Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Nefarious on February 06, 2015, 10:21:44 AM
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Problem is... my wife doesnt want too. My wife loves her dish network. She watches and records lots of what I call garbage tv. I Watch very little TV... mostly broadcast sitcoms and sports. She on the other hand watches lots of reality bs on TLC, DISC, HIST... Im trying to convince her to turn it off and go with one of the new streaming services... any suggestions?
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Netflix? Plenty of available garbage.
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Netflix? Plenty of available garbage.
I have amazon prime, but if it doesn't have garbage like say yes to the dress or married at first sight it wont cut it.
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Then you're screwed since TLC removed yes to the dress from netflix.
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I am in the UK and I watch HBO/FOX/CBS series for free and all the Netflix & Amazon exclusives on streaming sites or torrent them season by season instead
I don't even have a free to air Antenna as all the UK programmes are available free on official streaming sites like BBC iPlayer
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My wife and daughter love it when I walk thru the room when they're watching say yes to the dress. "Spoiler alert! Chick's gonna buy a white dress! Or not!"
Shut up Dad!
hehe
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My wife and daughter love it when I walk thru the room when they're watching say yes to the dress. "Spoiler alert! Chick's gonna buy a white dress! Or not!"
Shut up Dad!
hehe
:rofl
The reality shows are my friend. They keep my wife from asking me, "Are you playing that stupid game?". :D
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:rofl
The reality shows are my friend. They keep my wife from asking me, "Are you playing that stupid game?". :D
this!! :noid
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Yeah, TV does come in handy when I dissappear to some far forgotten battlefield on Friday nights. :aok
Just tired of paying upwards of $120 a month for garbage programming. DVR is a nice feature, but it's Married at first sight is straight up garbage!
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Problem is... my wife doesnt want too. My wife loves her dish network. She watches and records lots of what I call garbage tv. I Watch very little TV... mostly broadcast sitcoms and sports. She on the other hand watches lots of reality bs on TLC, DISC, HIST... Im trying to convince her to turn it off and go with one of the new streaming services... any suggestions?
Careful, she might agree if you give up AH. See if you reach a compromise. See if she will accept the lower levels on Dish.
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We became cable cutters a while ago. It was a little strange at first, but I would not go back.
We got a digital antenna (and then we started getting HD stations for free!). There is a catch. You probably are not going to get all the local stations you are used to. Test it out before you finally cut the cord.
Some shows / programs are only available in the gray areas of the streaming world. NFL/HBO/MSNBC (national FOX and CNN are cleanly available on some devices.). Also HBO has said that you will be able to directly subscribe to them without a cable service next year.
You are going to need fairly good and stable internet service. To stream a show to one device with good picture and sound quality assume a min of 2MB sec. So you will need say a 3MB download service to be safe. Increase your picture quality, up your service speed. (I do not think that we have every kicked it up over 4MB, not sure of the difference.)
We got a Samsung Smart TV. We loved it at first, but now it is just OK. The picture is great and the sound is better than most TVs but still only fair.
Hits:
• Great picture.
• Real easy to go from Air TV to streaming mode (one button).
• Nice Out/In put options (HDMI, USB, RGB, Video, Mic jack?, Network (wire and wireless) integration (I would recommend a wire hook up though) and I’m not sure what else).
• Good remote, nice that you can go back to just one remote (but see below)
• Very nice integration with Skype. (You easily set it up so that if someone calls you, you can jump right into the video session. I say easy, but I should say I haven’t gotten it to auto load yet. But the point is that it is a much more pleasant experience than Skype on a PC b/c everyone is not crowding around a laptop screen and mic. BTW, you will need a camera with a good mic. Get one with an easy to reach kill button).
• Can plug in a keyboard and mouse very easily.
Misses:
• There are only a few Smart Apps to choice from. The basic ones are there: Netflix, Hulu, Pandora , etc. At first when we got the TV (two years ago?) I thought well no problem, the Apps will grow. Not so. It has been a big disappointment.
• From time to time (every two months maybe?) you cannot get into the Smart Hub (where the streaming mode is) because Samsung is updating your device. Sometimes it can take while. But I thought well that is OK they are servicing the device. Good for them and what good luck for me. What they are updating though are the Ads and eye candy icons for pay services that they would like you to try out, for free, for two weeks, with a credit card on file. Yea!!
• I also love it when they re-arrange the Apps that you downloaded and use so that they can put one of their eye candy apps in its spot.
• I think we have had 2, maybe 3, instances of the central Samsung Mother Ship being down , which of course, because of how Samsung architected the service, means you are also down.
• When an App does not work, no real support. They have Apps out there that have been getting the same errors for 2 years….
• There is a web browser right up front. Really great idea. You got to wish that it was not a pig and that it worked about more than about half of the time. Also with the standard remote it is real a challenge to use.
• No Bluetooth. Turns out that this was important to us. See blow
• I’m going to list this as a miss and for us AND it could have been such a great hit. Samsung makes a great keyboard TV remote. Use it one way and it is a TV/Smart Device remote. Flip it around and you have a mini keyboard and mouse pad. I have been surprised as to how many times I have needed to key in text into an App. What I did not know at the time was that that keyboard only works with the next size up Samsung TVs b/c they support Bluetooth. And funny thing about it is that I was looking at the next size up but I went with the next size down even though the smaller TV cost $300 more b/c of its much better picture quality. (Sony makes a Keyboard TV Remote as well)
I will buy a Samsung TV again, but I will not buy a Samsung Smart TV again.
Last year we got a Roku. https://www.roku.com/ Still in love with it.
Real quickly. We heard that google had low a App count and that the hardware kind of sucked. iTV is, well iTV. Heard a few good things about Fire (it is kind of newish), but when I used it I did not like the interface. Also I was not sure about the App selection (used one at my brother-in-law’s and he has the thing locked down a bit b/c they have small children, so I couldn’t really tell.) My brother-in-law got the Fire b/c of its PLEX integration. That was very important to him. I’ve seen PLEX on other devices, I just didn’t ask him why on Fire and not on what-ever? Also we have 360, works fine. I do not use it that much b/c the kids like to jump on it. I think, (wife knows not me) you need to get MS Live 360 subscription for something or other. It may do something to let you stream, really do not know or care. Nice thing about it though is that you have a CD/DVD player right there. It has been useful over time, if you can figure out how to use their bloody controls.
You can plug these things to plug into HDMI, USB or composite jacks. Check for what you need and what their devices offer. Also decide on what you would like/can use on resolution quality.
We actually have two Rokus in the house. A low end one ($30?) and their top of the line ($79~ on sale?). The cheaper one is fine, it is Wifi only (I think), it is a little slow (reminds me of a 110 baud modem) and the remote is a standard Roku remote. The top of the line one has wifi and LAN cable interfaces, good speed, the remote can be used like a wii for games (Yep you can load games), and you can plug headphones directly into the remote. (and yes it mutes the TV by re-directing audio data only to the remote). And I have to say, the remote is pretty good. Just a few buttons, but just what you need.
(BTW: There is a version of Roku that is integrated into some TVs. I know nothing about the TVs. BTW: the guys who made Roku are the same guys who built the Tivo under contract. BTW: you should also check out Tivo).
And the reason you get Roku is for the Apps. The official Roku site has about 1,500 channels. A lot of them are free. Pick your interest, and you have a handful of channels on an interest/topic. The Apps we pay for are Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. (Amazon came with Prime and we would not have it if it cost extra.)
My guess is that most of your wife’s shows are going to be on Hulu. Go to their site and look them up.
If you cannot find your program there perhaps check Crackle.
If not, you can go to the unofficial channel sites. There are maybe another 1,500 different channels on these sites. Some of the content is what you might guess, adult channels, but there are a lot of really interesting channels out there. And again, different web sites seem to carry somewhat different channels.
If you are still looking for your wife’s show, try NoWhereTv. There are a number of NoWhereXX channels out there, they all work.
The other thing to remember about the 1,500 official and unofficial channels is that a number of them are a collection of other channels. So you kind sometimes run into Russian eggs.
And remember you can set up any option you want alongside what you have now. It might cost you a little bit for the hardware, but most of the channels that do charge, give you a trail period. I think Hulu had a 3 month free trail, but we did not need it.
When you pick your viewing schedule things are different. It does not feel right at first and then you get spoiled. Yesterday I was watching the local news on Air and I missed something. So I picked up the remote and kept pressing the roll back button. What the hell is going on, I just changed the dam batteries last week!
Good Luck
PS. don’t forget to check sites like Cnet / PcMag / etc for latest news and recommendations.
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TV has gotta be one of the cheapest ways to keep the woman properly subdued. Cancel it to your own peril, the alternatives only go up in price from there.
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ops, forgot.
2 quick points:
1.
A lot of people stay away from the "stick" devices. I'm not sure I heard anyone like them over the regular devices vendors sell. (Google though only comes as a stick, but you really control it through say a phone. Just strange.) Great portability but with things like tablets who needs that?
2.
You always get the standard apps (Netflix, Hulu, etc) for smart phones, tablets, PCs. You could try them out there and see if you like them. (for anything made for just Google or Roku you got to get their hardware).
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One thing you may want to look into is whether or not your ISP has a data limit. Mine does. 350 GB per month. They started it in January. We had been exceeding the limit by at least 100 GP every month since July last year. We have three devices that can stream content and many times had all three streaming at once. Suffice to say we've had to cut back. I will probably look into switching ISPs but there aren't very many options in my area.
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One thing you may want to look into is whether or not your ISP has a data limit. Mine does. 350 GB per month. They started it in January. We had been exceeding the limit by at least 100 GP every month since July last year. We have three devices that can stream content and many times had all three streaming at once. Suffice to say we've had to cut back. I will probably look into switching ISPs but there aren't very many options in my area.
Who do you use?
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Unplug the cable and when she complains it doesn't work, suggest that you two go out and do something fun instead of sitting around inside.
We eliminated paying for cable but still get local basic cable since we get cable internet. So all the unscrambled channels still come through, maybe 30-40 analog and digital channels. Everything else we get from the internet, amazon prime, pbs kids, etc. That cut our cable/internet/phone bill from $180/month to $80/month, and we haven't missed a thing.
And we get out of the house or do other things instead of sitting in front of the tv. That's more valuable than the $100/month we're saving.
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Who do you use?
Suddenlink. The other ISPs are Frontier, Verizon, and CAS. I'm in the same boat as Nefarious, my wife and kids won't let me ditch cable.
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Suddenlink. The other ISPs are Frontier, Verizon, and CAS. I'm in the same boat as Nefarious, my wife and kids won't let me ditch cable.
What show(s) do they watch that you cannot get over streaming? Like I said in my long winded reply to Nefarious, (boy I just looked at that reply and can I go on and on and on. HTC could make more money off me by letting me play for free but charging per word on this BBS!), the only things that I believe are hard to get right now sport packages, MSNBC and HBO. And HBO should be OK in the next year.
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Suddenlink. The other ISPs are Frontier, Verizon, and CAS. I'm in the same boat as Nefarious, my wife and kids won't let me ditch cable.
My kids don't have a vote :t
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Haven't had a TV for better than a decade. Girlfriend did pick up a virus on her laptop though. That's been the only hitch. We use Project Free TV (we watch our shows a day after they air), Amazon Prime, PBS, Ffilms.org, & Viooz.
We pay $55 a month.
Oh, when sports are on it's First Row Sports or VIP Box.
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There are "hidden" channels for the roku also. do a search for them on google, you may find some you like
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We did the "cut the cable" thing a few months ago. We already had AppleTv, Netflix and an Amazon Prime account. My daughters used Netflix and the Amazon Prime while in college so we just kept it. They only thing we have added is Hulu Plus.
Cable bill went from $185 to $90. The Netflix and Amazon Prime stayed the same of course. Adding in Hulu Plus was an extra $9 per month. So I'm up a net of about $85 a month and with the added bonus of a higher Internet speed 50m DL vs 30 DL that we had with all the other cable crap.
Hulu Plus fills in all the missing garbage shows that Amazon and Netflix don't cover. They release new shows usually a day or two after they air on TV. I/we don't really watch much TV during the week so the delay in the shows being available doesn't effect me/us.
Edit: Forgot to add.. we also buy some movies via the AppleTv when it's something we want to watch new release wise. Otherwise we use http://www.canistream.it/ (http://www.canistream.it/) to find anything particular.
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A lot of people stay away from the "stick" devices. I'm not sure I heard anyone like them over the regular devices vendors sell. (Google though only comes as a stick, but you really control it through say a phone. Just strange.) Great portability but with things like tablets who needs that?
We have google's chromecast. Its a great option to turn your old tv into a smart tv. Definitely easier than hauling the PS3 or computer around and hooking up all the wires. Plug it in once and forget about it until you want to watch something. Just about anything you can watch or listen to on a tablet or smartphone can be "projected" onto the big tv. And for 35 bucks you cant really go wrong.
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We have google's chromecast. Its a great option to turn your old tv into a smart tv. Definitely easier than hauling the PS3 or computer around and hooking up all the wires. Plug it in once and forget about it until you want to watch something. Just about anything you can watch or listen to on a tablet or smartphone can be "projected" onto the big tv. And for 35 bucks you cant really go wrong.
I was told that they are really slow. What do you think? (or could it be that the controlling device he was using was "slow", or maybe the link? Not sure. I Would be interested in any thoughts that you had on the subject.)
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Just great, as if I needed another reason to have NOT purchased a Samsung Smart TV.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31296188
"Samsung is warning customers to avoid discussing personal information in front of their smart television set."
"[It is like]...George Orwell's description of the telescreens in his novel 1984 that listen to what people say in their homes"
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Just great, as if I needed another reason to have NOT purchased a Samsung Smart TV.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31296188
"Samsung is warning customers to avoid discussing personal information in front of their smart television set."
"[It is like]...George Orwell's description of the telescreens in his novel 1984 that listen to what people say in their homes"
It's what they wanted all along.
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I totally understand cutting these "subscriptions". I have cut everything (including trash service) and rely on free digital TV.
Besides electric and water service, I maintain only two monthly subscriptions, internet and Hitech Creations :joystick:
My trash service was costing me 40/month. Being a long haul driver, I do not generate much refuse along with the fact that I may not be available to put the can out and return it once emptied on their required/specific day. I asked if they would cut me a break and only empty it once/month or twice/month to no avail. It was all or nothing to them, I chose the latter. After 1 year of going without, taking my beer cans (the majority of my trash hehe) to local recycle and making trips to the local landfill with the remainder, I spent a total of 5 dollars on trash. Gas back and forth was about 20. So.....$25 vs $480. Yes it was less convienient, but screw em, I look out for number one.
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The problem with TV services whether it's cable or satellite it needs to be done in a ala carte style, I'm just like everyone else I pay for a bunch of channels I don't even watch nor want to watch. The cable and satellite service providers are already capable of turning off and on channels from there end... you should be able to order the channels that you want to watch, make the channels in like blocks of 5 $10 a block or so, but of course the cable and satellite service providers would'nt want to do this since they have such a monopoly on the biggest racket there is.
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Just great, as if I needed another reason to have NOT purchased a Samsung Smart TV.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31296188
"Samsung is warning customers to avoid discussing personal information in front of their smart television set."
"[It is like]...George Orwell's description of the telescreens in his novel 1984 that listen to what people say in their homes"
It's only if you have voice control activated and not all Samsung SMART tv's can be voice activated, pass the tinfoil hat.
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I was told that they are really slow. What do you think? (or could it be that the controlling device he was using was "slow", or maybe the link? Not sure. I Would be interested in any thoughts that you had on the subject.)
I don't have any problem with mine, short of our god awful internet service. (1.5mbps) :uhoh
Anyway, it doesn't seem to be any slower than if I were to watch something on my phone or computer to begin with. That being said, I have a 42" Vizio smart T.V. and I am very happy with it. Again its just as fast as the computer and the UI is fairly simple and reasonably smooth to navigate through. It has all the major apps, netflix, hulu, amazon, youtube, pandora, and quite a few more like news and weather.
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It's only if you have voice control activated and not all Samsung SMART tv's can be voice activated, pass the tinfoil hat.
Fair point.
So it looks as if they are talking about Smart TVs sold after Dec 2013 with cameras and microphones. It is, however, more than just voice captures - gestures, program selections, searches, likes/dislikes etc are captured and passed along. I think that they said that the facial recognition data they capture is kept on your device.
Samsung's full statement is here:
https://www.samsung.com/uk/info/privacy-SmartTV.html
(I wonder why they released their statement now? Just an internal bureaucracy working at its own pace, or some external event that made them move?) :headscratch:
Cnet or PcMag (don't remember which) said that all this is very similar to certain Motorola devices, Microsoft 360 and certain high end GPS devices.
I just wonder how long it will be before some lawyer subpoenas all the collected data in divorce case. :noid :noid :noid :noid :noid
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So it looks as if Samsung is really on a roll now!! :devil
Together with Yahoo, they are putting ads into other peoples Apps on their Smart TVs.
"Owners have complained of a silent ad for Pepsi interrupting playback several times an hour.
A spokeswoman for Samsung said it was only aware of the glitch affecting customers in Australia at this time."
(The glitch appears to be that they got caught).
So if you are watching a home video through PLEX, you could get hit with a ad!
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31424596
I suppose that others will follow in the not too distant future. If there is money in it someone will make the claim that it is a god given right. :uhoh