Online tv question

[mrmikey]

I find Youtube to be much more interesting and available then what the networks are offering.

Yup, gotta agree there, ditched my cable/ad tv well over a year ago and don't miss it in the least. I watch Youtube videos 90% of the time, mainly on my TV, get an occasional 30 second commercial which I don't mind and you're good to go.
I gave up when the commercials were getting to be as long as the shows and then when the show came back on it was a 2-3 minute recap like you'd forget in that length of time. Then if you missed the show, you could watch it again 6 times during the day, and I was paying for this crap, not no more ....................Mike

 

[Dftodd]

I’m not familiar with the Firestick. Why is it superior over Roku?

We've had both roku and just recently switched to the firestick.

Both have similar content. But the firestick seems more refined.

Our local cable just switched about 8 months ago to an online app and streaming instead of a box and DVR setup. So no more renting equipment.

On roku, fast forwarding a recording on the TV app, the picture would freeze, all you see is the minute counter on the progress bar.

So if you were skipping commercials, sometimes you would end up missing some of your program, and then have to rewind.

Slow and clunky moving the cursor when on the TV guide. Wouldn't give you program description of the show you highlighted unless you clicked on it which brought you to a new screen.

Roku was easier to set up the apps you want or need. While setting it up online, it actually asked if you had a paid TV plan. You could then type the name of the app in the search bar, select it, and it popped right up in your apps on the rocku stick when it booted up.

Fire TV app, cursor works as expected, scroll down to a show and it automatically lists a description of the show in a small box directly under the title you highlighted. Fastforwarding actually shows the picture so you can see exactly when you get to the end of the commercials.

Fire stick was harder to add apps. Couldn't find our TV app even though I knew that it was available for fire stick. They only list the most popular and good luck searching with the remote to find it. I finally hit the voice command option on the remote and asked for that app and it brought it up.

 

[Oaktree]

Why would anyone want to watch what is offered on TV for now. Its in its last little bit of relevance. I find Youtube to be much more interesting and available then what the networks are offering. TV is dead, old tech, that can not compete with the old system.

Matter of opinion. Other than the occasional old music videos, I don't see a lot worth watching on Youtube either.

 

[nybirdman]

We have Direct Tv for 25 years or so,they just kept raising the price ,last bill was $182.00.As soon as we got high speed internet we went with a FireStick(3) like it.Lots cheaper and more bang for the buck.
Only problem I found was the FireStick gets loaded after a while and had to do a factory reset;since it has been fine.

 

[PILOON]

"Did they change something? Last time I tried to set up a new Gmail account (within the past year), they required a cell #. It would not let you set up an account without one, nor would it accept a landline #. Some BS about "so we know you're really you" or something like that.
I Googled ways to try and circumvent that, but none of them worked."

I also ran into that yesterday when I wanted to register onto an major online auction site.
No cell reception where I live unless I drive up the hill. Giving my home bell # did not work either, the reply was that it could not confirm me. (I've had that # for over 30 years)

Hopefully with the mega $$'s being spent on rural internet we'll soon be high speed 'on line'.
They say so, but I'll believe it when I see it. They claim 'by Sept'.

 

[fishdrivel]

I subscribe to Amazon Prime because we order stuff a lot.
Prime Video is just icing on the cake. Lots of good stuff for someone who does not watch TV that much.

 

[RalphVa]

I am a retired electrical engineer, but not up to speed on modern electronic devices; for instance, I have no idea how to download an "app."

I am trying to figure out how to stream tv programs. I have a smart tv, but the controller lists only a few sources, none of which I think I want. What do I need to be able to do that?

I've a Roku gizmo that plugs into one of the HTML plugs on the TV and accesses Wifi. You have to sign up on one of its many "apps" like Sling, Hulu, Disney, etc. to get TV on it Actually, to get local stations, I use something like rabbit ears. Get about 20 channels that way. Might be able to get network TV on one of the apps. I use Roku mostly to get ESPN on Sling.

For Roku, you pay $30-50 once for the gizmo. For Sling, Hulu, Disney, you pay monthly around $30.

 

[reb]

Think I have figured it out. Ordered a Firestick the other day. Will order Youtube TV or something else in a few days. Got fed up with satellite TV and cancelled it last week.

I agree with some of the earlier posts about the quality of TV programming. Because SWMBO is a TV addict, I have no choice.

 

[fishdrivel]

Think I have figured it out. Ordered a Firestick the other day. Will order Youtube TV or something else in a few days. Got fed up with satellite TV and cancelled it last week.

I agree with some of the earlier posts about the quality of TV programming. Because SWMBO is a TV addict, I have no choice.

Remember to use your free trials. You may like or dislike any of them based on your expectations and conditions.

 

[sd455dan]

Depending on how new the TV is.... cell phone can be used to "cast" to a smart TV with no other devices - at least watching youtube on my phone there is an an icon that is displayed in the video that is a wireless symbol in the corner of a rectangle. You can have the phone search for devices to cast to. Worth a try
Also want to have unlimited data on the phone plan for this.

 

[Jstpssng]

"Did they change something? Last time I tried to set up a new Gmail account (within the past year), they required a cell #. It would not let you set up an account without one, nor would it accept a landline #. Some BS about "so we know you're really you" or something like that.
I Googled ways to try and circumvent that, but none of them worked."

I also ran into that yesterday when I wanted to register onto an major online auction site.
No cell reception where I live unless I drive up the hill. Giving my home bell # did not work either, the reply was that it could not confirm me. (I've had that # for over 30 years)

Hopefully with the mega $$'s being spent on rural internet we'll soon be high speed 'on line'.
They say so, but I'll believe it when I see it. They claim 'by Sept'.

I had something similar a few years ago when trying to get a CC through my local bank. They said "The postal service doesn't recognize your street address"...
Why do they think I have a PO box? The irony is that my road name is so unique that typing it into a search engine either gives "No Results" or finds me without typing in town and state.

 

[PILOON]

I had something similar a few years ago when trying to get a CC through my local bank. They said "The postal service doesn't recognize your street address"...
Why do they think I have a PO box? The irony is that my road name is so unique that typing it into a search engine either gives "No Results" or finds me without typing in town and state.

Probably due to modern search software
Things like using St vs Street, St, Ste or Saint (Sainte) would throw off many searches.
You need to be precise and hope the software is equally well programed with the common variants.

 

[EddieWalker]

When my Dish bill went up to $140 a month, I decided it was time to make a change. My wife had already bought a Roku, but neither of us knew what to do with it, or how it worked. It just sat there for several months. I bought an antenna for local channels and that's been really good. We have 3 towers. One is close by, just North of us, the others are 30 miles away, kind of to the South. At first, we got 13 channels from those towers. Now we're over 30 channels with a few that are kind of decent, but mostly we just watch the main networks for local news and evening shows.

The Roku allowed us to pick and chose what we wanted to watch for a lot less money. Prime and Netflix have a few good shows, so we pay for that. Philo is probably my favorite App. It has all the cable channels that we watched, and it's really nice to favorite a show and then watch every episode, from season 1, all the way to the end. Currently, we're enjoying Master Chef. We just finished season 5, so there is a lot more to watch. The other thing that we like is being able to watch a show that is coming on that evening, after it starts and not miss anything. Oak Island comes on at 8 pm, but if it's nice outside, we might be sitting on our back porch with a fire going until 830. Whenever we decide to go in, we can start watching the show from the beginning. It no longer matters when we turn it on. I guess that we have about 2 dozen shows that we have favorited, so there is always something to watch that we enjoy. The other good thing is that if we try a new show and it's not any good, who cares, we just move on to something else.

I watch YouTube for free. I can't see any advantage to paying for it. Most of the time I click on something, it's horrible and I switch to something else. I have to wait for the commercials to end, but I use the Mute button and wait to get through them without too much pain. Most of the videos that I watch are on Mute anyway.

Our Wi-Fi is OK. My wife can do Zoom meetings and we can watch most shows, but we've found that all her Apple devises have to be turned on is it's an older show, or sometimes, just because. Older shows seem to require more bandwidth. My guess is that they are not digital in the same way that a new show is, but that doesn't make sense to me, so I'm just guessing. Once we have all our devices turned off, we rarely get any buffering.

 

[Oaktree]

I had something similar a few years ago when trying to get a CC through my local bank. They said "The postal service doesn't recognize your street address"...

I've never seen a road that wasn't recognized, but around here there are plenty of the opposite situation...a long-abandoned road that still shows up on maps. One near me hasn't been in use since the late 1800s, it's RoW is used as a snowmobile trail in the winter, but is so wet as to be impassible any other time of year. It is possible that it was never officially abandoned, not sure on that.
When I was a kid we had several neighbors who had long driveways that got plowed by the town since they were once considered town roads and never de-certified. I don't recall the town handling any other maintenance on them though, just snow plowing.

One thing I sometimes have problems with on on-line orders (usually smaller companies) is that my zip code is not unique to my town...2 or 3 others share it. Some on-line order forms balk at the town name, insisting on using the town the post office is in. Not a huge deal, since I seem to get stuff so-addressed anyway, but still these databases should know this.

 

[Dftodd]

I've never seen a road that wasn't recognized, but around here there are plenty of the opposite situation...a long-abandoned road that still shows up on maps. One near me hasn't been in use since the late 1800s, it's RoW is used as a snowmobile trail in the winter, but is so wet as to be impassible any other time of year. It is possible that it was never officially abandoned, not sure on that.
When I was a kid we had several neighbors who had long driveways that got plowed by the town since they were once considered town roads and never de-certified. I don't recall the town handling any other maintenance on them though, just snow plowing.

One thing I sometimes have problems with on on-line orders (usually smaller companies) is that my zip code is not unique to my town...2 or 3 others share it. Some on-line order forms balk at the town name, insisting on using the town the post office is in. Not a huge deal, since I seem to get stuff so-addressed anyway, but still these databases should know this.

My street wasn't recognized until a week before Thanksgiving on Google maps or wave (New housing development)

Postal service and the big shipping services knew the street though.

When the street did finally pop up, Google maps had our house listed on the retention pond around the corner, and the retention pond listed as a cul-de-sac. Even shows a dead end street going through someone's yard

 

[BigBlue1]

I switched from DirecTV to YouTube TV two years ago. Back then it was only $49.99/mo. Not too many months later they increased it to $65. That sucked. But it is a good platform for TV viewing.

As noted above, an Amazon Fire TV stick is a great device to use for streaming. Decent interface and simple remote. If you wait for a sale the 4K version can be had for under $30. Much more useful than the interface and app ecosystem on most smart TVs. Once you have a device like the Fire stick or Roku stick you then use it to download/launch any apps you want to get content from. Such as: YouTube TV, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBOMax, Hulu, etc, etc. Some are free (like YouTube) and some require subscriptions. You get to choose.

Ultimately I don't know that I spend much less today on video than I did with DirecTV (or Comcast before that) but I do have more control now. However, I still wish everything would be a la carte so I could pay for only the channels on YouTube TV that I want. I regularly use fewer than 6 channels out of the ??? they offer.

I'd also note that if you don't have a decent ISP with a good, reliable connection your streaming experience will be an unhappy one. You don't need a super fast connection, just a reliable one. We made do streaming Netflix on a sub-5Mb/s DSL connection for a year before I got something faster. Also, you'll want a very solid wifi connection from your TV/device to the router. If you have the router on one end of the house and the TV on the other even if you have a great ISP you may still have a crappy streaming experience. Consider getting a mesh wifi system to do a better job with wifi coverage if needed.

Rob

 

[PILOON]

It is getting so that we need Add Blockers to watch TV now.

Some channels are getting as bad as my computer B4 I installed my add blocking program.

Very thank full that we record and have fast forward.

 

[BigBlue1]

That's one nice thing about YouTube TV... you can fast-forward through all the ads. Still a pain, but not as much of a pain as having to sit through them.

 

[kcflhrc]

I looked up Youtube TV, it was like $65. Wow, that's pricey, that's really no savings over cable, at least by me.

Used to be $50 when it first came out. I agree, $65 a month isn't much if any savings over basic satellite service with local channels. Plus the interface is cumbersome. I like my Dish Network and on site DVR.

 

[EddieWalker]

Does YouTube TV have other channels or is it just YouTube without advertisement? I tried watching the free version last night, but never got through more then five minutes of anything I looked at. I was wanting to see how people handle and catch their goats, but almost everything I found was more of a rodeo then actually having something built that simplifies this and makes it safe. There is so much nothingness on YouTube, that it's sometimes hard for me to even bother looking for something that I'm curious about on there.