Help Me Decide: Why Should I Buy An Android TV Box?

[pc747]

you don't need a PlayStation to use it. It works with plenty of other (much cheaper) devices, one or two of which you might own already. It also works on your phone -- but if that's your primary TV access device, you should note that PS Vue is comparatively restrictive there.

DirecTV Now vs. PlayStation Vue vs. Sling TV: Which one is best for you?

I'm interested in trying it. It says you have to have a PlayStation Network account.

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[pc747]

PSN account was free. Jeffrey, you may give me another tool to try.

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[Jeffrey]

PSN account was free. Jeffrey, you may give me another tool to try.

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Check it out.. let me know...lol

 

[pc747]

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[pc747]

Check it out.. let me know...lol

I'll try it when I get home.

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[Jeffrey]

I'll try it when I get home.

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Very cool.. Bed time for me..

 

[pc747]

NVIDIA Shield Android TV gets PlayStation Vue support, Software Upgrade 3.3 | AndroidGuys

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[duxdad]

Have you considered Slingbox? I you have friends of family stateside that subscribes to cable and a good internet connection on both ends you could get all the programming they get. I use it(Slingbox 500 with a Roku) and love it although not as long distance as you, Massachusetts to Florida. There are no extra charges for Slingbox. I do have a dedicated cable box for the Slingbox that costs $10 per month.

 

[PereDroid]

Why is this on the main news page? I think you are abusing your powers, Jeffrey.

Happy to help though. I consider myself a bit of an expert on this.

My previous bill: $165. Cut cable TV and "Home Phone".

Internet only: $60
Amazon: $9
Netflix: $9
Hulu Plus: $11
HBO Go: $15
= $104
= saving $60/month and have more stuff then I can possible watch.
Added antenna: Free = OTA Channels
Other things we use:
Hoopla (Free stuff from our library)
Many Roku & Chromecast apps: Crackle, PBS Kids, YouTube, Pluto TV, Vimio

Services I've trialed:
PS Vue & DirecTV Now

Opinion on those:
DirectTV Now I used when the CLE Indians were in the playoffs and TBS had the 1st or 2nd round games on. So I did the one month trial. Kept it another month to see if it would be good for watching TWD (Walking Dead) and some other shows (Better Call Saul) since they have AMC. It wasn't. I canceled. The On Demand was horrible. AMC only gave them the right to On Demand ONE series. LAME! This was before the new box they just released. So I was pretty much stuck watching TV like the old days... waiting until something came on and being in front of the TV at that time.
This is no way to live anymore.

Ps Vue, was great. The DVR-ish options are the best, hands down. It competes well with Hulu. I only tried the 7 day trial though and canceled on principle: II don't think a 7 day trial is long enough. Really Sony? Even HBO has a FULL MONTH trial. Step up your game Sony.

 

[lovemyram4x4]

The Shield TV actually runs Android TV, I'm pretty sure the other box only runs standard Android. There's a lot of advantages of using boxes that actually run Android TV aside from the UI.

As for cutting the cord, make sure you're fine with giving some things to save a few bucks. I've looked into it a few times and it's still not worth it to me.

If was to get close to everything I get with Fios TV it would cost more to get low bit rate compressed video and mostly 2.0 audio. To just get the stuff I normally watch I'd only save a little but still not get the high quality stream I get from Fios.

Your wants/needs will be different so cutting the cord for streaming services may be great way to save money. Look at PlayStation Vue, many love it, I tried it, it cost almost as much as Fios just to get most of the channels that are important to me and while video was adequate they don't offer 5.1 audio and DVR is quite limited compared to my setup.

I do still use 2 Shield TV's (just replaced an Android box with a second Shield). I mostly use SPMC(Kodi) to view my DVR/movie collection from my media server (yes my DVR runs on my server). I rarely use any of the Kodi streaming add-ons or the ones installed on the Shield TV(I get free subscription for many of the TV network apps through Fios) but it's to have there ready to access when I need them.

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[johnomaz]

We cut the cord at my house when my wife lost her job in December of 2015 and we couldn't afford TV anymore. Needless to say, we found ourselves having a ton of extra time on our hands. Its amazing how much time we spent sitting there, channel surfing and not actually watching something specific.

Hulu is a good place to start if you want to watch specific shows that are available on Hulu. You can browse to many channel websites and they stream their shows for free and can cast the show up to your TV.

Or you can go the bittorrent way and download everything you watch. You can use something called Sonarr to watch and manage what shows you watch, use a bittorrent client like Deluge to have Sonarr tell it what to download, Plex to manage the library and streaming of the video content to your TV and pay an annual fee for a bittorrent friendly VPN. I mean...thats what I heard you can do . A computer or server would need to be set up for it. A device as small as a QNAP could be used or something larger like a full on server running any OS really, but I've hard unRAID is pretty good. FreeNAS also works and is free. You know, just saying.

 

[PereDroid]

@lovemyram4x4 If you could get everything you have with FIOS? What would that be?
I don't need a 5th of what my cable company provided.

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[Jeffrey]

Why is this on the main news page? I think you are abusing your powers, Jeffrey.
.

It happened to be in the Off Topic Forum and Promoted temporarily to get some additional attention which is not against the rules.

OR.. Perhaps it's there to supplement all the content you have been posting...

 

[PereDroid]

I'm only teasing. Obviously or I wouldn't have tried to be helpful.
And I never promised I'd be prolific.
Quality vs Quantity, my friend.

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[xeene]

i've been without cable subscription since 2010. i have yet to miss an episode of any show or any blockbuster film. i have a 3d surround sound movie theater with 120" screen in my basement, i'm a tv fanatic.
i have a windows 10 pc with wd passport 2tb usb drive with popcorn time/utorrent that streams bittorent content to other 12 smart devices in the house over gigabit network in the house.
what i would do in your place is purchase NEO Z83-4 you can read a good review of it at Minix NEO Z83-4 Mini-PC Review
you can probably get it for under $150 in asia, i bought it for $160 in the states. it's a VERY powerful full windows 10 pc for it's size, can output 4k content simultaneously to 2 tvs/monitors. has 4 usb ports. you want to game on it? no problem, just not on ultimate settings. streams 4k youtube/netflix/amazon/hulu/whatever without a hickup. if you want to have a library of content, connect a 3-4tb usb drive to it and save all the content you want.
i do subscribe to private internet access vpn that costs about $30 a year and has no effect on connection speed.

so all it really costs me is $160 for entertainment box and $3 a month for vnp and i get access to all the media in the world.