Have cable, tried streaming, am I missing something?

[kranky]

Tired of paying $$$ for cable, thought I would try a streaming solution for a couple weeks to see if I could live without cable. For this I bought a Roku Ultra and also took a 2 week trial to YouTube TV. No DVR, not a lot of time to watch TV so I do not plan specific times to watch a particular program. If I have some time, I grab the remote, browse the cable guide to see what's on, stop somewhere and watch something.

I found that I am more of a "click around on the cable guide and stop somewhere" rather than a "search for something specific" viewer. So the streaming thing was frustrating. On Roku, I could pick a channel and poke around to see if there was something I wanted to watch. If not, pick another Roku channel, rinse/repeat. Found that pretty time-consuming other than on the Roku Channel which did have a lot of things listed. There are tons of free Roku channels but they don't tend to have a lot of things to watch.

YTTV has a decent guide to what's on at the moment. But I missed being able to browse a lot more channels to see if there's something to watch. It was the closest to the cable experience but with many fewer channels.

I guess the question is: do people who only stream TV tend to know in advance what they want to watch, DVR it, then watch at their leisure? I'm not going to use a DVR since I know I don't watch enough TV to make it useful. And I don't have any specific programs I care about to the point I would DVR them anyway. I just pick something that's on at the moment and watch it. With streaming it was pretty tedious just to see what was available (probably from having to select different Roku channels over and over). Just had the feeling that maybe I was missing something.

 

[kt]

Isn't the whole point of streaming so you don't have to record content to DVR? What's the point of a DVR if the content are already streamed to your watching device?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

the more I get older the more I am "get off my lawn". Which means, I have the shows I like and that's it. If something is good enough for me to like it enough to watch, I'll probably hear about it by other means.

 

[Jimzz]

I just scan Netflix and Amazon to watch something. Commercials on TV and them "recapping" what I just saw 3 minutes ago gets old real fast.

Was on a united flight and they had directtv. Tried to watch a show about building houses off grid but less than 1/4 of the time was them building it. Mostly commercials, them talking about what they want to do, and then re-capping what they did right before the commercial. Why do people watch this, let alone pay someone for the "luxury" to watch it?

 

[kt]

the more I get older the more I am "get off my lawn". Which means, I have the shows I like and that's it. If something is good enough for me to like it enough to watch, I'll probably hear about it by other means.

Yea, I didn't quite understand the OP saying that he doesn't have time to watch TV yet he wastes time channel surfing for something to watch.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I used to use netflix and amazon and just pick something to watch, but this week, i'm all about the Criterion channel
https://www.criterionchannel.com/

 

[Captante]

Why do people watch this, let alone pay someone for the "luxury" to watch it?

My exact thoughts on 98% of shows

 

[nakedfrog]

I mostly watch stuff on YouTube, so from the home section there are a slew of suggested videos.
Tom Scott has a lot of interesting stuff, there's Today I Found Out, SciShow... depending on what your interests are, you might only need to search a few times to find a YT channel that has videos that entertain you, and then some of the suggested videos related to it may help you branch out.

[edit] I found out I was very much not a "dig through the guide and pray to the FSM that I can find something that isn't garbage or mostly commercials" person when I had Dish, and don't miss it at all.

 

[highland145]

I found out I was very much not a "dig through the guide and pray to the FSM that I can find something that isn't garbage or mostly commercials" person when I had Dish, and don't miss it at all.

Probably the reason, a poor one, that I still have cable. 57 channels and nothing on vs. 400 and nothing on. Aside, I have the roku + sling tv at the rental. $27/mo for orange and $45ish for orange+blue. Might be worth a look.

 

[nakedfrog]

Probably the reason, a poor one, that I still have cable. 57 channels and nothing on vs. 400 and nothing on. Aside, I have the roku + sling tv at the rental. $27/mo for orange and $45ish for orange+blue. Might be worth a look.

Between YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, if I can't find something to watch, the problem is with me and I should probably just turn off the TV

 

[Mayne]

get a shit ass computer..redacted piracy comments

end of story


Advocating piracy isn't allowed on these forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Read the TV Guide you don't need a TV

 

[Rifter]

Just find a good IPTV provider with a few days of catchup for most of the good channels and you are set.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

get a shit ass computer..redacted piracy comments
end of story

Pretty much this. Maybe get a Google Chromecast and Plex TV so you can cast it from your Computer at the TV.



That reminds me, in the back of my closet I still have an old Suprnova.org t-shirt. Classic times.



Advocating piracy is not allowed on these forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[highland145]

So...football season? I'd give rudeguy's left nut for good coverage.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The issue with these streaming devices is that the servers that provide content are constantly being shut down, so something that was there one day might not be there the next. It's kind of a mish mash of random sources and it's YMMV as far as quality of the feed.

I'm more old school and like to just torrent and have stuff locally. Then I just browse through my local list of stuff when I want to watch something and I know it will be there all the time even if my internet happens to be down.

For some things like sports or other live events you're probably mostly at the mercy of cable though. Like those stream boxes may or may not work for a particular game and you don't really want to be troubleshooting that in the middle of a big game.

 

[Perknose]

So...football season? I'd give rudeguy's left nut for good coverage.

Check out YouTube TV. I'm still stuck on cable but, for football, they have ESPN, ESPN2, CBS Sports Network, Fox Sports1 and 2, plus, crucially in my area, the two local Pro sports network channels. Your area may vary.

Except for not having the NFL network, that pretty much covers pro football. Plus, for other sports they feature the SEC Network, Golf channel, Tennis channel, MLB network, Olympic Channel, Big Ten Network, NBA TV, and TBS/TNT.

And they have a cloud DVR with unlimited storage and simultaneous recordings. No idea how well it works. $50/mo, I think, for 70 channels that covers everything but the big premium ones like HBO and Showtime. I heartily suggest you be the guinea pig and report back!

 

[Newfangle9]

I used to use netflix and amazon and just pick something to watch, but this week, i'm all about the Criterion channel
https://www.criterionchannel.com/

I had forgotten about the Criterion channel. I used to watch it some when it was offered as part of Hulu. I gave up on cable a few years ago. Between Netflicks, Prime, Hulu, and Youtube I have no trouble finding things to watch. Youtube has been taking most of my time lately and I don't mind paying a small monthly fee to watch ad free. I don't pay for the other package, no need for me.

 

[ondma]

I dropped Cable and subscribed to DirecTV Now. It is about 40 bucks per month, not a bad deal. You can watch live TV and there is a rudimentary DVR function as well. Since it is internet based, you can watch anywhere from a computer or even a phone. Only works with Chrome though. Probably would drop it and stream entirely, but over the air TV does not come in well in our house with an antenna.
You can add premium channels like Showtime or HBO for about 15.00 per month each.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I just scan Netflix and Amazon to watch something. Commercials on TV and them "recapping" what I just saw 3 minutes ago gets old real fast.

Was on a united flight and they had directtv. Tried to watch a show about building houses off grid but less than 1/4 of the time was them building it. Mostly commercials, them talking about what they want to do, and then re-capping what they did right before the commercial. Why do people watch this, let alone pay someone for the "luxury" to watch it?

My sister watches like all of that shit, and all of the horrible CBS shit, and a bunch of other shit. She told me one time its because she doesn't have to think about it. Add in that her fiancee turns on ALL of that image processing shit on modern TVs (which gives me a headache), and there's no way I could stand watching TV with them.

 

[darkswordsman17]

The issue with these streaming devices is that the servers that provide content are constantly being shut down, so something that was there one day might not be there the next. It's kind of a mish mash of random sources and it's YMMV as far as quality of the feed.

I'm more old school and like to just torrent and have stuff locally. Then I just browse through my local list of stuff when I want to watch something and I know it will be there all the time even if my internet happens to be down.

For some things like sports or other live events you're probably mostly at the mercy of cable though. Like those stream boxes may or may not work for a particular game and you don't really want to be troubleshooting that in the middle of a big game.

What in the hell are you talking about? Oh, you're talking about those boxes people buy that streams torrents. Yeah, not even remotely the same thing.

 

[darkswordsman17]

OP, its a bit of a chore, but the best way to use Netflix to just go through and add stuff you think might be interesting to watch and add it to your queue (or whatever they call their particular thing), and then when you want to watch something scroll through that first. And give it some time so that their algorithm has stuff to base recommendations on. Its a hassle but it helps (it can be negative at times though in that there's been some instances where I liked something but it didn't get suggested to me because of the algorithm and so it didn't show up until I searched for it specifically).

Roku is nice in that I believe you can search from the main page and it'll show you where you can access what you want to watch instead of searching each one. But not sure how much it might help you if you just like to browse.

Some other options: Vudu (they have some free streaming), Crackle, Tubi, Shout/Scream Factory. There will be some overlap in content but there's also usually some that is only on one at a time (you might see it cycle through them though).

If you like live TV type setup more then you can choose between Sling, YouTubeTV, Playstation Vue, DirecTV Now, Apple just rolled out a new service (not entirely sure its the LiveTV style and you'd probably need Apple stuff anyway). Not sure if any others require specific hardware (or won't work on you Roku). Some have DVR capability so its not really any hassle.

Depending on what you like, I'm sure people could suggest TV shows to check out.

 

[Exterous]

Check out YouTube TV. I'm still stuck on cable but, for football, they have ESPN, ESPN2, CBS Sports Network, Fox Sports1 and 2, plus, crucially in my area, the two local Pro sports network channels. Your area may vary.

Except for not having the NFL network, that pretty much covers pro football. Plus, for other sports they feature the SEC Network, Golf channel, Tennis channel, MLB network, Olympic Channel, Big Ten Network, NBA TV, and TBS/TNT.

And they have a cloud DVR with unlimited storage and simultaneous recordings. No idea how well it works. $50/mo, I think, for 70 channels that covers everything but the big premium ones like HBO and Showtime. I heartily suggest you be the guinea pig and report back!

HuluTV offers pretty much the same thing but instead of unlimited DVR you get 50 hours although you also get access to their regular Hulu offerings. I used it for football last season and it worked pretty well. Occasionally it would drop down in quality but was usually fine. I was a little concerned about how well they would do with the Super Bowl but they had zero problems handling that. The only thing I don't like about them is the DVR isn't always able to fast forward through commercials - but that seems to vary by channel if not show

 

[soulcougher73]

So...football season? I'd give rudeguy's left nut for good coverage.

I just tune into FOX, NBC, CBS, ABS over an antenna to pick up the local pro football team each Sunday. Plus a slew of other games. On a typical weekend i can watch maybe 4 or 5 NFL games for free, including the local one which is always aired.

 

[highland145]

I just tune into FOX, NBC, CBS, ABS over an antenna to pick up the local pro football team each Sunday. Plus a slew of other games. On a typical weekend i can watch maybe 4 or 5 NFL games for free, including the local one which is always aired.

I must live in a dead spot. Bought one of those flat letter paper sized ones. $25 and it sucked. Bought a highly rated $65 one...8 channels and 4 of those I'd never heard of. No fox, cbs. Not interested in putting one on the roof.

Hell, it's only $$ anyway, right? Cable Life.