Roku 2 XS - Goodbye Cable Company

[Redgloves]

[quote="Todah Tear"I have a Verizon Mi-fi card for internet. The Roku streams video from my mi-fi better than my computer, and I've got a pretty good computer.
[/quote]

A truly unexpected response. I tried searching Verizon Mifi for mbps speed, only found 4 G stuff.

[Todah Tear]

[quote="Todah Tear"I have a Verizon Mi-fi card for internet. The Roku streams video from my mi-fi better than my computer, and I've got a pretty good computer.

A truly unexpected response. I tried searching Verizon Mifi for mbps speed, only found 4 G stuff.[/quote]

My computer has some hickups with Amazon and Amazon Tech help fessed up that their system doesn't work well with all PCs.

Todah

[Redgloves]

Product Typical Speeds
Download Upload
Mobile Broadband 4G LTE 5 - 12 Mbps 2 - 5 Mbps
Mobile Broadband 3G 600 Kbps - 1.4 Mbps 500 - 800 Kbps
Mobile Broadband Extended 3G 400 - 700 Kbps 60 - 80 Kbps

[CARS]

When I am "tethered" (right now), Verizon is giving me 1-2 bars of 3G. Now at work I have 5 bars of 4G.

So the comment about the my fi signal made earlier makes some sense. They just have a great feed to them.

Now I see Dish customers can get $10.00 a month off their TV bill when they bundle Dish's high speed internet

Oh wait, i'm trying to get rid of Dish's hold on me, not add another 3 year contract

[Redgloves]

My head is spinning with confused information.

Spent many hours this weekend searching about Roku, equipment needed, switching from cable TV to cable internet. Decided to switch.
Contacted Charter cable to arrange stopping TV , switch to internet for Roku. After a long wait being mis-transferred to wrong department, talked with a helpful disconnect/retention employee.

She offered to decrease cable bill to $40 a month, upgrade equipment, for one year. After one year, bill would be $60/month.
About 6 weeks ago, I contacted Charter complaining about increasing bill, no deals offered, just same service, with slowly decreasing channels.

So now, what to do?

Determine would need 3 Roku devices, 3 sets of HDMI cables, router, and guessing premium packages for Hulu Plus and Netflix. Hardware expense roughly $300.

Guessing monthly bill would be around $55 to $60 a month. Which would include internet and Roku.

Mifi $50 and new cable rate would be $40= $90.
Mifi contract will be up in February, so can drop then.

Time to think, ponder, plan.

[wincrasher]

I don't think you have any idea really on how much data you will burn thru trying to stream to a Roku over a mi-fi.

You are going to have a huge bill for extra data after you exceed your plan.

The Roku is a nice device for netflix and to stream movies off your server using Plex or another media server.

But you aren't going to get your locals or any other channels that are a stream like on cable - you'll get clips and segments you can que up individually.

I like my Roku 3 very much, but I'd never replace cable with it, or even try to use it over wireless.

[Todah Tear]

My head is spinning with confused information.....Determine would need 3 Roku devices, 3 sets of HDMI cables, router, and guessing premium packages for Hulu Plus and Netflix. Hardware expense roughly $300. ...

Time to think, ponder, plan.

You've got a lot to think about, but so you know, the Roku unit comes with a HDMI cable (mine did). Go over to Amazon.com and read about their Amazon Prime membership.

Todah

[GerryS]

I don't know about roku, imi considering one as well. But we've gone to a streaming only model of entertainment. Or I buy the DVDs in the discount bins. I save at least $80 a month on 120 channels I will never watch. I RESENT that I have to subsidize MTV, and a plethora of other channels that show material I refuse to let into my home.

I just wish the content providers would allow netflix to stream a better selection of first rate films.

We've been doing this for a couple years...I don't regret it for a minute.

[bonnie]

I have one roku box and one DVD player that supports streaming. They are both at least 3 years old and still running fine.
My internet service through uverse is 53 a month. I am giving Amazon Prime a run this year. I don't subscribe to netflix anymore. Didn't use it, enough.

I have a digital antenna and get one local station. For whatever reason, my house has never had good over the air reception. Once channel works just fine for local news and weather.

I am playing around with an android set top box which may go in the BUB, but it may not too. I can use it as a media player to stream movies from a 32gig SD card. So, I just getting it set up and tested. I can also use my Nook HD to stream HDMI content to any capable TV. Lots of choices.

[Bogo]

My farm had poor over the air reception before they switched to digital. Now it's dismal. All the transmitters went to lower power outputs, and now I'm beyond their maximum ranges. I get internet instead of cable...

[GerryS]

Yeah, I agree the digital switch was good for someone....but it wasn't the consumer. But the idiot media types really don't care about consumers any more. They are only concerned with profit, and put that first. They fail to realize profit would increase if they gave us what e wanted.

As far a as channels go, I get a few more than that....probably 4 or 5, but one of those is "Create" and 1 is. 24 hour Esther loop. And there's only so much of the Marta Stuart types I can take...so "CoolTv", AntennaTV, me tv and a fox affiliate is about it. Good thing I like MASH reruns.

The outdoor antenna becomes more critical because broadband simply isn't available for wide swaths of land. Satellite jus isn't a good enough option...it's better than dial up, but not by much.

Im still looking for a piece of land to call my own means being far away from TV broadcast towers, I think the only difference is that I will be able to actually put in an outdoor antenna. Getting signal, line of site and free from obstruction is key. I swear home owners associations and their endless covenants and restrictions drive me insane and were places to protect the cable industry. Meanwhile, two houses adjacent to me are abandoned...one with grass that's a foot tall, the other with what was a very nice privacy fence that now has 1/8th of its sections (or more) fallen off the posts. And the HOA gave me grief because I had a camper in my driveway (while packing for a trip).

[jstrubberg]

You are going to go broke trying to use a MiFi for this. At 4 to 6 hours a night, you can easily go through 45-50 gigs of data a month. If I'm not mistaken, the largest plan available for the MiFi is 8gb, and it's expensive.

Roku is a great idea, but it is bandwidth intensive.

[Bogo]

Just saying, here in Iowa there are large parts of the state that has fiber to the farm.

[CARS]

You are going to go broke trying to use a MiFi for this. At 4 to 6 hours a night, you can easily go through 45-50 gigs of data a month. If I'm not mistaken, the largest plan available for the MiFi is 8gb, and it's expensive.

Roku is a great idea, but it is bandwidth intensive.

I still have an unlimited plan

[Todah Tear]

You are going to go broke trying to use a MiFi for this. At 4 to 6 hours a night, you can easily go through 45-50 gigs of data a month. If I'm not mistaken, the largest plan available for the MiFi is 8gb, and it's expensive.

Roku is a great idea, but it is bandwidth intensive.

I just started using Roku, so I'll see what the impact to my next Verizon bill will be. Whatever the impact, I do not want cable. It has a lot of junk tv channels that I don't watch. To really get to see some of the channels that have interesting stuff, I'd have to upgrade. I REFUSE to pay any more than I already do. At least with Roku, I am watching what I actually have chosen to watch.

Anybody know a brand for digital antennas?

Todah