Talk to me about Hulu, Sling, Firesticks, etc

[Snapdragon]

My AT&T Uverse/landline/internet just went up to $199 a month. Considering alternative TV options like Hulu, Sling, Firesticks, or whatever else is available.

I'm mostly wondering

A) what variety of channels are available (including local channels)

and B) how user-friendly are they for my 85-yr-old mother who is not tech savvy

I have a cheap smart TV that may or may not work well with it since it does not have bluetooth.

 

[x10]

I'm in the same boat

I use Antenna for local TV, Free and once the antenna is up easy

I use Prime, and Netflix for my main services. My main tv has the services built in for the other tv we use a fire stick with voice,

It's another menu to get used to but the voice makes it easy.

For my 8X parents I got them a Fire cube in which everything is voice operated.

I'm here to tell you I've worked on my parents for years and I can't even get the concept of no channel's through to them. Streaming is a complete mystery to them. every time I set it up for them and show them how to use it they love it. By the time the next show is ready to come on they have lost the concept completely.

I don't know what to do. The concept of a show starting when you tell it to is totally beyond them.

As far as availability of show, One service has more content than I can ever watch, I picked up Netflix and prime because they are Partnered and Netflix is the Big dog. They do more to put hardware at your ISP than anyone else and they use Amazon Prime servers so you figure out who's going to have the best service.

 

[femurphy77]

I tried HULU on one of their trials. I had it for about 3 weeks and I got an email from them that basically said "congratulations on adding your new device to your account". Trouble is I hadn't added a new device. I went to my account and there were 5 users listed on my account quite literally from all over the world. I guarantee they didn't break my password so IMHO Hulu's security is ****. I changed the password, dumped the squatters and closed the account. When I told them why they didn't even try to talk me into keeping it.

Your mileage may vary

 

[Fullmag]

Right now my main tv is Comcast cable. My son gave me a fire stick and set it up for Christmas with 4 months paid. It had has Netflix, prime, Hulu and few others with many apps. The voice command part makes it user friendly other wise I can’t find way around too well. It is different having stuff on different networks making it almost overwhelming to find programs. So far I like prime better than Netflix.

 

[9mmfan]

I have free over the air for local channels. Get Netflix and Prime via my PS4.
Internet is Comcast.

 

[target64]

If you do a lot of Amazon shopping I would go with the fire stick. I would not suggest getting it modded as for me it was a major pain and I dumped it rather quickly. We also have an antenna that gets a lot of channels.

 

[KittySlayer]

Free Antenna TV supplemented with Netflix.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

My kids got me a Roku a few years ago and I use it all the time. I also have a Netflix account and I occasionally watch Hulu with my kids account.

I've been surprised how much time I spend just watching Youtube content on the Roku (not Youtube TV). There is tons of stuff on Youtube, it's all free, but it's not as easy to find stuff.

 

[zer0day]

I have a modded firestick. I do the modding myself and stay current with all the best apps. I get access to all the tv shows, movies, pay per view, netflix, hulu, etc. You still need internet to use it(as you may know). I have a amazon prime account so i use that when i want to watch certain things on that and use it for shopping also. I ditched regular cable about 4 years ago and havent looked back. It's more of a connivence aspect to me. I can watch the shows I follow when I want. So I could catch up on Chicago PD over the weekend if I have a busy week. All the TV shows are commercial free too.

I still mod them for people (cough cough, pm me) and can do the same thing to android based phones/tablets.

 

[GlockRock]

The new Hulu live is decent. It has all of the local channels along with the big10 network, all the espns, history channel.....I’ve not had any security issues at all. I pay 39.99 for it monthly. I watch it a lot more than I do my Netflix and prime. If you want to watch shows on TV, it’s the way to go.
I tried Sling before and it was terrible.

 

[PGRChaplain]

If you have a Firestick download the Aptoid App. (YouTube aptoid for Firestick download) there are 700+ Apps on it. Two I use the most are Morphy and Mobdro. I use an Antenna in my atic for local channels.

 

[Mark-DuCo]

I use sling and I love it. All the channels I used to watch on Dish for only $24 a month.

 

[Snapdragon]

I'm still concerned that if my 85 yr old mom wants to watch Food Network or Game Show Network during the day when I'm not home, she won't be able to figure it out. I don't do much TV watching myself... it's mostly her.

 

[Mark-DuCo]

I have sling on my Roku, and I think it is pretty easy to navigate, I have never used it on a smart tv before though.

 

[zer0day]

I'm still concerned that if my 85 yr old mom wants to watch Food Network or Game Show Network during the day when I'm not home, she won't be able to figure it out. I don't do much TV watching myself... it's mostly her.

I know what you mean. Cant get my mother to switch her cable to something new only because she is familiar with the layout of the guide and the channel numbers. Won't switch to save money. A modded firestick may work out if you want a few channels. Like PGRChaplain stated, the app Mobdro has a list of channels you can stream and I know Food Network is on there. Not sure about GSN.
Keep the thread updated with what you decide and why you chose it.

 

[AngryRooster]

We cut the cord last fall. Right now we have an antenna, a Roku Ultra downstairs, and a Roku Express upstairs. The antenna doesn't do bad, we can get every network we watch, although some of them come from Dayton instead of Indy. That will change later on this year once the reset happens.

As far as streaming services, we use Hulu Live, Prime, & Philo.

Hulu live is getting ready to increase in price. The base (non-live) service is dropping in price but they are making up for it by raising the price of Live from 39.99 to 44.99 a month. If you want the no commercial plan that will increase it to 51.99 IIRC. Hulu is also going to change their interface and guide around in the near future. They haven't released what they are changing it to yet other than to say the guide will now go out to 12 or 14 days. I hope they change it to something a little more traditional, but I doubt it. They seem to like to do things strange in order to make themselves stand out as 'modern'. They have a limited 50 hour DVR. It's kind of wonky, I don't really care for it. You have to pay a premium if you want to increase the size to 100 hours and skip commercials.

Prime is nice, but a little difficult to find things. Some of the things that are free to watch are mixed in with things that aren't. It'd be pretty easy to buy a show or season on accident if you aren't paying attention. We don't watch it as much.

Philo is a nice service. It's $16 a month, with a $20 higher package. No news or sports. They have a cloud DVR that's unlimited but only keeps shows for 30 days. You can skip commercials on any shows that you "save". They have live TV with a guide, a good selection. Not as many people know about Philo. They have food network but not game show. https://try.philo.com/

Both Hulu Live & Philo let you sign into the TV everywhere apps from the subscribed networks and watch that way.

We went with the Roku Ultra downstairs because it has both a wired port and a USB. We have a USB hub with 2 hard drives hooked up to it. One has SWMBO's shows & movies, the other has a complete collection. There is a media player app on the Roku that lets you watch just about anything (except avi files & AAC audio). The Ultra also has TV volume controls on the remote and a headset port. You can also download the Roku app for android and have a full remote with it.

There's tons of apps for the Roku. If you limit the number of apps it's pretty easy to use. Since each app is different it can get difficult to use if you have a ton of them on there. We also have a Firestick that we got on sale for $19 last year. We don't like it as much and it's pretty much a backup or something we can take with us so we don't have to disconnect anything from the TV.


Check out the cord cutters section on Reddit. Tons of good info there. https://old.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/
Also Cord Cutter News. Both are excellent sites for details. https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/


We tried DirecTV Now before we settled into Hulu. It had a good channel lineup, but everything else sucked. The DVR was horrible, bad features. When we signed up it normally would have been $35 a month, we got a promo for $10 a month for 3 months. We canceled just before our second month was up. It sucked so bad we didn't even want the third month.

I've not tried Playstation Vue (you don't need a Playstation to use it) but have heard good things.
I've not tried YouTube TV. I'm not a fan of Google and don't like the BS that they have subjected gun channels to.
We had netflix a few years ago, but after the CEO's comments in the past we (and most of our family) canceled and will not go back.

We may give PS Vue a try shortly. With the price of Hulu live going up (from 43.99 to 51.99 for us) and the new interface it might be time for a change. It depends on if we get any new channels and what the interface is like. That's the good thing about OTT services, no contracts and you can jump around until you find something you like. You can cancel services during season down time and pick it back up again later.

 

[Snapdragon]

OK, looks like I like Philo best of the streaming services... I think it's 43 channels for $16 a month, and between that and an antenna, I can make it work. That will save about $150 a month from AT&T Uverse (or $75 from their promo rates). I also signed up for VUDU, which has free movies and shows if you watch the ads.

 

[jamil]

I’ve had ps view + rocu for nearly a year and we’re pretty happy with it. Plus we have Netflix. We have local stations over the air, but that’s not very reliable and is often dependent on weather. And now that ps view has all the local stations we tend to watch, it’s all that much better.

 

[Snapdragon]

I just bought this antenna today, and it rocks. https://www.walmart.com/ip/ANT751-O...66001f5-46cfa622-6e23b3679a18a716&athena=true I'm about 40 miles southeast of Chicago. I temporarily stuck it on top of my clothesline pole and pulled in over 50 stations with crystal clear reception. I'll do a more permanent installation tomorrow, probably on a higher pole rather than on the roof.

 

[Snapdragon]

Well, we did it. We cut the cable. I'm sending AT&T all their crap on Monday.

We made a one-time layout of about $350 for an antenna, a Roku, a Tablo DVR, and a hard drive. Now the only cost for TV will be $16 a month for Philo. I also signed up for VUDU and Pluto TV, which are free and have lots of free movies (with commercials) and some TV stations. Landline and internet will still be with AT&T for $57 a month.

We're down to $73 a month for TV, internet, and landline and didn't give up much.