MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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So it turns out that i've been watching TV/movies all wrong and technology has overtaken me (at a mere 35yrs old).
I am currently paying £80 monthly to virgin for TV, phone and broadband. This is way too much and I dont use the phone, watch little of the non-terrestrial TV but use the web quite a bit. So the plan is to ditch the phone and TV package and go broadband only. If I wanted to watch a film I used the pretty limited but expensive Virgin movies thing, which never has new releases.
So looking into TV things, I have a smart TV in the bedroom, non-smart TV downstairs. I have a Netflix account, should I have more? What do I need to watch TV on a par with the availability that Virgin gave me. Do I need a smart TV downstairs (i'd considering getting either a new smart tv or a cinema system)? Why would I need Amazon Fire TV for example?
I guess my question is, how does everyone else do TV/film in the modern era?
I've turned into my parents 🙁
I use my phone to Chromecast all films/shows to our TV. Job done.
We have basic tv, phone and broadband (now 50 mbts) for just over £35 a month, and use netflix and Lovefilm postal dvd rental. I kept virgin tv and phone as it didn't seem much more expensive than ditching them, plus I like the tivo box.
I have enjoyed using the Virgin TiVo thing, but when its costing £80 odd per month it seems a waste of money. I've been looking into these Android smart Tv things and when you can get apps on them to watch lots of tv channels and movies, plus the ability to use Amazon instant movies using the amazon fire Tv it just seems so much cheaper overall.
Spacemonkey, where do you get you films/content from? Is it stuff you've bought in or stuff for free via an app?
About 5 mins ago I noticed a play to TV option on youtube (youtube.com/pair), after browsing through these:
http://imgur.com/gallery/lZUEmui
I've got a Humax Freesat box (£250 or so) which gives me plenty of channels through the sat dish and recording functionality with no subscription. Every now and again we sign up for Amazon DVD rentals to catch up with films we want to see. Job done!
TS
What package do you have for £80 though? You don't need to spend anywhere near that to keep your tivo box. I pay about £37 for the package (I think it's about to go up by a couple of quid). Broadband on its own from virgin is nearly £30 for the same speed, so you're not actually paying much at all for the phone line rental and tivo box.
I think its one of the top ones, 100Mb boradband, HD TV etc. No sports or movies though. It either £75 or £85 per month (it was only half price for a staff promo deal a while back but that expired).
That sounds too much, look at their big kahuna package and how much it costs (49 I think) and compare it to what you have, as I think it has more.
Phone virgin and ask to move to that package at the very least. There should be no problem doing that, I did a while ago.
You can go done the cancellations/retention route if they don't want to change you, but that is unlikely.
It might be because we have 2 tv boxes?
I think a seeding box is another £10. Do you use it?
android boxes. one off payment to buy the hardware, runs XBMC, legal to buy but perhaps not so much the streams it links to, but that's the internet for you.
droidsticks.co.uk is a good place to start...
an option instead of a second box, which might not save you money but will mean you can stream your tivo anywhere in the house, is a slingbox 360.
i have one on mine and everything would be great if google hadn't have screwed up the wifi performance on my nexus 10 tablet with their lollipop downgrade.
We went from the circa. £80 a month package to the circa. £55 a month one (with Virgin).
Despite my wife's worries that we might miss the additional channels, we don't. And the kids have long-since forgotten about the programmes they can't get anymore (such as Disney Channel).
We did add Netflix to give us different options but to be honest we don't really use that much either.
looking into options suggested i'm going to ditch the TV and phone package from virgin, reducing my bills. I'm going to either buy a Virgin Fire TV (£79) and run netflix, virgin instant for films and PLEX for home media or ROKU 3 for basically the same. Anyone have any experience of ROKU 3?
apparently if you have an iPad or similar you can (ahem) installmoviebox and get lots of the latest films on your tablet device....
Just got a Youview box for home, one of the later BT ones (very small and quiet) off ebay for less than your monthly Virgin bill. Brand new they're about £150. Freeview recording, pausing live TV, etc works very nicely. Virtually no BT branding or extra stuff, and what there is is easy to avoid. Very impressed so far.
They do all the usual catchup services (iplayer, ITV, 4oD, NowTV, etc) and do Netflix too.
That plus a Chromecast, Roku or FireTV (for youtube, plex, amazon instant, etc) would cover most bases nicely for non-smart TVs.
I have just bought one of those Humax freeview boxes that is probably the same as that BT box, for my MIL.
Works pretty nicely - main drawback is only having 2 tuners to record whereas the virgin tivo has three, and I am not sure that it can record 2 and let you watch a 3rd, like the old Humaxes used to.
But the interface is nice and logical, and quite quick.
Plus you lose a lot of HD channels if you switch from Virgin XL.