Television, drug of the nation

Finished off Horace and Pete, man it's dark and brutal.

Just finished watching the first episode of Preacher. A bit slow, but they did a very good job of translating the tone of the comic into tv without exactly following the original story.
It has promise, I hope they keep it up.

No subtitles, boo.

I'm.terrified, it's one of my favourite comic book.

Munch is the coolest character ever, and holds some kind of record for being in the most different TV shows.

He even appears in 'The Wire'.

I hope they don't put him in the latest 'Chicago pd/med/fire/street cleansing' or whatever.

It amazes me that HLOTS is somehow related to that 'Chicago' shit.

Det Munch fun fact: His cousin is none other than Henry Winkles, who played "The Fozzie Bear" hit 80s show, "The Cosby Kids".

Proper noob question / Dad post.

I haven't had my own TV since 2014 and back then I used an aging freeview box that I planned to replace with one that could record.

I have a physical TV and would like to:

• watch TV programmes on it
  
• watch on demand, iplayer, etc.
  
• maybe get Netflix / similar
  
  

Do I want one of those Jeremy Clarkson Amazon dongle things?

I'd like to not pay too much or have any long term subscriptions.

check out your local Gumtree or whatever guaranteed there is some Del Boy knocking out cracked fire sticks, with all the channels on - usually about £70

Also depends how much you want to give money to Amazon and Jeremy Clarkson.

@EB - sounds a bit fraudie, and like there's a risk it may not work for long.

@kl - I'm happy to pay them to supply iplayer and 4OD to my TV without having to load up a laptop and plug cables in.

Do any of the smart TV stick things let you watch regular TV or do I still need a freeview box?

A quick search says the Roku is decent.

TBH I'm mainly struggling with where to start.

If you have a laptop and a hdmi port on both that and your TV you are sorted.

It's cheaper and doesn't take long to do. Our TV has Amazon and iplayer built in but not 4od or Now TV so we just connect our laptop when we want to use those.

Get a Chromecast. £30 and it'll let you watch Netflix, iPlayer, youtube and so forth. Not sure about live TV though?

This is assuming you have a smartphone (ideally Android although Apple stuff works too). You cast the stuff from your phone via the netflix, youtube or iplayer apps, but essentially you're using it as a smart remote to choose the content you wish to play, not mirroring the screen of your phone. Netflix requires a subscription (£6 pcm?) but youtube, iplayer don't.

Alternatively, you can get an Amazon Fire Stick, but unless you stick illegal stuff on there (showbox, mobdro etc) you're tied into Amazon's crappy faux-android ecosystem. Definitely don't pay £70 for a dodgy one if you do want to go down that route - pay £35 and spend half an hour installing the stuff you want on it.

Cheers.

My mate recommended the Chrome Cast as well. I'm just going to do a bit of research to weigh it up against the Roku.

a tv with hdmi input, a laptop with an hdmi output, a copy of opera with private browsing turned on, some torrenting software, https.torrentz.eu and off you go.

go to the movies once a month if you start feeling guilty.

They're different things. Chromecast is completely subscription free in itself, but allows you to do loads. All the others require/suggest you subscribe to their ecosystem, are more expensive and aren't as good, frankly.

I'd definitely recommend the Chromecast, and you can pick it up for £25 at Currys or £22.97 from their ebay store.

Seriously, don't bother with Roku or Amazon Fire - just get a Chromecast.

Very much enjoying iZombie on Netflix. Follows the US police procedural format, but the medical examiner is a zombie and gets visions and personality traits from eating the brain of the victim/brain of the week.

Mostly done with tongue in cheek, well written and characters are all likeable.

Do I want one of those Jeremy Clarkson Amazon dongle things?

I'd like to not pay too much or have any long term subscriptions.

My 2¢: Don't get an Amazon firestick. They are crappy, reliant on wifi and they want you to pay.

Take a look at Humax line of DTRs. Basically set top boxes that can record Freeview HD and SD received via your TV ariel to an internal hard drive. They are also connectable via ethernet or wifi and offer some On Demand. Well worth looking into.

I use a chromecast and it's ace. Begin the stream from your phone, ipad, laptop and control from any/all of these devices as well. More convenient than HDMI and no cables...

The box set with the add-on movie was a (CEX-) sourced Xmas present to myself last December, (pragmatic counter to the not needed/wasteful crap Mrs. mespilus would otherwise get me).
BT Sports has stopped me starting it yet.

Yep,
pre- (spolier alert) -event Frank in 'the Box' some of the most compelling tv monologue.

I've got one of these and use it for freeview and recording, but suggesting a £180 set top box as an equivalent/alternative to a £25 chromecast, which will do all of the non-live TV/PVR stuff is unusual.

Frankly, you could buy a CC and use the TV's built in freeview receiver (the vast majority have them, these days) and you're pretty much sorted. Not so much of a need to record live TV when you can watch it on iplayer at a later date anyway.

Horses for courses.

Its the closest you can get to an old terrestrial tv and video set up. Plus its excellent quality no buffering just simple to operate too. And it isn't reliant on wifi.

Also you are fucking way off on the price. You can get a proper Humax refurb for under a ton.

http://www.humaxdirect.co.uk/hdr-2000t-500gb-22351a.html

.

Fair enough, but TV is the easy bit (assuming built in freeview on tv) and streaming stuff/smart TV features can be pricey if you get sucked into buying Amazon fire thing or other proprietary thing. Chromecast is cheap and great.

What can a Chromecast do that a Smart TV doesn't?

Be regularly updated, cost £25, support youtube, Netflix, iplayer etc, be able to be intuitively and easily controlled by your phone, not become out of date or go end of life. I'm sure there are more.