Sunday, March 5, 2017

Cord Cutting Conundrums

Although I’ve dabbled with cable a few times in my adult life, I’m what you might call a cord cutter. In fact, I cut that cord long before the term cord cutter was even in vogue. In the early days, I used to use rabbit ears and a VCR. This was back when dial-up was still popular, so YouTube hadn’t even been invented yet.

As time passed by, different avenues of entertainment presented themselves. Oh, sure, I’ve used torrents here and there… Who hasn’t? If you don’t have a DVR, it’s a pretty reliable way of catching last nights episode of “The Big Bang Theory”. On the other hand, it’s not something that you can easily explain to family and coworkers, not to mention it’s somewhat frowned upon.

Netflix is currently my go-to for streaming TV and movies. I’m also an Amazon Prime member, so I’ve got some options there too. Toss in Pluto, Crackle, YouTube, and suddenly you’ve got a pretty decent lineup of shows at your fingertips.

But now my dad wants to cut the cord. The cost of cable and dish has gotten too expensive, and he’s looking for options. Naturally, I’m sharing my Amazon and Netflix with him (not against the rules BTW) and he’s even played around with Kodi. Apparently there’s even apps out there that let you stream live TV, so I got him an Android TV box.

Since he lives about 30 miles away, I also got a box so I could tryout different setups… Well, I tell ya, this little time vampire is not yet ready for Prime Time. It’s frustrating as hell. Lots of problems with apps freezing, or just being plain broken. Then there are the rather dubious “services” that want you to sign up. All in all, it just doesn’t lend to a very satisfying TV viewing experience.

But there’s something about this device that holds promise. Something about it makes me think that if I found the right combinations of apps, this little device could be the answer my dad is looking for.

Then again, it could just be another colossal waste of time.

Pax,

f2x

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One Response to Sunday, March 5, 2017

  1. f2x says:

    So yeah, ignore the metadata. If you are keeping score, I didn’t actually post this until late Sunday night. It was still Sunday, so it counts.

    Also, I don’t care what you philistines think about next Monday’s joke. That shit’s hilarious!

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