Cutting the Cable TV

[SolRaven]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

You want over priced, check THIS out.

BOb

I have to agree with KennyC on this one!! As a fashionable woman, I refuse to pay to have someone's ugly initials all over my possessions. I have 4 Coach purses. All 4 cost btwn $20 & $30 because I bought them used and on ebay. I like Coach leather bags because they are very well made, but I couldn't care less about their label. Coincidently, they also look better after they've been worn in a bit, so they are perfect to get second hand. Let someone else pay full price AND break it in for me.

I'm the youngest of 5 who often got my sister's hand-me-downs. However, my sister was an amazing seamstress, and while I was growing up, was when she was going through a sewing frenzy. You've never seen a little sister so eager to get any clothes that her bigger sister was willing to throw her way. I still remember accidentally throwing a pair of wool pants and a wool blouse in the dryer, shrinking them. I was so mad at myself. Here I was this young teen wearing, essentially, couture clothing that my sister designed and made, and I couldn't pay enough attention to realise that the fabric was a very tightly woven lambswool.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by SolRaven

That, with the HDDs, costs as much as my computer which also has 4 bays. I'm trying to see the benefit of having that if I already have a desktop. What am I not seeing?

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Built in redundancy using RAID. Built in hot-swapping. Built in RAID expansion, actually they call it X-Raid so I can just change one drive for a larger drive and get more space. Purpose built OS so no need to manage the OS/Virus Software, etc.

Yes essentially it is a purpose built PC... but it is plug and play compared to doing this all on my own.

BOb

Ease of use, size, and maybe even energy efficiency.


And we went for the Duo because the 4-bay one was a lot more expensive (keep in mind, our euro prices are higher than your dollar prices and the euro is more expensive than the dollar). The Duo + 2 HDD's (2TB) were a total of around €500. And we still have our server, which is still running and will (once I've cleared the HDD's in there) be RAID'ded as well. We didn't replace the server as we wanted an IIS + SQLServer system. And the Netgear doesn't have that.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by SolRaven

I have to agree with KennyC on this one!! As a fashionable woman, I refuse to pay to have someone's ugly initials all over my possessions. I have 4 Coach purses. All 4 cost btwn $20 & $30 because I bought them used and on ebay. I like Coach leather bags because they are very well made, but I couldn't care less about their label. Coincidently, they also look better after they've been worn in a bit, so they are perfect to get second hand.

I wouldn't pay a cent for those ugly bags... But then I hate purses...

[pilotbob]

I recently got a Roku XDS as a birthday present.

The reason I asked for it was because Plex recently added a Plex channel to Roku. This lets me browse and play my Plex video collection on my TV rather than needing to use pyTivo. While pyTivo works the TiVo shows nothing more than a file system type list of my movies and tv shows.

On the roku the Plex channel shows the videos, descriptions. It also lets me browse unwatched shows, which is nice since my newly downloaded shows can easily be found. The Plex UI on the roku is a bit sparse at this point and it stops during play back every now and then. But it is still beta and a work in progress. I expect it will improve fairly quickly.

The roku also lets me access Netflix streaming service. I signed up for a free month, but I'm not sure if I will keep this. There are no new movies, the newest seem to be 5+ years old. Not that there aren't some good movies on there I have yet to see. Its $8 a month and the jury is still out.

The other alternative is Amazon Prime which includes free on-demand movie streaming. They seem to have a much smaller library than Netflix... but of course Prime gives you that free two day shipping on stuff. I can't see paying for both this and Netflix.

Roku also supports Hulu Plus... which is $8 a month. This may have some shows that I currently d/l... but it dosn't have all of them. Most of the shows we watch from SyFy don't seem to be on it.

You can also Rent/Buy movies from Amazon and Vudu. The rental prices seem the same but Vudu looks (on paper) to have better quality, Dolby D sound and all. However, I think if I am going to build up a digital library of purchased movies with DRM I would got with Amazon since I trust they likely will be stick around more than Vudu.

Amazon does have nice deal on many DVD/Blu-Ray purchases you get a free rental of that movie. So, you can buy it and watch it right away. And then when you get the DVD you can rip it and add it to your library for future views.

So... that's my progress on the no-cable TV front however I have been wavering lately. While the antenna works fine for the most part... d/l-ing can be hit or miss at times. It's funny, now that I am don't get the TV service I can sign up for a two year package that is only a few bucks more than just the phone/internet package... a price that I was not offered as an existing customer.

BOb

[covingtoncat73]

I have basic-basic (heh) Cable and Internet with my Cable company (Charter) for $40/month. It is really just for reception on the television and I could probably do without it. I really don't watch it except for the news, sometimes, and Fox's "animation domination" on Sunday nights because I work evenings Mon-Thur. This means I've become unaccustomed to watching primetime TV.

Oh, maybe a tip, here: when the Cable company is offering you "Basic," they mean "Expanded" Basic. This is much more expensive. It wasn't too difficult to get Charter to sell me "Basic Basic" instead. Someone at work had told me about it. The Cable portion of my bill is under $15/month.

I have Netflix and love it. I got a Roku box and love watching the instant Netflix on it.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

I have Netflix and love it. I got a Roku box and love watching the instant Netflix on it.

We love our Roku. Its amazing how much less crap you absorb from TV when you actually have to sit down and make a point of picking it out. We cut all other forms of TV (no satellite, no cable) and its the best thing we've ever done.

[pilotbob]

Apparently you can't use Vudu with Roku... oh well... no big loss.

I would like to build up a digital library with Amazon... but I am concerned about DRM just like with ebooks. I think the way to go if I am buying videos is to buy the Blu-Ray from Amazon. Most of them come with a free OnDeman rental of that movie so you can watch it right away. Once I get the BluRay I can rip it an put it in my personal digital library.

If only Amazon's cloud drive supported movies like it does music. But, until moves are DRM free I guess not.

BOb

[The Terminator]

If I only lived in Sweden, Voddler.

[MeiLin]

Plus-one for the Roku. We don't watch TV very much any more, but when we do, that's what we turn on. More TV than anyone could possibly watch and we pay only for Netflix and the occasional Amazon video.

[SolRaven]

[QUOTE=pilotbob;1556479So... that's my progress on the no-cable TV front however I have been wavering lately. While the antenna works fine for the most part... d/l-ing can be hit or miss at times. It's funny, now that I am don't get the TV service I can sign up for a two year package that is only a few bucks more than just the phone/internet package... a price that I was not offered as an existing customer.[/QUOTE]

Pretty impressive. The more I read about Roku and all that it does the more interested I have become, especially since all of our promo offers are expiring one after another and our cable has gone up about $40 the last couple of months.

I think it's a worthy investment.

[SolRaven]

Finally picked up a Roku yesterday. I haven't set it up yet. I hope it'll make me want to give up cable.

[SolRaven]

So... I've been playing with my Roku player, and sadly, I don't think it's there yet. I don't feel like it's much better, if at all, over the apps on the Samsung. LG is a little light on apps, so it's better than theirs, but I feel like all of this is in it's infancy stage and still developing. I'm going to play with it a little longer and see if it grows on me, but I have a feeling it'll be going back. For me, I think streaming from my PC gives me better content. So far, the RSS feeds seem to be the way to go.... for me, anyhow.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by SolRaven

So... I've been playing with my Roku player, and sadly, I don't think it's there yet. I don't feel like it's much better, if at all, over the apps on the Samsung. LG is a little light on apps, so it's better than theirs, but I feel like all of this is in it's infancy stage and still developing. I'm going to play with it a little longer and see if it grows on me, but I have a feeling it'll be going back. For me, I think streaming from my PC gives me better content. So far, the RSS feeds seem to be the way to go.... for me, anyhow.

Have you set up a plex server to put all the stuff you download/rip into a nice library? Then get the Roku plex app which lets you browse your library which will have show descriptions, air dates, etc. The Plex channel is still beta so it has a few problems.

That said, I think I am going to re-up with cable TV service. Now that I don't have the service I can add TV to my phone/internet service for $10 a month (only $2 a month more than Hulu Plus) more than I am currently paying. Seems worth it to not have to worry about d/l-ing stuff.

I will still keep the Roku to stream other stuff and to use Plex for my ripped TV and Movie DVDs. Also, I will use the Roku to view rented/bought movies and TV shows from Amazon On-Demand.

Of course, I would love to get two LG Smart TV's (one for the TV room and one for the master bedroom), they also have a Plex client built into them without needing the Roku box.

BOb

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by SolRaven

So... I've been playing with my Roku player, and sadly, I don't think it's there yet. I don't feel like it's much better, if at all, over the apps on the Samsung. LG is a little light on apps, so it's better than theirs, but I feel like all of this is in it's infancy stage and still developing. I'm going to play with it a little longer and see if it grows on me, but I have a feeling it'll be going back. For me, I think streaming from my PC gives me better content. So far, the RSS feeds seem to be the way to go.... for me, anyhow.

One other consideration was an Apple TV rather than a Roku. The biggest issue with that is I would have had to use something like iVi to grab all the meta data and put the show into iTunes. I still may go this route... although I think it is too late for me to return my Roku.

BOb

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by SolRaven

So... I've been playing with my Roku player, and sadly, I don't think it's there yet. I don't feel like it's much better, if at all, over the apps on the Samsung. LG is a little light on apps, so it's better than theirs, but I feel like all of this is in it's infancy stage and still developing. I'm going to play with it a little longer and see if it grows on me, but I have a feeling it'll be going back. For me, I think streaming from my PC gives me better content. So far, the RSS feeds seem to be the way to go.... for me, anyhow.

Did you get a Hulu Plus trial?

BOb