[TriLUG] cut the TV cable

[Ken MacKenzie via TriLUG]

We did this about a year ago.  It has been great.  We are prime members so
we get the amazon prime vod included with that.  Plus we have netflix but
we had to upgrade because with 5 of us more devices were needed at the same
time.

So a couple things I found in all of this.

One a good wifi router. Not the cheapest garbage off the shelf.

Two, stay away from smart TV's especially if it will need to connect with
wifi.  Too many eggs in one basket and they tend to have garbage antennas
and firmware.

Three, decide how you will serve local content.  We used to just use
minidlna.  However there is no plain DLNA app in a roku if you go that
route, we didn't but still worth mentioning.  Another option is Plex, I
might demo that again but for now it seems the best stuff for it you have
to pay for.  So we use media browser http://emby.media/, seems it is now
called emby.  It can serve DLNA but you can make profiles and allow those
profiles to only view content up to a certain rating, like say PG-13.  We
have 3 kids so this was important.  The app for media borwser on the
samsung smart tv is a beta though and required putting the TV in developer
mode to do.  I forget where I got those instructions.

Anyway it has served us well for 18 months so we would never go back.  And
technically with the cable still hooked to the TV we can see the basic
channels as we still pay for the cable modem.  But if that went away we
would hardly shed a tear.

Ken

On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 10:27 PM, Jeremy Davis via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org
> wrote:

> Your first step should be to buy a Roku and try it. It is a very low risk
> and high reward purchase decision. Roku is very simple and just about zero
> maintenance. You can buy one or maybe two Roku boxes for the price of a
> month if cable.  It costs nothing thereafter. You would only pay for
> channels like Netflix, which if you already have, then just plug in
> username and password.
>
> As you likely already know, Netflix has  many commercial free seasons of
> good stuff to watch. Pandora is great for music and Amazon typically has
> most things, for a price, that you might not find on Netflix, such as new
> movies. The picture and sound quality has always been great with Roku for
> us. We do have high speed internet though.
>
> I tried a few other Roku channels, which seemed a waste of time. So I
> deleted all the other Roku "suggested" channels to eliminate clutter.
>
> If you are a huge sports fan, I don't have much advice for that. Maybe use
> Twitter to keep track or go to local college events. I have a very athletic
> Golden Retriever who provides outstanding ball fetching entertainment. Let
> me know if you need a puppy :-)
>
> We gave Chromecast a try but had bad experiences. Maybe we had a bad unit
> that froze up a lot. Youtube on Roku is not a great experience either. You
> must sign in to your Google account constantly and punch in a code using a
> remote with only arrow keys.
>
> I cut the Cable cord a long time ago and I don't miss it. Although, people
> will ask, "hey did you see that commercial...?", it is awkward dealing with
> people who want to carry on a conversation about commercials.
>
> I only wish there were competitive ISPs in Apex. TWC will be a distant
> memory for me when that day comes.
>
> Jeremy Davis
> trianglecareerdevelopment.com
> On Jun 29, 2015 8:19 PM, "MR-pootr via TriLUG" <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
>
>