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I'm seriously thinking about buying this (above)! To those who have this, please tell how you like it? Please explain this.
Is the picture quality that crisp?
MY MAIN QUESTIONS:
1) I see they say in the 14-min live presentation video that you can cancel your cable bill, but then it seems you have to pay monthly for each "brand" of programming separately, right? Such as Netflix, Fandango, etc., so by the time you pay each brand's monthly fee, do you end up paying just as much OR MORE a month that you did on cable (for me, about $140+/month)?
2) What channels do you actually get free that you don't have to pay monthly for because I watch a span of shows on various cable TV channels (FreeForm, E, Bravo, etc.)
I've owned Rokus since 2008. I have one on every TV in my house now, including the Roku 4. The picture quality is awesome, but you need to have a solid Internet connection to enjoy it fully. (Can't watch 4K content over a cheap connection... there's not enough bandwidth.) Rolus are great, IMO, but most of the content people that love on cable isn't free.
It's easier to answer your questions in reverse.
There are TV channels Roku offers that are part of an industry initiative called "TV Everywhere" that you cannot use on your box without a cable/dish subscription. Go to this page to see what they are. Some of the channels on your #2 list (E! and Bravo) are included.
The most popular free channels are listed here. There's more where that came from, but the channels listed on that page are the most famous.
Bottom line is, you probably shouldn't cancel your cable subscription the day the Roku arrives. It can definitely make your cable subcription better. But it definitely won't give you free access to the TV networks you listed.
Thanks a lot for answering pretty thoroughly! I more than likely won't cancel cable TV then.
So Roku is best as an ACCOMPANIMENT & NOT a replacement for cable TV service. Glad to know & I wouldn't have cancelled cable 1st, unless I tried out Roku & made sure it's everything I wanted!
Roku and its competitors (chromecast, firestick for example) replace cable when you're willing to give up network TV for more specific entertainment. If you want the latest episodes of reality TV, to use an example, a Roku may not be for you.
We use chromecast with Netflix because we can find more interesting content on Netflix than we could ever watch. But we don't care about live sports, or any sports for that matter, which is the major attraction of most cable packages, and the major driver of rising costs.
Even though I don't watch sports, I watch quite a bit on various cable TV channels, so I probably won't give up cable. I'll have to do some serious research regarding exactly what shows I could watch on Roku & other like it & at this time, I don't have time to research all that.
SlingTV has an offer where if you prepay 3 months of service ($20/month is their cheapest) you can get a free Roku2 (or 50% off Roku3).
So for $60 you can try out their service and keep the Roku.
Roku can be a replacement for Cable TV if you don't need 200+ channels and sign up for a live streaming service like Sling, Playstation VUE or SFN TV. And then you can accompany that with Hulu and Netflix and that would be more than enough content for you to watch. I went from paying $140/month to paying $55/month on my current set up. Even if I signed up for one of the streaming TV services I still would be paying less than have cable TV from the cable monsters.
BTW if you don't care for 4k might as well save some money and go with the Roku stick or Roku 3 instead.
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