Is watching TV via computer viable- lots of Qs!

[VidalBaboon]

I am about to cancel down my £90/month Sky subscription and replace it with something like Netflix or LoveFilm, my only concern is being able to watch soaps (for the Wife, but I think they both cover things like that)

My Sky broadband seems to be Biblically slow too, but it may be that the Laptop needs junking. Who would be the best broadband provider- I know it's area dependant & I think my cabling into the house can handle up to 12Mb, so don't want to be paying over the odds for something I can't receive.

What I am on about doing is using a desktop PC- Acer Aspire 3470 to be exact & use my TV as a monitor. Would this be ok for streaming media? What sort of memory requirements would I need for streaming HD movies.

With regards to cabling, how does this work? I am currently on a HDMI for my Sky box, will I revert to normal Scart? Are there any differences in quality of leads etc...?

By the way, I am a complete computer biff, so explaniations written in crayon, please.

Thanks in advance

[nadger]

If you go to the trouble shooting section of the bbc iplayer there is a testing programme that will tell you what quality of streaming tv you can get. Run that and it may help!
Also I think that if you watch the tv live on the Internet you need a tv licence, but if you watch it after its been shown (an hour later or whatever) you dont, but I'm no legal eagle!

[VidalBaboon]

I have a TV licence- it's not about that. It's about ditching my £90/month subcription for something cheaper. I watch maybe 15 of the 500 chanels I receive, even then, it's only rarely that I will watch anything other than movies.

[Marf]

All BBC channels are streamed live

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_two_england/wa...

You can also get all Freeview channels on TVCatchup.com

Quality is not as good as SD, though it is watchable.

Bear in mind that the BBC often does not have the relevant licensing to broadcast movies and some american TV on their watch live service. This does not affect TV Catchup.

Edited by Marf on Saturday 6th October 13:29

[VidalBaboon]

Ideal, that you. Anyone know much about computers?

[Phunk]

I do this.

Keep your sky box, you will still get quite a few channels with no subscription.

Get a PC and stick a HDMI graphics card in (£20)

Download XBMC and get the TV Catchup add on.

Job done.

[MysteryLemon]

£90 per month? :O

Why not just cancel, get a stand alone broadband package from whoever takes your fancy (circa £20p/m with line rental & phone) and use the freeview thats probably built into your TV already?

Otherwise, why not just downgrade your sky package? Just get the basics with none of the Movies or sports etc. No doubt you will be able to halve that bill. We used to have sky and only paid £35 p/m for broadband, phone and basic TV.

[TheHeretic]

I just run my computer through the TV and stream iplayer, movies, music, and so on through it. Easypeasy.

[Bullett]

Or freesat.

[FlossyThePig]

What do you want to achieve after dumping Sky? Only when you can define that should you start considering the technology to provide the solution.

If your broadband is slow can you upgrade to cable (Virgin) or FTTC (BT Infinity)? If not streaming TV may not be practical.

[iPlod999]

www.filmon.com

Great site for iMac, PC or apple app.

[VidalBaboon]

Flossy, for clarification:

• I would like to save myself £1080/year.
• I use 15 of the 800 channels provided
• I hate using my laptop for porn
• I want a wireless keyboard
• I want to keep my music on a hard drive & plug it in to play through the home cinema
• I hate the interruption in service when it rains
• I hate paying £3.95 for a movie on boxoffice when loveFilm is £4/month
• I hate the repeats shown throughout the week
• I hate the repeats shown throughout the week
• I want to save myself £1080/year

Other bonuses include:

• watching pornhub on a 50" HD screen
• looking at other porn sites on a 50" HD screen

Now you know my master plan.

Hope that helps

Internet speed is governed by the copper wires supplying my house, according to BT, 12Mb is max for the line.

So the TV side of it seems covered, which of the film providers is best to use?

Edited by VidalBaboon on Sunday 7th October 22:51

[Torquey]

Phunk said:

I do this.

Keep your sky box, you will still get quite a few channels with no subscription.

Get a PC and stick a HDMI graphics card in (£20)

Download XBMC and get the TV Catchup add on.

Job done.

Good advice.

You say you pc is slow. Get rid of windows and use XBMC (x-box media center IIRC) instead. Your pc should run faster and smoother.
I believe it's basically a free version of windows media center.

I'd maybe try running 'speed test' to see what speed broadband you are actually getting down the line. Running this on your pc may not give a good reading if the pc is full of S**t. Try it on a phone maybe.

Its most likely the pc that is slow not the broadband.

[SeeFive]

Network speed - check to see if you can get a fibre connection with different internet providers. Just search on Google for "fibre broadband", and most providers have a test page to see if you can get it in your area. They will probably call you next week though...

I live at the end of a piece of damp string connected to the exchange miles away - unable to get more than a meg download speed on copper if I am lucky, so streaming movies is not an option. But http://sales.talktalk.co.uk/products/broadband/fib... showed that I can get fibre with this provider.

Nobody did fibre around here 6 months ago, and this was a game changer for our expensive Sky contract as we can stream movies with fibre after cancelling SWMBO's rarely used Sky movie channels.

My daughter uses Talk Talk's basic "essentials" package at her place, and it is proving reliable and seemingly as quick as anything else on copper. I hear that their customer service sucks, so lets hope we do not need to use it.

Pricing - they offer 12 months half price internet at the moment (£3.25) which with discounted line rental (£9.50) comes to a princely £12.75 a month over the year's contract. To get the discounted line rental, I paid the £114 line rental fees for the whole year up front, so ongoing it's £3.25 a month for broadband rising to a massive £6.50 after a year, plus any more line rental offers at the time of course. This current offer has 3 or 4 days left to run, so if you want it (caveat - after checking out the fibre market for your area as you state a need for faster downloads) be quick.

I cancelled all Sky TV and telecoms contracts today and signed up with Talk Talk for broadband. I will certainly upgrade as soon as it is installed (they can't do it before) to "Medium fibre package" for an extra tenner a month giving a maximum of 38meg download speed (minus contention etc) for an 18month contract. Large fibre package is an extra £15 a month and give a max of 76meg download speed. This seems a lot cheaper than their competition after researching the web. By the way, if you are getting 12meg and struggling now, you must be downloading some really high def porn (I'd give my right arm for 12meg on copper - luxury)!

For TV, I am going Freesat+ as it satisfies SWMBO's channel needs, and gives a few mainstream HD channels to boot. Our main need is the ability to record / pause programs which Freesat+ gives. Given the new age of fibre in leafy 'ampshoire, we will PPV stream her desired movies that are not on the Freesat channels.

You mentioned PPV movies - my research shows that there is also a story flying that Freesat may team up with Netflix for PPV movies, perhaps anyone connected on here can help triangulate any truth in that.

http://www.techradar.com/news/television/freesat-t...

Run this - it will tell you what actual speed you are getting on the line. http://www.zdnet.com/broadband-speedtest/

I slot in to 152nd place in the country list - just worse than Syrian Arab Republic, Nigeria, Costa Rica, even bloody penguins do better than me in Antarctica and closest (but still worse than) Swaziland at my massive 0.777mb download speed! My router shows 0.97mb at the hub / ADSL connection.

Edited by SeeFive on Monday 8th October 00:37

[davepoth]

The critical thing is the broadband speed, as mentioned above. If you can, test with more than one PC, at different times of the day, using both a wired and wireless connection to the router. BBC reckon you'll need 3500kbps to get the high quality Iplayer stream without buffering, other providers will be similar.