To ROKU or SAT TV

[knotheadcharters]

As a new liveaboard, I am trying to figure out the best way to receive TV. The marina I am at does not have cable. I would really like to have direct tv but the cost for the antenna alone (KVH) is not in the budget right now. I was thinking about ROKU stick. We also do not have Wi-Fi. I would use my cell phone as a hotspot. I have 10GB of data now but would upgrade to probably 40GB a month. I only am cruising the ICW for now so cell coverage is not a problem but want to watch while at anchor.

The questions I have, are there other options? With Air-TV I only receive about 10 channels and half of those are crap. How much streaming would 40GB actually get me? (No music and no HD just the tv shows and movies that I want to watch) I have thousands of movies on a external Hard drive so please don't say DVD's, this is primarily for television shows and cable series.

What are others using? I am tech challenged so if it's not in laymans terms you'll lose me.

Thanks

 

[siestakey]

We use Roku but we do have wifi at our marina

We live aboard part time 5 months this year we turned the tv on 3 times ( at home we watch a great deal of TV)

So the Roku works well for us

 

[knotheadcharters]

Thanks but that is not useful to me, I am asking for real world experience. I too do not watch much TV but would if I had more options.

 

[siestakey]

Thanks but that is not useful to me, I am asking for real world experience. I too do not watch much TV but would if I had more options.

Ok maybe you misunderstood me the times I have watched it it has performed well with 1000s of options seems to load and never misses a beat

I am having my wife hook it to the verizon Mifi card and use it to see how much data it uses for a 30 minute show

 

[knotheadcharters]

Thank you, sorry for the confusion.

 

[Moonstruck]

We have tried it all, from analogue TV over the air, to adding a digital converter, to Roku, and now Direct TV. Roku is great for streaming NetFlix if you have a really good WIFI connection. It also has YouTube and Pandora that we listen to. You can get some news, but it is generally not the most current. Some programming is current.

We did the dome with 720 resolution. Our 28" and 24" receivers give a very sharp picture. For streaming we have a WIFI booster (Surf on the Go) that really helps.

If you will be tied in marinas mostly, an RV type antennae would do the job. Just point at the satellite, and set it on the dock. If you have DTV at home, you can add it to the boat for $6.00 per month for each TV. By phoning DTV you can change the local channels back and forth if the boat will be away from the home area.

 

[DCBD]

Another option to consider,
Marine Satellite TV Tracking

 

[siestakey]

The 30 minute sitcom took 1.1% of our 5GB data plan

 

[twistedtree]

We have been working through this both on land and on the water. We have both become completely fed up with normal "broadcast" TV, either over the air, cable or satellite. Instead, we do everything over the internet with one exception - we have a digitial TV antenna on the boat and can tune in the dozen or so TV stations wherever we are. That gets us the major networks for the occasional time when it's compelling to watch. Everything else that we watch is over the internet using some combination of the following:

- Apple TV: This is our preferred viewing device mostly because it is the best organized and easiest to use. We use it for NetFlix, iTunes purchases and rentals, Hulu for more current TV shows not available on NetFlix, and a few other internet channels like History, etc. There are probably 40 channels available is you so choose. We also use the Apple TV to view an extensive video library that we have been amassing by scanning DVDs into iTunes on the ships computer, then playing them back via the AppleTV. We have around 300 movies and dozens of TV series, so you can always find something to watch. The best part is that it works when there is no internet.

- Samsung smart TV: These TVs include "apps", many of which overlap what's available on the AppleTV. The whole Samsung Smart Hub, in my opinion, was designed by someone recovering from electro-shock therapy, but it has one thing that the AppleTV doesn't have - Amazon Instant Video. I still think NetFlix is a much better streaming video service, but Amazon has a bunch of content that NetFlix doesn't, and rentals on Amazon are generally less expensive than iTunes rentals.

All of these internet services chew through bandwidth, so you need a high-limit or non-limit service to use them, but it sounds like you have than issue in hand. The streaming services also suffer as the speed adn latency of your internet service declines. In our experience, NetFlix is significantly better and dealing with marginal internet service that Amazon. It will degrade the image quality to adapt to poor internet, but it generally keeps going. Amazon, on the other hand, stops much more often, and we have had to abandon it for other services an many occasions. Bu tit does fill a significant content gap left by NetFlix.

Satellite TV I got no use for, especially at the costs to put it on a boat. We even dumped our cable TV service at home just a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Skinny]

Do you have internet access at work or off the boat?


I absolutely hate television and hate paying high premiums to watch commercials even more. I will tell you there is a lot of great free content on hulu (non-subscription, even better with subscription) and youtube. I think your biggest issue is data service. If you are through a cell data plan...FORGET IT.


I have cheap 728kb/s internet service at home and it will do 720p streaming just fine, it chokes on 1080p content. If you can find a way to stream like paying someone to jump on there wifi close by (maybe a long range antenna) the world is yours.


I personally use bittorrent to download content on a network drive, then use my laptop or media player to access it. Of course, you need to have internet access and this is technically illegal because you are not paying for content. YMMV

 

[twistedtree]

He has a huge cell phone data plan - 10GB expanding to 40GB. I think that might just work if he's not a total TV junkie. It would certainly warrant close monitoring to get a sense of the consumption rate, but 40GB should go a long way.

 

[Skinny]

Sure 40gb is pretty substantial...what price though?


I will tell you that downloading a decent 720p video is about a gig an hour on average. The nicer 1080p (of course video decoding quality aside, some are better than others), will set you back about double. You may be better off doing a netflix dvd or redbox scenario. 40 gigs may get you alot but if it costs $300, probably more cost efficient things out there.


Wouldn't hurt to see what the ol' antenna picks up either.

 

[hmason]

Check out the Intellian i-4 antenna system with a "MIMM" box for Dish TV service. We live aboard and love the system. Amazingly, we are so happy with DISH and their customer service, that we would not use cable again when/if we become dirt dwellers. We get hundreds of stations and a ton of HD programming. To get any significant amount of HD programming from a KVH system, you will need to spend much bigger $$ than Intellian. Our DISH package also includes Sirius XM satellite radio which we use almost constantly onboard. We get rock solid reception underway as well as at the dock.

When we bought the system, I was dubious as almost all the boats I know of were using KVH. The company that advised me on the Intellian system is owned by a personal friend and he insisted I use Intellian rather than KVH. He went so far as to say he would take it back if I wasn't happy. The price was a big attraction so we went with his advice and we are happy we did.

From personal experience, 40GB will not be enough if you enjoy watching movies onboard. We have a 40GB plan as I work aboard and there are times I get close to over-running the plan.

I hope I don't sound like a salesperson, I have no ties with Intellian or DISH. This is just a case of "ask the man who owns one." Good Luck, Howard

 

[River Cruiser]

Another option to consider,
Marine Satellite TV Tracking

We have this with a DirecTv dish and receiver and are very happy with it. All I need to do to change to Dish TV is change the dish and receiver. This is our best choice for having TV when we are out and don't have wi-fi or 4g to access the Internet.

 

[Moonstruck]

Check out the Intellian i-4 antenna system with a "MIMM" box for Dish TV service. We live aboard and love the system. Amazingly, we are so happy with DISH and their customer service, that we would not use cable again when/if we become dirt dwellers. We get hundreds of stations and a ton of HD programming. To get any significant amount of HD programming from a KVH system, you will need to spend much bigger $$ than Intellian. Our DISH package also includes Sirius XM satellite radio which we use almost constantly onboard. We get rock solid reception underway as well as at the dock.

When we bought the system, I was dubious as almost all the boats I know of were using KVH. The company that advised me on the Intellian system is owned by a personal friend and he insisted I use Intellian rather than KVH. He went so far as to say he would take it back if I wasn't happy. The price was a big attraction so we went with his advice and we are happy we did.

From personal experience, 40GB will not be enough if you enjoy watching movies onboard. We have a 40GB plan as I work aboard and there are times I get close to over-running the plan.

I hope I don't sound like a salesperson, I have no ties with Intellian or DISH. This is just a case of "ask the man who owns one." Good Luck, Howard

+1 for the Intellian i4. It has been flawless.

 

[FlyWright]

I tried out my Roku one night while on my tablet 4G hotspot. It worked watching a Netflix movie and burned about 1GB of data. We discussed it here:

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s4/roku-3-streaming-video-12181.html

 

[knotheadcharters]

Thanks for all the input. The cost to go from 10GB to 40GB is only an additional 50 bucks a month and for what I am getting with the ROKU no cable company can come close. I do use my phone as a hotspot now with my laptop and it has never been an issue. If it buffers I'll just pause and watch when it catches up. As far a movies I have about 3,000 on external HD's and about 500 dvd's. This will be primarily for TV series such as Vikings, Black sails Etc, so if I find that 40GB is too much I can always lower my data usage.

 

[No Mast]

We agree with twisted tee. We also use Apple TV. It has good content and you can lower the resolution (do you really need 1080 res with a 25ish inch tv) to help save on the bandwidth. In our experience it streams very consistently if we use an iPad or an iPhone as a hotspot. We have future plans to add a wifi extender, and believe this will be a better permanent solution.

We don't watch a lot of tv, but it lets us watch what we want when we want to instead of what's on.

 

[MyBad]

Honestly, Roku programing is limited. On a wifi connection, it is really spotty.
I was going to go Roku, but found a better way.

I have found, using my PC, I can get all the programming a Roku box can get.
Supervoxtv- all live streaming Television programs, HBO, Showtime, ect.
XBMC-now called KODI- has tons of TV programming, movie channels, music and more.

I used Playon TV, but found I could find the sources PlayOn used for free.

I actually had no TV provider, for a couple years, was tired of paying DTV, so I went to all streaming, to my TV.

Now I have the base Comcast TV lineup, [for local channels mostly] and stream the rest!

PC>HDMI though SLI video card setup>TV

Going this way, isn't for everyone.

On the boat? Sat would be the way to go..for me anyway.

 

[CPseudonym]

Honestly, Roku programing is limited. On a wifi connection, it is really spotty.
I was going to go Roku, but found a better way.

I have found, using my PC, I can get all the programming a Roku box can get.
Supervoxtv- all live streaming Television programs, HBO, Showtime, ect.
XBMC-now called KODI- has tons of TV programming, movie channels, music and more.

I used Playon TV, but found I could find the sources PlayOn used for free.

I actually had no TV provider, for a couple years, was tired of paying DTV, so I went to all streaming, to my TV.

Now I have the base Comcast TV lineup, [for local channels mostly] and stream the rest!

PC>HDMI though SLI video card setup>TV

Going this way, isn't for everyone.

On the boat? Sat would be the way to go..for me anyway.

Kevin we do similar except for local TV channels, those are via rooftop antenna. Only pay service we've used in well over 5 years is Netflix. As you say, it's not for everyone but I'm too cheap by nature to pay for what is readily available free of charge.

My adult children have no desire for TV service as they've grown up without it.

 

[timjet]

OTA TV for most of our travels on the ICW was pretty much worthless. So your gonna pay either a sat system with monthly fees or cellular wifi that depending on your use can be much more.

Most marina wifi in our experience was marginal, but maybe with a wifi extender then semi marginal.

If you can fit it and you don't mind the look then trac it tv is an option. Used about 300 bucs.

 

[hmason]

When it comes to electronics, and TV is electronics, you get what you pay for. Just saying.