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I picked up a ROKU, I am wanting to cut the Cable TV cord.

I first tried the ROKU hooked up to the TV with an HDMI in the Great room/Living room and it worked well. We even watched a couple movies on Amazon Prime. No dropouts or buffering. (ROKU is connected to 60mbps speed internet through a switch with CAT5e.)

Last night I thought I would try it in the HT room and see how it worked and how the picture quality looked there.
Hook up of the ROKU to the switch again by CAT5e. From the output of the ROKU I connected the HDMI cable to an HDMI input on a Marantz SR8002 HT receiver.

I then turned on the equipment and set the Marantz to the correct HDMI input port and the ROKU home page came up just fine. I checked YouTube and it seemed ok. When I tried Amazon Prime it loaded fine. But, when we found a movie we wanted to watch, it started to load, but then an info block came up on the screen of the TV saying there wasn't enough bandwidth to load the movie. I tried again 2 or 3 times, same thing. I knew the problem was not the Ethernet cable. Works fine when using it for Netflix.

So what the heck was the problem? I even tried a different HDMI input port on the Marantz. Why? I don't know but I did....
 For a test I disconnected the ROKU HDMI cable from the Marantz and connected it directly to an HDMI input port on the Samsung LED TV. I then attempted again to watch the same movie on Amazon Prime as I tried earlier. Movie loaded without a glitch. Not a dropout or buffering glitch once throughout the entire movie.
What gives?

Jim
jea48
ozzy's avatar
ozzy
7,471 posts
 
But to get Wi-Fi don't you still need cable?

ozzy
jea48 OP
4,430 posts
 
Yes, I still need internet.

At present the phone, internet, and cable TV, is from one provider.
The cable TV runs about $90 a month + tax.
High speed internet $51 + tax
Phone$30 + tax
And then there are other fees that add up to another $20 or so a month.
The cable company just raised their price again. It’s now $212.59 a mo.
The only premium channel we have is Starz (garbage) which is part of the package. The bills says Starz is $2.41 a mo.

I can get Sling TV with the same programing as I have now (minus Starz) for $35 a month + tax.

I will have some up front costs and a little of my labor. To receive the 14 or so local over the air TV stations in my area I will have to install HD TV antenna in the attic. ( I’ll pay for that in 3 months. The Cable CATV provider charges $11.40 per month, for only about 5 or 6 of the 14 channels, to receive the local stations). I will also need to buy a ROKU unit for each TV I want to stream from, or what ever type of streamer unit I choose. I hear Amazon Prime also has a streaming service App that will give the user the channels he/she wants, not just what the CATV provider offers.
I just started looking into a Fire Stick. Nice thing about what I have looked at so far, no contracts.

Jim

roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
Broadcast TV s**ks! All the best shows are only available on the cable/satellite/telecom pipeline! For this you have to pay - and pay! TANSTAAFL!   But look outside! See that cable box junction? Got a nice long piece of wire ...oops, waveguide ...
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,220 posts
 
You can a free Roku when signing up for different content providers.  DirectTV & Sling run frequent promos.  Others probably do too.
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,875 posts
 
@jea48
Who is your internet provider? That’s way too expensive for what you get. I have Spectrum and with HD on all channels, 5 premium channels (HBO, Showtime, Starz, TMC, Epix.), internet (100 mbs) and phone with all the trimmings, and  it comes to less than $130/month.

Try contacting customer retention by going through customer service and asking for a supervisor and see if you can get it down to something reasonable.

All the best,
Nonoise
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