Streaming, multi-show channels?

RatLabGuy

RatLabGuy

You look like a monkey and smell like one too
Joined
May 18, 2005
Location
Churchville, MD
We're working towards "cutting the cord", getting rid of cable.
Got an antenna, got a Roku3, setup w/ Netflix, HuluPlus etc.
We've had a couple of threads along this nature here recently.

All the content available through the Roku and the 4 bazzilion channels is amazing and plenty to keep us occupied... however one thing I've realized i that most of the time I watch TV, I'm not really turning it on to tune in to a particular show, but just to have it on in the background, and look up and watch something every now and then.
I don't necessarily care what's coming on next, and in fact like that I may not be familiar w/ what it is, or its something new. Like, I just put it on Velocity b/c I know there will be some kind of car shows. Yes, there's a lot of garbage but I've found some gems this way too, like Wheeler Dealers... I never would have specifically looked for that, but I've learned a lot watching it.

Anyway, it seems w/ Roku, Netflix etc you have to know what you're looking for, and select it... then it's just that thing. All on-demand.
Am I missing something, or is there any way to get actually programmed, streaming channels? I don't care if it's not live, I just don't always want to have to pick out what the next thing is I'm going to watch.

Or is this just a little too close to what cable TV is...
 
Use your antenna if your just looking for background. Never used roku so can't help with that, netflix is just on-demand as far as my experience goes. You could always just pick the next popular or recommended selection that you've not seen.
 
Have you seen the recent announcement for Sling Tv from Dish.
May hit the sweet spot.
 
Cutting the cord as well. :popcorn:

If I could add a question to this thread. What's worth it and what's not? i.e. Hulu, Roku, others? We have Netflix and the kids love it. But I would like to be able to get to a few up to date TV series.
 
For the most part, Netflix and Hulu Plus are "binge watching" or on-demand only. Netflix is developing their own content (and it's supposedly pretty good - I haven't watched anything yet). The Roku has some channels that are close to a true "streaming live TV", but mostly they require some action on your part every now and then if you want a video stream. They can stream audio live very well, though. Pandora will eventually ask you to verify that you are still listening.

Basically, what they are trying to eliminate is people streaming and forgetting it, hogging valuable bandwidth and nobody is paying attention to it. They want you to "ask" for the content.

That being said, I also have Plex on my Roku and have the Daily Show channel. I can always get yesterday's episode and can stream the archives as well in an instant. I love me some Jon Stewart.
 
mbalbritton said:
Cutting the cord as well. :popcorn:

If I could add a question to this thread. What's worth it and what's not? i.e. Hulu, Roku, others? We have Netflix and the kids love it. But I would like to be able to get to a few up to date TV series.
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For TV series, on Netflix, you will only get last season of any of the shows. I think Hulu Plus has more up to date TV programming, though. From my understanding, if you are more of a TV watcher, and like occasional movies, Hulu Plus is better. For a movie watcher that also likes to watch TV, Netflix is better. My friend has Amazon Prime because he accidentally signed up for it to get something shipped quicker, and he REALLY likes it. He also has Plex with a couple of Terabytes worth of movies saved, so between the two he can sit in front of the tube for months straight if he had the time.

I wish Netflix would publish a list of what they are currently streaming instead of always having to search for stuff. Their content rotates a lot too, so if you see it today, you better watch it today, because it might not be there tomorrow.
 
Rox&Mud said:
Use your antenna if your just looking for background. Never used roku so can't help with that, netflix is just on-demand as far as my experience goes. You could always just pick the next popular or recommended selection that you've not seen.
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Not looking for "completely random", antenna is OK if I just want the main networks but there's a lot being missed out on that way. I don't think there is a way to have it auto-start everything in the "popular" or whatever.

Ron said:
Have you seen the recent announcement for Sling Tv from Dish.
May hit the sweet spot.
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yeah saw that yesterday. Won't be released for a few months. unfortunately from what I've dug up, the channel selections for slingTV will be a bit limited/lame. But, i'm sure hoping thats the beginning of a new age.
mbalbritton said:
Cutting the cord as well. :popcorn:

If I could add a question to this thread. What's worth it and what's not? i.e. Hulu, Roku, others? We have Netflix and the kids love it. But I would like to be able to get to a few up to date TV series.
Click to expand...

We have found HuluPlus to be worthwhile. if you dig around there are 3 free month deals. LOTS of TV shows, both old and new... on Sat our kids started watching the whole old X-men cartoon series.
 
I'm looking to do the same thing. My wife is totally adverse to the idea though because she likes to listen to the spanish news channels (like Univision) while she's running around the house. I haven't yet figured out where to get these from so I can cut the cord - this is my only obstacle right now. Does Hulu plus or Roku have much spanish television programming? I've seen alot of the soap operas on Hulu Plus, but not sure about daily news.
 
All I use for TV is my Roku box now. I haven't missed cable one bit. There are tons of free as well as paid channels. There is a website you can go to and download private channels people create also. Pretty much anything you wanna watch is available on there if you just do a little digging around. I even have the history channel on mine but you need to link it to a directv account, but a friend let me use his account so that solved that problem for me.
 
FrontPorchFab said:
I'm looking to do the same thing. My wife is totally adverse to the idea though because she likes to listen to the spanish news channels (like Univision) while she's running around the house. I haven't yet figured out where to get these from so I can cut the cord - this is my only obstacle right now. Does Hulu plus or Roku have much spanish television programming? I've seen alot of the soap operas on Hulu Plus, but not sure about daily news.
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Pretty sure you can get univision over the air, and I think 1 other spanish station (at least here in Raleigh you can). I keep wanting to cut the cord, but I also like the random crap I watch on DirecTV. The upstairs TV though only has an antenna on it at our house. As Ron said too, the new dish offering where you can get ESPN is pretty sweet also.
 
j_dunn said:
I even have the history channel on mine but you need to link it to a directv account, but a friend let me use his account so that solved that problem for me.
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There is a History channel you can add free w/ most of their content, although it isn't live or immediate (e.g. Alaskan Offroad BS is a day late). Do you mean something else that gives the live stream?

On that note though... I do have friends w/ Comcast that might let me "borrow" their login info to "try out"...
 
DSM Turbos said:
Pretty sure you can get univision over the air, and I think 1 other spanish station (at least here in Raleigh you can).
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Not in the area, but I get 3 Spanish stations here. They are sub-stations of the primaries (e.g. 12.3).
 
I ain't sure about live stream with history channel. I haven't messed with it a whole lot. It wouldn't let me watch a lot of the shows without a linked cable provider account. But I'm happy with watching shows a day late as long as it saves me some money. That's how I watch the walking dead when the new shows come on. They come out the next day on roku for $2.99 per episode in HD and $1.99 per episode in SD.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Not in the area, but I get 3 Spanish stations here. They are sub-stations of the primaries (e.g. 12.3).
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Never really tried to watch it in Raleigh, so I am not sure if they are substations or the real thing. This list may be a little old and I know you can get more with a better antenna.

Raleigh-Durham's Digital TV Channels
  • 4.1UNC-TV a PBS Station based in Chapel Hill
  • 4.2 UNC-KD, PBS children's programming
  • 4.3 WUNC-NC, PBS programming for and about North Carolina
  • 5.1 WRAL-TV, Raleigh-Durham CBS station
  • 5.2 WRAL.2, shows This TV programming, which consists of movies and TV shows owned by MGM and United Artists Studios
  • 11.1 WTVD-DT, Raleigh-Durham's ABC TV affiliate
  • 11.2 WTVD-DT2, this channel shows ABC 11 news and weather reports as well as assorted other programming
  • 11.3 WTVD-DT3, ABC 11's Eyewitness News Channel shows news programming around the clock
  • 17.1 WNCN-DT, Raleigh-Durham's NBC TV affiliate, NBC 17
  • 17.2 WNCN-DT-2, this channel shows sports programming as well as infomercials
  • 22.1 WLFL-DT, Raleigh-Durham's CW TV affiliate
  • 28.1 WRDC-DT,Raleigh-Durham's myNetwork TV affiliate
  • 30.1 WRAY-DT, this channel's programming is mostly infomercials
  • 40.1 WUVC-DT, Raleigh-Durham's Univision TV affiliate shows programming in Spanish
  • 40.2 WTNC-LP, Raleigh-Durham's Telefuturaaffiliate shows programming in Spanish
  • 50.1 WRAZ-DT, Raleigh-Durham's FOX TV affiliate, FOX50
  • 50.2 WRAZ-DT2, Raleigh-Durham's http://www.myretrotv.com/ RTN affiliate, shows classic “Retro TV” programming, like “Kojak” and “Leave it to Beaver”
  • 50.3 WRAZ-SD, shows classic FOX programming as well as infomercials
  • 62.1 WFPX, Raleigh-Durham's ION TV affiliate
 
j_dunn said:
I ain't sure about live stream with history channel. I haven't messed with it a whole lot. It wouldn't let me watch a lot of the shows without a linked cable provider account. But I'm happy with watching shows a day late as long as it saves me some money. That's how I watch the walking dead when the new shows come on. They come out the next day on roku for $2.99 per episode in HD and $1.99 per episode in SD.
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It's not a live stream, but there is a History Channel "channel" on Plex that is free. It has episodes of Counting Cars, Swamp People, Alaska Off Road Warriors, Ax Men, Top Shot, etc. Plex is very easy to set up, but you have to have a computer running the Plex Media Server to "broadcast" it to your Roku box.
 
Yea I've seen Plex but haven't ever tried it. There is also a website called popcorntime that's has a lot of movies and shows for free. Unless it's been deleted by now, I haven't used it in a while. There was a big stink about it on the news a few months back about having it removed.
 
My vote is for HD over the air or get an FTA satellite system.
 
DSM Turbos said:
Never really tried to watch it in Raleigh, so I am not sure if they are substations or the real thing. This list may be a little old and I know you can get more with a better antenna.

Raleigh-Durham's Digital TV Channels
  • 4.1UNC-TV a PBS Station based in Chapel Hill
  • 4.2 UNC-KD, PBS children's programming
  • 4.3 WUNC-NC, PBS programming for and about North Carolina
  • 5.1 WRAL-TV, Raleigh-Durham CBS station
  • 5.2 WRAL.2, shows This TV programming, which consists of movies and TV shows owned by MGM and United Artists Studios
  • 11.1 WTVD-DT, Raleigh-Durham's ABC TV affiliate
  • 11.2 WTVD-DT2, this channel shows ABC 11 news and weather reports as well as assorted other programming
  • 11.3 WTVD-DT3, ABC 11's Eyewitness News Channel shows news programming around the clock
  • 17.1 WNCN-DT, Raleigh-Durham's NBC TV affiliate, NBC 17
  • 17.2 WNCN-DT-2, this channel shows sports programming as well as infomercials
  • 22.1 WLFL-DT, Raleigh-Durham's CW TV affiliate
  • 28.1 WRDC-DT,Raleigh-Durham's myNetwork TV affiliate
  • 30.1 WRAY-DT, this channel's programming is mostly infomercials
  • 40.1 WUVC-DT, Raleigh-Durham's Univision TV affiliate shows programming in Spanish
  • 40.2 WTNC-LP, Raleigh-Durham's Telefuturaaffiliate shows programming in Spanish
  • 50.1 WRAZ-DT, Raleigh-Durham's FOX TV affiliate, FOX50
  • 50.2 WRAZ-DT2, Raleigh-Durham's http://www.myretrotv.com/ RTN affiliate, shows classic “Retro TV” programming, like “Kojak” and “Leave it to Beaver”
  • 50.3 WRAZ-SD, shows classic FOX programming as well as infomercials
  • 62.1 WFPX, Raleigh-Durham's ION TV affiliate
Click to expand...

Nice! I don't know if we get that many channels here in Winston though. I need to just pick up an antenna and give it a try I guess.
 
j_dunn said:
That's how I watch the walking dead when the new shows come on. They come out the next day on roku for $2.99 per episode in HD and $1.99 per episode in SD.
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Damn, see it dosn't seem like much, but thats still $12 a month just for The Walking Dead.
All the stuff you get w/ Netflix or HuluPlus isn't that much.
 
I just can't justify paying around $100 a month on a bunch of channels I wouldn't watch anyway. But what suits me doesn't mean it suits everybody else. Less TV just makes me do something else more productive.
 
FrontPorchFab said:
Nice! I don't know if we get that many channels here in Winston though. I need to just pick up an antenna and give it a try I guess.
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Company in Raleigh makes some of the more popular antennas. I just have the leaf 30 for upstairs: http://www.gomohu.com/ You can also put in your address and it will tell you which of their antennas should get which channels from your place.
 
Questionable as far as legality but I download gigabytes worth of shows through torrents. I refuse to pay so I can be bombarded with the same commercials every 7 minutes. This combined with TLC playing Honey Boo Boo...I'm all set thanks. Lots of content online if you can take the time to find it. Again, be sure to read up on what is legal and not ;)
 
mbalbritton said:
And if I'm not mistaken AMC offers the broadcast of Walking Dead online the next day as well. Free
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yes, I'm pretty sure they do.
Unfortunately I can't find a way to get it through a streaming box, e.g. an AMC channel... it really blows trying to watch it on my laptop, and hooking the laptop up to the TV means I can't noodle around on this great website while I watch...
 
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