Streaming Services 1
In this post, we’ll begin a discussion of various streaming services and some of the pros and cons of each. As mentioned earlier, note that not every streaming service is available on every hardware platform. This is because some of the BIG content owners prevent their content from being used on a competitor’s hardware. For example, you can’t get You Tube TV on an Amazon Fire TV. This makes it very difficult to determine what hardware to purchase in order to sign up for a “trial”, as you may purchase a hardware product that is not compatible with the streaming service you select!
In this way, ROKU is a good bet as it is probably the most agnostic of them all. For $29 you can try all the services and then decide later if you want a different player.
Although we’ll be reviewing many of the streaming apps in this blog, it is important to note that prices and channel listings are changing regularly, so you’ll need to check the web site of each streaming provider to make sure you have the most current info. Links are provided in each Blog entry.
It is recommended that you sign up for a FREE TRIAL before you sign up for any service so that you can get a good idea of how the service performs. Most free trials are for 7 days, although You Tube TV has a 30 day trial if you purchase a ROKU, and other special promotions will occasionally be announced. Since all of the streaming services (so far) do NOT require that you sign up for a long term contract, you can cancel anytime. However, the ideal scenario is to keep your cable service during the trial periods as a backup, in case the services you are testing don’t have some of the content you desire.
A big differentiator that we’ll discuss, second only to the channel selection, is the DVR functionality. This ranges from good to terrible. If recording shows and skipping commercials is not important to you, then your evaluation will be much easier.
Note that many streaming services have both “on demand” and “recording” options. On Demand is great if you want to view a large catalog of older shows in a series. However, most On Demand content is full of commercials, and most will NOT ALLOW FAST FORWARDING! Be aware of these limitation with each service.
In the next posting, we’ll start to break down each streaming service for you.
If you have any questions about Cord Cutting, or any other Home Automation advance, feel free to give us a call at 303-665-2238.