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I used to be a big Kodi fanboy, but I don't even use it anymore. I ended up wanting to access the same media on multiple devices, while do-able with Kodi (barely), its a kludge to setup and maintain. So I have a little Core i3 box sitting in my office that runs nothing but Plex Server and holds all my media. Which in turn is accessed by multiple Roku 3s and a ShieldTV box. Everything just works. No dicking around with UPNP, setting up a SQL database, etc..
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Jan 15, 2016 19:44
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Call Me Charlie posted:
Yeah, that works, but its not complete. You cannot add uPnP sources to the actual library in Kodi, as they would be with a local or SQL setup. You have to go to Video/Files to access it. It also doesn't sync watch status or play position.
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Jan 15, 2016 21:12
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blugu64 posted:Vue on Roku isn't great, but it sucks a bit less then sling. Plus you get the app sign ins. Sling recently redid their Roku app.. It's a hell of a lot faster and stable now. The Vue app uses the legacy Roku libraries, which lets someone get a video app going quickly as possible, but with limited functionality and somewhat dated looking interface. And a tidbit I found interesting... There are 2 different ways to write channels for Roku. Sticking entirely with standard interface objects, which means you get a limited set of functionality, but you can get a working channel out the door quickly. Which is why many Roku channels have similar dated looking interfaces, and is exactly what Vue has done. Or write everything custom; you get much better functionality and can do whatever you want with the interface, but it takes a lot more effort to get a working channel. This is the route Sling, Netflix, and Plex have taken. stevewm fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Sep 27, 2016 |
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Sep 27, 2016 18:36
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Fuzz posted:I wish Sling's interface was less poo poo on Roku. Who is the dumbshit that thought it was a good setup vs the standard style channel guide that literally everyone else uses? So dumb. Agreed.. It's not the best interface. But it's not just Roku... Sling's interface is the same across all of their platforms. Though on some platforms it is so slow and laggy to be almost unusable. (XBox One is particularly bad)
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Nov 21, 2016 22:39
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TheScott2K posted:Hulu on the Xbox One is such a piece of poo poo I use a Chromecast plugged into the HDMI passthrough instead. I can watch one episode on it and basically have to reboot the app for it to be able to talk to Hulu's servers again. To be fair, all the Xbox One streaming apps suck IMO.
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Feb 17, 2017 20:57
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TheScott2K posted:So Cable With Buffering on YouTube. Alright. The YouTube apps I've used don't have what I'd consider a great interface for this, but we'll see. I thought Hulu's Cable With Buffering would have been out by now. Buffering... You poor saps and your lovely internet.  I've had 1Gbit fiber for just over a year now. The concept of buffering/loading simply does not exist to me anymore. Sling changes "channels" faster than the POS cable box I used to have did.Agreed on the YouTube interface bit however.. They are going to need a massive interface overhaul for something like this to be worthwhile. I simply could not imagine using the existing YouTube TV/streamer box interfaces for channel surfing. They are clunky enough if you have more than a handful of subscriptions. I couldn't imagine 40+ channels of livestreams.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:33
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Annual Prophet posted:Thanks to everyone for the FireTV / shield interface discussion upthread. I wound up getting a FireTV and so far it seems to be a massive improvement over the Roku, both in general and (especially) for PS Vue. That is pretty much par for the course with all things Roku. They are quickly falling behind. From what I understand developing on Roku is a bit difficult anyways if you want a nice interface, and the relatively slow hardware likely doesn't help matters. IMHO, Android TV/FireTV and AppleTV are moving ahead, Roku just seems to be coasting along.
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May 28, 2017 07:52
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386-SX 25Mhz VGA posted:Kind of curious, has anybody else become incapable of watching commercials years after cord cutting? I cannot look directly at a TV playing a commercial for more than 5-10 seconds before something short-circuits in my head and makes me look away, I've been wondering whether this is just me. Same here. If I am watching actual TV somewhere, I'll either turn it off, or change the channel soon as one comes on. Was at my parents house recently when they were watching The Walking Dead.. I simply cannot believe how much there is now. Out of curiosity I timed it. There were just over 3.5 minutes of show then followed by 5 minutes of commercials. The next segment lasted slightly over 4 minutes, before yet another 5 minutes of commercials. With the sheer amount of commercials the episode itself couldn't have been more than 40 minutes long. They live in a only slightly rural area, but have no broadband access whatsoever. So its either satellite TV or nothing.
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Jul 5, 2017 14:57
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CygnusTM posted:The YouTube client on AppleTV sucks. If YouTube is important to you, go with Roku or FireTV. IIRC, the Youtube "app" on Roku is just a wrapper around youtube.com/tv. And combined with Roku's anemic hardware compared to other platforms, it makes for a craptacular experience. Its also important to note that the FireTV "app" is also a wrapper for youtube.com/tv, however it seems to be a bit more stable and faster compared to Roku. (well at least it used to be, it's been awhile since I used the FireTV platform) Out of all the ones I've used, I still say the AndroidTV Youtube client as used on the Shield and other Android TV boxen is the least lovely of all of them. It is the Android YouTube app with the "leanback" interface. Not just a wrapper for a website. The Youtube For AndroidTV app can also be sideloaded onto the FireTV, but I believe it requires root and all that.. I am a huge Youtube nerd, so I ended up going for all Android TV boxes. 1 Shield and 2 Nexus Players.
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Jul 5, 2017 15:43
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bull3964 posted:That's only true if the app maker does a custom interface. A lot of the Roku apps use standard Roku frameworks which means pretty simple designs. And if a developer does do a custom interface, it is in a language and framework that is unique to Roku. At least on AndroidTV and AppleTV, developers already familiar with Android and iOS development can more easily transition into writing a app for those platforms.
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Jul 24, 2017 21:32
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Neon Belly posted:The Roku remote turns on/off a few of the window units in my house You really don't need the pro model.. If you are using the in-built Plex server, it can read media off a USB attached disk just fine.
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Jul 25, 2017 14:39
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Neon Belly posted:I just noticed that the Shield hasn't seen a hardware update since 2014. If buying one isn't urgent, is it worth waiting for some kind of refresh? Assuming you mean Shield TV? A Gen 2 was actually released earlier this year. Though it has the same processor and video as the Gen 1. It is smaller than the Gen 1, and ships with a "cheapened" remote. Even today the Shield TV is still one of the fastest devices running Android TV, or even Android itself for that matter. The majority of changes and improvements over the device's lifetime have been in software, which is the same for both the Gen 1 and Gen 2.
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Jul 26, 2017 20:52
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I've seen a few of the recent Roku TVs. It sounds like a good idea, but best I can tell some manufactuers are sticking Gen 1 Roku Stick hardware in them. Every one I've used has been much slower than my 3 year old Roku 3. My next door neighbor has one of the 4k TCL Roku TVs. The main menu is OK, but apps like YouTube and Plex are slow. YouTube in particular is bad. If you cast a YouTube video to it, it takes well over 30 seconds to load YouTube and start playing the video. Sometimes it takes so long the casting device times out and gives up. Some updates have made it better, but I get the impression they are at the limit of what the hardware can do.
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Jul 27, 2017 16:39
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Croatoan posted:Right but I literally got only local. It's like this: But if you add TV to the package, then they get to tack on a bunch of extra fees that go along with the TV service, and also depending on the locale, new taxes come into play. So with internet only, your bill may be exactly $75.. (At least in my state of Indiana, there is no sales tax on Internet service) But with TV added, it is likely to read like this: Internet + TV: $65 TV Franchise Fee: $5 TV Regulatory Recovery Fee: $2.50 Digital Adapter/Set top box Fee: $5 Local Broadcast Franchise Fee: $10 State Sales Tax: $7 Actual bill: $94.50 Edit: I was burnt this way before. I thought it sounded like a better deal too, but then failed to realize the additional fees and crap for the TV part wiped out any savings. stevewm fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Aug 17, 2017 |
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Aug 17, 2017 18:56
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I've not had cable in so long, I actually get mildly angry when I am somewhere that does have it and ads come on. I happened to be at my parents one time as they where watching The Walking Dead... I couldn't believe how often they went to commercial.. 4 minutes of show, 5 minutes of ads. Rinse/repeat. The show itself couldn't have been longer than 40 minutes. And I don't understand why some channels run so many self promotions. Especially promotions for the show you are currently watching, or would be watching if they weren't currently running a commercial for it.
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Feb 2, 2018 15:34
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Don Lapre posted:OTA isn't uncompressed.  OTA ATSC provides for ~18Mbit of usable bandwidth using MPEG-2 per channel. The broadcaster is free to split it up as they see fit, though I would imagine many allocate most of it to the main program, which is why subchannels are usually 480p/i. Come to think of it I don't think I have ever seen a subchannel in HD. H.264 is also part of the standard now, but I don't think any OTA broadcaster in the US is using it, nor do many likely have the hardware capable of receiving H.264 over ATSC.
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Feb 5, 2018 20:44
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I've gotten pretty lucky with "off-brand" TVs... Bought a 50" Sceptre branded TV from a friend a while ago.. I swear this thing has the best drat panel I have ever seen in a TV. Contrast is fantastic, colors pop, etc... I also just bought a TCL branded 55" 4k Roku TV (last years model) from the same friend over the weekend. (he is a gadget fiend, always buying new TVs, phones, etc...) Its non-HDR, and only 60hz panel... but its great. Perfectly even backlight, excellent contrast, colors where almost over-saturated; reminded me a bit of my OLED phone.. Had to turn them down a bit. Both of the no-name TVs are better in every way than the much more expensive Vizio's my parents just bought a year ago. Both of them look like Vizio used the shittest TN panel they could find; terrible contrast and backlight bleed like a laptop from 1995.
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May 21, 2018 18:08
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8-bit Miniboss posted:Been using it since it was in the preview program and I really like it personally. I think it's a great upgrade. The Nexus player got it slightly over a year ago. Not a fan of it, but at least most apps seem to support it now. When it came out on the NP, no apps supported it, so all you got was empty thumbnails next to every app. I wish some of the apps had more "channels" though. I kinda like the Youtube app showing subscriptions, but it doesn't show them in order 
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Jun 29, 2018 16:34
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Croatoan posted:I thought about that the other day. I really do love my TV viewing experience so much now that I don't have commercials really. You just have to get used to picking what you want to watch instead of letting the TV spoon feed you. If in the rare occasion I do want to have mindless background noise going on, OTA or UKTV are great. I am the same way now having dropped my cable 3.5 years ago. I really can't stand to watch regular broadcast TV anymore. And there are so many mindless background noise options now. I did install a attic mount antenna and a HDHomeRun about a year ago, and I honestly don't know why I even bothered. I haven't actually used the thing more than 20 minutes total in that time. Is it bad one of the primary reasons I bought my current home is because the entire town was served by fiber? (and 1 Gigabit fiber at that!)
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Jan 24, 2019 17:11
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thrawn527 posted:Related news, since this thread is largely about how to stream, but Samsung is going to stop manufacturing Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray players, leading people to think that the age of the Blu-ray will be coming to an end soon. My cousin still owns and operates a independent video rental store (yes, they still exist!) in my hometown. He has never really had a demand for BluRay at all. DVD still dominates by far. He will generally buy 10-15 DVD copies of a new release movie, and maybe 1-2 of BluRay. All the DVD copies will rent out, and there could still be 2 BluRay copies sitting on the shelf. Based on what I have seen, most people don't care or possibly even know what BluRay is. He used to mix BluRay in with DVDs, but ran into a lot of issues with people renting them and complaining they wouldn't work on their DVD player. So BluRays where moved to their own small corner with a sign above it saying a BluRay player is required. Even games (xbox 360, One, PS4, etc) rent out more than BluRay.
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Feb 27, 2019 15:44
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Ixian posted:Certain amount of selection bias going on there though, given that it's only a measure of BDs popularity among people who still rent physical media. Certainly, won't argue that.
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Feb 27, 2019 16:03
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Iron Crowned posted:
When my cousin took ownership of his store in 2005 the inventory was nearly half-VHS and still rented.. This was also the year by which most of the major studios had stopped VHS releases. The old owners where still getting at least one VHS copy of any new release if it was available, right up to the end.
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Feb 27, 2019 18:47
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Empress Brosephine posted:I lived in rural as hell USA and never saw a VHS for sale after like 2003...dunno how y’all still had em until 2008 When my cousin took ownership in 05... they still had VCRs for RENT. I don't think they had actually been rented out in probably a decade... but they had them! I think he still has a couple of them sitting in the basement.
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Feb 27, 2019 20:47
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I feel like the movie industry is going through the same stages the music industry went through before finally giving in iTunes, Amazon, etc...
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Mar 4, 2019 15:02
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The article says the Amazon prime video app with become available on other Android TV devices. Yay!
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Apr 18, 2019 17:33
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My Dad wanted to get CBS All Access because he found out it lets you stream your local CBS affiliate so he could watch his precious NFL games. (they cant get a good enough signal for their local CBS over antenna). I discovered at least on the Roku platform, even though you enter your ZIP code and pick your local affiliate, the app will prioritize IP Geo-location and use it instead. So it picked one several states away with no way of overriding it. Que a 25 minute phone call to CBS All Access support on a Sunday afternoon. The agent I spoke with acted like they get this all the time.
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Sep 9, 2019 22:08
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8-bit Miniboss posted:I did consider the Fire TV remote but sounded like a pain to pair. It's not... For the current generation fire TV remote.. hold down the home key until the light on the remote flashes yellow. Scan for Bluetooth accessories on the shield. Pick the remote to pair with. Done.
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Oct 28, 2019 23:07
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8-bit Miniboss posted:Does voice work? Last I read it doesn't work correctly. Kinda... It works for assistant as the Amazon remote requires you to hold down the mic button to talk. If you use voice that is triggered by a on screen button, it doesn't work.
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Oct 29, 2019 11:25
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Croatoan posted:So I subscribed to Apple TV+ and the interface and smoothness of the Roku app is complete and total poo poo. Image quality is good but god it's slow and the interface is choppy as hell. I bet it runs smooth as hell on an Apple TV. This is pretty much the norm for Roku apps. It doesn't help that a lot of Roku devices, like those embedded in TVs, tend to be using quite slow hardware with limited memory. Even Roku's flagship device only has a 1.2Ghz ARM chip in it. It seems like every app that launches on Roku takes 2-3 iterations to actually reach decent usability. Developers have to take some time to optimize for the slower hardware. The AppleTV and ShieldTV are many, many times faster. I've always been disappointed in Roku platform performance as a whole. I bought my parents the newest 2018 Streaming Stick+ to replace their aging and slow Roku 3. It was not really any faster than the 3 in actual use!
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Nov 5, 2019 21:42
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It is interesting how we are coming full circle... People cutting streaming services and going back to cable because its cheaper....
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Dec 26, 2019 17:00
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Minidust posted:Man if they could offer YTTV without a million sports/disney channels and knock $15-20 off the price, The cable industry will never learn on this one.. History is just repeating itself. Most providers are required by the channel owner to carry other channels. So say your local cable provider (or YTTV) wants to carry the main Disney channel... Disney makes it a requirement for them to also carry all the other channels Disney owns, like ESPN for example (one of the most expensive channels). At least on traditional cable this is where a lot of junk channels come from. And it leads to high prices and constant price increases. The same thing seems to be happening to the streaming services now.
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Dec 27, 2019 17:31
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We've come full circle. Maybe the thread should be titled 'Cutting Streaming".
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Jul 1, 2020 21:24
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I pay $100 for 1000/500 fiber. I have Amazon Prime and Netflix 4k. So $123 per month I guess. Though streaming is not the reason I have Prime. Hell I rarely even use that part of it. My ISP is a little mom and pop fiber outfit. TV through them is EXPENSIVE. If I bundled in even their lowest cable package it would be $60 minimum and then the extra charges for the required IPTV box, local taxes, franchise fees, etc... would push it over $180 easy.
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Jul 1, 2020 21:38
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Iron Crowned posted:Peacock doesn't have Roku support Yep! Launch a new streaming platform that doesn't support arguably the most widespread of streaming devices? Makes perfect sense!
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Jul 15, 2020 17:39
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Three Olives posted:plus a HDTV surcharge LOL... I shouldn't be surprised that this is still a thing. An additional charge for HDTV.... in 2020. And the industry wonders why they are losing subscribers in droves.
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Oct 29, 2020 13:48
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Three Olives posted:It absolutely was a fee on AT&T U-Verse when I had it up until about a year ago. And the thing is, U-Verse is multicast and they didn't offer boxes that didn't have HDMI outputs. When my parents dumped Dish Network a year or so ago, they where still being charged an "HD Receiver" fee. And an additional fee for just having a receiver period. $25ish of the bill was just various add-on fees. They live in a rural area and just got access to broadband a little over a year ago. The minute it was installed my mother was on the phone canceling Dish.
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Oct 29, 2020 21:19
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EL BROMANCE posted:For travel, I always liked my Roku stick the most as it has a neat feature that lets you connect to hotel WiFi via your phone for when you have to deal with captive portal poo poo (the thing where the WiFi access point is open but doesn’t let you in until you go through a web interface and do things like type your room number etc), which from memory the Firestick can’t do. Something has changed with this as I recently discovered. I took my Firestick 4k with me on a business trip and was pleasantly surprised to find it recognize the hotel's captive portal and popup a browser window complete with mouse cursor mode so I could enter the access code.
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Dec 17, 2020 15:43
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TheScott2K posted:Y'all want to see some rough "HDTV" head over to my inlaws' house and watch some Dish Network on their 65-inch TV. Woof. Don't the satellite providers resize everything to like 1440x1080? I thought I remember hearing that Dish did that for HD content to save bandwidth...
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Mar 30, 2021 15:10
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Youtube Premium is $15 now?! I am still grandfathered in at the $9 rate. It is often free as most months my Google Opinion Rewards payouts cover it.
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Nov 15, 2021 16:36
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