Streaming video to your vacation home
 

It kills me to have to pay for cable at my vacation home. I have been trying to figure out a legal way to get cable into my house and not have to pay for it. Only being in the house for a few days a month it just seems rediculous to pay 100 bucks for TV a month. I think I have what I am going to go with but thought that I would put it out there and see if anyone else has done anything similiar. I know that there was a thread on this before but I could not find it.

Option 1: I could set up my windows media players with a VPN from my house and stream video to my vacation home using a Windows Media Extender such as a X-box or similiar. The problem with this is it is a awful lot of bandwidth. My out internet speeds in MA may be fast enough but I do not think that my down speeds are fast enough in the vacation home.

Option 2: This is what seems to be the best. Sling box has been around for ever. They adjust the video based on your ability to stream (faster connection means better picture slower is lower quality). I was going to get a Slingbox HD hook it up to my home system. This will get my cable and even home server hooked and streaming out to the net. Then I can use and I-touch that I and most people have to stream the video to my vacation home. Drop the I-touch into a 40 dollar dock and I have all the video at my home available in my vacation house. Total cost is looking like it will be about 200 bucks (not counting the I-touch/phone that so many people already have).

Does anyone see any problem with this or has anyone come up with a better solution? I have internet at my vacation house because I need it for work. It pays for itself in my case in about 4 months. Plus then if I am ever on the road and want to watch video I can tap into it with my PC, touch, phone, droid......... Seems like a win win. I know the quality will not be as good but I am sure it will get better and better.

Slingbox
 

You probably do not want to stream HD from the slingbox. A regular slingbox can kill the 5GB limit on a Verizon wireless connection in a couple of days. If you only watch an hour or so on the weekend then you will be ok. I save the slingbox for something I really want to see while on the island.

The image from the slingbox is passable, but not great over the internet. It is terrific within a home LAN, but once you get to internet speeds the image become less clear. Sometimes it is good enough and better than missing a TV show.

Mine is the original Slingbox, hooked up to a Tivo Series 2. It has been that way for a few years. It works just fine. I mostly use broadcast TV which is three channels, and the slingbox for must see TV that I cannot otherwise get. I used it a lot before the 5GB cap a couple of years ago.

If you cancel your cable TV, will the price of your internet service go up?

IG

I have hard wired internet now. It is slow but much faster then 3g or anything like that and to my knowledge no limitation on bandwidth. I got the cheapest that they offer but I need it for work from time to time so it is not an option and I got that. I think it costs about 40 bucks a month with tax. If I was to add TV it was going to go up to 130 bucks a month! They do offer a lesser service but it would only get me one extra channel that I care about over what I get with my antenna now.

My limitation for bandwidth is the vacation house. I am running 15 megs out (can go up as much as 60megs) at my home and only 6 megs down at the vacation house. If I could get up to 15 megs down at the vacation home I could look more at the VPN option.

What I am trying to avoid as well is having to watch the shows on my laptop. I want to get it onto my TV. Sling used to make a thing called a Slingcatcher that was 199 bucks. They stopped making them and the few people that still have them are selling them for 400+ dollars! So I figured if I could stream to my Itouch using my local network and just set it into a dock that could feed my tv. I have a customer that has a Slingbox HD Pro unit so I may test using thiers.

I will certainly let you all know if I get it to work as I know this has been talked about a few times in the past.

Another option is to get a ROKU box and Netflix subscription. This won't get you broadcast TV, but you can get quite a few movies streamed over the net. Hulu may get you some of the television shows you want. Indeed, it is almost criminal how much the cable tv fees are, especially given the quality of what is on.

LG I agree about the content and that is why I don't want to pay the money. It would be nice to catch Saturday night live or something like that every now and then. Mostly my son likes some shows that I do not get with the arial so I am doing most of this for him, so quality is just not that important to a 3 year old. :D Now that 24 is over there really is not reason to even have a tv..... :D

I have been using slingbox for a few years now( non HD) with a 512k DSL connection and a local pc. Works ok and picture can be choppy at times but perfect for the cottage. With hulu and many stations replaying shows streaming on the internet it get us by for 0$ :)

Tell me more about ROKU, not familiar. We are on an island with no cable and too many trees for satellite. Thought about Sling-box, but from this string, doesn't sound like the best solution. We do have a high speed DSL.

Dish Network Installer Needed
 

I would like to find someone who could install a dish satellite receiver at my camp. Then I could take a receiver from my home with me to the camp when we are up there. Does anyone know who could install the dish at my camp?

This can actually be a DIY job, it's not that hard to mount and point a dish. What is the architecture of the camp like in terms of getting a clear view of the sky and running some cables between the dish and the TV location?

We have a ROKU box as well. It's basically a little piece of hardware designed for watching streaming video. It's mostly dead-nuts simple to hookup and operate, then you can link it with a Netflix and (I think) Amazon streaming video account. There are also some ROKU-specific "networks" that have some random shows that may or may not be of interest to you.

If you can plug in a couple of cables, you can setup a ROKU.

Your Satellite box is directly related to the dish you have at your house and signal, if you try to use it at another location it will not work unless you notify them, then as such, you will have to pay for that location. You might be able to work a discounted rate with them though do the old "well I will just switch routine"

I did not know that. Sounds like I would have to establish a separate account. Thanks for the info

Wii
 

Do you a Wii system? If so, Netflicks provides a disk for the Wii which connects you to their Netflicks system. That way you do not have to purchase the Roku box and the disk for the Wii is free.

Are you sure? I was told by a dish distributor that we could definately take our box with us to our other home and use it as long as we had a dish there. (We have a dish at the lake but pay mucho dinero for Verizon at home so it was an option we looked at but haven't persued yet.)

I do at home, but we also have Mac Mini's on all the TV's at home, so we just do streaming on that.

Since when? I haven't had satellite service for about 5 years, but at that time the dish was just a purely passive device. Based on the wide aftermarket for replacement LNBF's ( http://www.prosatellitesupply.com/SA...s_and_LNBs.htm ) I don't see any mention of the receiver being keyed to the LNBF (since it would be that and not the "dish").

Sorry, but AC2717 is wrong. A satellite receiver is not keyed to the dish. You can move your directv box from home to the lake and use it all you want. Just make sure you do not connect the phone line when you use the box away from where it is subscribed. You will be in violation of the "terms of service" with directv so if that will keep you up at night don't do it.

Bear Islander I stand corrected, I used to have a dish in 2003-2006 and had the ones with the cards in the back, actually tried this at my place and did not work with those boxes, my account is from the older days of the dish

As for the original question I recommend Roku and/or Slingbox. Roku has an unbelievable amount of content available. A lot of it is pay per view but it gets you away from the never ending monthly fees that cable companies love.

Go to Amazon dot com and search for Roku.

OK. So sounds like we are back to my original question. Does anyone know where I can get the dish and maybe someone to do the install? This is Dish Network not DirectTV.

Then you were doing something wrong. As long as you took the receiver and card you could hook it up to any correctly positioned dish and it would work. In fact, if you had a receiver and dish at another location you could take just the *card* and not even move the hardware. You used to be able to buy receivers cash-and-carry at Walmart for like $99 until Directv caught on to what people were doing.

The only limitation was went they went to the spot-beam satellites for local channel coverage, you couldn't go from Boston to Florida (for example) get local channel in FL if your box was supposed to be subscribed to the Boston locals (and you wouldn't get the Boston locals in FL either because of the spot-beams).

All I know is when I tried, it did not work and when I called them, that is what they told me:D

Will a mobile dish system that is used on RV's work?

I have a 3-way Comcast package with DVR service. If I go to their web-site I can down-load a lot of programming. Check with your current TV provider's web-site to see if they offer that too (Comcast web is really Hulu). If your summer place gets net service through DSL then you can access your other provider's web site that way to view content.

It's not perfect. The picture is usually good but the sound is occassionaly disrupted and sometime you lose a minute or two of program after the commercial. Their "Feedback" function is a bad joke. You have to submit so much personal data that I'm sure it's just a sticky pad for spam and junk-mail.

Good luck!

Scratchin my head
 

Boy oh boy, I go to the lake to get away from all of this.... I have a TV/VCR combo with a selection of old VHS tapes for when it is raining. Other then that the camp is for being outside, and listening to music....

I must be strange I guess, but sometimes it is the best feeling to just get away from all the technology....

Switch to Directv at you permanent home, get a spare dish for the Lake and carry you receiver with you.

You could probably hookup a wireless bluray player that has access/apps for VUDU, Netflix, Amazon video on demand, etc.

Personally, we use a $10 antenna for basic TV and then supplement with $1 redbox dvd rentals. We have a DVR at home to record premium shows we would miss while away. This year our cost was $14 (1 antenna and 4 redbox rentals)!

The WII system with Netflix is awesome.
We set this up in my daughters room and she loves it. It is not live tv but there are tons of tv shows and movies you add to your list to watch. And where the WII has wireless internet I am not sure and havent tried this but could you just stream tv shows from the internet on the WII ??

How did it all work out?
 

Audiofn, I'm curious what you ended up doing and how it worked out. I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I need Internet at the lake to be able to work from there. I don't watch much TV but I would like to be able to catch Fox News now and again. It would be great to tap into my DVR at home but I'd like to see it on my TV up at the lake rather than a laptop.

How to Proceed?
 

Same boat here too but we are on the mainland.

Just started to look at this stuff, so what are the actual options in terms of providers for just high speed internet in the lakes region?

Comcast? // MetroCast? // Dish? // No FIOS I would guess

And if we do get just the internet service in NH and the Sling Box streaming from home (COX) that is hooked directly to the TV, could we stream HD content? Or non-HD content for that matter? How good are the internet speeds and do they have any limitations?

I’m guessing it will be years before 4G service finds its way to our area.

Thanks!