Don't know if this is thread-worthy but had no idea where to post it.

Dish dropped AMC and does not plan on adding it back at this time. I went to their online chat to bitch and try to get some dollars knocked off my bill. Before I could go into it they offered me 35 dollars off my next bill and they are sending me a Roku. Seems to be a box that streams TV apps over my wifi.

I took it, seems fair enough. Just a PSA if anyone has Dish and wants to try to get free stuff

7/1/2012 8:47:06 PM

Seems like you got screwed considering AMC is the home of some of the only watchable programming on TV these days.

7/2/2012 10:52:01 AM

i dont care TWC 4 Life

7/2/2012 11:21:17 AM

i complained when i first got the email & was only offered 3 months of showtime for free since "most customers watch only movies on AMC"

so what are my options for switching? directv seems to be more expensive that what i've been paying, & prism (fiber via centurylink) is even more expensive. our cable company is about 15 years behind tech-wise so that's not an option either. i'm very interested in doing some combo of roku/apple tv/hulu+/netflix/amazon, but i don't know enough about it to jump into it. i'm also worried about going over the imaginary cap my internet company has for monthly data usage. my monthly allowance is 250gb. i have no idea how that translates to tv streaming. i currently use anywhere from 4-15gb/month.

i watch a lot of tv, but mostly off the dvr. i watch: a lot of major network primetime shows, AMC original series, discovery, food network, g4tv/attack of the show, history channel, travel channel, comedy central, fx.

7/2/2012 11:31:24 AM

Is there an actual cap to internet usage? If there is, it must be really hard to reach. I'm currently unemployed and stay home with my kids. We have netflix via roku on the main tv in the living room and netflix via wii in my boys' room. Between us being home all day and with at least one of the kids wanting to watch something during the day, and then the wife and I wanting to watch shows/movies we want we probably average at least 8 hrs of streaming a day between the two tvs and we haven't hit any cap.

7/2/2012 2:46:05 PM

yes, my cable internet company has a cap. it's 250gb. it's suddenlink, not twc.

and i just got a random email from dish giving me 2 free ppv credits since they appreciate my business so much...

[Edited on July 2, 2012 at 3:02 PM. Reason : ]

7/2/2012 3:01:08 PM

Quote :

"I took it, seems fair enough. Just a PSA if anyone has Dish and wants to try to get free stuff"

... and doesn't want to watch the final season of Breaking Bad

7/2/2012 3:02:31 PM

Steve, Roku is very nice. We have had one for a while and just use that at nights when we go to bed watching Netflix. If you have Hulu Plus you can use that on the Roku as well. But I can't believe you don't want Charter instead! Its the greatest thing ever. Charlie Beaver told me so and he can't be wrong. He is the Voice of the Roanoke Valley!

I know that's the real reason you moved back to RR. Couldn't stand not being able to stream Good Morning Lake Country anymore.

[Edited on July 2, 2012 at 8:46 PM. Reason : ]

7/2/2012 8:43:56 PM

73, what percentage of your shows could be consumed OTA or with basic cable (~$13/month)? a friend went to lifetime subscription tivo + OTA, netflix, and hulu+. now that you can get sunday ticket on PSN, I'm thinking about it but i'd miss comedy central and speedtv

7/2/2012 9:02:16 PM

^comedy central streams quite a bit of their programming on their site

7/2/2012 9:13:09 PM

Yea I am doing the Netflix + Roku + Hulu + OTA deal, and I have DSL with a 250GB cap. I watch a LOT of shows, but I also find I have to torrent some percentage of them. Game of Thrones, Discovery shows, etc. But a large percentage show up on Hulu or eventually come out on Netflix. I try to do that instead of going to the torrents so I can watch legit, although torrenting does have the big advantage of no stupid commercial breaks, which you get even with Hulu Plus.

We are currently catching up on this season of Parenthood. Posting on here during the stupid commercial breaks (which at least get blocked by ABP so I don't have to hear them).

[Edited on July 2, 2012 at 9:16 PM. Reason : ]

7/2/2012 9:15:18 PM

Quote :

"Posting on here during the stupid commercial breaks (which at least get blocked by ABP so I don't have to hear them)"

Assuming this is Hulu...
You do realize that the commercials are 15 seconds long whereas the message that the commercials were blocked are 30 seconds long, right? With 2 commercials per break, that costs you 30 seconds (50% more commercial time). Well, at least they were the last time I checked.

Your crusade is noble but foolish!

[Edited on July 2, 2012 at 9:48 PM. Reason : ]

7/2/2012 9:48:05 PM

I am fairly certain that they have gone to three commercials of 30 second length. I could be wrong, but when I go ABP and it blocks out the commercial block the timer per commercial is 45 seconds to a minute, and it does 2 commercial blocks, so it comes out to like 2 minutes. I will test your theory on my work PC tomorrow as that does not have ABP on all browsers, so I can verify the length of commercials.

That said though, I would rather not deal with them for one main reason. Most of them are loud as fuck and since I am watching them on my PC, I have to get up and adjust the volume back down. No rules on internet advertising volume like they have now on cable.

7/2/2012 10:01:43 PM

haha, don't get me started on 'high-speed' internet options in this shit-hole town. My CenturyLink has been down for 80% of the last month. When it has been up, my dl speed is something like half a megabit per second.

This sucks when you work from home full time and have to use wifi hotspot on your phone. Thank goodness I am grandfathered in to unlimited data on Verizon, but they are out to screw me too. Just n time for an upgrade and they pull their share-plan BS.

I do think I will enjoy the Roku. They did not make me renew my contract or anything like that.

7/3/2012 5:27:40 AM

Most ABP lists have left Hulu alone because of serious problems that sometimes occur while trying to block its advertising: https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2456

7/3/2012 6:44:22 AM

Quote :

"Seems like you got screwed considering AMC is the home of some of the only watchable programming on TV these days."

^this. I would drop Dish (unless under contract) to go with another provider.

7/3/2012 7:03:55 AM

^Biggest problem for him is lack of providers. He is probably in the 2nd worst location in NC for cable/internet service, the worst being where I lived after moving from there to Scotland Neck.

His options are only Charter Cable (fucking God awful), CenturyLink DSL (who likely does not have Prism in RR) and Dish or Direct satellite and their satellite internet equivalents (which are shit). At least he has those. When I lived in SN my options were satellite or Suddenlink. Suddenlink did not even have cable internet or HD service in the town, so literally the only thing I could do was CenturyLink DSL for internet and DISH or Direct for TV.

7/3/2012 7:32:40 AM

Quote :

"I do think I will enjoy the Roku"

Assuming your internet is working and at a decent speed

7/3/2012 8:07:12 AM

lol yep. Going to jump on the phone shortly and get someone out here to attempt to fix my stuff... again

7/3/2012 8:39:27 AM

FYI Roku just got a kickass update for iOS devices. It now has Play on Roku, so you can stream photos or music from your devices to your TV. I fired it up this morning and checked out some photos on the TV, which was cool. But the best is streaming my music to the TV, which I am doing now. You can use playlists, albums, or whatever. I still want to be able to just select an artist and play everything, not just one album. But still, it's pretty great when you don't want to put the headphones in or go to another room to fire up the music catalog.

9/20/2012 10:57:28 PM