the Roku and put most of my music and movies on there. Now I can access my media library quick and easy. Netflix and Amazon Prime are what I subscribe to and really enjoy not dealing with a cable provider.

[Dellfin]

So, to avoid doing my own initial research, I'll ask a question of those who probably already have...

If you do the ROKU or HULU thing, do you need to have one of their "boxes" at each and every TV that you want enabled with the service? If yes, does that mean that you need to pay a subscription for each and every box? Perhaps that's a benefit of cable where, while I still need a cable adaptor "box" at each TV and I pay a small monthly rental for each box, I only pay one subscription fee for cable. I would like nothing more than to drop outrageous Comcast cable but maybe the ROKU/HULU thing would cost as much in the long run for the 4 TVs in the house...?

[OnAFly]

I've been mulling over the same thing. I don't want to pay $140 a month for cable, but I do want to be able to watch NHL and MLB games.

[bobbymalone]

So, to avoid doing my own initial research, I'll ask a question of those who probably already have...

If I understand it right, you pay for the box for each TV. The Roku box goes for something like $60-100 depending on the bells and whistles.

And you only need one netflix or hulu acct to stream to any of the boxes.

I know my sister has one netflix acct and she streams to her TV and her laptop.

[JimBuck]

So, to avoid doing my own initial research, I'll ask a question of those who probably already have...

If I understand it right, you pay for the box for each TV. The Roku box goes for something like $60-100 depending on the bells and whistles.

And you only need one netflix or hulu acct to stream to any of the boxes.

This is correct. You would need a Roku box at every TV in the house that you plan on streaming through. There's no monthly cost for having a Roku player. You can also link them together so if one of them has a hard drive attached, the others will detect the media from that unit and stream to other units in the house.

[bobbymalone]

I could see the potential of megafast internet required if you streaming to 4 TVs simultaneously.

[pulsar_nx]

I've been doing this for 9 months now with no regrets other than I should have done it sooner.

I run a Mac mini as my HTPC to the tv. Hulu is free for the most part, plus so much more than any box has for content on the www. The only downside is the hefty upfront cost of buying a computer.

I also have an antenna for picking up PBS.

Cable internet is great and DSL was ok because I usually had to wait for things to load enough to play.

[Jeremy airjer W]

Yup, one box at each tv.

I believe Netflix will allow 2 devices to stream simultaneously. Whether it be two roku boxes, or a roku and a computer or two iPads, etc.

I'm not sure about Netflix or the MLB/NHL subscriptions.

The nice thing is you buy the box and it's yours. No additional fees for additional boxes. Since programming is Internet based you get it anywhere you can get a connection.

[creepworm]

So what is the difference between the Roku box and using a computer and an HDMI cable?

[pulsar_nx]

Roku has channels and a remote for navigating the channels and everything is made for viewing on a tv. There are lots of channels and unlisted channels too. Basically it made easy to use and the least limited of the boxes, which is why it's so popular.

PC has everything, especially if you include justin.tv and torrents. But on my smallish tv I need to zoom in to read small text sometimes. At least it's easy to zoom in on a multi touch trackpad.

[Jeremy airjer W]

The roku box is about 4 inches square by 1 1/2 inches tall, which makes it very small and convenient.

It's always ready to go. No operating system, no antivirus, no maintenance.

[Kyhl]

Are you able to stream HD through a computer to a TV? I thought they were limited to 720 or less.

[pulsar_nx]

Don't know, the tv is only 720 which is fine for me. I cant imagine why it would be limited to 720 though.

[Kyhl]

Copywrite protections by the major movie companies.

[sunniewally]

so how fast does your internet service have to be? do you keep the cable internet service or what. i'm not the sharpest tack in the box when it comes to this!!!!

[hydro]

so how fast does your internet service have to be? do you keep the cable internet service or what. i'm not the sharpest tack in the box when it comes to this!!!!

Good point. My internet service is the local city wireless at 1 to 1.5 MBPS and I could not stream Netflix. There was at least a 50% buffering time while trying to watch the movie. I would think you would have to have download speed of at least 4 MBPS to make this idea work.

[pulsar_nx]

I've got charter 12m but tests usually show much higher. I can stream and browse the web with no stopping the stream and slightly slower web page loads. Some pages I have found to be overloaded and will buffer no matter what like America's test kitchen.

Used to have 1.5m qwest dsl which was only slightly passable, occasional buffering or lowerd quality streams and waiting for the stream to load.

Could be wrong but I think roku recommends a minimum of 1.5m.

[Down Deep]

I've have a brand new Roku sitting in the box. I got it as a gift for doing some free consulting work. I've got Charter cable hooked up on 4 TVs. 2 have HD and premium channels and 2 have a basic feed. Will the Roku work without interfering with the Cable?

[OnAFly]

Is there a service that allows you to stream current content? It looks like Roku is a handful of random older seasons of a few shows. Maybe I'm missing something.

[nofishfisherman]

I've been without cable for several years now and I'm not sure I'll ever go back. There are too many other options out there now that are cheaper and IMO better.

Personally I enjoy some shows on TV but I hate getting caught up in them so that you feel you have to be in front of the tv every week at a specific time. With Netflix I can still find shows I like to watch but I can watch them when I have time or when the weather is crappy and the fish aren't biting.