2. home-theater
  3. 134050-2981

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
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,907 posts
 
@jea48 

Sorry to hear that. There should be real competition for you dollars instead of companies dividing up territories and sticking it to folk.

All the best,
Nonoise
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
Hey Jim- Wish I could get your deal ;-)  Comcast bills me about $250/month AND the phone service has multiple drop-outs after about 5 minutes.  Eventually, you can't even have a conversation!  Dealing with them is like dealing with a used car shyster for whom English is a second language!  I was able to save $10 month by buying my own modem/router but it is an 18 month payback.   Trying to figure out a way to cut the cord, but there are 2 major problems:
1.  The TV broadcast antennas are in 3 different directions, so I'd need to put in an attic antenna w a rotor to get OTA TV. That is a PITA, not the installation, but the need to rotate the antenna.  Besides local news, there actually are a couple of good shows OTA. 
2.  Our state university (UCONN) has contracted with SNY, a regional cable network to carry games that are not on national TV.  AFAIK, they do not offer streaming. 
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,907 posts
 
For those who want to use OTA broadcasts, check out AntennaWeb.org - Antenna Signal Prediction for the best way to align your antenna with your local broadcasters.

All the best,
Nonoise
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,406 posts
 
FWIW Plex app runs on Roku and others and now provides a nice integration option for over the air TV via an antenna and the PLEX app. haven’t tried it yet but probably will when I cut the cable TV cord sometime soon I hope.   Plex is a multimedia streaming app and works great as a source of CD quality digital to your hifi as well.  Best of all Plex is  free to start and use via a browser.  Apps for Apple, Roku, Amazon and others cost a few bucks and there are premium services that can be added if desired.   VEry cost effective solution for streaming hifi digital audio and now over the air TV as well, among other things.
schubert
7,386 posts
 
I get Wi-Fi through phone line with Century Link . Works fine .

When I am in Berlin that are about 20 companies you can get cable with  at about 50Euros  for what would be over
200$ with monopoly of Comcast in Twin Cities .
Look around you, USA is hell-bent to have fewer companies control  more and more things .

More to discover