It's been a few weeks since I took the difficult (emotionally) step of canceling Spectrum TV, retiring my beloved TiVos and switching my TV service over to streaming. I researched and experimented and got a load of help 'n' advice from friends including Marc Wielage, Rod Woodcock and Stu Shostak. I finally settled on (for now) the YouTubeTV app, which is not the same thing as the YouTube website you probably visit often.
That's my main way of viewing the stations I watch most often plus I also got a subscription to HBO Max and to Apple TV. I bought a year of Apple TV just before I heard that Jon Stewart is not doing his show for them any longer. I would not have subscribed if I'd known that.
How do I like what I have now? It's mostly a "yes" but let's take it one step at a time…
PICTURE QUALITY/DEPENDABILITY: Pretty darn good. That may have something to do with the high-speed Internet connection I have which currently gives me at least 800 Mbps downloads and often as high as 950. Even with that though, the picture occasionally freezes up for a second or two…but then that happened, albeit a bit less often, with my TiVos. And I'm not sure if it's the software or the web connection or the TCL-brand Roku TV but at least one of those doesn't like me fast-forwarding too far. If I try to leap from the beginning of a show to the end, the signal often freezes up and I have to close out the app and start over.
AVAILABLE CHANNELS: With YouTubeTV and my two add-ons, I have pretty much everything I want. If I want something that isn't on one of those three, it's a pretty simple matter to add more.
COSTS: Better than I was paying before.
OTHER ADVANTAGES: Not being on the phone either waiting forever on hold for Spectrum Technical Support, trying to explain things to Spectrum Technical Support or talking for twenty minutes to someone at Spectrum Technical Support and then having them drop the call so I have to call back, wait forever on hold for Spectrum Technical Support and when I do get someone, start all over with them.
OTHER DISADVANTAGES: My fingers grew so very accustomed to my TiVo remote control that they're having trouble learning that the buttons are in all different places on the Roku remote control.
LASTLY, A QUESTION I HAVE: I now own and watch TV on Roku TV sets in two different rooms. Each has a USB port to which one can connect a flash drive or external hard drive…and one can play or view video files and images (in some formats) on one's TV using an app called Roku Media Player. This is an enormous convenience but when I try to use Roku Media Player, I get a message that says this…
So is this telling me that if I use Roxu Media Player on my TV to, say, watch my old home movies, HBO Max gets access to films of the birthday party I had when I was six? It gives me the option to select "Allow" or "Do Not Allow" but if I Do Not Allow, it closes the media player…so I have to grant access in order to use it. I'm sure we could all mount a very good argument as to how that's Invasion of Privacy and surrender of intellectual property, not that there was anything intellectual about that birthday party of mine.
Can someone explain this to me? Or tell me how to use Roku Media Player without letting Apple TV spy on what I choose to watch on my own TV?
More on this one of these days.