Satellite TV or No?

[Doc O Rock]

When I bought my boat last spring, it had a KVH on the arch, but it didn't have the dish box. Fast forward to this spring, and I traded the KVH to my electronics guy, to have him add a HD antenna clean up the wiring, and a few other jobs. About 80 channels including the local ones and I hooked up an old apple tv box. I run the apple tv off the wifi hot spot on my ipad when I need it. The Admiral is now officially happy. And no money outlay.

 

[CliffA]

When I bought my boat last spring, it had a KVH on the arch, but it didn't have the dish box. Fast forward to this spring, and I traded the KVH to my electronics guy, to have him add a HD antenna clean up the wiring, and a few other jobs. About 80 channels including the local ones and I hooked up an old apple tv box. I run the apple tv off the wifi hot spot on my ipad when I need it. The Admiral is now officially happy. And no money outlay.

a little off topic but related....

I just installed a $35 outdoor antenna (from Amazon) at my house yesterday evening and can get more than 30 over-the-air channels including all the local news......many are HD channels.....it easily pulls in channels that are 50 miles away and it even has a rotor....they play great on my 60" plasma TV....I also recently signed up for Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Prime Music which are free with our Amazon Prime shipping membership....I also installed Amazon Fire TV streaming stick.....soon I will purchase a Channel Master DVR that can record over-the-air movies or shows....

we are now ready to 'cut the cable' and stop paying for TV service....we were paying around $150 per month for basic programing from DirecTV...I also cancelled my subscription to Sirius radio and Netflix....IMO Amazon video and music are just as good if not better....

cliff

 

[ziekman@cox.net]

I have a unlimited data plan, slingbox connected at home, and the apple AV connector. Also have Amazon and Netflix subscriptions. There is no need for a Sat system unless you are out at sea or in a remote area.

Does the AV connector replace Roku or Apple TV, if yes why would you want them?

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[saopm]

Does the AV connector replace Roku or Apple TV, if yes why would you want them?

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Unlimited data plans put a limit on hot spot data. The limit is around 10G which isn't much when you are streaming video to a Roku or similar. Therefore, to stream "unlimited" video you need to use your phone as the source. The only way to get the picture on to a TV with your phone as the source is to use the AV connector "wired setup". I could be wrong , but from what I understand all screen casting/mirroring wirelessly requires a wifi network and that would require you phone in hot spot mode.

 

[NotHerDecision]

I have t mobile and the hotspot has unlimited streaming. 40 bucks a month.


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[saopm]

I double checked with my provider - Verizon. Hot Spot is unlimited, but the rep I spoke with said they drop the hot spot connected devices down to 3G speed from 4G after 10G is used. I'm at 19.5G (overall) used for this cycle with 9 days to go. We'll see if we notice any throttling this weekend.

 

[NotHerDecision]

See t-mobile does the same thing except they don't throttle the streaming services like Netflix, pandora...etc


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[tdschafer]

a little off topic but related....

I just installed a $35 outdoor antenna (from Amazon) at my house yesterday evening and can get more than 30 over-the-air channels including all the local news......many are HD channels.....it easily pulls in channels that are 50 miles away and it even has a rotor....they play great on my 60" plasma TV....I also recently signed up for Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Prime Music which are free with our Amazon Prime shipping membership....I also installed Amazon Fire TV streaming stick.....soon I will purchase a Channel Master DVR that can record over-the-air movies or shows....

we are now ready to 'cut the cable' and stop paying for TV service....we were paying around $150 per month for basic programing from DirecTV...I also cancelled my subscription to Sirius radio and Netflix....IMO Amazon video and music are just as good if not better....

cliff

That's very useful information to less tech savvy guys like me. I need to start researching this stuff as my wife complains about the $200+ satellite bill each month! Unfortunately, I need about 8 tv's with the varied programming.

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[Havana Shamrock]

I was going to start up our sat tv on the boat but as stated we have Amazon prime and t-mobile unlimited streaming I can actually tether my iPad to my phone (sprint doesn't do this for free) and use it underway as well I will tether my kodi/ laptop and watch whatever I like. . The sat tv was going to run me $38 /first year then $58/the next. That's a little too much to watch the news for me so I'll stream from my phone. Is is what I tell Sirius XM radio when they call to re new our service I've got them down to $5 month.

 

[JVM225]

I was going to start up our sat tv on the boat but as stated we have Amazon prime and t-mobile unlimited streaming I can actually tether my iPad to my phone (sprint doesn't do this for free) and use it underway as well I will tether my kodi/ laptop and watch whatever I like. . The sat tv was going to run me $38 /first year then $58/the next. That's a little too much to watch the news for me so I'll stream from my phone. Is is what I tell Sirius XM radio when they call to re new our service I've got them down to $5 month.

I have a Sirius/Xm subscription for just one of my 6 cars too. The one that I drive every day. Not sure what they call the plan, but it's the one that includes the ability to listen with their app or over the internet in addition to in that car.
I got it because I like to listen to XM with my iPhone while at the gym.
We often take my wife's car down to D.C. To visit my daughter at school, and I use the app to listen to XM using the auxiliary jack in that car while enduring that brutal ride back and forth.
Anyway, I also have the Sirius/XM app on my iPad which I connect to the Fusion stereo on the boat through a Fusion Bluetooth module I installed and stashed behind a curtain in the cabin. Now I can stream XM radio to the boat stereo through my iPad with the iPad located just about anywhere on the boat. It gets a little sketchy if I move the iPad to some places in the cockpit, but it works flawlessly from anywhere inside the cabin.
My iPad is included in my unlimited data plan. If you don't have cellular data abilities on your iPad, you can do the same thing with your iPhone.
My previous iPad didn't have the cellular data, but that one got donated to the Canal Gods when I clumsily took a spill on the swim platform while boarding my boat a few weeks back.
When I went to replace it I upgraded to the one that is capable of using cellular data. It's only an extra 10.00 a month to add a device to my AT&T plan.
Now I also use the iPad and the Apple A/V cable to stream Netflix, Amazon, most of my Fios channels, anything I DVR'ed on Fios, and downloaded content to whatever TV I want to watch on the boat.
AT&T supposedly throttles after about 20gb, but I don't watch that much TV on the boat, and if I get close to the 20 gigs, I can always restrict viewing for the rest of that month to stuff I download to the iPad while on my home wifi network before heading to the boat.
If I can figure a simple and reliable way to get wifi on the boat I'd really be in business and my wife would have to deliver all of my mail to the boat.

 

[Our Diversion]

Our boat came with the KVH M3 and Bell satellite receiver. It worked great but we really didn't use it enough to justify keeping it. We removed it a couple weeks ago and installed a Garmin radar unit. It's now sitting in the spare bedroom collecting dust.

 

[Ray O]

For those using the iPad and wifi I have a question. I can use my cable app and it streams fine on my iPad but as soon as I attach via the HDMI adapter it gives me a message something like "mobile device not allowed" . I called apple and they said I couldn't do it via mobile device just a lap top. Am I missing something?