amazon fire tv stick vs box and antenna experiences

looking to drop cable. my bill for basic cable + internet is $146 a month. it's gone up over $50 since 2009 and magically i have less channels.

now that sling tv has live fox sports ohio and fox sportstime ohio i get all my indians/cavs games that was stopping me from dropping cable. we already have amazon prime and netflix. most all of what we watch live is sports or on local TV so an antenna would be needed.

so what's the difference between the fire tv stick and the fire tv box? to me it looks like some memory and gaming capability. i was thinking about the stick in the bedroom and the box with game controller for the living room.

i tried the Playstation vue, that was a waste of time. it didn't work, thought i was in baltimore, locked my account for using it in a different location even though i signed up with my zip code, and then i was told by the customer service person that i would have to delete my account and sign up again, thus losing my 7 day free trial to see if it was indeed what i wanted. i informed them that they just lost a PS4 sale because i was going to take the 3 and put it in the bedroom. they didn't seem to care.

also can you guys recommend a good antenna? i'm about 20 miles from the broadcast signals for cleveland and akron.

all input appreciated.

I've got one of these at the end of a 50 foot coax run nailed to a post under the roof. Works well for me with stations in the 20 mile range.

http://amzn.com/B003L76BJS

The newest Fire TV has 4K video capability if you're interested in that. Otherwise Bluetooth and gaming are the big differences. I have a Stick and it's been fine. Only thing missing for me is Vudu, and my TV has that.

For an antenna I have the cheapest Mohu Leaf tacked to the wall in an upstairs room. Reception is good enough, although my location means I don't get every channel.

i don't even know what 4k tv is. i have a 1 year old 55" LED philips in the living room and an 8 year old 42" LCD philips in the bedroom. they look great with whatever HD my crappy cable company is sending me.

We have two sticks. No experience with the Amazon box though. No cable for coming up on 3 years.

I haven't had cable since 2008. I've used various antennas and streaming boxes. The latest software for the fire tv stick has made it quite good. Id only want the box if I needed to game. I still think my Apple TV is easier to use and less buggy but I wouldn't buy one.

I question the effectiveness of Fire TV Stick or Fire Box since I see a TON of them for sale at flea markets and garage sales.

I dont use the fire but before going back too cable i used the ancient antenna already beside my house with a digital converter. Picked up stations 35 miles east and west of me with no issues.

My wife and i were just having this debate but too keep the internet at the speed we have it we would only save 23 bucks a month going back too just that. I havr time warner/comcast.

Mrs dx and I haven't had cable for over three years and don't miss it. (Except for flyers games, history channel for American pickers, hgtv and food network) I watch a lot of shows on whatever network it's in website. Also youtube is valuable. We have some RCA antenna from Walmart and gets anywhere from 30-45 channels depending on where it's pointed.

Before you spend money on an antenna strip the last 8" of coax down to the core and see how many channels you get. I get more channels with that than I did with the last antenna I paid for.

4K is higher resolution than 1080p. The jury's still out on whether normal people can actually tell a difference on average size TVs. Personally I think it's another gambit to get people to re-buy their media or whatever, like when DVD came out, and then blu-ray.

I would say get the stick. You can always send it back if you don't like it.

Almost forgot, one other difference is the stick doesn't have an ethernet port, so it's wifi only.

We dumped cable 10 years ago, and Direct TV 4 years ago. We now have two Roku boxes and a smart TV. They all work very well. The oldest Roku box will occasionally lock up, but it's not enough of a problem to do anything about it.

I don't have any experience with the Fire stuff.

Been cable free for 9 years now. Love the Amazon sticks and have had a Roku as well.

No need for cable unless you are a die-hard sports fan.

SlingTV, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Youtube channels give excessive amounts of mostly commercial free content.

How do you get all the races without DirecTv?

I watch dirt oval Nascar Indy F1 SuperCross V8 Aussie's

Austin City Limits AXS music festival coverage Some of the guitar center shows

I'd like to dump the 900 other channels I don't watch

In reply to bentwrench:

You don't. And after a couple of months, you really don't miss it. You do end up with all kinds of extra time you didn't know you had.

I haven't gotten the wife to give up cable yet but we've had a Fire stick about a month now and she's close. I've already gone back to listening to NASCAR on the radio and most other racing I watch I get online.

Toyman01 wrote: In reply to bentwrench: You don't. And after a couple of months, you really don't miss it. You do end up with all kinds of extra time you didn't know you had.

It gives the other side of my brain something to do while I am dorking around on GRM.

If I just sit down in front of the TV I fall asleep...

i can only talk about roku in my cord cutting experiences

bentwrench wrote: How do you get all the races without DirecTv? I watch dirt oval Nascar Indy F1 SuperCross V8 Aussie's Austin City Limits AXS music festival coverage Some of the guitar center shows I'd like to dump the 900 other channels I don't watch

i can't stand watching racing. i either get bored or angry because i'm not racing at that time.

ordered a fire stick and a fire box with game controller, as well as a cheapish antenna and a chimney mount. my buddy keeps telling me that his other friend stripped the end of the coax and jammed it into the ground of the outlet behind the tv and claims to pick up tons of channels clear as day and that his entire electrical system is now his antenna. not sure about that one.

If you aren't happy with that, I would recommend looking at chromestick. It is Google's version and has a nice setup with your smart phone to control everything. These have gotten way, way better in the last two years. When I first got it, it was pretty unusable but since it was only $30 I wasn't too sad. Now, it rarely if ever crashes and works at least as good as my firestick without having to deal with Amazon's forced environment, which I find annoying.

Also, cable/sat free for 7 or 8 years and won't go back as long as I have decent internet. Which could be a problem when we move at the end of the year.

Karacticus wrote: I've got one of these at the end of a 50 foot coax run nailed to a post under the roof. Works well for me with stations in the 20 mile range. http://amzn.com/B003L76BJS

I have this one as well. Works pretty well but I do get funky signals every once and a while. I'm considering returning it for one of the old school looking ones. Unfortunately I couldn't find the company that was recommended because of the amount of garbage that comes up in searches nowadays.

Also, this winegard is cheaper and available at Home Depot.

patgizz wrote:

bentwrench wrote: How do you get all the races without DirecTv? I watch dirt oval Nascar Indy F1 SuperCross V8 Aussie's Austin City Limits AXS music festival coverage Some of the guitar center shows I'd like to dump the 900 other channels I don't watch

i can't stand watching racing. i either get bored or angry because i'm not racing at that time. ordered a fire stick and a fire box with game controller, as well as a cheapish antenna and a chimney mount. my buddy keeps telling me that his other friend stripped the end of the coax and jammed it into the ground of the outlet behind the tv and claims to pick up tons of channels clear as day and that his entire electrical system is now his antenna. not sure about that one.

Red Bull Global Rallycross might be up your alley to watch. The races are only 7 laps long and you can watch a whole event it under an hour. All the races from last year are on Youtube.

I'm a long way from any tower, so I have a big old channel master antenna on the roof. Works well. Radio waves are still sine waves, so old antennas work just fine.

I've played with friends magical digital tv antenna's. Amusing rip offs all. Oh, it's an antenna, just not a particularly good one.

TV is semi modern, so it connects to the router and wifi, and I can channel surf that way.

The Amazon basics antennas are made by winegard. They have the return to address as the same as a winegard factory.

well, stuff showed up yesterday, i put the $19 antenna on a 10 foot mast on the chimney clamp kit i got. i'm picking up everything i need to loud and clear. on the sling 7 day free trial now and it is as they say it is, i get my indians games and cavs games. i have to rewire things outside in the box with the junctions to get antenna to the bedroom and only shoot cable through to the modem, then i can call the cable company and take back their stupid box.

we really don't watch much TV anyway.