Cancelled Cable, Got a Roku

[lonestar]

I've talked about cancelling cable for awhile now, but the cable was out for 3 days straight and I finally gave the box back to them. My brother was telling me about Roku, its a small box with a remote that picks up your wirless internet and is set for different channels like Netflix and Hulu.

Picked one up last week and man is it great !

The Roku is about $60, no monthly fee and you can subscribe to several hundred different channels. Netflix is the best for me so far but Hulu runs lots of Tv series and there are tons of specialized channels but a lot of them cost an extra $5 a month. Theres outdoor hunting/fishing channels, classic movies, new movies, westerns, comedy, politics, news, I think just about anything you want its here.

Netflix and Hulu cost me $10 each and I have several free channels and Pandora Radio. Thousands of hours of great stuff to watch when I want and for $70 less than a cable box.

Really kicking myself for not doing this sooner !

If anybody is looking for an easy way to cut the budget, boy this one is a no brainer !

 

[pipeinhand]

Thanks for the tip, I am looking into it.

 

[colcolt]

For a long time I've felt having cable was a total waste of money. The junk they have on TV just ain't worth watching and the ads and commercials drive me nuts. Moreover, you get 10 commercials to about 6 minutes of programing. I seldom watch it anyway other than the news/weather and IF there happens to be a decent movie on like The Hatfield's and McCoys but that's rare. The stupid stuff they put on stations like the History Channel have nothing to do with history and I don't know whey they call it that...and pawn stars? What does that have to do with history? That's like putting a soap opera on the Animal Planet.

 

[buster]

We have a roku and Netflix, Hulu plus. Hulu is good for recent shows but has comercials. Netflix has good kids programs and I watch British programs and some other tv shows and movies, foreign movies, documentaries. So people don't liken Netflix but we use it a lot. Very handy to have the programming on demand.

 

[lonestar]

I've been playing around with the channels for about a week now, theres very little I miss about Cable. The one thing I do miss is I would leave Cable on in the background just for a little noise. Halfway paying attention while doing something else. With Netflix, you have to choose something new to watch every time a show ends, so thats kind of a drag. Hulu will go on and play the next episode in a series, thats a little better. The free channels have some interesting stuff, some weird and oddball old series that look cool. I found a bunch of Lee Van Cleef flicks to watch on the Westerns Channel :D

If you're on the fence about it, you could grab a Roku at Wal-Mart and Hulu and Netflix will both give you a 1 month trial for free. If you dont like it, take the Roku back for a refund and cancel the subscriptions.

Another cool thing is your subscriptions to Hulu and Netflix will work anywhere you can connect to the net so you can watch movies and shows on your Tv or Laptop at the airport, hotels, anywhere you can pick up Wi-Fi.

Seriously, this may be the smartest thing I've done in quite some time :mrgreen:

 

[sjpipesmoker]

Lonestar- Netflix will play the next episode automatically, example at work I watch family guy, when one episode ends, the next one starts in about 30 seconds...not sure if it's only on my laptop, but I assume it's for all netflix devices.
I've been on the fence about getting rid of cable / satellite for some years now, just nothing was equal, Know I have to re-look into the ROKU thing, We do have apple TV and love that...wonder if it's the same type of device?

 

[lankfordjl]

We have a Roku with Netflix. And on occasion we rent movies from Amazon as well to watch on Roku. We haven't had "regular TV" in about 10 years; in fact, we don't own a TV only a large computer screen. I've seen what's on TV now a days, while staying in hotels on vacation...we're not missing anything. It's sad that most kids today are filled with this mindless crap.

 

[lonestar]

Netflix will play the next episode automatically, example at work I watch family guy, when one episode ends, the next one starts in about 30 seconds...not sure if it's only on my laptop, but I assume it's for all netflix devices.

I had wondered if there was a setting somewhere I just need to change. Have to look into it.

It's sad that most kids today are filled with this mindless crap.

It scares the crap out of me to think what some of the stuff on Tv is putting into young minds.

 

[numbersix]

+1
I haven't had cable for over 10 years. We used rabbit ears and even in the mtns it picked up the major networks and PBS. Then we lost all of our electronics in the flood - I bought a SONY surround sound system with internet TV.
We still use rabbit ears for local TV and subscribe to Netflix and Amazon "Prime" TV, been working out great.

 

[photoman13]

We have cable because it is cheaper to have it with internet than without. Haven't watched it once though. We exclusively watch Netflix. I'm currently watching Workaholics.