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does anyone have roku or watch a lot of streaming video/tv via laptop to tv?

shirlene29

shirlene29

I am BATMAN!
Platinum
EF VIP
so...in recent money saving moves Ive cut a bunch of stuff...

most recently I killed my regular tmobile cell phone plan...took my phone and number over to the (identical) walmart tmobile plan...
net savings 75 bucks a month
sold my truck..profited 1500 bucks
net savings 110 a month on taxes, ins and reg...net fuel savings huge cuz I was driving it daily.


Ive been lookin at this roku thing tryin to decide if were gonna cut cable

one experiment I bought a set of rabbit ears and hooked it up to one of the tvs and we got 16 channels

Im thinkin of getting a roof antenna
I can get walking dead per episode on amazon for 2 bucks a pop

anyone use one of these things?

cutting cable and house phone would save 120 bucks a month.


the kids pretty much just watch blu ray on their own little tv and all of the adults pretty much only watch four channels...fuck cable?
 
Yes , fuck cable, installed a small tower with antenna and get twenty or more depending on which way I turn the rotor, net flix or Hulu for the kids and I saved $900/year
 
you know anything about the 360 degree type antennas?

I couldn't believe the clarity
 
I'll have to dig up the one I saw.

clearstream makes something that looks like a flying saucer thats got the rotor and booster built in
it looked big and heavy but would be fine on a gable end of my house.

do trees effect it a lot?
 
shirlene29 said:
I'll have to dig up the one I saw.

clearstream makes something that looks like a flying saucer thats got the rotor and booster built in
it looked big and heavy but would be fine on a gable end of my house.

do trees effect it a lot?
Click to expand...

Any obstruction does have an effect on reception,usually the higher you go the better off you are,but you're ahead of the game with whatever you get with the savings in the long run,IMO.
 
Depending on where you live, you might get dozens of channels on over-the-air TV. Easiest thing to do is to disconnect the cable from your TV, and unfold a large paper clip (about the thickness of the center pin in the cable connection) into an "L" shape , and stick it in the cable input of the TV. Then go to setup on the TV, and set it to ATSC (antenna, or broadcast, air, or whatever your TV calls it), and run autoprogram. If you get at least 5 or 6 channels on the paper clip, you'll do fine with even a basic roof antenna. If you don't get anything, then you still may get a few with the roof antenna, but probably not much.

About the Roku and other streaming TV services, be prepared to lose your internet connection speed! Those are all serous bandwidth hogs, and if you have even a slightly poor internet connection, you'll shut yourself down trying to stream video. We had a sling box with our DirecTV, and I had to unplug it from the network any time we wanted to go on the internet :mad: . They don't tell you that little detail when you subscribe....

Charles
 
yeah...I changed the router recently because we had a bandwidth problem streaming netflix over the bluray...I found out my laptop crawled
I know we get decent channels in stunning HD clarity (way better than cable) with the one rabbit ears set
my concern is the tree don't have leaves right now but theyre over 40' tall from the ground around the house and the house is about 30 ft tall on one side...20 on the other (built in the slope). Im wondering if I'll have any reception when they get leaves again.
I know the coax thats wired throughout the house is the right kind to hook the antenna up to for best results but I will probably have to add a downstream booster to it to feed multiple sets.

I have honestly yet to try it out because we moved the bluray to the kids tv and it isnt plugged into the router anymore and isnt wireless.
I should probably move it back downstairs and give it a shot

the new router is lightening fast for all the wireless stuff now (three phones, three laptops and a nook)and all run at the same time without issue and apparently the brother in law streams quite a bit through his xbox where before we'd get various lags and freezing.

idk..I'll have to give it a shot
I may go get a hdmi and see what happens via the laptop to my bedroom tv before I go and buy a bigger antenna and a roku box

I know the cable boxes themselves that are hooked in to the tvs are energy pigs too so theres an appeal to getting rid of them all together instead of having to remind everyone to shut off power strips, which have remotes and they still forget.
 
I hate changing things...it took me 6 months of looking at this walmart phone plan before I made the jump and now Im just pissed at myself I didn't do it months ago

aside from manually setting my APN setting in my phone it couldn't have been easier.
 
shirlene29 said:
I know we get decent channels in stunning HD clarity (way better than cable) with the one rabbit ears set
my concern is the tree don't have leaves right now but theyre over 40' tall from the ground around the house and the house is about 30 ft tall on one side...20 on the other (built in the slope). Im wondering if I'll have any reception when they get leaves again.
I know the coax thats wired throughout the house is the right kind to hook the antenna up to for best results but I will probably have to add a downstream booster to it to feed multiple sets.
Click to expand...

Trees aren't usually a problem for over-the-air TV. Only for satellite signals, which get cut off by obstacles. Mountains or nearby buildings directly between you and the transmitter can be an issue, but you can have a really dense tree or even a forest, and the signals don't get affected by that.

I'd stay away from signal boosters, as those will generate interference themselves, plus they amplify any interference coming in with the TV signal. Much better to try it without any boosters, and better to install a second antenna if there's poor signal at the far end of the house.

Charles
(Formerly a Sony factory-authorized TV repair tech)
 
Thank you Charles....I hadn't considered it would boost "noise" as well.

I have a mountain behind the house but all of the broadcast stations are the other direction...I'd like to see if I could pull in NY broadcasts
do you think pulling stations up to 100 miles away with hilly terrain is realistic?
 
100 miles is pushing it hard, especially now that all over-the-air TV is on UHF. I used to be able to get San Diego from Ventura County (150 miles) here on the west coast, but that was on VHF, and a clear shot across Santa Monica Bay. I only get LA and Santa Barbara now (50-60 miles). UHF cannot travel as far as VHF. I don't know what type of transmitters and booster stations (if any) are around NYC, so it's possible that you are in line with a booster station someplace between you and NYC. Worth a try... There used to be a big repeater station in Schenectady to spread NYC broadcast TV to parts of New England, but that may be long gone.

Charles
 
I just bought a cheap laptop with HDMI, connected it to my TV. I have Netflix and also pull many shows off the internet, all the main stations are on the web along with Hulu etc. etc. Netflix is the only thing I pay for along with a 5 meg download internet connection. Honestly 5 megs is just enough bandwidth for me to have Netflix on two devices and maybe some light web surfing. You do know the Xbox, WII,Playstation and some Bluray players are all capable of streaming Netflix and other programing off the internet??? I have one TV set up for the kids with a WII attached and they play games, watch Netflix and get local channels by ant. BTW the TV channels are in full HDTV when you pick them up by ant. Most cable companies compress the signal so you really aren't getting full HD even when they say you are.
 
my cable is 80 bucks a month and its redundant as all fuck...its like 75 channels repeated 4 times ...it pisses me off
 
When you think about how much $ can be paid for cable in a 10 year period, it's scary: $130/month = $15,600.00, and $80/month = $9,600.00. A good antenna will last 10 years +++, and costs $40.

Charles
 
Creepusmaximus said:
I just bought a cheap laptop with HDMI, connected it to my TV. I have Netflix and also pull many shows off the internet, all the main stations are on the web along with Hulu etc. etc. Netflix is the only thing I pay for along with a 5 meg download internet connection. Honestly 5 megs is just enough bandwidth for me to have Netflix on two devices and maybe some light web surfing. You do know the Xbox, WII,Playstation and some Bluray players are all capable of streaming Netflix and other programing off the internet??? I have one TV set up for the kids with a WII attached and they play games, watch Netflix and get local channels by ant. BTW the TV channels are in full HDTV when you pick them up by ant. Most cable companies compress the signal so you really aren't getting full HD even when they say you are.
Click to expand...

Most cable companies offer HD but its 1080i and not 1080p

I can't get rid of cable, anything but cable, I need that mundane pleasure of stumbling into programs, I can't sit and think of what to watch, I'm a channel flipper :whatever:

Sent from my HTC One V using EliteFitness
 
nangiggles said:
Most cable companies offer HD but its 1080i and not 1080p

I can't get rid of cable, anything but cable, I need that mundane pleasure of stumbling into programs, I can't sit and think of what to watch, I'm a channel flipper :whatever:

Sent from my HTC One V using EliteFitness
Click to expand...


a-HA! You're a present-day version of one of those people who would wear the contacts down to the stub, and burn out the channel change motor in the old rotary TV tuners when I was in the TV repair business!

Charles
 
I can think of a bunch I'd sooner cut than cable, however I volunteered to work today so I'm watching Hulu on my Nexus.
 
shirlz all u gotta do is just get a laptop with a hdmi out and pirate all the tv shows/movies you want, once they're downloaded they won't take up any bandwidth deeeeeurrrrrr
 
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