Streaming sticks vs internet ready TV
- Thread starter Opsimath
- Start date
HeyMikey
Enlightened Member
Like Frono we used to connect with a cable from our laptop to the TV. It was a PITA. I finally got sick of my kids telling me to get out of the dark ages, broke down and bought that Roku thing-a-ma-gig. When I turned it on it was like strumming a Guild 12-string for the very first time.
Last edited:
You haven't lived until you've had to cut buttons off your 90-year-old mom's universal cable remote with a pocket knife to stop her from messing up the settings... Well, actually, you've lived much better. 
I still can't get my mom off the cable box but I will not miss throwing that crap out someday.
I still can't get my mom off the cable box but I will not miss throwing that crap out someday.
fronobulax
Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
- Joined
- May 3, 2007
- Messages
- 24,761
- Reaction score
- 8,893
- Location
- Central Virginia, USA
- Guild Total
- 5
Check her bill or terms of service. If we throw it out and don't return the set top box we're on the hook for a couple hundred bucks. Kind of make me wish I has an equipment rental business on the side.
Oh, yeah... I'll happily return it all when I cancel her service down the road, Jamie. I was just being colloquial.
HeyMikey
Enlightened Member
Exactly. The cable company will likely make you jump through a few hoops to cancel, but I recall it was pretty easy to return my box to a UPS store.
^ I haven't had that problem before when cancelling, Mike, but I'm the one who pays her bills so good luck to them coming after my mom's estate eventually if I have trouble cancelling.
silverfox103
Senior Member
Hi Cynthia
If you are happy with the antenna channels with the antenna, that's where I would stay.
I can remember when we first got cable, we lived between two towns, cable was not available to us. That was, until one of the towns reception had issues. So, they had to physically run a new cable from one town to the other.
One day I noticed the cable lineman, running the cable right by or place, I told them when they went by my house, drop a line to us. This was in northern NH, we had 2 stations and when the leaves dropped we had 3. This was the days before small dishes only the gigantic ones, about 40 years ago. I think the bill was $8 per month, tons of stations. We thought we died and went heaven. Boy were my kids happy.
Fast forward about 35 years, I'm sick of cable, I know we're getting hosed. So, after 5 years of working up the courage to cut cable, I did. We went to YouTube TV. I like it a lot better than cable.
I think we were paying about $85 for cable and YouTube TV started at $38, now it is $72. But don't be fooled as they force feed you all the stations that you never watch.
Tom
West R Lee
Venerated Member
This is what we did with all 4 TV's about 6 months ago. I'm getting used to it. We had no choice though, as our cable provider gave notice that everyone would be required to do this by the end of '23. If we did it 6 months ago, we not only got a price break on the monthly bill, our provider gave us $50 towards the Roku sticks. my guess is they didn't want to face a million issues at once at the end of the year.
West
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2009
- Messages
- 23,091
- Reaction score
- 18,757
- Location
- NJ (The nice part)
- Guild Total
- 112
They told you that you had to buy a Roku?
Most people buy Rokus so they can ditch cable.
fronobulax
Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
- Joined
- May 3, 2007
- Messages
- 24,761
- Reaction score
- 8,893
- Location
- Central Virginia, USA
- Guild Total
- 5
A long time ago the cable franchise was a monopoly awarded by the local government and regulated by the local government. Fast forward and I can certainly imagine a cable company wanting to withdraw or scale back in a local market and permission to do so being contingent on helping customers find alternatives. "Buy a Roku stick" solves the problem.
West R Lee
Venerated Member
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2009
- Messages
- 23,091
- Reaction score
- 18,757
- Location
- NJ (The nice part)
- Guild Total
- 112
No GAD, they gave us a choice between a few of them. Don't ask me what the others were, Mrs. West takes care of those things.
West
Oh wow so they want to only provide Internet and get you to stream content over that. Interesting.
West R Lee
Venerated Member
I guess it's something like that GAD. The one thing I can assure you is that I am the least tech savvy guy on this forum, but that sounds about right. Seriously. my wife knows far more than I do about our provider.........she pays them, and she fights it out with them.
They also provide phone and internet as well as cable TV via fiber. The only other thing I can tell you is that my software engineer son was blown away 12 or 14 years ago to discover we had fiber out here in the middle of nowhere, but that was for good reason. At the time, ETEX was a relatively new provider, so when doing new installs to country neighborhoods, they laid fiber optic. My son lived in Austin at the time, and couldn't believe we had it out here. Other than that, he's commented about how "fast" it is. We're 5 miles from the nearest town of 5000 people.West
Last edited:
Opsimath
Senior Member
Thank you, everyone. Leaning toward a Roku. I almost never watch TV but husband might enjoy some variety. Right now he watches a channel with old TV reruns and movies. More options would be good.