wanting to test cutting the cable

comcast wants a little over 2 grand a year for the package we have in the house now, this is over the top in my mind.
what I want to find is a way to see if my little suga bee can make the leap to net based tv for a month or so.
she can't even search the net but can operate a tv remote so I need that sort of operation.
I have lots of hardware around and can round up more as needed, I would just like to avoid gathering another pile of useless junk should she not be able to make the leap.
what's a smart tv? is that an option?
how do i find out if her shows are on the net services?
neither of us can stand to sit through what is called tv sports so none of that programing is needed or wanted.
the thing just needs to be operated with a thing that acts like a tv remote and I can be able to get he to her four or five shows and the local news through the remote without her having to jump through to many hoops to get there.

oh, and she hates change and passes frustration right along to me and I would like to avoid this as much as I can.
for an idea of how bad it can get she called me in a crying fit when the remote battery in the garage door opener died and she didn't want to just use the front door to the house and I had to race home and replace the battery right then and there, yea, she's my little drama queen.

Sounds like you may have some work ahead of you if she isn't capable of using a computer.

You can see if the shows are available by going to the broadcast site (fox, nbc, cbs, etc) and see if it is listed to watch the episode.

Not all smart tvs have the capability to use the broadcast site ability most will use Hulu and Netflix or maybe amazon prime video.

May want to look into a roku.

I am in a similar situation. I found out that most of the shows my SO wants are available on amazon prime. The Housewives are $20/season which is about 1% of the yearly cable costs. Other shows are available OTA. I managed to get WMC working pretty well with my Xbox360. Live TV will be a bigger challenge. I ordered a SiliconDust Homerun HD to attach to my antenna to help figure that out. I should get it next week. So far it is my only investment in this project besides the $10 for Windows Media Center.

I still have not figured out how to stream MakeMKV bluray rips over my wired network to the xbox360. The DVD rips work ok but seem a little fuzzy on the xbox360 through WMC as compared to my Dune Smart D1.

this is going to be tough, but supporting nbc to the tune of two grand a year is a very hard pill to swallow and one way or another I will be supporting that crap at around twelve hundred dollars a year unless I can find high speed internet from another company. be that as it may,
I'll have to proof of concept it here in my office and then deploy it while little sweetie is out of town for a few days.
I stopped by the big box, blue shirt place and looked at a few smart tv's, to my old eyes all of the smart tv's looked good and there the prices look like $800 to $1500, and asking anybody there was a complete waste of time, it looks like I will be going to tiger direct and micro center to try and find someone that knows anything about it as all anybody knew anything about was phones.

a roku or one of the streaming devices look good to me but from what i see is I wind up with two remotes.

I'm guessing you've got enough parts to put together a decent pc (nothing too crazy needed for 1080p live tv and websites, etc) to feed into your tv. Does you existing tv have an hdmi input?

The hands-down best remote I've ever used (and own) for ease of use, minimal button pushes to get what you want (almost everything can be done with 1 button press) and all around coolness is the logitech harmony one. It's discontinued but they're selling one ebay...seem to be holding prices a bit high imho. Other option is one of the newer models ( http://www.logitech.com/en-us/harmony-remotes ). The harmony 700 looks perfect and will likely be my next htpc-related purchase. You'll also want a mouse/keyboard (not a must have as the harmony can do some simple webpage navigation but kbd/mouse is definitely easier)...I use the logitech k400 (on sale at best buy for $20). Works fine.

If you want live tv, check out tvfool.com to see what channels you should be able to get OTA (over the air), grab a decent antenna (~$40) with the mounting kit and ground spike plus a good run of cable. Then, either run it into an hdhomerun (which connects to your router or network) or straight into the htpc (via a videocard or adaptor with the needed connection). If you're running windows on the htpc, set up the hdhomerun tuners then set up windows media center. In addition to other stuff...it'll work like a full dvr, has tv guide, etc, etc.

We cut the cable for nearly two years, but never really had a proper replacement. We only get 3 OTA channels here, we just used a couple Google TVs (Logitech Revue) and a Chromecast eventually, with Prime, Netflix, and Hulu Plus. Paired with squeezebox it worked out great for us for a while. Eventually we decided to plug back in and go with Direct TV (only option besides Dish and local monopoly cable company) under a 2 year contract (by 'we' I mean 'the wife'). When our contract is up, we'll probably end up cutting the cord again for a few months and see how it works out.

Plex+Amazon Prime+Netflix add in Roku or the Amazon Fire TV for some news apps and you are set. While I liked my HTPC it would have an issue every time my girlfriend decided to try it.

I have a few questions to answer.
the htpc I can put togather with parts laying around is a monster, up to aan asus ch5-f-z, fx8350, 2x 7950, down to an a6-6400k, asrock extreme6, hd 7770.
I'm willing to by a roku, slingbox, tuner card, whatever.
does anybody use a smart tv, how does it work? how do you navigate to find a show? is it basicly a web browser based thing?

the htpc thing I am doing here and now, my monitor is a 1080p, 46 inch led tv, I can watch all kinds of stuff, but it's not remote controled like a 70's tv.
I need to be down to five buttons, power, channel up and down, volume up and down.
to give you an idea of what I am up against. our grandson has had a facebook page for 5 years, she likes to check it three or four times a week, it is set as her home page, I have to show her how to scroll up and down the page every time still.
there can be no learning curve to this at all.

Hi,

There is a useful website you should consult when wanting to know if you can stream various movies/shows. http://www.canistream.it/

Also, you can visit various sites to see what OTA signals you can get in your area. Here is one: https://www.tablotv.com/channels/

I did some research. I was in the same boat. Didn't care much for sports. Didn't use 95% of the channels. I have 2 HTPCs so I wanted to see what was available to get OTA on them.

I ended up liking the idea of getting one or 2 of these: SiliconDust HDHR4-2US HDHomeRun Connect 2-Tuner

My house is wired with CAT6 and the idea was to get those to feed HTPCs with OTA HD. I've seen a lot of people build OTA HD antennas out of 2x4's and clothes hangers in their attic and get great reception. They'd work better than what a store-bought option would get you.

I never did end up pulling the trigger on all this, but that is about the extent of my research. I'd go with a Roku type box and maybe a Harmony remote like others suggested. WMC/HTPC is dieing, M$ doesn't want to support it and are more interested in people getting XBox's for their living room. I have WMC HTPCs and constantly have to do tech support for the family. Still, it's been years since I've tried. Maybe now issues like HDMI handshaking and audio problems have been resolved.

caddi daddi said:

the htpc thing I am doing here and now, my monitor is a 1080p, 46 inch led tv, I can watch all kinds of stuff, but it's not remote controled like a 70's tv.
I need to be down to five buttons, power, channel up and down, volume up and down.
to give you an idea of what I am up against. our grandson has had a facebook page for 5 years, she likes to check it three or four times a week, it is set as her home page, I have to show her how to scroll up and down the page every time still.
there can be no learning curve to this at all.

Click to expand...

You are going to have to teach your wife how to use a computer if you are going the HTPC route. If you want to use a remote to control things an item like a roku or amazon fire tv are probably a better option. If you go HTPC you will need to load a web browser and load the various websites that will stream the television episodes, if you add an HD Antenna to get OTA broadcast you can either plug that directly into the TV or through a tuner card on your computer and play with an application like windows media center.

I have a smart tv, but I never use any of the features on it, they are too slow compared to using my htpc to load netflix/etc.

how do you navigate useing the smart tv functions? do you have icons and links when you first turn it on?

I can see that the htpc idea for her is a dead end street, when we have partys here I run my racing vids and put my lan box rig up there and she just hates having it up stairs.

I hit a button on the remote that brings up a menu of 'apps' that I can select from that will load said application.

basically this:

is the courser moved by pointing the remote?

I also found this >>>>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127433

but smart tv seems that it will have less clutter.

this>>>>>> http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9189719&CatId=4717 is in stock and what i will start looking at, it's the same size as the plasma hanging on the wall and will fit so at least i won't wind up throwing it in the trash if she can't make the change.

caddi daddi said:

is the courser moved by pointing the remote?

I also found this >>>>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127433

but smart tv seems that it will have less clutter.

Click to expand...

The LG tv that I have has a motion control remote, similar too a wiimote

I went and looked at the LG smart tv, now that would work for me.
trying it out in a store is not the best of things but it will do the job.

can you add a link to a site in the media hub?

now I have to look into online programs and if her 48 hours on ID and one called castle is on line.

random thought. any game consoles hooked up?

no, no game consoles, I couldn't put one in the living room anyway.
when we have a party, i put my lan-box case up there and she has a fit over that.

anybody have a link to netflix show listings, all I get when i visit the site is signup and faq's.