Why not tune them directly on the AppleTV? Most video apps in iPad have equivalents in AppleTV. Less WiFi traffic then.
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You’ll need to make sure that your television has an HDMI input. Looks like this.
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Next, you need a streaming device like this, or better yet, a Roku.
You did mention that you are an Apple household, but the Apple TV prices (does the same thing as the Roku or the Amazon Fire Stick) are wicked high.
The Roku or the Fire Stick (Chromecast is another) will plug into your TV’s HDMI input, and will access the internet via your home’s Wifi.
Note that a lot of televisions will be touted as “Smart” TVs, and you can access some or most streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.) via the television itself, but they don’t work nearly as well as a Roku or Fire Stick.
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Once you obtain the streaming device, you plug it into your HDMI input on you TV, change the TV to that input, and power up the streaming device via a USB-type connection, and the streaming device will guide you through its set up process. It will look for your home’s wifi signal and prompt you for the wifi password.
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After the streaming device is set up and working, you can set up the individual streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc.
17.9 Mbps (Mega Bits Per Second) is plenty fast enough for streaming video.
Note that this will only work if his domain has an email server set up to accept mail for whatever new address he chooses. (Usually, his domain registrar can do this, at minimal cost.)
18 Mbps is not fast enough. That’s slow as hell.
Yes, if you’re getting that into your TV, it’ll run fine. However, you won’t. Anyone else on the network? The network just decided you’re only getting 25% of your speed? The TV will stop working. You don’t want enough; you want MORE than enough, a large amount of room to spare for just in case situations. The first thing you should do, in my opinion, is figure out how to jack that up. We get 40-45 MBps and I wish it was more.
So having done that, here’s what you should do; Cut your cable. Live without it and no other solution. Keep Netflix, I guess; you’re already paying for it so it’s easy enough.
You need to actually know what you can live without before deciding what your cord-cutting solution is. After awhile, you’ll know what you are willing to pay money for, or find a technical solution to, to get. You may be quite surprised as to what you find you don’t miss or what you find you really, really miss.
Our solution, incidentally, is an NVidia Shield, which is more than the other solutions here but does a lot, and does it REALLY well.
I think we’d be looking at the 4228. I think we have to go the obnoxiously large, outdoor antenna route.
We do indeed have HDMI ports. We’re currently using them for the Apple TV and Netflix.
We are already using Apple TV to view Netflix.
We’re going to upgrade our network speed today to the fastest available (50 mbps - it’s only $9 more per month than the 15 mbps we have now).
Just as an aside, I advise people to NEVER use an ISP provided email address for exactly this reason. If he has his own domain, he is in control of the situation.
My 80 year old father dearly wants to move off Rogers but can’t face losing his @rogers.com address. Even if he had a gmail or Outlook account he wouldn’t have this issue.
ETA - hadn’t seen t-Bonham’s post.
…and remember ALWAYS power ON, so your channels are kept alive:rolleyes:
I disagree, I went very happy with 25 Mbs (and I believe internet speed is measured in Mbps (bits), not MBps (bytes)), 4K HDTV + another HD TV, 2 laptops, one tablet in a child’s hands and a house full of TIoT’s. Never had any trouble that stopped me. Occasionally I did notice reduced video quality or something, but not often, actually rarely - not often enough to double my speed for a additional $10/m. 18 Mbps is certainly ‘workable’, more is obviously better, but to me this is a wait and see item, upgrading speed may not be needed and they are willing to accept some potential slowdowns.
I agree with the just jump into cord cutting, actually it’s the only way - cut the cord. There is a transition period, and one redoes their TV viewing habits and it all works out in the end. One thing one might notice once the cord is cut and using things like Netflix. Going back to cable (either vacations, or subscribing to cable like services such as directTVnow) you notice the wasted time and interruptions and annoyances of commercials a lot.
We don’t have a browser on our Apple TV, and it doesn’t look like there is an easy way to get one on it.
True but do you have to use a browser? I have a dozen or more video apps on my Apple TV. What channels/streams do you use with a browser?
I’ll have to go ahead and disagree with you on that. I have 12 Mbps (DSL) and it’s fast enough to support 3 Rokus all streaming at the same time.
In all fairness though, faster is better.
I believe that Netflix, for one, adjusts video quality based on the speed of your network. So while you might be able to stream with a slower network connection, you might get a higher quality picture if you have a faster one.
50 Mbps? Luxury!
Sounds like you’re almost done. All you really need now is a decent antenna for OTA broadcasting, and some package that includes sports. Sorry, I don’t do sports of any sort so I can’t help there.
Suggest you look at a few other services like Hulu and Sling. Sling Orange has ESPN sports channels, but Sling Blue offers multi-stream viewing (if you have more than one television). For both Sling Blue and Orange, there are additional add-ons that help you tailor your viewing to your tastes.
I have Sling Blue + Lifestyle Extra = $30/mo
There are LOTS of choices out there, and with most of them, there are no long-term contracts. You can pick them up and then dump them if they don’t fit.
Just think that soon, you can sit back and count the money you aren’t spending on channels you don’t watch.
If you’re not going to be watching much over-the-air programming, this might not be worth it, but I love my TiVo Roamio OTA DVR. It works just like (or better than, actually) the DVR I had when I had cable television. It can also be used to view some streaming sites like Netflix, but I use my Roku for that. The TiVo is expensive at $400, but I save that much every few months by not paying for cable.
My local news stations are not available as a stream on Apple TV.
Ah, yes. Keep an eye on your local stations - one of mine has a news app for AppleTV. Others are rumored.
Reading the topic of this thread I first thought it was from a member of a bomb squad asking for advice as in “the green cable or the red cable?” which all bomb defusers have to face.