apple tv or roku or chromecast or fire tv or whatever else

[nature boy]

i've been thinking about getting one of these direct tv things or whatever they're actually called. i never really thought about it until i realised how cheap they are ($100 for current models), but then i also realised that i don't know much about them.

anyone have one? what do you use it for? was it worth it?

and wow this forum gets like zero traffic now haha.

[jeSteR]

$100 gets you the hardware. You still need to subscribe to the various channels that have content contracts with the various boxes. Unless you are just streaming all your pirated stuff from your NAS. In that case, just get the roku.

[geForce]

If you're looking to use this to replace regular cable, people have been getting combinations of subscriptions. Subscriptions are usually pretty cheap. Netflix is $8/month for example. If you get a combination of 3 or 4 of them, that's still only around $30-40 per month, which is still cheaper than regular cable.

The downside is that you need to switch between the different subscriptions to get to the show you want to see. Also, you need pretty solid internet bandwidth and connection.

To answer your specific question though - they all have pros and cons, so it depends on what you're looking to get out of it.

[geForce]

I highly encourage "cutting the cord", even though I work at a cable company. I'm close to doing it myself too, as soon as I can convince my wife to get on board. She likes to mindlessly channel surf, so she's resistant to the idea of having to consciously choose what to watch.

Cutting the cord will hopefully help achieve 2 major things - it will break up the TV mono/oligopolies and force them to be more competitive with pricing, and offer more flexible TV packages. Also, with more people subscribing to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc, this will also force internet providers to restore net neutrality, which will lead to better internet service and prices.

[nature boy]

i heard that many channels are free. or is that only a "you get what you pay for" kind of deal?

[geForce]

Do you mean with the subscriptions? Or are you talking about something else?

There's the open air antennas where you can get free cable channels in HD. I heard the selection isn't great in Vancouver though.

[joel]

there's a list of the free channels here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roku

as well as the list of premium channels (which you will have to subscribe/pay for).

note that availability for Canada is typically less than US.

[se7entse7en]

[geForce]

That's not bad. I heard you can get some Seattle stations too... do you see any of those?

[se7entse7en]

MeTV, CoolTV, and some Indian channel are from Bellingham. I don't get anything from Seattle though.

[Wetundies]

I have the Roku. There are some free movie channels like ManTV. Some shows do have commercials, like the same one throughout the whole show.

[nature boy]

mantv huh? sounds enticing.

maybe i should wait until the roku 4 comes out? however, the roku 3 looks pretty good already.

[Wetundies]

it's the worst when your watching one of the bikini girls dancing and the TD commercial pops up.

[nature boy]

no, it's the worst when you get "your" mixed up with "you're".

which roku do you have? how often do you use it? any complaints/issues or anything with it (hardware-wise, not bikini girls interrupting your td commercial fap session)?

[Wetundies]

I have roku 3. Use it once in awhile, don't have a media server setup to stream movies off the comp, but there's a few roku apps for that. When you watch youtube it takes out all the ads so that's one good thing. As long as your internet connection is good, it's all good. Don't have a Netflix account, but you do get one month free if you have a roku.

There's an app for the tablet to control the roku, which makes makes it a lot easier to type.