Recommendations on streaming hardware

I cut the cord several years ago, except for football season. Though last year I found a work around, know someone nearby who has the Utah games.

I’ve got an Apple TV and  two FireTV sticks. I love the FireTV sticks for travel, they are better than the AppleTV for streaming on the cheap/free internet at your hotel, my AppleTV would always be buffering. Long story short the streaming rate is lower, but I haven’t noticed a difference.

I recently added the Plex server on my iMac, since it doesn’t get used as much and have a 500G external HD hooked in with about 100 movies. I have 230 movies on another 1TB external HD with WiFi but it has a battery so I don’t want to overcharge it by leaving it plugged in as my media server storage.

I have accounts with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. I paid the extra couple bucks for Hulu with no commercials. I use Hulu as a sort of DVR for TV shows. There are a select few shows not available on Hulu, like Big Bang Theory, but I haven’t missed it. My FireTV Stick has apps for all of those, plus the Alexa, which I’m getting better at using. In fact I’m considering an EchoDot for Christmas.

I don’t have much experience with Roku, however I was just looking at SlingTV the other day and they are offering some good deals on them. Honestly, most streaming boxes do the same things, so Roku and FireTV are likely very similar.

the Apple TV which I’ve had the longest doesn’t have a Plex app, I know Apple wants us to bow down to them. However I have quite a few movies I’ve redeemed digital copies on my iTunes account so it does come in handy, but I spend 90% of my time on the FireTV sticks. The FireTV is probably a little better.

I would probably go with the Roku box, and do the upgrade for about $50 with the Sling subscription, unless you have Amazon Prime, then I’d probably go with the FireTV unless you are keeping Sling year round, I probably won’t.

So long story short, if you’re keeping SlingTV year round I’d go with the upgrade on the Roku. If you have Amazon Prime and don’t plan on keeping Sling year round definitely I recommend the FireTV, Amazon has some pretty good programming. The Man in the High Castle was GREAT, Red Oaks was pretty funny, I’ve heard Hand of God is good, I’ve heard good things about Bosch. And as a bonus you get Amazon music, so can stream music with a quick… “Alexa play the best alternative songs from 1997” or “when is the next Utah utes football game” Oh wait that’s not music. “Alexa how are the Pens doing”

Cutting the cord, is definitely the right decision, but make sure you get an HD antenna, I picked one up at Costco. And of course if you have an XBox, or computer you might not even need the streaming device.

Devices which run SlingTV.

I cut the cord a couple of years ago when crapcast doubled my bill from $100/mo to $200.  I bought an OTH antenna for the TV so I can get the big 4.  Then I got a Roku and pay for the sports package with the ESPN’s and then add the $5/mo for Pac12, but only in the on-season.  In the offseason it all gets shut off.  I haven’t watched TV since the Masters in April and before that was the men’s basketball.

I got a deal on the roku where if I paid for 3 months of some subscription I got the roku for free.  The one disadvantage of a roku is it isn’t a DVR, but I don’t care.  If I don’t catch it live I just won’t watch it.

I’ve never used Plex, but I do use kodi which I think is awesome.

Any other kodi users here?