Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

[DaNinja]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

Where did you find a way to stream Food Network shows? They don't have much on their site.

Veetle has a Food Network stream up right now.
UStream has several food shows, as well as, the Food Network. None were broadcasting as of a few minutes ago.
JustinTV has had FN, but I don't see a stream up currently.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

Since I became clean and sober, I have been really hyper. I can't sit still through many shows. I took up gardening, canning, furniture making, cooking, baking, and chasing after my grandkids.

 

[jkust]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

I'm also on the "Dump Pay TV" course. My solution has been to set up a streaming media server on a spare computer, then hook up our 3 TVs to the network using media player boxes ($50 apiece). The media server I use (tversity pro) can stream pretty much any content available on the internet (YouTube, TV.com, Hulu, NBC.com, CBS.com) and it shows up on my TVs in a format similar to the DirecTV guide. Also, most of the media is available via bittorrent download. If you set it up right, you can have your computer go out and search some bittorrent sites and automatically download new episodes when you see them. The only thing I don't get is the news and live sports. For that I will set up an outside antenna. I'm just sick of paying $80 a month mostly for food network, HGTV, and network reruns. My solution costs about $200, so it will pay for itself in three months time.

-E

We use a Western Digital TV Live Plus media hub. Basically Best Buy only carried that or Apple TV and the Apple TV couldn't do HD. Quite honestly, I'm not sure exactly all it is supposed to do. It quickly connected to my laptop that was sitting in another room to read the media but it won't play any of my digital movies from my cameral that are all stored. It says it can't read the format which is just silly. I will say the xbox media extender is awful, and simply doesn not work. The WD Live Plus doesn't have a Hulu app either. What really bugs me is each box can only do certain things. I really hate when the technology is being held back purposefully. Honestly I'm glad these things like netflix are available. We have a pretty techy house but again, my dna won't allow me to pay for cable content.

 

[eavega]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

What media extenders are you using?

I got a deal a while back on the LaCie LaCinema Mini HD boxes. Picked up three for $50 apiece, free shipping, from an online discounter. No internal HDD, but two USB ports that can connect any Flash or HDD media. Network connected.

Also, a Wii or xBox or any uPNP or DNLA device will play the tversity media. I was doing it for a while with my DirecTV HD DVR box, until I had to return it.

embozee - I haven't explored streaming the "lets see what's on" shows, as we have gotten out of the habit of turning on the TV when there is nothing better to do. We make an effort to find something better to do.

-Rgds

 

[JB]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

One more reason I am glad to live alone.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

embozee - I haven't explored streaming the "lets see what's on" shows, as we have gotten out of the habit of turning on the TV when there is nothing better to do. We make an effort to find something better to do.

Yeah us too. I haven't "channel surfed" in years. Never was anything on.......

I used to love HGTV an we still watch Food Network but the commercials now drive me insane.

 

[JaSla74]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

but the commercials now drive me insane.

That's where the DVR pays off & why it's hard to drop DTV. About the only 'live' TV I can stomach is football. If I can't forward through commercials, then I usually wait until I can, but at least with Hulu & like service the commercials are very minimal.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

I used a PC running BeyondTV for years as my DVR. It was wonderful. However Comcast getting rid of analog pretty much killed that. No way I'm paying them for their DVR which is no where near as good as my homebrew one.

 

[jkust]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

It's suprising how short a show really is on Netflix because the commercials are deleted. I can watch a half of a season of a series in no time. We used to do a lot of Redbox for our movie watching then they quit carrying the good, new releases. They seemed to mostly carry B movies and old good stuff like original Die Hards and similar stuff.

 

[tx1961whaler]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

Just hooked up my Netflix streamer (Roku XDS). http://www.roku.com/roku-products
Sits next to the (audio-only) Soundbridge. All seems well so far. I may need to get a better network switch than what I'm using. We'll see how this old one works.
Now I may want a new TV. I just used my last available video hookup.

 

[JaSla74]

Re: Ahhh.... my wife had DirecTV turned off

It's official, I pulled the plug...

...Picked up a decent outdoor antenna (tried the indoor antenna, but it wasn't getting the job done) & now I'm getting my local HD free & crystal clear. In fact, the HD looks better than DTV since it's not compressed. I can stream recorded OTA TV from my PC through my PS3, but I found using a xbox as a media extender is far superior. I'd even go as for to say that some functions are better than DTVs DVR.

It's been a few weeks now & I honestly can't say I miss DTV. Between Hulu, Netflix, & the ability to stream recorded OTA programs there's no need. Granted, I may have to find a watering hole come Monday Night Football, but I imagine I'll survive.