So, in the corner of our living room is a 32" CRT TV. Underneath that, we have a subscription free sky box, a DVD player and a vhs player.
Where we live will not receive a signal from an external aerial and the sky dish is seasonally affected by the neighbours trees.
We do have a reasonable broadband connection though which is about 37Mbps.
Is it possible to get freeview/ freesat via that broadband connection? If we could, would it be straightforward and legit, or would it need something that required regular tweaking and setting?
Ideally, I'd like as few boxes under the telly as possible, (i know, get rid of the vcr) and as few remotes, to watch "normal telly" without subscription.
Also, and this is going to sound really daft, but my telly came with a multitude of built in speakers (and two remote rear ones) is this still the case or do I need to sort out sound separately?
Cheers.
Chromecast/Amazon Firestick do most of the free to air channels. 100% legit and easy to use. Does the TV have HDMI as that will be the only catch there.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Fire-TV-Stick-Streaming-Media-Player/dp/B00KAKUN3E
https://www.google.com/intl/en_au/chromecast/
Sky have just announced they will do Sky over a super fast internet connection if you can prove a dish won't work.
Think it's planned for sometime this year
I think you are going to need a new telly. But I think you know that anyway.
In a comment on the sort of thing you have way...
If you are going 32" or smaller on the TV I would try and make sure it's full HD (1080P) rather than HD ready (lower resolution but supports HD). If it's bigger than 32" it will likely be full HD by default.
Definitely get a smart TV (one with internet capability and that has some Apps for channels or broadcasters you want to see). When buying make sure that your chosen TV has the apps you want. They vary between manufacturers a bit.
We have two TVs in the house....
Lounge
32" Smart TV this has BBC iPlayer, you tube and various other TV apps on it.
We have a blue ray player and AV receiver attached to it to give better sound and provide CD playing or phone/laptop music streaming ability.
We could add a fire stick or similar via USB but we're old school and get films on disc from Love Film.
This has freeview built in but you could probably stream as much i
of it as is any good using catch up services!
I also found a neat trick with ours which is with You Tube stuff you can find good videos on the phone, press a button and the TV will then take over and show the video. This is probably old news to most but it's easier than searching with a remote!
Play room
X box One, sound bar, 28" flat screen full HD PC monitor.
The x-box will play DVDs and blue rays and you can get You Tube, Net Flix, iPlayer etc on it. Not sure if you can fit a FireStick someone here will know.
Both of these are fairly simple and not stupid expensive. I'm sure there are better technophile options but for casual watching they work for us. I am biased as I don't like the aesthetic of large room dominating TVs.
You can do Youtube on any telly.
Plug the laptop in using HDMI or whatever, and navigate to youtube.com/leanback.
Use the Youtube App on your phone, and pair the phone to the page displayed on the laptop.
Hit the fullscreen button to get rid of all the Nav bars, fullscreen the Youtube video.
'Leanback' on the sofa, choose your first video, and then whilst thats playing you can start queueing up the next one using the Youtube App as a remote 🙂
[quote=spooky_b329 ]You can do Youtube on any telly.
Plug the laptop in using HDMI or whatever, and navigate to youtube.com/leanback.
You mean any telly with HDMI 🙂 The one I've just got rid of (for a smart TY) didn't have HDMI.
Amazon Firestick with Kodi installed.
You will need a new TV with HDMI.
.
Telly with HDMI and a Roku stick will give you access to all the big pay monthly services. Amazon, Netflix and Now TV. We tend to have one of the three for a couple of months, then cancel and start with whichever has what we want airing. They are all roughly a fiver a month.
Unless you have a lot of your own media adding kodi doesn't do much more than a firestick for the op, he wants legit.
Plug the laptop in using HDMI or whatever, and navigate to youtube.com/leanback
So that sounds like a load of faff compared to the chromecast
You'll struggle for live broadcast TV without an areal or dish but you have all the internet catchup services like iPlayer which if you've got a decent internet connections around 15Mbps as a minimum (which it appears you have) then you shouldn't miss any of your favourite shows that are delivered via the broadcast channels.
You'll be fine.
Bit annoying about the neighbours trees though. Sounds like they need to clip them but I presume you'd not get a positive response if you asked them nicely. I've got a Rhodidendrum bush that seems to grow at ridiculous speed and i'm always trimming that as i'm aware of it getting high enough to potentially obscure my neighbours dish.
Mrs Onzadog here, to add that this is the one we saw yesterday round a friend's house and it looked spot on.
[url= http://www.samsung.com/uk/tvs/uhd-ku6000/UE50KU6000KXXU/ ]Samsung tellybob[/url]
I don't think we'd need a firestick or the like with this one though as it already seems to have the apps installed in it I think?
We've got a Samsung smart TV and bought a Chromecast for it a while ago. I never use the smart bits of the TV because it's loads easier to do it through the Chromecast.
I don't think we'd need a firestick
Check what apps it can have. I have a Panasonic which doesn't have Amazon, Channel 4 or ITV apps.
It does have Netflix and iplayer though.
Unless you have a lot of your own media adding kodi doesn't do much more than a firestick for the op, he wants legit.
Kodi can access "live" TV through the internet.
If you pay your licence does it really matter how you access live Free view channels? BBC gets their revenue and you still watch the adverts on the independent channels.
This could get expensive as you'll have to build yourself a media room first, then...
Mr and Mrs OP - that TV looks pretty good but as above get a Firestock/Chromecast too and have a play with it. Sooner or later the inbuilt smart apps will stop working (at all or fully) and in any case you'll have access to more content choice. For example I do not believe any in-built TV smart's provide access to Vimeo which a lot of great content including the STW British MTB movie for example. As that TV is UHD/4K it's higher res than any broadcast HD but you can see that as "future ready"
As for Kodi there is a legal grey area where yes downloading onto your local computer is illegal but streaming a movie / tv series is (maybe) ok. I am not aware of anyone being prosecuted for streaming a movie. There has been one prosecution of a shop owner who was selling a Kodi box (rather than software download to your phone/computer) and his crime/mistake was to install various add-ons onto it. Selling the box stand alone is fine and amazon/ebay has numerous for sale.
My 42" Samsung has Vimeo.
Ive just got a panasonic tv, it had apps for bbc, itv, channel 4 and 5 as well as netflix and youtube. All tv through the internet and all on one remote. If you had no ariel reception at all you would lose some of the nice functionality avialable on the program guide but you certainly wouldnt miss anything