Cordkillers 56 – The Vue Looks Good from Here

Cordkillers / February 3rd, 2015

Playstation Vue is from Mars and Sling TV is from Venus. Plus how much is 1 billion Chromecast Sessions really?

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CordKillers: Ep. 56 – The Vue Looks Good from Here
Recorded: February 2. 2015
Guest: Roberto Villegas

Intro Video 

Breaking News

Primary Target

  • A sneak peek at Sony’s PlayStation Vue internet TV service
    – WAY more channels, CBS, Turner, Scripps, NBC, Fox, Discovery, Viacom
    – Looks like they’re missing ABC/Disney
    – Gallery view as seen at CES but also Guide view on side (like new TiVO default)
    – 3-day catchup, record to cloud DVR for 28 days
    – Add any show to ‘my shows’
    – No price yet!
  • CHANNELS: “Spike, CBS, NBC, Fox, My9, Telemundo, American Heroes, Animal Planet, BET, BET Gospel, Big Ten network, Bravo, CBS Plus, Centric, Chiller, Cloo, CMT Pure Country, CNBC, CNBC World, Comedy Central, Cooking Channel, Cozi TV, Destination America, Discovery Channel, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, DIY, E!, Esquire, Exits, Food Network, Fox College Sports (3), Fox Sports 1,2,3, FX, FXM, FXX, Golf Channel, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, LOGO, Movies TV, MSNBC, MTV (Hits, Jam, 2, U), Nat Geo, all the Nickelodeons, OWN, Oxygen, Palladia, Science, Sprout, SYFY, Teen Nick, Travel, TV Land, Universal, USA, Velocity, VH1, Vh1 Classic, Soul, YES Network.

Signal Intelligence

Gear Up

  • Google’s Chromecast has been used for more than one billion casts 
    – Google’s Chief Business officer Omid Kordestani updated investors on one metric during the company’s Q4 call Thursday
    – One billion cast sessions on Chromecast
    – In October said 650 Million
    – In July 400 million
    – Google defines a “cast session” as a user pressing the cast button within an Android, iOS or web app. In other words: Streaming multiple YouTube videos to your TV one after another counts as just one session.

Front Lines

  • Netflix Prices $1.5 Billion in Debt to Fund Content, Other Initiatives
    –Netflix will raise $1 billion in debt for content acquisition and other purposes. Mostly they’re doing it because the interest rates are so low so they want to have low interest debt to cover the next few years of cash needs. However the company says they expect to launch 320 hours of original content in 2015 three times the amount of 2014.
  • NBC’s Super Bowl Live Stream Was Hugely Popular. It Was Also Terrible.
    –NBC live streamed 11 hours of Super Bowl and Super Bowl-related content online yesterday in the US. Apparently it reached a peak of 1.3 million simultaneous streams. Maybe that explains the lag. Also different commercials in the live stream which means the usual online repetition. Verizon mobile didn’t have as many complaints about its stream.
  • Sling TV strikes deal with Univision for its online TV service
    –SlingTV struck an agreement to carry Univision networks on the SlkingTV service. That includes Univision, UniMás, Univision Deportes, Galavisión, El Rey Network, Bandamax, De Película, De Película Clásico, Telehit, Tlnovelas and FOROtv. My guess? Spanish Language package available soon!
  • Adam Sandler’s first Netflix-exclusive movie has its cast
    –Ridiculous 6 will be one of Adam Sandler’s Netflix productions. Sandler will star as a man who was adopted as an orphan by a Native American tribe. Twilight’s Taylor Lautner, Rob Schneider and Terry Crews will play his adoptive siblings, while Nick Nolte has been cast as Sandler’s father. Rounding out the ensemble is Whitney Cummings, Jon Lovitz, Danny Trejo and Chris Parnell.
  • ESPN Takes Another Step Outside the Bundle, Starts Selling Streaming Cricket World Cup Subscriptions
    –ESPN will sell live and on-demand access to the 6-week Cricket World Cup for $100. The play starts Feb. 13. U.S. cricket fans can sign up Feb. 3 for a subscription at ESPNcricket2015.com, and then access streams on the Web; ESPN says it will have iOS and Android apps available by Feb. 11. Dish and Time Warner will also sell the package as PPV. 
  • Singtel, Sony And Warner’s New Video Streaming Service Beats Netflix To Asia
    –Asian Telecom company Singtel is partnering with Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers to launch a streaming video service in Asia. HOOQ will have Hollywood movies and US TV shows along with content from India, China, Thailand, The Phillipines, Indonesia, Korea and Japan. It will go online by end of March in Indonesia, Philippines, India and Thailand And then expand from there. 

Under Surveillance

2014 Winter Movie Draft
draft.diamondclub.tv

  1. Brett: $656,368,044
  2. Scott: $448,300,000
  3. Brian: $447,548,781
  4. Tom: $373,548,333
  5. Justin: $299,216,240
  6. John: $248,624,089

Dispatches from the Front

Hi Tom & Brian,

From this fans perspective I would say split the feed.

Thanks keep up the good work

Sean

 

 

I’m firmly in the doesn’t matter to me camp so long as you let us know about it. I use BeyondPod for my podcatcher and have a smart playlist that I can control what order things play in so I always get them in aired order.

Amber

 

 

I vote to split the spoilerin’ time episodes to their own podcast. In addition to the reasons Brian mentioned on the show, the main podcast is much more time sensitive, so need to keep those in my stream. I can always go back and listen to spoilerin’ time when I finally watch the shows you are spoiling.

Love the show, cutting the cord as soon as my Sling TV invite arrives!

Matt, Atlanta, GA (aka future site of Google Fiber! )

P.s. finally became your boss today, just signed up on Patreon

 

 

Hey guys as always thanks for the great weekly entertainment, was just listening to this weeks episode and Brian was doing his thing ranting about lack of bandwidth when in the sky and wondering why he can’t do any form of streaming video.

I am kind of an authority on this as I worked for Northwest Airlines subsequently Delta Airlines for 8 years and one of my job functions was to work with the aircraft engineers to install/maintain the In Flight Entertainment systems. I now work for a Major retailer and help consult on GoGo installs for the fleet of aircraft they operate.

The TV service is in fact satellite tv provided by Dish Network. That is how you are getting live tv.

The inflight wifi on the other change is provided by Aircell (Parent company to GoGo). Aircell was originally developed to provide in flight phone calls, remember the phones on the back of the head rests that you swiped a credit card to make in flight phone calls? Yea that is Aircell. When that didn’t take off (pun intended) they re-branded and changed their name and services to GoGo inflight wifi.

GoGo is an Air to Ground connection. GoGo has their own CDMA 3G towers that covers coast to coast of the lower 48 and parts of southern Canada. These towers and antennas are pointed to the sky which provides the wireless data connectivity to the aircrafts.

Each tower has very limited bandwidth, most of them are fed by a single T1, some maybe 3 T1’s. Then on top of that the actual bandwidth provided to each aircraft is also limited, at most 3mbps to a single aircraft.

3mbps that is then shared between all the users on the plane, so say you have 50 users all on a plane trying to use the inflight wifi, and sharing that single 3mpbs pipe so then you’ll start to understand why they proxy the connection and prevent steaming services.

Right now GoGo is in the process of upgrading their infrastructure to support CDMA EVDO Rev B and provide dual modems as a retrofit to aircraft, this could then provide up to 9mbps to an aircraft however you are still limited by the limited/shared backbone infrastructure that GoGo has to each tower.

So what I’m trying to say to Brian is that yes you’d think we’d be able to have 100mbps or even a gigabit connection while in the sky (wishful thinking) GoGo isn’t artificially keeping it slow and preventing users from doing youtube and Netflix while using the inflight wifi. How would you feel if you paid to use the service and one user was hogging all the available bandwidth because he was streaming a movie and you couldn’t even get a web page to load?

Anyways thought I could share some inside details about how inflight wifi works.

Josh S

 

 

Hey team!

Freakin’ love this show, and I’m proud to be a Patron! Thanks for all your hard work.

Thought I’d throw out a hiccup I’ve discovered with my FireTV Stick. When I plug in into my television, I lose all of my OTA signal. When I unplug the stick from the TV, the signal comes back. My antenna is mounted outside the house and connected using the home’s existing cable.

Could be wi-fi interference. Could be the age of my TV (2008). Just curious if anyone else had this issue, or just posting as a possible solution for other cordkillers.

My AppleTV (2nd gen) hasn’t given me any issues.

Mitch
 

 

Hello Tom & Brian.
On the previous episode you guys talking a bit about Plex. Listen, Plex is fantastic, not just great but excellent. Tom brought a good point and it was that his DRM purchased content wouldn’t play.
The reason Plex is so popular is in part yes because you can have all your ripped own content (home videos, DVD/BR ripped movies/tvshows, etc,). The other reason Plex is so popular is because it provides an easy and convenient way to stream and access all your *pirated* content.
I know you guys do not support piracy, but let’s not close our eyes to it. Obviously the reason Plex is so widely loved is because a large portion of its users pirate content and use Plex as their media server. I’m not saying that’s all they do, they probably have home movies, ripped content, etc., but let’s also not pretend that the reason Plex has become so popular is any other than the massive love of its piracy-loving users.

Keep up the great show.

Franklin.

 

Links

patreon.com/cordkillers
Dog House Systems Cordkiller box

Cordkillers 55 – People Say Things

Cordkillers / January 27th, 2015

We get a review of Sling TV from an early user, Tom reviews Vessel’s private beta and Netflix conquers the world.

 

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CordKillers: Ep. 55 – People Say Things
Recorded: January 26, 2015
Guests: Luke Bouma, Andrew Zarian

Intro Video 

Primary Target

Signal Intelligence

Gear Up

Front Lines

Under Surveillance

2014 Winter Movie Draft
draft.diamondclub.tv

  1. Brett: $596,361,413
  2. Brian: $445,112,651
  3. Scott: $442,944,952
  4. Tom: $371,798,900
  5. Justin: $270,293,833
  6. John: $245,165,632

Dispatches from the Front

Hi Tom and Brian,

As a daily watcher of two ESPN shows (Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption), I’d like to chime in with my impression of Sling TV as a cord cutting alternative, given that it’s the first time I’ve been able to consider killing that cord!

I’ve tried my hardest to get excited about Sling TV, but I just can’t do it! The main problem is that if I want to watch my ESPN shows, I have no choice but to watch them live and with commercials. Sling TV has no DVR functions, and only certain channels even let you pause live TV (and ESPN isn’t included). When I saw that Sling TV would also grant access to the WatchESPN app, I briefly hoped that I’d be able to watch my shows after the fact. Not so! Apparently ESPN doesn’t put ATN or PTI on WatchESPN.

If I went over the air and signed up for Sling TV, I’d be going from $55/month for my current TV service to $20, but adding a ton of complexity, removing all convenience, and I couldn’t watch my shows (having a 5 month old in the house makes it impossible to guarantee time in front of the TV every day at exactly 5pm). I’d also have to cobble together a bunch of sources for the other cable channels I couldn’t get from Sling like Comedy Central, adding even more complexity.

Matt 
Sterling, VA

 

 

Brian,

I was laughing after the last episode of Cord Killers because my Draft grades for your league were just about spot on – give or take a few million between you and Scott. https://magic.piktochart.com/output/3398775-winter-movie-draft-report-card 😛 . Also, thanks to you guys I got sucked into “The Man in the High Castle” and am mad that I have to wait for episode (rest of season)

Side question? Where can I find the rules that you guys are going by? Mainly, How long does a movie stay in the theaters before you stop counting it’s revenue?

Thanks Guys, love the show!

Mulango

p.s – you totally got my name right by the way! lol – Congrats

 

 

Hi Brian and Tom,

A couple of things have changed for me in a period of 72 hours. I’ve been a cord killer for over 14 months. Brian asked all fans of CordKillers to re-subscribe to cable to watch “Hacking the System” on NatGeo. This Friday m ISP Charter called me and offered cable for an additional $26.00 a month with my 30mbps internet. I said yes and agreed to have it installed February 5.

But then this last Saturday, I talked to my neighbors who are also with Charter and are paying for all the channels offered in their triple bundle for $200.00 a month. While they declined to cord shave on my advice,they gave me their email and password to use their subscription to view HBO and Showtime and basically every cable channel available on Roku as I have a Roku 3.

My question as I was able with their login information watch “Hacking the System”, do I still re-subscribe to cable and view the same channels with my login info? Or do I enjoy the content with my neighbors login info that they willingly gave me as a gift and cancel the install? I realize not everyone has a nice neighbor who gives out their login info, but I’m really thinking of canceling my install and use their login info for authentication.

I’d appreciate a reply from either of you on or off the show.

David from Fond Du Lac,WI asking

 

 

I have to disagree with your assessment of Marco Polo. I’ve been getting caught up (thru ep5) to watch along with you and I’m really enjoying it. The political intrigue is great. Kublai Khan and his family are fascinating and well-acted. The cinematography is beautiful. All-in-all I’m really enjoying it and looking forward to finishing the series.

One question: who’s the white guy?

Thanks for a great show! Keep it up!

Bob.

 

 

Hi Guys

As one of the many great bosses you have I think you should take a look at the DOKO .

Think Brian could find a few uses 🙂

Keep up the great work.

Gregg 

 

 

Hi guys,

Just wanted to know if you guys have ever discussed two separate podcast streams for cordkillers.

One for the show and another one for Spoilerin’ Time. The reason is, I use the podcast app Stitcher and it automatically loads the latest version of the podcast. So sometimes I haven’t heard the episode and Spoiler’ Time is already in its place. So then I have to dig into the options to look for the actual episode (all while driving my car *danger* *danger!*). Also for me I only listen to Spoilerin’ Time if I’ve watched what you guys are about to Spoiler (example Game of Thones, Breaking Bad, ETC). I don’t’ listen to the “slow season” of Spoilers (Amazon Pilots, The Shield, etc). It would be nice if I can subscribe to two separate podcasts.

Let me know what you guys think and remember this is the boss talking 🙂

Keep up the great work as always.

Mike

 

 

The place I work in Alabama took an informal poll today on how our employees watch most of their TV. 46.3% said Live. 34.6 said DVR and 19.1 said online service like Netflix or Hulu. There 5190 responses. Not sure what it means, if anything, but found it interesting.

Stephen

Links

patreon.com/cordkillers
Dog House Systems Cordkiller box

Cordkillers 54 – How Can I watch Judge Judy?

Cordkillers / January 20th, 2015

Amazon wants to make movies but hires Woody Allen to make TV shows. Daily Motion takes on TWiTCH and GoPro goes live.

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CordKillers: Ep. 54 – How Can I watch Judge Judy?
Recorded: January 19, 2015
Guest: Kristi Kates

Intro Video 

Primary Target

Signal Intelligence

  • Dailymotion launches live-streaming gaming platform to compete with Twitch
    –    DailyMotion announced DailyMotion Games, highlighting game streaming.
    – Gaming already generates 180 million video views every month and draws 11 million unique visitors every month
    – Partners at the time of the launch include Eclypsia, Millenium, joinDOTA, OnGameNet, IGN, JeuxVideo.com, Gamespot or Gamekult.
    – DailyMotion Games App for iOS, Android and PS4.
  • Amazon’s Twitch Gaming Unit to Allow Streaming Music
    –    Twitch meanwhile will allow users to stream a limited library of music on game streams. (about 500 songs)
    – Broadcast original music and host music shows

Gear Up

Front Lines

Under Surveillance

2014 Winter Movie Draft
http://draft.diamondclub.tv/

  1. Brett: $483,237,219
  2. Brian: $439,826,000
  3. Scott: $431,592,000
  4. Tom: $368,966,269
  5. John: $238,862,841
  6. Justin: $227,389,000

Dispatches from the Front

I am a cordkiller. But I used to love Aereo. I know you guys talk a lot about cable shows and prime time.
How can I watch Judge Judy? Or other day time shows?

Thurman
Student and sometimes your boss

 

 

Brian,

Please tell the National Geographic Channel how DVRs work. I tried to setup a program to record all the episodes of your upcoming series, “Hacking the System.” However, instead of each episode being called Hacking the system and then in the metadata there being an episode name each show has the name Hacking the System with a subtitle such as Hacking the System: Personal Security. As a result a series recording program only records one episode. So I have to setup an individual recording for each episode. (In your best mobster voice) I hope I don’t have an unfortunately accident and forget to record one of your episodes. That would be a shame.

Bill near Athens, Georgia

 

 

Suddenlink is my only choice for real broadband internet and cable TV and I bet they only serve markets with no competition. I live in an apartment and can’t get local channels with an indoor antenna and satellite installation is impractical. Last fall, Suddenlink dropped 24 Viacom channels including Comedy Central. I’ve been watching The Daily Show and others on free Hulu since then. Today I wanted to watch the season 2 premiere of Broad City on Comedy Central but Hulu only has season 1 so I went to Comedy Central’s web site to watch it. Viacom is blocking Suddenlink broadband customers in retaliation to Suddenlink not carrying their channels any longer. So, my only choice if I want to watch Broad City legitimately is to pay $1.99 per episode.

Municipal broadband needs to happen for real in markets with only one real broadband provider.

Joe

 

 

Not sure if you remember me. I was the guy who let you know that making the animated “Turbo FAST” for Netflix tales a long time! Well, we have another cool new show for you to check out on Amazon this time! Free of course!

“Niko and the Sword of Light“

It’s part of the new set of pilots. We did it in true Ultra-HD. 3048x2160p. First as far as I know for any 2D animation production. Maybe Brian will want to watch it with his kids?

Steve

 

 

You boss here – I think you need to do an entire show special on just Plex and the 101 use cases for it. Not a deep dive into setup but maybe a few viewers who are large uses of it walk through their setup and where it was the answer to a problem they had. I don’t think I go a day without saying Plex to someone. I use the HELL out of it for multiple things (Also dedicated storage array & 2 Mac Mini’s to run it all) – central media, live TV (HDHomeRun & Cable Card – I know I am a cord shaver not cutter), photo library, offline syncing, word wide accessible, usable at grandma house. The best part is wife approved and 3 & 4 year old usable. I feel people see Plex and get the basics but not understand the real power it has and how it works. In my option I think Plex / a good media manager is KEY to cord cutting.

Harrison 

 

 

I have to grudgingly echo what Brian said about AT&T. I rage quit Cox a year ago, and braced myself for a new round of headaches with AT&T. But the installer showed up on time and was a total pro. Great guy, eager to talk about how everything worked, and about the future of the industry. I did have some early internet issues, but a different AT&T work crew showed up THE NEXT DAY and fixed a bad connection out at the street level. I am now paying $70 less than I was with Cox, with a far more dependable connection and better DVRs.
I’m glad somebody at ONE of these cable companies finally got a clue.

Kyle

 

 

I don’t remember this being addressed on the show or if it’s new, but UltraViolet lets you share your library with up to five other users. It’s accessed not through the UltraViolet site, but through MGo, TargetTicket, Nook, or VUDU.

I couldn’t figure out how to do it at MGo or TargetTicket (I don’t have a Nook account), but VUDU made it incredibly easy. You go to your account menu click on UltraViolet and it’s right there.

Not being able to share with family members has been one of the most frustrating things about my transition to going all digital. I think this is going to push me over the edge.

You’ve talked before about how people don’t seem to know what UltraViolet is and, seeing how this has been implemented, I’m starting to think that they’re wanting it to only be a tag.. a label or something like that. Maybe sort of like all of those logos on the back of your ATM card. I don’t know if my bank is a part of the “Star Network” or “Pulse Network” but all I care is that I stick my card in and get money. Different ATMs will give me different features (balances, transfers, etc) just like different retailers will let me do different things with my movies, but its UltraViolet providing the back end.

Maybe our problem is that we’re here at the beginning and we’re too aware of what’s going on. In a couple of years, UltraViolet might work just like our ATM cards do.

Andrew

Links

patreon.com/cordkillers
Dog House Systems Cordkiller box

Cordkillers 53 – Blasphemy

Cordkillers / January 13th, 2015

Internet TV arrives in Hollywood, why it’s OK NOT to cut the cord, and a full Windows PC that plugs into your TV’s HDMI port for $149.

 

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CordKillers: Ep. 53 – Blasphemy
Recorded: January 12, 2015
Guest: Lamarr Wilson

Intro Video 

Primary Target

  • Amazon, Netflix Win Big At The Golden Globes
  • Amazon wins
    – Jeffrey Tambor (Best Actor, comedy or musical TV) (Beat Gervais in Derek)
    – Transparent, best comedy or musical series (Beat OitNB, Girls and Silicon Valley)
  • Netflix Win
    – Kevin Spacey, best actor in TV drama
  • Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin plugged upcoming Netflix show Grace and Frankie
    – One of the award intros remarked it doesn’t matter what screen you watch a show on…
    – Hulu plugs telling people to watch shows
  • No major network show made the cut for nomination as best comedy series (Broadcast TV took 2 awards, best supporting actress drama (Joanne Froggatt, Downton Abbey) and Best Actress TV comedy or musicl, Gina Rodriguez CW’s Jane the Virgin))

Signal Intelligence

Gear Up

Front Lines

  • Verizon CEO Says Video Effort to Debut in Second Half, AOL Acquisition Report Inaccurate
    –Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam speaking at the Citi Media Conference indicated the companies online video service will debut in 2nd half of the year. Also it will focus on mobile and wireless.
    -Why mobile? Well McAdam said: “Millennials are not signing up for 300 channels that they have to sit in front of the TV at 8 o’clock to see a certain show. (Our service) is probably going to be a 20- or 30-channel offering, and the content that we see will be very compelling.”
  • David Cross’ new movie will be the first feature film distributed in a BitTorrent Bundle
    –David Cross of Mr. Show and Arrested Development fame is showcased his movie Hits sat Sundance last year to mixed reviews. So Feb. 13 he’ll distribute it as a pay-what-you-want BitTorrent Bundle, the first feature film distributed as a Bundle. He’s also launching a Kickstarter to raise $100K to rent theaters and do marketing for pay-what-you-want theater showings.
  • Tablo is building a beautiful Roku app for its cord-cutting DVR
    –Tablo previewed new apps for Roku, Android TV and Fire TV at CES The Roku app should come to users by the end of March. They also showed off Tablo Metro DVR with tiny built-in antennas for folks who live within 25 miles of the TV towers. It’s also expected in March for $249 with two tuner capability.

Under Surveillance

2014 Winter Movie Draft
draft.diamondclub.tv

  1. Brian: $426,279,690
  2. Scott: $412,921,238
  3. Tom: $362,581,351
  4. Brett: $337,754,420
  5. John: $224,307,968
  6. Justin: $154,196,092

Dispatches from the Front

Hey guys,
Is spoilering time strictly for shows that you are currently watching or can we make special requests? I love listening to spoilering time as like a tv digest. I don’t really have (or necessarily want to have) time to watch some shows and spoilering time is like my clif notes to popular tv. Long story short; I love being spoiled! If requests are granted then please spoil for me LOST. I’ve only watched up to season 3 and although I don’t particularly want to watch the rest of the seasons I would like to know how it ends. Love the show!

Your boss,
Adam 

 

 

Hi Guys,
Couple of thoughts from the last show:

Didn’t feel justified sending a message without being a patron, so here I am. Also, I was disappointed to hear that being not being a patron put me in with the majority of your listeners so I am proud to be part of a minority group.

On the subject of the Sling TV service, if a similar service was available in Canada it would boost my chances of cord cutting over 80%, my wife just wants to turn on the TV and watch. She doesn’t want to choose the programming, we have Netflix but even going through that menu can be frustrating and using the internal network becomes frustrating with quality glitches and buffering.

Also Brian being one of your latest bosses, I need you to change your schedule. I fly to England on January 19th so, please change your Hacking the system premier to January 18th, thanks.

Ian in Ontario, Canada.

The Geeky Brit.

 

 

Hey Brian and Tom, I think the “Gear Up” section should be called “Cord Cutlery.”

Thanks, love the show.

Kirk

 

Hi Brian,

Unfortunately, the government (and studios) interpret the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (a predecessor to the DMCA) such that violating your terms and service can be a criminal act. The wording is:

“No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”

Kind of what a VPN does when you use it to watch content in a region where it is not available.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

This is pretty much how they threw the book at Aaron Swartz.

Not that any of this is a good thing.

Alan (not a lawyer?) 

 

Greetings, programs. Just wanted to share with you my handy guide for whether or not Sling TV is right for you. Perhaps you and your viewers might find this interesting.

http://www.whatyoupayforsports.com/2015/01/is-sling-tv-right-for-you-a-guide-for-potential-cord-cutters/

Dave Warner
 

 

This may be parsing things too finely, but I wanted to comment that we almost bought one of the Hisense TVs with Roku built in. My non-techy husband was at the store, and called me to discuss what to buy. He said the box indicated that the TV comes with a Roku stick (instead of having the software built into the TV). It was $30-40 more than the same size Hisense TV without the Roku, which is what we ended up buying. Our model only has 3 HDMI ports (if the Roku version is the same, that leaves two open ports — I guess you get what you pay for).

It seems like this is only worth it if you don’t have a Roku already, and even then only marginally. I wanted the software actually built-in to make it easier for my non-techy hubby. We already have 2 Roku boxes.

I’m bringing this up because you often talk about these TVs with stuff built in, and I’m wondering how many of them are really just selling the devices together in the same box, and whether you think this is better or worse than built in.

Love the show!
Beelissa
 

Links

patreon.com/cordkillers
Dog House Systems Cordkiller box