Where are we now?
It's been almost two years since we got rid of our cable TV bill, so I thought I would post an update in case anyone was wants to know how it worked out.
When last we left, I had four problems with my TV/BluRay player setup:
- TV sound won't play through home theater speakers.
- Wireless connection gets dropped occasionally.
- Haven't figured out how to stream local media from my computer (haven't really tried though).
- Antenna reception is marginal for some channels in current location.
The wireless connection never got better. I'm not convinced that wireless can handle streaming HD content reliably. Maybe it's possible if you have a high-end router and an open floor plan. I have a cheap router, a hundred year old house, and our living room has a copper ceiling. The wireless signal is ok for my iPad, but not for HD movies. The solution was to hard-wire the BluRay player to the network. I tried to avoid this because I didn't want to have to run wires. In the end, I bought a pair of Zyxel Powerline adapters. These use the existing electrical wiring as a 200Mbps LAN. Plug the BluRay into one in the living room, plug the router into the other in the office. No setup, no software, and they have pass-throughs so you still get electricity out of the outlet. I was skeptical, but we get excellent quality streaming video and haven't had a dropped connection in over a year and a half. Well worth the investment.
Streaming media from my computer was easy once I figured out how to set Media Player up as a dlna media server. We stream music playlists fairly regularly, but we use Pandora even more.
Antenna reception is still spotty. I believe that if I move the antenna up to the attic, I could get much better reception and maybe a few more channels. But, as it is, we get the major networks and the quality if good if you spend a few seconds adjusting the antenna for each channel. I plan on trying to run a coaxial cable up the attic at some point, but it hasn't been a high priority yet.
Thoughts on the Hardware
TV: We got a Sony and liked it ok, but it developed a dark region across the middle that internet research suggested was due to a faulty control board. Costco took it back no questions asked because it was within the however-many day return limit. We replaced it with a Samsung and we love it. Great picture, looks good, no problems.
Home Theater: I'm a little less happy with the all-in-one Sony BluRay / home theater / streaming media player. The sound quality is excellent, and the BluRay player works fine, but there are some things that aren't so great. First, this machine takes a long time to turn on and run through its startup sequence...like over a minute. This gets really annoying when a show is starting and we turn the TV on, but have to watch the opening scene with no sound because the system is warming up.
Second, I downloaded Sony's remote control app to my iPad. It's terrible. Don't bother. I was hoping it would run all my components and let me type in searches...no. Just a basic remote that doesn't work as well as the real remote.
The streaming media isn't great. The apps are much less use-friendly or versatile than the iPad versions. At this point, we pretty much only use Netflix and Pandora. I've watched stuff on Crackle a few times. I can see using Hulu and Amazon VOD, but we don't need more content right now. The dozens of other apps are mostly junk or pay services or have a very narrow target audience.
Finally, I'm beginning to realize that the home theater and BluRay player will be serviceable long after the streaming media player is out of date. There are lots of services that are not available, and you can't download additional apps. You get what they give you and that's all. And it doesn't look like there will ever be a we browser. If I were doing it again, I would probably get a BluRay and home theater, but get a separate media player that could be upgraded or replaced without having to throw away the other components. I guess I can still upgrade to something else and not use the built in media player, but it's not really designed for that.
Final Verdict
Overall, we're happy we made the move. We don't miss cable all that much. Between broadcast TV and Netflix, we get plenty of content to keep us happy and the upgrade to HDTV, BluRay, and 5.1 surround sound was well worth it. It's nice to know that with the money we're saving on our cable bill, the hardware is already nearly halfway paid for.
