Let me set the scene. You get the mail from the mailbox. You walk into the house flipping through the junk mail, bills and invitations to parties (when you are as popular as me, there are always invitations to parties). Then you see it. The monthly cable/satellite bill. You work to open it with the sweaty, shaky hands of a gambling addict. Did it go up again? How much? $2, $5, $7 or did I get lucky this month and it stayed the same? You get it open and look. Dang it, $2.14 more then last month's bill. They raised it again. How many times a year does this scene play out at your house?
OK, honestly, we do paperless automatic payments online, and my wife IM'd me that the bill went up another couple bucks this month, but you get the picture.
I first got cable back in 1998. Prior to that, I lived so far out in the boonies I could not get cable, so I stuck with the 4 channels my tower antenna could pick up. But In 1998 I move into town and signed up for basic cable. For about $12 a month, I was able to get around 30 channels and I had 1 TV. Of those 30 channels I watched about 7 on a regular basis. ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, ESPN, MTV and Comedy Central.
Fast forward about 15 years, and I now have a family. We have 4 TVs connected to cable. One with a HD and DVR cable box and the other three Standard cable. I've lost count, but I think we get about 200 to 250 channels. Of those channels my family watches about 14 channels on a regular basis. ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, ESPN, SyFy, AMC, ID, Disney, Nick, Nick Jr., Cartoon Network, FX and and ABC Family. My cable bill in now $77.38 a month. That is strictly cable; not bundled with a phone or internet.
So, yesterday I decided to take matters into my own hands, grab my scissors and 'Cut the Cord'. OK, it wasn't anything that dramatic, but I did start doing some research on streaming TV through the internet. Within a couple hours, I had come up with a solution that I thought would adequately replace cable. I went with ROKU boxes, which are pretty much the industry standard for TV streaming devices. I also purchased a lifetime subscription of PlayOn.tv and PlayLater. I'll give more details on everything later, but for now, just know my total price is $284.66. There are no recurring fees, so this is the total price my solution will cost me.
Now, divide that $284.66 by the $77.38 I'll be saving each month with to the cable bill and my Return on Investment is 3.68 months. That means that after 4 months, if this experiment turns out to be a total bust, then I can turn cable back on and be out absolutely no money. I'll also have a few used ROKU boxes for sale cheap.
As mentioned above I purchased ROKU boxes and the PlayOn/PlayLater subscription. All other equipment I already had, but I'll give a full list of everything that is needed.
* High speed internet - both the ROKU and PlayOn require a minimum of 1.5 mbps download speeds. If you are going to be streaming to multiple devices like I am, I'd plan on something faster. We currently get internet for free (long story, but I assure you it is legal), however we will have to start paying for it in June. Using speed tests, we have about 10 mbps down now. In June when we have to sign up we'll be getting 15 mbps. 15 mbps might be a little overkill, but with all the internet enabled devices in my house (I come up with 10 off the top of my head, but I'm probably forgetting something), and the money I'll be saving on cable, I didn't want to skimp. If you can't get high speed internet in your area, I wouldn't suggest trying to switch over to streaming.
* Wireless home network with a UPnP enabled router (chances are if you have a wireless router, it already is UPnP enabled). They do make ROKU devices with Ethernet ports, but save yourself the hassle and cabling. Just setup a wireless network.
* A semi-dedicated Computer to act as PlayOn server. This does not have to be anything great, but needs to be on at ALL times to stream from. Windows XP SP2 or greater, 1 GB RAM, etc. Pretty standard for anything that has been made in the past 3 or 4 years. I have a $300 Gateway I bought back in November for use with my 'Musical Christmas Light Show'. It's a cheapie, but testing last night proved it should do the job as PlayOn server without issue. PlayOn suggests if your network is still 802.11g instead of 802.11n, that you hard wire this PC to the router. I do have a 802.11g network, so mine is hard wired.
* PlayOn server software and license. I'll go into details of what this software does, how it works and setup concerns I had in my next blog. For now, just know it's the software that will push most of the video stream from the internet to your streaming devices. Above I mentioned I purchased a lifetime subscription to PlayOn. This cost me $59.99, is a one time fee and also came with PlayLater. They have it highly discounted right now. This package would normally run $129.99 without the sale. I suppose you could see it as a bit of a gamble buying a lifetime subscription, if the company goes out of business. However, the fee was less then one month of cable, so that kind of puts it in perspective.
* Streaming devices. PlayOn will stream to PS3, Wii, Wii U, XBOX 360, Android Phones (OS 2.2 or later), iPhone, iPad, Kindle Fire, Nook Color, Google TV, OmniBox, ROKU and some other devices. We do have the Wii, XBOX 360, PS3 and 3 android phones. However, I went with three of the ROKUs, because they can steam TV even without the PlayOn server. This will allow us to not be totally without TV, if something should happen to the computer that is running the PlayOn server. ROKU currently has a $10 off each device sale with free 3-5 day shipping. I decided to go with the ROKU 2 XD devices, because of their 1080p ability. We just bought the kids 1080p TVs for their rooms for Christmas, and wanted to take advantage of that capability. They were $69.99 + tax each device after the $10 off. If you are OK with the 720p version, you can get them for $49.99. I ordered them yesterday, and just got a notice they they shipped while I'm typing this blog. So I should have them in less then a week. Once I get them and hooked up, you can expect another blog about them.
* Some technical knowledge. I've been employed as a software developer for over 17 years now, so I consider my technical knowledge as pretty high. Some technical knowledge will go a long way if you decide to take on a similar project, but you in no way need to be a software developer to network engineer. If you could follow along with this blog and only have to look up a few terms in Google, then you shouldn't have many issues. If you have no clue what I was talking about all through this blog, then you might want to hold off. Or contact your network administrator (aka, you neighbor's teenage kid) for advice.
* The time and effort to get things figured out and setup. I've got about 5 hours into this project so far between research and setup. I expect to at least another 15-20 hours before I'm done.
NOTES:
- I have no affiliation with any of these companies, services or hardware.
- I'm not suggesting you purchase any of these products or care if you do. I'm just going through the process and want to share what I learn.
- I will not be responsible if you decide to use any information from this blog. After all, it's just my opinion.
@ If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the comments section below. I'll do my best to answer questions.
Part 2 (PlayOn.tv)
If anyone decides to use PlayOn, Please use this link so I can get the referral.
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