Set Top Box purchase advice

Started by mc hristel, September 18, 2018, 04:58:53 PM

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Joe

My old Roku doesn't have the headphone jack in the remote which I would have liked to have had back in the day. These days I listen to everything with my bluetooth headphones or earbuds.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

DigiCorn

Quote from: Joe on September 19, 2018, 02:28:08 PMAll the apps on my two LG smart TV's suck compared to the exact same apps on my FireTV boxes and Cube.

As far as playing Media files on the Roku, as I said I only have an old model, but I never had much luck doing that unless using Plex which is free kind of. On my old Roku you could use it just fine but versions that are out now for Android is only free if you only want to watch 2 minutes of content at a time. You have to pay to be able to watch it longer though the app isn't terribly expensive. Not sure if the Roku version is like that or not.

Amazon actually has some 4K content on it and it looks awesome on my 4K TV.
I have a Sony TV, and while there's not as many apps, they all work as intended. It's Android. And Netflix and Amazon both support the 4K TV features.

Quote from: Joe on September 20, 2018, 07:15:23 AMMy old Roku doesn't have the headphone jack in the remote which I would have liked to have had back in the day. These days I listen to everything with my bluetooth headphones or earbuds.
Boy. Sucks to be you.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

Just_A_Mac_Guy

Quote from: DigiCorn on September 19, 2018, 12:52:46 PM
I use .mp4 and .mkv for video streaming, and I like Plex as a media player, but yes, Plex must be running on a server somewhere to feed it. This is true in most cases (that you need a server), but my Roku 3 does have a USB port and an SD card slot so you can add memory to it and play directly from one of these through the built-in Roku media player.[/quote]

Yea that's what I've come up against. I have 3 tvs and family that want to watch different streams. The WD boxs do not require the host computer to be involved, it sees the shared folders and play the files directly. I'll have to look at amazon or Kajiji

Joe

Quote from: DigiCorn on September 20, 2018, 09:30:41 AM
Quote from: Joe on September 19, 2018, 02:28:08 PMAll the apps on my two LG smart TV's suck compared to the exact same apps on my FireTV boxes and Cube.

As far as playing Media files on the Roku, as I said I only have an old model, but I never had much luck doing that unless using Plex which is free kind of. On my old Roku you could use it just fine but versions that are out now for Android is only free if you only want to watch 2 minutes of content at a time. You have to pay to be able to watch it longer though the app isn't terribly expensive. Not sure if the Roku version is like that or not.

Amazon actually has some 4K content on it and it looks awesome on my 4K TV.
I have a Sony TV, and while there's not as many apps, they all work as intended. It's Android. And Netflix and Amazon both support the 4K TV features.

LG has their own WEB OS. Not a fan of it and those apps also support 4K on the LG. All of their tends tend to be crash happy so that I why I use the Amazon Fire TV boxes and Cube. Better OS (Android) then those running on the TV.

Quote from: Joe on September 20, 2018, 07:15:23 AMMy old Roku doesn't have the headphone jack in the remote which I would have liked to have had back in the day. These days I listen to everything with my bluetooth headphones or earbuds.
Boy. Sucks to be you.

I prefer wireless now anyway sucker!
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Joe

Quote from: Just_A_Mac_Guy on September 20, 2018, 10:02:28 AMYea that's what I've come up against. I have 3 tvs and family that want to watch different streams. The WD boxs do not require the host computer to be involved, it sees the shared folders and play the files directly. I'll have to look at amazon or Kajiji

About the best thing I've found for managing your own entertainment library is Kodi. It has a bad piracy reputation because of all the old 3rd party add-ons that have been now mostly scrubbed from existence. You can install it on the Fire TV but not from the app store. You need a 3rd party app to flash the APK file. It cannot be installed on Roku at all. Kodi has a great interface and a lot of 3rd party skins to give you about any look you want. You can create your play lists from about any kind of device you would want to. I currently have an 8 TB NAS unit. The software will scrape all of the TV / Movie data from online websites so you always have great show / movie info and icons and arranges everything so it makes sense and is easy to find. You can install it on a PC or Mac too if you want to try it out and learn about it before you go out and buy the box to put it on.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

DigiCorn

Quote from: Joe on September 20, 2018, 11:45:19 AM
Quote from: Just_A_Mac_Guy on September 20, 2018, 10:02:28 AMYea that's what I've come up against. I have 3 tvs and family that want to watch different streams. The WD boxs do not require the host computer to be involved, it sees the shared folders and play the files directly. I'll have to look at amazon or Kajiji

About the best thing I've found for managing your own entertainment library is Kodi. It has a bad piracy reputation because of all the old 3rd party add-ons that have been now mostly scrubbed from existence. You can install it on the Fire TV but not from the app store. You need a 3rd party app to flash the APK file. It cannot be installed on Roku at all. Kodi has a great interface and a lot of 3rd party skins to give you about any look you want. You can create your play lists from about any kind of device you would want to. I currently have an 8 TB NAS unit. The software will scrape all of the TV / Movie data from online websites so you always have great show / movie info and icons and arranges everything so it makes sense and is easy to find. You can install it on a PC or Mac too if you want to try it out and learn about it before you go out and buy the box to put it on.
There is a Kodi app on Android. I haven't run it, tho. I bought a lifetime subscription (for $59.95) from PlayOn years ago and got a free Roku LT for my troubles. It's 720 and has HDMI and component connection availability, but that's fine on the bedroom TV where I don't have an open HDMI port (it only has 2 - one for Dirctv and one for the DVD player.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

born2print

Funny you mention Kodi, it's on our (hopped-up) Firestick.
We can watch movies that just hit the theatre, although sometimes the quality is bootleg or the language is not English so it takes a couple of tries.
:ninja:
How will I laugh tomorrow...
when I can't even smile today?

Joe

Quote from: born2print on September 20, 2018, 12:32:06 PMFunny you mention Kodi, it's on our (hopped-up) Firestick.
We can watch movies that just hit the theatre, although sometimes the quality is bootleg or the language is not English so it takes a couple of tries.
:ninja:

Yeah that is the 3rd party add-ons I mentioned. There was a crackdown about a year ago and wiped most of the really good ones out.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

scottrsimons

I know a guy in England that runs Kodi on a RaspberryPi. And he's quite happy with it. Can not be the Zero model though.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" - Homer J. Simpson

DigiCorn

Quote from: scottrsimons on September 20, 2018, 12:58:50 PMI know a guy in England that runs Kodi on a RaspberryPi. And he's quite happy with it. Can not be the Zero model though.
I got to get me one of those. I know a guy that runs MAME and Plex off of one.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

scottrsimons

Quote from: DigiCorn on September 20, 2018, 01:15:57 PM
Quote from: scottrsimons on September 20, 2018, 12:58:50 PMI know a guy in England that runs Kodi on a RaspberryPi. And he's quite happy with it. Can not be the Zero model though.
I got to get me one of those. I know a guy that runs MAME and Plex off of one.

I have a Zero that I got with a magazine for free, but haven't really done anything with it yet, and it's been 2-3 years. But I have one.  :banana:
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!" - Homer J. Simpson

AaronH

I've been wanting to get a raspberry pi to make a hand held emulator for old gameboy and gameboy advance games. It'd be cool to make one that could do all that and psp games too.
Mac & Windows | XMF | Fiery | Oris

Joe

Yeah Kodi will run on about anything...Mac, Windows, Linux, Android. It used to run on an Apple TV until Apple made it where you can't jailbreak it though so that killed that off.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

DigiCorn

Quote from: AaronH on September 20, 2018, 03:54:08 PMI've been wanting to get a raspberry pi to make a hand held emulator for old gameboy and gameboy advance games. It'd be cool to make one that could do all that and psp games too.
I got a hacked XBox at the swap meat that does all that
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

delooch

Quote from: DigiCorn on September 20, 2018, 06:48:23 PM
Quote from: AaronH on September 20, 2018, 03:54:08 PMI've been wanting to get a raspberry pi to make a hand held emulator for old gameboy and gameboy advance games. It'd be cool to make one that could do all that and psp games too.
I got a hacked XBox at the swap meat that does all that

gross.