If you want to cut the cable – it has never been easier…
It took me some time, to cut the cable without serious bloodshed but this is finally possible with the ROKU 3 Streaming Video Platform.
Even as little as five years ago, to cut the cable really was not an option. You would lose too much viewing power – and the few smart apps that existed simply did not work properly. I made do with backdoor options – including a local video server built into my computer – but streaming content was simply not ready for prime time.
I recently received my ROKU 3 and opened the box to find a tiny little package inside that claimed to cut the cable and save me well over $100 bucks every month – and I scoffed.
Well, let me just say that I never thought that I would enjoy cutting the cable so much! I mean – WOW! We will talk more on this later, but for now let us discover…
What’s in the Box
- Fast and powerful system with up to 1080p HD video* and dual-band wireless for increased speed
- Compact remote with headphone jack for watching TV in bed at night.
- One-stop search finds your favorite movies and TV shows across services like Netflix and HULU
- Free iOS and Android device app for use like a remote.
- Impressive “in-ear” headphones
- Free Angry Birds game
- Two AA batteries
- Power adapter
- Getting Started guide
- 90-day manufacturer warranty
What is ROKU 3?
We can jump into the technical aspects of the ROKU3 and stay there all day. Don’t fret though. You came to this article to learn how to cut the cable to save big money – and we won’t stray too far from our focus. However, if you ask…
Is it fast? Blazing!
Is the picture quality good? Clean as a whistle.
Are the apps useful? You betcha – and they ALL work! No more dead links.
What about the “one stop search”? It won’t work with every app (ROKU has too many), but with major apps like Amazon Prime, HULU, VUDU and a handful of other apps, it works just fine. This means you can search from one place and find your program on any app where it might be available. My unit even has voice search – so I don’t need to type searches at all – though mostly I do. The voice facility works flawlessly – and is yet to misunderstand me – but I just feel more comfortable going directly to HULU (for example) to make my search there.
And now…back to the show…
Now, I cannot (and I don’t) recommend that anyone cut the cable and give up their cable service. This is a deeply personal decision. I only want to relate my own experience – and you can take if for whatever you think it is worth.
For me, the biggest hurdle to cut the cable was my wife – whom I love – a lot. While I am a computer design engineer, my wife has only the nonprofessional’s grasp of computer systems. She is not an idiot – but expecting her to get to her programs from a messy array of networking apps from my improvised video server was simply not going to fly. The cable package put programming at her fingertips – and she needed that – until now.
My own fear to cutting the cable was the inability to get to the news. MSNBC was sort of an addiction for me – and it was simply not possible to get to this broadcast without the cable. Point of fact, even ROKU 3 presently does not provide this broadcast – but as every thinking person knows, – there are always alternatives – or at least – there are now.
So, I cut the cable and then sat back waiting for the pain to set in. I steeled myself for my wife’s panicky questions and girded myself for some major withdrawal agony. These things never happened.
The “one stop search” sort of “pulled” the apps together into one coherent TV watching experience that my wife just loves. She says that now she always has something to watch, and the system automatically introduces more content to her every day. She took to the system like a fish to water – and never looked back. She says this is the best thing she ever did – and wondered why she has been wasting her money.
As for me, the full MSNBC broadcast is gone – but there is plenty of news from MSNBC on the NBC app, and at MSNBC-Shift. If I seriously want to watch the original broadcast, it is streamed live over the net all day. Now, however I am able to watch my favorite news personalities and interviews – but only such news stories as interest me.
No more spending all day listening to the same story about an airplane crash – as told by different anchors – struggling to keep the story sounding fresh. I am able to watch the news MY way.
ROKU 3 will blow your mind! You won’t be able to forgive yourself for spending all that money every month – with this marvelous solution just lying there – right under your nose. However, do not kick yourself too hard. As I said – five years ago – you had no choice. Even a year ago, you had no choice – else I would have written this post then.
Today, however, everybody on the cable ought at least to install the ROKU 3 and then decide after some experimentation if he or she wants to cut the cable or to stick with it. With $100 per month at stake, you MUST make this experiment. You cannot afford not to know the score.
What you need to cut the cable…
If you decide to cut the cable, you will not be short of content. There will be TONS of apps (channels) – many of which offer some great movies totally FREE. I watch these all the time. Some of these channels are ad supported – but these are kept extremely short – so you hardly notice them – and they do not occur any too often.
What you will miss though, is quality content. For good prime time TV and movies (without commercials), you will need Netflix at about $8.99 per month. Netflix has some great programming – but it’s not any too fresh, so if you love “The Family Guy” and want to catch up on past seasons – Netflix will be there for you.
Don’t get me wrong. There are some great TV offerings at Netflix, and many are original series – such as “Daredevil” – a taste too violent perhaps – but definitely one of my favorites. If you like, you can find many quality TV series at Netflix – and some seriously good movies too.
However, when it comes to TV – nobody does TV like HULU plus. HULU is designed from the ground up to give you a TV watching experience. HULU Plus does fresh TV right. If you want to catch up on the latest five episodes of “Gotham”, “New Girl”, “Blacklist”, or “The Flash” HULU is the place to go.
HULU is also the place to find vintage series and many cult favorites like “The Outer Limits,” The Avengers (Steed and Peel) and even “Lost in Space.” I’m a big fan of “Black Lagoon” a Japanese animation – which for some reason would broadcast, but would not record when I was on cable – but here is the entire series two year run, right here on HULU and I’m even watching an old favorite of mine that I never thought to see again – “Space 1999”.
And while we are discussing HULU, I found that it has a movie library that is vastly under rated. We think of HULU as the place to go for great television, but there are some GREAT movies here too – and with ZERO commercials. Movies are commercial free. Only the TV series have commercials – but getting to these TV shows is worth that price. Remember that this is all programming that you (likely) cannot get to on your cable service - and you do still have commercials on your current cable system – don’t you?
In fact, one of the reasons that I cut the cable was that I grew tired of greedy advertisers writing their commercials all over the top or bottom of my television program, or having commercial icons waving at me from the bottom of my screen trying to divert my attention to their product. I don’t have these problems anymore. Now, I can watch great TV programs – past and present – and when the rare commercial comes along – it is over in thirty seconds – then back to the show – and ONLY the show.
The time has come seriously to consider the prospect of cutting the cable cord. I say again, even if you aren’t sure what you want to do, you can still install the ROKU 3, sign up to HULU Plus and Netflix (the only two apps you really need) and see if you still feel that your cable is the only game in town.
IF you wait five years and cut the cord then – you will never forgive yourself having wasted so many thousands of dollars. I know I had to wrestle with the idea - but to be honest, Just a year ago – before the ROKU 3 arrived, I would have said that cutting the cord was a bad idea. As an engineer, I know technology very well, and the streaming technology simply was not ready. With ROKU 3, Netflix and HULU Plus, all of that has changed. The means to cut the cord is right in front of you – if cutting the cord really is what you want to do.
IF you cut the cable, you will need to pay $8.99 for Netflix and $7.99 for HULU Plus and you will need the ROKU 3 – which costs only about $90 (one time) for the very best model. There are cheaper models, but these are less capable – if only a little – so you might as well do it right.
Seriously, if you think that spending $100 for the ROKU 3 is reckless and expensive, consider that you are paying this money every month to keep your cable service. What with fees of every sort, equipment rental, equipment insurance, rental extra units for additional rooms – your cable bill could float up to $100 for even the most basic service. Why not pay that money one time – and then stop paying. Even if you decide not to cut the cable – the ROKU 3 will expand your viewing options immeasurably.
To cut the cable, the ROKU 3 certainly is not the only choice. There are other options – but I really did my homework – and NONE of the other options that I considered could stay in the ring with the ROKU 3. With its outstanding content offerings, coupled with fast performance and slick features such as the native content scraper and the one-size-fits-all search function, ROKU 3 runs well ahead of the pack.
If content is king – then long live ROKU 3.
Shop SMART & Prosper!
Mason
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from which pay me when you buy from the links.
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