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Roku / Chromecast / Firestick channel suggestions

Started by notjosh, March 19, 2020, 07:30:55 AM

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notjosh

I've been thinking about getting a Roku stick as my Samsung TV is getting old so doesn't support Britbox. I also like the idea of having NextUp comedy on my TV.

Are there other channels that have quality content besides the big streaming apps? I prefer the Roku for technical reasons, but open to alternative platforms if they have better choices.

phantom_power

BFI is good for arty stuff. MGM has a lot of good classics on them and StarzPlay has some good US TV like Party Down. They are all about a fiver a month each

Malcy

StarzPlay is 99p a month for 3 months at the moment which isn't bad. All American stuff though. I know on the Firestick you can get a week or month rltrial with a lot of the channels so you can get a proper look at what they have.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: phantom_power on March 19, 2020, 07:44:32 AM
BFI is good for arty stuff. MGM has a lot of good classics on them and StarzPlay has some good US TV like Party Down. They are all about a fiver a month each
Mubi is great.

I've been meaning to try this.

I've got a firestick and would rather use an app than get locked to amazon's stuff (as I can then use the vendor's site and apps everywhere), is it possible to install a bfi android app instead?

Puce Moment

I have multiple ways of accessing apps and the like - either through my Smart TV, or through the BT Box, or my Roku stick.

We pretty much only access the Roku stick these days (unless we need to set the BT Box to record something). I love it for a number of reasons - it's not buggy, you can search for a title across all of your apps in one go (this is fantastic), you can 'follow' films and TV and when they are available you get alerted. That sort of thing.

Also, I can cast my Surface and phone to the Roku stick which I really like a great deal.

Sebastian Cobb

One thing I like about the newer firesticks that a lot of devices don't do is it'll sync the framerate properly so if a program is 24p it'll change your tv to 24p rather than doing pulldown and making things juddery. My raspberry pi does this and it makes a difference. All devices should do this but they don't.

Famous Mortimer

Pluto.TV, which is on the Roku (at least) has a massive amount of free stuff on it. 24/7 streams of MST3k, Rifftrax, sitcoms, Total Wipeout (UK / Canada / Australia versions), them house decorating shows, loads of movie channels...okay, the number of adverts on it does get a bit boring after a while, but in terms of "can't think of owt to put on"-ness, it's pretty decent.

steveh

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on March 19, 2020, 01:56:49 PM
is it possible to install a bfi android app instead?

Sadly they don't have any TV apps with the exception of Samsung TVs - you would need to cast from a mobile device or use a browser. The BFI Amazon channel does have films that aren't available on the direct service but when I subscribed I came across cases where the reverse was true as well and new releases seemed to arrive faster on the direct service. You also don't get any of the films from their free collection via Amazon.


steveh

It's a pity the BFI, BBC, ITV and Channel 4 can't get together to do a British film equivalent of Britbox. They all have huge archives much of which is vastly underseen.

Dex Sawash

Midnight Pulp
Tubi
Snag Film

Had to prove to my wife those weren't porn channels when I added them.

Roku does a sort of sideload where you can add "private channels". The only one I've added is Dailymotion so I can watch kids bakeoff.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Dex Sawash on March 20, 2020, 11:17:45 AM
Midnight Pulp
Tubi
Snag Film

Had to prove to my wife those weren't porn channels when I added them.

Roku does a sort of sideload where you can add "private channels". The only one I've added is Dailymotion so I can watch kids bakeoff.

Do you know any good films on tubi? I used it to watch Loves Her Gun, that was alright.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on March 23, 2020, 07:55:07 PM
Do you know any good films on tubi? I used it to watch Loves Her Gun, that was alright.

Not looked in a long time. Wife won't leave town so I can just watch whatever I want and she insists on changing channels endlessly until bedtime, never committing to a single show/film.