TV/Internet/Phone options

[General_Failure]

They're nice in theory, but you'll struggle to find the one good stream out of the ten to fifteen listed for everything.

[smeags]

i was gifted an unlocked amazon fire stick with kodi & a bunch of add-ons already installed.  i'm guessing it's super illegal...but i'm not sure i care.  holy crap, there's a lot of stuff on there...including movies still in the theater. 

I have accidently watched a bunch of in theater stuff on kodi. gonna watch dr strange this weekend, but yeah. like GF said, its tough to find a good stream at times.

[hunt]

thanks for the info.
real reason the wife got it for me is because i spazz out like a complete ahole whenever the eagles game isn't on our local channel...happens if the eagles are on cbs the same time as the steelers...twice last season but luckily won't happen this season unless they move some start times around.
anyway, all the movies are just a bonus. 

[Munson]

Is it worth upgrading to a bigger TV if it's not a smart TV? I've been rolling with a 32 inch I got a few years back but wanna go bigger. I've seen some sales on 40 inch screen smart TVs and bigger screens that aren't smart TVs. 40 doesn't seem like a huge upgrade to me but the smart TV thing is something I want.

[smeags]

Is it worth upgrading to a bigger TV if it's not a smart TV? I've been rolling with a 32 inch I got a few years back but wanna go bigger. I've seen some sales on 40 inch screen smart TVs and bigger screens that aren't smart TVs. 40 doesn't seem like a huge upgrade to me but the smart TV thing is something I want.

just get the regular tv and get an amazon fire stick.

[General_Failure]

Go as big as you can afford and get a fire stick. You're probably gonna have one anyway, so why switch between three remotes when you can stick with two?

[QB Eagles]

Smart TVs are actually a negative thing. It means five years from now you'll have outdated technology in your TV that you can't replace, it monitors what you watch and sells the info to advertisers, and it'll be a network security problem too because the company will stop updating the firmware after a couple years. My Vizio TV doesn't even have an option to disconnect from the Internet.

Much better to have a nice, dumb screen and plug in whatever extra technology you want.

[Munson]

Thank you for the info fellas.

With things like fire stick or chromecast, do I have to stream things on my phone or computer and then 'cast' them to the TV, or is it like a smart tv where things like the YouTube app are right on there and I can just surf YouTube on my tv?

On a related question, do gaming consoles work as replacements for smartTV/firstick/chromecast, or do all those things do more than the 360/PS4/xbox1 can do?

[smeags]

both of those plug directly into your tv so there's no need to mirror cast from another devise.

my two big TV's have gaming systems on them and I use those for streaming. there may be other details I don't know about on chromecast or fire, but to me the difference is you use more electricity when streaming through a gaming system.

[Susquehanna Birder]

Comcast recently added Netflix to their X1 system, so I no longer have to flip from the cable box to my Apple TV when I want to watch Netflix content.   

[hunt]

with chromecast, you need to stream on your phone or whatever and cast to the tv.  with fire, you don't. it comes with a small remote.

[smeags]

with chromecast, you need to stream on your phone or whatever and cast to the tv.  with fire, you don't. it comes with a small remote.

good to know, I thought worked the same way.

[Munson]

Yeah firestick sounds much more convienient.

Any opinions on 4K vs 1080? I've heard the picture on 4K is amazing but I can't seem to find any good deals on 4K TVs that aren't also smart TVs...so if I wanted to go the Firestick route and not smartTV, I may be SOL on 4K in my price range.

[General_Failure]

If your provider actually offers 4k and/or your internet can handle streaming at 4k, then look at a 4k tv. If not, wait another decade (or two) for networks to get on a new standard. It might be 8k when they finally get around to it.

[QB Eagles]

Personally I'd rather get a higher end 1080 than a lower end 4K. Good color, contrast, and the like matters more than the bump up to 4K, especially considering there isn't a ton of 4K content.