Gyroscopic Investing

Pointedstick wrote:That little TV dongle thingy looks completely awesome. They don't indicate that it will be able to access content from arbitrary network locations, although the ability to plug a hard drive into it looks like a good second-best choice. Definitely an exciting product.

45 seconds into the walkthrough video they do indicate that you can mount network drives on the Equiso dongle. In fact, they show how it's done:

http://youtu.be/cRcKxrIJzB4

The dongle just runs Android tablet software — and the makers have engineered it to be extremely hackable. Of course, the Equiso has become an overnight Kickstarter sensation, so now you can only get into the August pre-release if you buy 4 or more of them and split them with your friends. The good news is that it looks like this device will be mainstream in a few months. And that should put pressure on other hardware makers as well.

We also do not have a cable subscription.

I have a 42" plasma connected to a passive antenna (~15 bucks at Fry's) to get local channels and an HP desktop computer (I think it's a home media pc or something like that) running Windows 7 connected via VGA cable; the computer is controlled via wireless mouse and keyboard.  I also have a 5.1 DVD/audio combo thing (LG I believe) connected to the TV via HDMI and to the computer via the line out with an RCA splitter.  At some point I wouldn't mind upgrading the cards in the computer to utilize DVI/optical for for the A/V connections, but it's just not a high enough priority for me to actually do it.

We have a netflix subscription to stream movies, and often will rent movies from the Redbox down the street.
I use Pandora a lot at home to play music through the sound system...that's actually probably the biggest use we get out of the system; I also have a pretty large digital music (and movie) collection stored on the computer's hard drive.

Gumby wrote: I have a really dumb logistics question about this... but I assume you need a "cable" to access the internet, right? It's been a few months since I've looked into this, but don't cable companies price their internet access in a way (with bundles) to make the TV side more attractive?

We use Clear for our internet service.  It's wireless and utilizes 4G; I have the modem set up in the window sill in our kitchen, which is connected to a wireless modem.  We have the Home Basic plan right now, which is $35 a month w/1.5dn/0.5up, and that seems to be fast enough.  They also have an unlimited plan for $50 a month which will average around 5dn/1up.

We upgraded to the unlimited for a few months because we thought that our home internet connection was causing poor performance on my fiance's work computer when she would log in from home; we later discovered that there was a server issue on their side, so we downgraded again (although now she's expensing home internet so maybe we'll bump it back up if it's being slow).

We switched to Clear from AT&T DSL because I got fed up with the poor reliability and horrible customer service.  I'm much more satisfied with Clear, although occasionally it will also act up.  Most of the time cycling the power on the modem seems to resolve issues (that's the only option you have).  They say that 4G service will deteriorate significantly during a storm, but we haven't had too many issues with it so far; I think we may be really close to one of their towers, though, so that may be the reason.

I love watching sports, especially during the football season.  My son and I are also Spurs fans and enjoy watching their games during the NBA season.

Does anyone know how you can cut cable and yet watch games on espn or the nfl network or fox sports in real time without cable or satellite tv?  Probably a dumb question, but I'm just curious if anyone has done this?

Re: Clear - I would caution others that you might have problems if you use this service.  It sounds like it's working well for hoost, but there are a lot of horror stories about people that live in some areas and get really poor service.  Their service uses the Sprint 4G network.  I used to have a Clear hotspot and I found the service varies widely from city to city, or even neighborhood to neighborhood.  Some areas you can get a really fast 6 megabit signal, others you might be lucky to get a couple hundred kilobits.  Also, Clear subscribers that use Netflix heavily for streaming have been throttled or had their bandwidth degraded, without receiving any warnings or confirmation from Clear support:

http://ventspace.wordpress.com/2010/10/ ... hrottling/

So, caveat emptor.

Storm wrote: Re: Clear - I would caution others that you might have problems if you use this service.  It sounds like it's working well for hoost, but there are a lot of horror stories about people that live in some areas and get really poor service.  Their service uses the Sprint 4G network.  I used to have a Clear hotspot and I found the service varies widely from city to city, or even neighborhood to neighborhood.  Some areas you can get a really fast 6 megabit signal, others you might be lucky to get a couple hundred kilobits.  Also, Clear subscribers that use Netflix heavily for streaming have been throttled or had their bandwidth degraded, without receiving any warnings or confirmation from Clear support:

http://ventspace.wordpress.com/2010/10/ ... hrottling/

So, caveat emptor.

Agreed; I did a lot of research before we signed up and made sure we had a grace period if it didn't work out.  I also heard similar stories which is why I was cautious, but it is working well for us.  I think they have a tower locator on their website that shows coverage maps so I would do plenty of research before signing up.  We haven't had any noticeable issues with throttling while streaming music/video.  The customer service has been pretty good...much better than ATT was.

I don't think it's perfect for everyone but it's working okay for us.

We use Clear as well. It's painfully slow compared to cable and FiOS, but it's pretty reliable in our house. Seems to be somewhat susceptible to prolonged periods of stormy weather/ heavy rain/ high heat, but we just had several months without an issue. With DSL (both AT&T and Verizon), we used to lose internet for days at a time.

Netflix wasn't streaming well on Apple TV so I shelved the device and switched to disc-by-mail service. Still, I have since heard from many people who had trouble with Netflix streaming via Comcast cable and even FiOs.

I'm on the verge of doing this myself.  Between a Roku box, Apple TV, and PS3 you can get more programming than you can ever watch. They all have their quirks, but if you're flexible it's pretty straightforward.

I'll use Netflix for archived movies & shows, Hulu+ and the various network websites for new TV (although there's talk they'll limit Hulu to cable subscribers eventually), and iTunes / Amazon Prime for PPV TV shows (available right after they air) & movies.  Yes that's extra, but think of that as a true a-la-carte cable bill for specific shows you just can't live without.  Throw in an antenna and tuner and you can get all your local OTA HD stations to cover local sports for free. 

Bob -- For live sports-lovers who want more than the OTA stations, you can order MLB, NBA, and NHL broadband season passes for a variety of streaming devices.  And the NFL doesn't really advertise this because of their deal with DirecTV, but you can also get the NFL Sunday Ticket on the PS3 (still over $300 though).  If you're willing to wait a day to watch the games, you can order NFL Game Rewind and see recording of every game with no commercials one day after they air on TV for only $40 for the full season.

Hmm... Why haven't I pulled the trigger yet? Gotta get on that.

Thanks Tyler for the suggestion.  I'll look in to it. 

By the way, I just picked up the new version of AppleTV, which is 1080p.  I can confirm that Netflix now supports 1080p and 5.1 surround sound on the shows and movies that support it, on AppleTV.  Quite a nice little device.

For some reason the colors still don't look as vibrant on the AppleTV as they do on the PS3.  Both devices are connected over HDMI to an LED TV that supports extended dynamic range.  Perhaps the PS3 is doing some "color enhancement."  The TV is professionally calibrated to THX reference format.

By the way, is there a THX test movie on Netflix that can be used to calibrate your TV?

By the way, the following site seems to have live streams of all the Olympic events:

http://www.vipbox.tv/

They also seem to have a lot of sports streams.  I'm sure the site is not legal, but I don't really feel bad given the way NBC has a monopoly on Olympic coverage and only provides it to cable customers.

Storm wrote: Another option I wanted to mention are the Roku boxes.  I haven't personally tried this one, but I've heard great things about them.  You can get them for as cheap as $50 and I've heard they do an admirable job of streaming Netflix and many other options.

I have a wireless Roku box in my bedroom and it works great. I also have a Sony Blueray in the living room and in my opinion the Roku is far superior for streaming. It offers more content (I use Amazon Prime myself - but there's lots of free stuff) and the user interface is much better than the Blueray. The device has no power off switch so unlike the Blue Ray it remembers what you were doing. Very useful when watching a TV series.

I would eliminate cable altogether if it weren't for my wife's Filipino channels which she watches all the time. I watch very little TV so when I figure out how to stream something to replace the Filipino channels and keep her happy I will be cutting the cable too.

jackh wrote:

Storm wrote: Another option I wanted to mention are the Roku boxes.  I haven't personally tried this one, but I've heard great things about them.  You can get them for as cheap as $50 and I've heard they do an admirable job of streaming Netflix and many other options.

I have a wireless Roku box in my bedroom and it works great. I also have a Sony Blueray in the living room and in my opinion the Roku is far superior for streaming. It offers more content (I use Amazon Prime myself - but there's lots of free stuff) and the user interface is much better than the Blueray. The device has no power off switch so unlike the Blue Ray it remembers what you were doing. Very useful when watching a TV series.

I would eliminate cable altogether if it weren't for my wife's Filipino channels which she watches all the time. I watch very little TV so when I figure out how to stream something to replace the Filipino channels and keep her happy I will be cutting the cable too.

Jackh, check out PPStream or TVUplayer.  They will let you stream a lot of shows from all over the world.  My relatives use it to watch their (Mandarin) Chinese dramas, but I think you can also get Filipino shows.

Storm wrote: Jackh, check out PPStream or TVUplayer.  They will let you stream a lot of shows from all over the world.  My relatives use it to watch their (Mandarin) Chinese dramas, but I think you can also get Filipino shows.

Thanks. I'll check them out.

I'm going to be testing AirPlay from my iMac to an Apple TV to my big screen.

The new Mountain Lion OS released this week should enable me to mirror ESPN3, Hulu, etc from the iMac.

I'll report on the results.

Ok, got something working pretty quick - watched ESPN3 on my 80" via AppleTV airplayed from my iMac.

Very cool...

Storm wrote: By the way, the following site seems to have live streams of all the Olympic events:

http://www.vipbox.tv/

They also seem to have a lot of sports streams.  I'm sure the site is not legal, but I don't really feel bad given the way NBC has a monopoly on Olympic coverage and only provides it to cable customers.

Thanks!  I'll have to take a look at that!  I of course would never actually use this site, as I have deep respect for NBC's Olympic coverage monopoly and the cable industry in general.  To watch any Olympic coverage over the internet (without subscribing to worthless channels like MSNBC) would be a deeply disgraceful act.

So far we've just been recording all of the prime time coverage with our cute little Hauppauge laptop tuner.  We're lucky enough to have good reception in our area so this is working out well!

I bought a Mohu Leaf antenna, and Amazon delivered it today.

http://www.gomohu.com/

This is about the third antenna I've tried in my quest to cut the cable, and it is the only one that actually works.  After I hooked it up and scanned channels, it found 28 working channels (some of them HD extensions of mother stations, with continuous news and weather).  I'm sitting here watching tv that's crystal clear, more so than even cable tv.  The only problem is that I've gotten accustomed to recording and rewinding as I watch tv, so I guess my next acquisition will be a TiVo. 

The Mohu looks like its online photos, and it's about the size of a sheet of paper.  It matters a lot where you put it.  When I put it on one wall, I only got 13 channels, mostly with poor reception.  One window and two different walls later, it was able to retrieve 28 channels.  I suspect that if I tried a few more walls, I'd find a configuration to yield 40 (or maybe 57) channels.  BTW, I had no idea many of these channels existed.

We're going to endure tropical storm Andrea tomorrow, so I'll get to see how it works in bad weather.

I decided to make my transition gradually.  I had restarted Netflix earlier this year, having decided that I had punished them sufficiently for their two-year-old price increase , so I've been watching movies on my Kindle.  So TiVo is next, then I can turn off cable tv and landline phone.

I haven't decided which internet to go with--WiFi or cable internet.

I've had a Terk HD antenna for about 9 years now since 2002. I thought I was so clever when I got it, and it really does perform well. However, when analog was phased out in the U.S., ABC lost their good spot in the spectrum and despite quadrupling the strength of their signal, I lost "Lost."

Dualstow, before I put my leaf antenna on its current wall, the only channels I could get were Fox, MY 9 Network (a local channel), Shop NBC, Boost, Univision, Telefuturo, and a bunch of other Spanish language channels I had never heard of.  None of the big broadcast networks.  The next antenna location brought in NBC and CBS, but not the local affiliate of ABC.  it was only with the current configuration that I got ABC.  I guess they were not paying attention when the time came to get dibs on the good digital locations.

I suspect that if I were to move the leaf to another room, I might get access to additional channels.  According to tvfool.com there are 38 channels around me that I should be able to reach using an antenna.  So far I've only gotten 28 and I'm greedy enough to want the others.

smurff wrote: Dualstow, before I put my leaf antenna on its current wall, the only channels I could get were Fox, MY 9 Network (a local channel), Shop NBC...
I suspect that if I were to move the leaf to another room, I might get access to additional channels. 
...

I always keep my antenna near the same window on a short cord, but I do sometimes need to get up and rotate the thing for certain channels, and also for extreme summer and winter weather. This is how our ancestors kept in shape, LOL.

When I found out that people were having trouble receiving ABC all over town in many, many cities, I gave up and bought the DVDs.

I recently ditched the TV entirely. So far, my wife and I haven't noticed any significant drop in our ability to consume media whenever we want to since we can just pull up Netflix on our laptops (that's all the TV ever displayed anyway).

The most dramatic change has been to our living room. Getting rid of the TV made us realize just how much we'd unconsciously arranged the furniture to encourage TV watching. Suddenly when you sat down, there was just an empty wall to stare at.

So Pointedstick, did you put in something to fill the hole left after removing the tv?