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Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Watch TV In 2012?
zaba writes "Once again, I can hear the tell-tale signs of a hard drive dying. This time, it's in the DVR for one of our TVs. In the U.S., are we at a point where, with a little technical savvy, 'cutting the cord' makes sense? If so, what are the best options? Does a refurb Roku (anywhere from 60-80 USD) make the most sense? Does building a mythbox or some such device make sense? For my family of four (ages 36, 30, 13 and 4), we are paying ~100 USD/month for two receivers (one with a DVR). What, in your opinion, is the best option to have TV service in two rooms of the house? Kid's shows could be in one room and adult shows in another. Or, all of it could be on one server (I have computers lying around) that could go to multiple rooms. We like the DVR for the instant access, but saving a hundred bucks a month would be nice as well. I can drop CAT-5 as needed, but Wi-Fi would be preferred. For programming, we currently have 'standard' cable and mostly watch the major networks. I would love to have ESPN, but can get my sports fix (mostly college football) through other means, I'm sure. How do you all watch TV? What have you found to be the best way to get what you want?"
By looking at it.
I would have recommended a Roku or AppleTV with Netflix and Hulu Plus.... but Hulu Plus just started running political ads. Arrrgghh. Amazon Prime is a nice to have, but not needed. I rarely find something there that Netflix doesn't have.... unless you want reality tv stuff or those "dirty job" type shows. Amazon Prime streaming seems to have those in spades.
Have you found anything worth watching yet? Whenever I hear about something good I check it out, but it just seems like shit to me. Game of thrones? Lord of the rings with tits. Caprica 1? Zzzzz. Walking Dead? Nothing ever happens - there's a strict 5 zombies per episode limit (apart from the last episode - perhaps it's the same 5 zombies over and over, though).
Loads of talk of 3D, google/apple/whatever tv, but if it's just the same old shit then it seems like a waste of a lot of money. Just stick the good stuff on the net so we can watch it whenever.
is not to watch tv. seriously, it sucks.
I made the switch from cable to XBMC. Well we still get our internet through the cable company, but no longer do I get television through them. There's plenty of free streaming plugins in XBMC. And I have a server in another part of the house that hosts digital copies of TV shows and movies that stream over the wireless to a seamless picture and sound. I subscribe to Amazon Prime and get a lot of TV shows that way. It is very DIY, but once it is working, it is great.
I love the smell of napalm in the morning....
I've learned not to try to tell people what to do, especially since they rarely listen (like my brother who spent $70/month on Dish when I had advised spending 1/3 that amount). Instead I tell them what works for me and let them decide:
SETUP 1 :
- free TV via an antenna. Attached to all the rooms in the house. Both an old VCR and DVR that I use to tape stuff while I'm sleeping.
- supplemented by Hulu.com over PC or roku
- supplemented by DVD purchases of shows not on hulu (like Games of Thrones). Supplemented by uTorrent if the DVD has not been released yet.
- I also read a lot of mystery or sci-fi magazines online if nothing's on.
SETUP 2 (if I lived where antennas are not allowed)
- $25 a month Dish service for cable on two sets
- supplemented by hulu, DVD, torrent, et cetera
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You should have a home file server where everyone keeps everything. RAID 6 it. That way you never have to worry about dying hard drives.
Put RTorrent on it with a watch directory. Sign up to a private TV torrent tracker with an RSS feed. Download the torrents linked to by those feeds into your watch directory. Share the torrent directory via Samba.
Put a PC with XBMC anywhere you want to watch TV. Add your samba share as a source. You're done.
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XBMC on a small 1080p capable system (even a $35 Raspberry Pi will do), XBMC Remote on an Android device as the remote control, and optionally a file server for locally stored content. The library for movies and TV season DVDs. We cut the cord years ago.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
you could [run Netflix] with a computer as well. Biggest pain would be using a keyboard and mouse
That's what a tray table is for. You put the wireless keyboard and trackball on the tray while picking a show, and once the show starts, you put them away to make room for your microwave dinner.
I spent a long time without cable watching everything off a hard drive or Netflix, but I'm back to cable + a DVR. I really just love flipping through channels, and having everything instantly on in HD. I felt like watching TV only off Netflix and my hard drive had me making too many of the choices, and I got into a rut. I admit I have weird taste in TV and so maybe it's not for everyone, but cable + DVR is definitely my preference.
Here in Iceland I get my TV service through something called "myndlykill"; I don't know the English word for it, but it's a box with a Cat5 on the back that plugs into your hub and downloads channels from the net and yeilds an HDMI signal. Most people here have 50Mb/s or 100Mb/s optical fiber net connections so there's enough bandwidth for a good picture.
Rhetorical questions suck. Why ask a question if you don't want an answer?
AppleTV is nice, but you'll be paying per show (or season).
Roku is cheap, but not as reliable
Netflix (on either ATV or Roku) and Hulu (on Roku) are monthly services which have decent selection. I'm not sure if Amazon is on Roku.
If you're the adventuresome type, don't mind playing fast and loose with the rules (but don't want to get caught), and have a free weekend, you can try and set up the following on a machine you designate as a server:
sabnzbd - a program to download stuff from the usenet
sickbeard - a program to find TV shows on usenet
couch potato - a program to look for movies on usenet (optional)
jailbreak an ATV2 (they're still out there, right?) and put on either XMBC or, for a little more family friendly (but limited), Plex along with Plex Media Server on your PC.
You will also want a NZB account, like NZBmatrix ($10 for 10 years? Lifetime? who knows) and a Usenet account. Look for deals on Slickdeals.net - on rare occasions you can pick up an unlimited account for $6/mo. I rarely use more than 100GB of TV in a month, so a 1TB chuck for about $50-60 is also good.
You tell sickbeard what shows you want it to find, and what your NZB account password is. When it finds the show you want, it passes the info off to sabnzbd (you input your usenet credentials there) which downloads the blocks of the show,decodes it, names it, and puts it into the directory or your choosing. Couch Potato is similar. I'm sure I've gotten something wrong, but after an hour or two of tutorials out there on the net it's not that bad.
Okay, so that's getting you content - probably over https - is a way that does not expose you to the IP owners of the world like P2P does.
Once your content is on the computer, you can either point your Roku or AppleTV with XBMC installed to it and start watching. I prefer Plex, and my 9 yo and wife found it super easy.
We cut the cable (well, sat) back in January and don't miss it. Oh - I do have antennas for OTA reception for local weather and news.
Using usenet isn't exactly legit, but it's also very, very low risk as you are never uploading or sharing any content with others. It's a nice system if you've got a slower connection, too, as you are downloading the files - not streaming them. It means a day or so delay for shows, but you never have to worry about buffering.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Am I the only person that thinks it's absurd that I can purchase a 100 megabit downstream link from my cable provider but can't watch a particular TV show without being forced to purchase a 70 dollar/month (with 2 year commitment) bundled package? (From the same company)
I have a connection to a network where I can grab data from anywhere on the planet, but TV shows come via an obsolete channel switched bitstream on a schedule designed to extract advertising dollars in exchange for my valuable time.
The media companies have spoken, and they aren't interested in selling me content. So I don't buy it. The few shows worth watching are available at the usual places and you can watch them at your leisure. Paying for content sends the wrong message. When you pay, you're buying 20 minutes of advertising. When you pay, you're telling them you're willing to sit there in front of the TV when they tell you to.
Given the exploitative nature of traditional TV packaging, they should be paying you to watch. Not the other way around.
Im so tired of this.
I leaned a new lick watching peter frampton last week. Was that a waste?
My kids and I had a discussion regarding quantum physics because of something we watched on TV. Was that a waste?
My kids no more about our solar system then most kids their age because of some of the television we watch. Is that bad?
My kids want to build things over the summer because of something they say on TV. Is that bad?
My daughter likes doing experiments because of mythbusters. Is that bad?
I have used TV tio teach my kids about advertising shenanigans. Was that bad?
I could list a 1000 ways TV is good.
Is there stuff on TV that is horrible drivel and nonsense? yes. But to dismiss all of TV because of that is no different then burning down all the library's because they have a copy of twilight.
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I pirate Top Gear; the BBC really ought to get with the program and offer foreigners a way to pay for series or subscriptions.
You mean, like Netflix? Most of the BBC series I watch are on it....
Whenever I hear about something good I check it out, but it just seems like shit to me. Game of thrones? Lord of the rings with tits.
I've had absolutely no desire whatsoever to watch Game of Thrones. Then you had to come here and describe it as the single most awesome concept ever. Can you really think of anything better than Lord of the Rings with tits??
Now I have to check it out.
Don't like it use the remote buddy. Very simple.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Netflix is fine for watching BBC content, so long as you're find with being a couple of years behind the times.
While it's been a while since I've used Netflix, the last I've checked, Top Gear was only available up to Series 13.
However, I am then left with no obvious way to watch Series 14-18.
Get a Roku. And spend the 10 extra bucks and get the Roku 2 XD.
Like you, I used to use our Wii to stream netflix. but the quality was pretty poor. SD quality scaled up to 1080P. Bleah.
I tried a Win7 box running Windows media center, and while it could do some things well, (such as stream my large amount of local server based media) the netflix quality was HORRENDOUS. And it can't do many other things, such as Crunchyroll, TWiT, and Revision 3 content.
Also tried XBMC, and it was really nice, but couldn't do Netflix natively, and the user made hacks to get Netflix working were just that. Hacks. And ugly ones too.
Eventually I broke down and snagged the Roku2XD on sale over Father's day weekend just this year. It does full 1080P Netflix and really nice scaling on older movies, plus it has TONS of other stuff like Crunchyroll, Revision 3, Twit, and on and on, and that's just the OFFICIAL channels. It also has piles of unofficial ones, and it has PLEX, which allows you to stream your local media on any box running the PLEX server module. (a little Win32 app that handles the sharing and does media conversion/streaming as well.)
I have to say I've never been happier. While not perfect, the Roku2XD is absolutely the closest I've ever seen any box come to the "perfect" home media center experience.
Oh, and the damn thing is the size of a Hockey Puck. I kid you not! You can use double-sided tape or Velcro to hang it off the back of your TV and the Bluetooth remote will still work perfectly. If you lose the remote or it dies, you can get a Roku remote app for your iPhone or Android device and use it's Bluetooth radio to control the Roku. It's AWESOME!
Trust me, go buy a Roku 2 XD. You'll love it and won't look back.
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