Over the air DVR/Streaming content question

[Point Beer Is Best]

We're thinking about dropping DirecTV and replacing our $115 a month bill with a streaming service for substantially less. Really the only thing we'd miss (outside of losing FSN & the History Channel) is having a DVR that could record and playback TV shows in HD. Are there any recommendations on a DVR with a digital tuner that you could use to record network shows, and which streaming services (Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon, Redbox Instant) you prefer? We have two boys (3 & almost 2) so an adequate library of children's programming would be a must.

[Godspeed]

We've done over-the-air for quite some time now. For a while, we just made do with Netflix, free Hulu, and just doing our best to catch stuff in their entirety as they aired. Found out pretty quickly that that more or less sucks, so I searched for an alternative.

 

Eventually, I picked up a $20 USB tuner off of NewEgg to use with the integrated Windows Media Center in Windows 7. I later added an even cheaper internal tuner off of eBay to give me dual tuners. Since the Xbox360 is a WMC media extender, I use that as an end device to play on my TV. Works fantastic with recording and playing back, and can do everything a conventional DVR can do, but is probably a little out there for most tastes.

 

We do Netflix, and picked up an Amazon Prime membership recently. There's a pretty big overlap between the two, but damned now if I'll ever give up my 2-day shipping. I think Netflix has the better selection of kids programming but both services have their merits.

 

We tried Hulu Plus a couple of times, but even though you're paying, you still see ads. That bugged the crap out of me.

 

I haven't delved into the RedBox streaming and don't really have plans to.

[1992casey]

All streaming services have some overlap, but given the low cost, it's OK to pay for more than one.

 

I think that Amazon's video is confusing. It's tough to separate included content from paid content. Also, you're very limited as far as the number of devices that you can stream to; I think the limit is two. But since I have Prime for the shipping advantages, I simply consider streaming for (very) occasional use to be a bonus.

 

If you're into downloading content, Amazon's video downloads won't play on a Mac, which is a deal breaker for me. I believe that they can be be played on Windows desktop, iOS, and Android devices. iTunes video downloads can be played on Mac, Windows desktop, iOS, and Apple TV (but not Android).

[Invader3K]

Is there stuff specifically on Amazon Prime that you can't get on Netflix that makes it worth it? Wife and I have had Netflix streaming for 2-3 years now and use it all the time.

[logan82]

We love the free 2 day shipping from Amazon. When the movie we are looking for is on both we always watch Netflix. Like mentioned, Amazon is kind of a pain finding stuff that is free streaming. I don't miss cable a bit, except FSN, but I do miss TiVo. I know we could still do TiVo but then we would have to pay $20 a month for the service. I think Netflix is a must have if you stream. I briefly considered Hulu but it wasn't inclusive enough and I resent paying for commercials.

[DHonks]

have you tried renegotiating with Directv? There are lots of good articles about this on the web. You might be able to get it for $45/month

[AJOHNSON104]

I use Crackle also. It has free streaming, mostly of material that wasn't blockbuster hits, or is 10-30 years old, but there are older tv shows and they also recently started making their own stuff. For example I caught up on episodes of The Shield that weren't on Netflix.

[CheezWizHed]

Back in 2008, I dropped Dish and when to over the air with a Tivo DVR. I'm out in the country, but can still pick up 5 main carriers (with 2-3 channels each). We also added Netflix streaming at that time.

 

Netflix has a great selection of kids programming and PBS (OTA) normally has a pretty good selection, especially if you get 3 channels. Netflix also seems to have the best movie selection IMO. Just recently, I've been having Netflix throughput issues (topping out at 1-2 Mbps, which won't do HD and bottoming out at 0.3Mbps, which continually interrupts to buffer). I'm still seeing how they will debug and fix the issue. But my network will handl 10Mbps pretty consistently and other streaming works fine (Crackle, Hulu, YouTube).

 

I had Amazon Prime for a while, but rarely used it. Similar to others, it counted it as a bonus to the 2-day shipping and Kindle features. The interface was really painful to use and find movies, too.

 

I'm looking at Hulu Plus right now. They seem to specialize in TV programs over movies. I plan on starting a 7 day trial tonight due to my Netflix streaming issues.

 

Crackle is free. Very limited selection and difficult to find shows. You basically have to browse through almost everything (filter by Genre and scroll).

 

I do like my Tivo, but it was rather expensive. I think it was ~$300 to purchase and $300 for a lifetime subscription (which paid for itself 2 years ago). It will stream Netflix, Amazon and YouTube (and its 5 years old now). If I was considering it now, I'd browse around to see what else is available. But I've been very happy with it.

 

The main items I miss are Packer games on ESPN, most Badger games are on the B10 or ESPN, and I see no Brewer games (save for the rare Fox game) anymore.

 

But for the most part, I don't miss the dish. We try to limit TV watching for all of us (kids only get 30-60 minutes per day). And it was too much of a bad habit to flip through TV channels on the satellite to find something to watch.