Posted on 10/07/2017 1:47:56 AM PDT by V K Lee
Thank you profusely. I shall check it out.
Technically, no, you do not need a cable connection. What you need is Internet, wired or wireless, connectivity.
Now many people get Internet thru their cable company. In effect, they have a broadband coaxial connection using the same wire cable TV comes in on.
However, in many cases, they’re not the only game in town. Your local phone company might offer a similar broadband connection, or DSL, or even old fashioned modem-like technology, but sped up considerable. Some folks, especially in rural areas without cable TV use satellite Internet.
What I’ve found is using my smart phone as a Internet sharing device can also work.
I have Verizon, as it has coverage in my area no one else has. I actually went to an unlimited data plan that wound up CHEAPER than my previous plan!
Now, compared to cable Internet, my phone’s bandwidth is much slower. I’m getting about 5 Mpbs, vice 25 Mbps on the cable. However, it is enough to pull good content from Roku’s built-in wireless adapter to make a high-quality 55” 4K video and sound TV experience, as long as I don’t add a bunch of other devices on to it.
If you add Sling TV with the sports pkg. ($25) you'll have more sports than you can watch. I add it during football and basketball seasons, then drop it.
Yes you need high speed internet but what you gain is losing the cable TV fee
Think of Roku as the digital tuner for your non-smart tv. Most flatscreens today are sold with the digital tuners but back in the day they were not standard. So for people who wanted to cut cable and stream tv/movies over their internet service you needed to acquire a device like Roku which allows for that.
So instead of paying for subscription cables services to only pay for internet. Then you can add services like Netflix, Hulu or whatever to watch on demand tv shows and movies.
You want to episodes from Fox News Channel you can go the FNC app and select shows and watch episodes from Hannity, Tucker Carlson etc without the need to watch commercials.
I just wifi it all
Oh yeah! I forgot about the sports package! We’re not a sports-watching family. Well, we liked football until recently!
I would recommend 6 Mbps minimum
I also meant to tell you that you add channels on the Roku website, not on the device itself. There are standard channels and private channels you can add. Just takes a little digging and channel tryouts to find the content you want. And there is always new stuff to add.
For us Verizon DSL users getting 2.5Mbps I guess it’s an unattainable dream.
I have Verizon, as it has coverage in my area no one else has. I actually went to an unlimited data plan that wound up CHEAPER than my previous plan!
I was living for a while with my nephew and his family as I was in between jobs and relocating.
He had Direct TV Now, their streaming service. And I liked it. I used my laptop to stream just about any channel I wanted (sans the local and network TV channels which I rarely ever watch anyway).
So when I moved into my new home last month, I upgraded my ATT cellular service to their unlimited data plan and added the Direct TV Now and I got HBO and a free Roku and a free mobile hot spot (basically I can connect any internet enabled devices to my phone for internet access, my Kindle for example, to my phone instead of to my Comcast internet).
I still got Comcast for high speed internet because I wasn’t sure how reliable the mobile hot spot was going to be and sometimes I have to work from home with a work laptop and need a reliable internet connection.
But the bottom line is that the total of my new ATT bill with the Direct TV Now and combined with the most basic Comcast TV and internet is nearly $75 per month cheaper overall than what I would have paid for my previous not-unlimited ATT plan and a comparable Comcast plan, i.e. all the channels I get with Direct TV Now. Plus with the Roku I can watch movies and shows on my Amazon Prime and Netflix and also play music through my TV on my Pandora free account. I can also watch TV on my phone from anywhere. And the Direct TV Now app doesn’t count toward my “unlimited data” meaning that I won’t get throttled for using data for that.
Comcast wasn’t able to get my internet connection working properly at first (frustrating and long story) so I was using my mobile hot spot.
It was a bit slower and not as good as a resolution for watching TV via the Roku, but not all that bad either.
As the technology advances I can see myself ditching Comcast entirely and I look forward to that day.
I just watched some Amazon Prime documentaries last night in my bedroom. It is too far away from my WAP to get a good signal—I used my phone’s Internet sharing.
The picture and sound were perfect.
I intend to run some cable through the attic to hook up another WAP in the bedroom area. I’ve tried a bevy of range extenders, and they tend to need setting up again each time I loose power. I put an UPS on one, but after an hour, the UPS shuts down. If my power outage lasts too long, it still whacks the configuration of the extender.
Yeah you can mirror cast sevices
Bkmrk.
Sorry, new to me. Don’t remember anyone mentioning VPN before
Yer kinda screwed.
it will work but it will buffer which may piss you of since it aint seamless viewing
I had run cat 5 throughth house but now I just use wifi.
it is not as secure but it works like a hose
Locally, we had a station which gave us SLAM BANG THEATER, hosted by Icky Twerp; THE LITTLE RASCALS aka OUR GANG With Darla,Buckwheat, Alfalfa, Spanky and let’s not forget THE THREE STOOGES
My house is very big and sprawling. The Wireless Access Point (WAP) I have doesn’t provide whole house coverage. My cable modem is in my office by all my computers (I have a lot—I write books on servers and administration) so I need the demarcation point there.
So I’m going to run cat 5 across the attic from the office side across to the bedroom side, and wire another WAP in the bedrooms.
Whole house coverage!
The only reason I haven’t done it yet is I didn’t want to drill a bunch of holes through the walls. So, I know have a cable puller I can use to reach from the current cable TV drop in my bedroom and pull down the cat 5 to hook up the second WAP.
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