Cord-Cutting, Or How to Stream your Way to Success

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Joeboo

Joeboo

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Both the Chromecast and the Amazon Fire stick are great devices, I have one of each.

They really just come down to whether you want to control all of your content via phone/tablet and then send it to the TV(Chromecast), or if you want a dedicated remote with the additional option of phone/tablet control(Fire stick)

Both are solid, and perfectly compatible with Plex
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Might get the Fire TV instead. Though, I'm not sure why beyond the possibility of mounting an external drive.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Ohhh, that does look good. Didn't even know that existed. Hearthstone on my TV is fairly tempting.
 
Selix

Selix

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I'm currently running Plex on my roku, Netflix, Amazon prime, sling TV and Hulu. I could probably cancel huluu and not even notice. The service I use the most is actually Amazon prime because I can combine a few of those 1$ promotional credits and just buy a season of a show. It's 25$ per season but given how few I purchase I save at least a hundred dollars a month without sacrificing a thing. Why bother with a DVR when it is cheaper to just buy the show outright.
 
slippery

slippery

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Deathwing_sl said:
Ohhh, that does look good. Didn't even know that existed. Hearthstone on my TV is fairly tempting.
Click to expand...
Why are you trying to make me spend money I don't have
frown.png
 
D

Div

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slippery_sl said:
What's a good solution for getting stuff that I've downloaded to a TV across the house? Is the Roku or any of that shit capable of reading from a network drive and playing local content?
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I personally use a BoxeeBox to stream to a TV that is not directly connected to my main PC. The product has been long discontinued and I would not recommend it. I am sure the other things mentioned in the thread are far better.

It still does the job of streaming stuff I've downloaded across the network. It does get annoying with the bugs. But I spent a fair bit on it 3 or so years ago so it'll do until it dies which is probably imminent.
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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I get so jealous reading this thread with my measly 10 GB per month download cap. That Nvidia shield is so cool looking I almost want to order it even though I couldn't use most of the functionality.
 
Arative

Arative

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Here is a good review of the features of the nvidia shield. I currently have several hdhomerun tuners and I'm using Windows Media center with them. Silicondust is coming out with their own dvr software that will run on android tv. My current plan is to use nexus players on a few tv's and the nvidia shield on my main tv. My only real complaint with the one nexus player that I got to test the silicondust software is there is no WMC type remote for changing channels easily.
 
Gnomedolf

Gnomedolf

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I'm gonna try the cutting the cord thing. My Comcast bill has ballooned to $186/month after all the promotions dropped off. They wouldn't even try to lower my bill. I'm going with SlingTV with the extra sports channels for $5. I'll also sub to HBO Now. My cable internet is 50mb/down, which I really enjoy, but I'm gonna see how 20mb DSL works. It's $40/month. My bill will go from $186 to around $80. I'll have less channels, no DVR, and slower internet, but I'm curious as to how easy/hard it will be to live with it. I almost never used my DVR, and most things I miss can be streamed from the site of the channel that made it. I do have an ace, though, because my friend gave me her Xfinity login, so I can use it to fill in the gaps. The one bummer with that is the Xfinity TV Go app doesn't support airplay, so I can't stream it to my tv from my iPad.

It should be an interesting experiment. If all else fails, I'll go back to Comcast in a few months and sign up for new customer specials.
 
K

Kedwyn

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I don't know of it works the same on Apple but on android you can cast your screen to the Chromecast so anything will air play. Works via the Chromecast app.
 
Gnomedolf

Gnomedolf

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Kedwyn_sl said:
I don't know of it works the same on Apple but on android you can cast your screen to the Chromecast so anything will air play. Works via the Chromecast app.
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Their website says airplay is not supported. The connection stops when you try to use it like that on an iPad. It also uses a special app on Windows/Mac instead of viewing in a browser, so screen casting from my computer to the tv via airplay doesn't work, either.
 
Chanur

Chanur

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ShowTime is releasing its stand alone service in July.I'm going to get it since my cable company is stuck in the 1980s and I can't get Showtime in HD.
 
Gnomedolf

Gnomedolf

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Chanur_sl said:
ShowTime is releasing its stand alone service in July.I'm going to get it since my cable company is stuck in the 1980s and I can't get Showtime in HD.
Click to expand...
If this is true, then I completely believe that your post took 25 years to get here.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Ordered one of those nvidia shield consoles after reading a bunch of reviews. The only negatives that I considered actually mattered:

No hardware decoding for MPEG-2 or VC-1 codecs. The native video player simply won't play those files, it's kinda silly. All nvidia had to do was purchase the licenses too. Kodi and MX player will still handle them just fine in software. H.264, H265, and VP9 are supported in hardware.

Android TV forces the refresh rate to 60 Hz. So the console has to do a 3:2 pull-down on things shot in 24fps. Hope the resulting judder isn't noticeable.
 
Arative

Arative

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Nvidia just posted on their Shield TV Forum that they are pushing out an update this month:

We are happy to announce that we will expose our MPEG-2 hardware engine to Android TV apps in an update this month. It will be up to app developers to design apps to take advantage of our MPEG-2 acceleration.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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That's cool. Probably not a big deal in the end, but why not hardware decode if you can?


I got my Shield TV yesterday, I've liked it so far. Still trying to decide on which setup to use to play local media. ES File Explorer -> MX Player seems to be out. I can manage ES File Explorer, I'm not sure it's as intuitive for others. Also, it doesn't remember what I've watched. And it seems streaming over a network via a file browser is that great on Android(it rebuffered quite frequently).

I've tried Plex. It solves all the previous issues except marking watched shows. Also, it scrapes folders in a semi-retarded way. If I tell it a folder is full of TV Shows, it will only pick up stuff with the season-episode number format. Daily Show, Jeopardy, anything non-seasonal, did not get scraped.

Going to try sideloading Kodi(continuation of XMBC, I think?) tonight. Anyone have suggestions for getting it setup? I tried loading it on my old boxee was a bit daunted at how much stuff was available.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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how is the latency on the shield tv for gaming?

I'm trying to decide whether to just run a 25' HDMI cord from my PC to my Plasma, or get an Nvidia shield(which would also replace my Roku, so it would serve multiple purposes). I'm just a little worried about latency for fast-moving/action games.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Didn't have time to test that last night. It was having trouble connecting to my PC after installing GeForce Experience. I'm hoping a reboot will have fixed it. Will let you know tonight.
 
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