Cutting the Cord in 2022 -- Tell Me How

[Avery]

Just ordered a fire stick.

I'll report back with my experience using that with Cinema HD. I kind of feel like we're back in the Napster days again with these streaming sites. Truth be told, once the industry figures out how to serve the customers properly I'll be perfectly happy paying a reasonable amount for convenience, reliability, quality and choice. I'm looking at either paying the cable company that I absolutely hate hundreds of dollars a month and getting jerked around on my rate or signing up for half a dozen different services and saving like $60 a month.

What's the verdict? Are helicopters circling your house, guys in black sedans and SUV's parking on your block on the regular? I'm assuming this is priority #2 after Mar-a-Lago.

 

[fishonjazz]

What's the verdict? Are helicopters circling your house, guys in black sedans and SUV's parking on your block on the regular? I'm assuming this is priority #2 after Mar-a-Lago.

there is a grey area from what I understand. If you simply stream the content then you aren't breaking any laws. You cant download it because then you own it and thats a no no. Or something. I really have no idea.

 

[Avery]

there is a grey area from what I understand. If you simply stream the content then you aren't breaking any laws. You cant download it because then you own it and thats a no no. Or something. I really have no idea.

Streaming content that's copywritten is technically prohibited as a user though very hard to enforce both from a technical nature as well as monetary. Owners of copyrights will send takedown requests to the person or entity streaming the content vs. those viewing it (similar to going after the drug dealer, not the user).

You just have to live with your very soul being at risk, sinner. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's sideloaded streaming box.

 

[fishonjazz]

Streaming content that's copywritten is technically prohibited as a user though very hard to enforce both from a technical nature as well as monetary. Owners of copyrights will send takedown requests to the person or entity streaming the content vs. those viewing it (similar to going after the drug dealer, not the user).

You just have to live with your very soul being at risk, sinner. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's sideloaded streaming box.

Lol at that last sentence. Nice one.

 

[Gameface]

So I think I'm going to switch to a number of paid streaming services, youtube TV being the biggest and most expensive of the ones I'm looking at that I currently don't have. I will keep Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ for now. I have HBO Max as part of my cable package and I may just try to use the firestick to get the little bit of content I want from HBO. I might sign up for paramount plus for some of the garbage reality TV competition shows we watch. With the end of Better Call Saul and almost the end of Walking Dead (yeah I'm still hate watching that ****) I don't know that I need AMC.

I just haven't really liked the way that streaming using Cinema HD has worked so far. I see that I can get better at it but this is not a thing I want to put much effort and thought into and the quality has been very hit and miss, not to mention actually getting the thing you want to watch to load has been very hit and miss.

I will absolutely miss having the shows I watch sitting there in my DVR que. Series that I've watched in the past automatically record when the next season starts and I often don't realize that there is a new season except for that. I like that if I'm watching other things the DVR shows just sit there and I can still see that I haven't watched that show yet. I like how easy it is to find and set up for recording shows that are on cable. We sometimes just set something to record on the off chance that we'll have a break in things we normally watch and give it a shot. A lot of this is stuff I would have forgotten about otherwise. Netflix and other services have a watch list or saved shows. Cinema HD doesn't have any of that. I just can't go pure pirate streams. The hassle, quality and features just aren't there for me.

 

[fishonjazz]

So I think I'm going to switch to a number of paid streaming services, youtube TV being the biggest and most expensive of the ones I'm looking at that I currently don't have. I will keep Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ for now. I have HBO Max as part of my cable package and I may just try to use the firestick to get the little bit of content I want from HBO. I might sign up for paramount plus for some of the garbage reality TV competition shows we watch. With the end of Better Call Saul and almost the end of Walking Dead (yeah I'm still hate watching that ****) I don't know that I need AMC.

I just haven't really liked the way that streaming using Cinema HD has worked so far. I see that I can get better at it but this is not a thing I want to put much effort and thought into and the quality has been very hit and miss, not to mention actually getting the thing you want to watch to load has been very hit and miss.

I will absolutely miss having the shows I watch sitting there in my DVR que. Series that I've watched in the past automatically record when the next season starts and I often don't realize that there is a new season except for that. I like that if I'm watching other things the DVR shows just sit there and I can still see that I haven't watched that show yet. I like how easy it is to find and set up for recording shows that are on cable. We sometimes just set something to record on the off chance that we'll have a break in things we normally watch and give it a shot. A lot of this is stuff I would have forgotten about otherwise. Netflix and other services have a watch list or saved shows. Cinema HD doesn't have any of that. I just can't go pure pirate streams. The hassle, quality and features just aren't there for me.

Fair enough. I get it. It's not for everyone.

 

[Gameface]

Fair enough. I get it. It's not for everyone.

I've been out of town for a bit which has interrupted me testing out the firestick. My wife found some shows that are not available in the U.S. that she is really excited about (the first seasons of Great British Bake Off being the biggest one) so she's excited about it.

Some of the dumb **** we watch, like Big Brother, was hard to get and was mostly low resolution. It's a dumb show, and I own that, but we've been watching for a long time so it's like a thing at this point. The quality was much lower on the Cinema HD streams.

My wife watches General Hospital. That's another one that was a bit hit and miss. My wife is usually 2-3 weeks behind on the show and catches up when she has some time off and it's all right there on the DVR with the next episode all queued up.

I think I'm going to go with some paid streaming options and then gradually try to ween of some when I can find suitable alternatives for free.

Maybe with experience I'll get more comfortable with the Cinema HD system and move more of my TV watching to it.

 

[fishonjazz]

I've been out of town for a bit which has interrupted me testing out the firestick. My wife found some shows that are not available in the U.S. that she is really excited about (the first seasons of Great British Bake Off being the biggest one) so she's excited about it.

Some of the dumb **** we watch, like Big Brother, was hard to get and was mostly low resolution. It's a dumb show, and I own that, but we've been watching for a long time so it's like a thing at this point. The quality was much lower on the Cinema HD streams.

My wife watches General Hospital. That's another one that was a bit hit and miss. My wife is usually 2-3 weeks behind on the show and catches up when she has some time off and it's all right there on the DVR with the next episode all queued up.

I think I'm going to go with some paid streaming options and then gradually try to ween of some when I can find suitable alternatives for free.

Maybe with experience I'll get more comfortable with the Cinema HD system and move more of my TV watching to it.

My experience has been that tv shows work on cinema HD really well but movies, especially newer one, doesn't. I just watched the latest Dr strange movie this week finally cause I couldn't get a good stream until now for example. I just finished better call saul on monday night (the night of the finale) and it worked perfectly through the whole series. I have a dumb show I like that is like big brother called The Challenge and it didn't work very well but that is the rare exception for me for tv shows.
Look for streams with the title "fembed" and I usually go with the 720 option. Seems to work the best. I also use subtitles all the time and they work pretty good most of the time.