So who provides your cable stations? You piggyback off an existing cable account and stream it into your home on various devices, I assume that's what you were referring to?
I have been using Sling since last October... doing a trial of Vue this week... it has a much better channel lineup... the only win for Sling is HBO. Running this on a Fire TV along with Kodi and Netflix. I use a custom skin in Kodi to launch the Android apps.
How do you like Fire TV? I just got a like new one off craigslist for $50 (4k version). Going to install it in the next hour and give it a test ride.
Correct...exisiting family cable account. I like Roku because it has a remote and is very easy to navigate and can also use the Roku App on any device as a remote as well.. Fire TV stick is very similar but minus the remote I believe. You can get all kinds of stuff using Kodi all not legal. You can add free channels to the Fire Stick that stream pretty much everything.
I've got Fire TV and it has a really nice remote (with Alexa voice command, you've probably seen the commercial). I watched a CNET video comparing Fire TV to Roku and Roku won the battle, although they did like the remote for Fire TV much better. I think the biggest thing that Roku won out on was content and UI/navigation. They felt like Fire TV wasn't well organized. I'm very satisfied with Alexa. I asked Alexa what are the chances of rain in Austin TX tomorrow and she understood the entire context of the question. Exceptional. She also told me who was playing in the NBA finals. Btw, Fire Stick has the same remote, minus Alexa.
That is cool...I forgot about Alexa. Roku remote features voice command for searches. The other feature it has is an audio port. I sometimes watch the Roku in bed with earphones while the wife is sleeping. She is pregnant right now and at the end of her rope so I stay clear at all cost. I will be getting one of these...check it out http://www.cnet.com/how-to/turn-your-streamer-remote-into-a-universal-remote/
We cut the cord in 2006 when I connected an old laptop to my TV and built a webpage with links to various streaming websites that I accessed via wireless mouse. Cordcutting has come a long way since then. We currently have multiple Firesticks, a FireTV and a Roku. By far the Fire devices are superior, IMO. The Firesticks had sketchy WiFi, but I used the dongle that it comes with and it seems to respond better. The FireTV is hard wired directly into the router, so the streaming is a screaming 190 Mbs. The Fire devices are slightly over-engineered and very responsive. With the FireTV box, you can connect your bluetooth headset. The interface is geared towards the Amazon entertainment products, but by no means is it useless if you choose not to buy Prime, Showtime, etc. from them. Many of the Cable Channels offer streaming apps to access their content on Amazon, much like Roku. We discovered that our account login for our internet gave us access to most of them. The Roku I keep only for NFL Sunday Ticket and the occasionally ESPN app when I want to disappear in the bedroom for sports. The apps load too slowly, the remote is sometimes unresponsive and overall I just find it less convenient. For content, we have Netflix, Amazon Prime and Vue. We just switched from SlingTV to Vue. The option to have multiple users and the DVR-like features was too much to pass up. The sports offerings are greater as well with multiple FoxSports channels, Big 10 Network and with the usual ESPN suite of channels. Both SlingTV and Vue login credentials can be used on the WatchESPN app. Currently our internet login credentials w/ Cox give us access to Starz and HBO. It's simple enough for my elderly parents to use. The NVidia Shield is a great device and pretty future proof. I didn't feel I needed to spend that much however to meet our needs. It's also geared towards gaming, of which I take no part. I do have an Nvidia Shield tablet and for $200, I think it's the best bang for the buck in tablets.
Great Info...I need to check and see if my cox internet account offers those channels too. That would save me even more money. Excluding Prime because bought that for shipping orginally and wasn't planning on canceling it. (However, I think I heard Amazon split off and also offer just Amazon Video by itself now), I am at a cost of about $44 a month. If I get Starz free through internet account that would drop it to $32.
