Free Sports on TV on Roku!

Roku has numerous channels with sports programming from a wide variety of sports, with many live game  channel offerings at nominal cost (in second paragraph below), while many other channels are free.  In the channel store, Sports by Blinkx offers sports updates, recaps and goal replays; Giant Bomb is for video game enthusiasts with thousands of game reviews, videos and previews with humor; NBA Game Time Lite has game video highlights, live scores, and team, player, and league standings; SEC digital network for Smart TV of Southeastern Conference with current week full games, highlights, and more; XOS College Sports with largest digital library with over 75 years of competition of full games, highlights and documentaries; TNA on Demand of wrestling videos; Fast Hockey Presents USHL for hockey fanatics; Mile Split TV offers Track & Field, cross country, running races, news, interviews, and photos; Diversion TV offers action sports film; Sail TV live action and competitions; for surfers The Jay at Maverick's (2011); Baseball, Football, Tennis, Basketball, and Softball TIPS LITE and Drills & Tips Libraries; Fastpitch Softball TV; and The Spirit International (Golf); Seattle Sounders Football Club.  Trigger Talk TV is about firearms.  Crackle has The Tester, an original competitive reality series from PlayStation network where 11 gamers compete in physical and mental game challenges to win a job.

Also available through the channel store, at cost, you can buy subscriptions to live games and other offerings for costs from $2.99 to $11.00 a month.  For a subscription cost of $125/yr, MLB.TV Premium has over 2,430 regular and season games Live or on-Demand in HD, and watch at cost Motor Sport World with hours of TV quality racing programs from America and abroad for $4.99 a month, NHL Game Center at service fees; WillowTV for coverage of cricket matches and channel at cost, MLS Soccer live games at cost with blackout restrictions; UFC Ultimate Fighting live and on-demand at cost; Go Fight Live at fee for boxing, martial arts, and wrestling; the SURF network at cost, the MOTO network at cost; Midwest Cage Championship at cost (Fighting); Sportskool Golf at $2.99 a month with pros tips; and Sportskool Extreme Sports and Team Sports at $2.99 each a month.

NowhereTV ( a private channel I describe in some of my other blogs) offers a number of Gaming video channels, and MLB, Motorsports, NHL and other sports offerings from ESPN weekly takes to Tour de France videos to NCAA sports, Tennis TV, ESPNU college football and basketball.  NowhereTV also has videotaped news broadcasts with some sports.  To see my mini-tour of roku, go to my blog: http://tvwithoutcable.blogspot.com/2012/03/roku-mini-tour-tv-addiction.html .  Tune in again to my blog for more hints on how and where to find free TV, movies, sports, videos, net, and other offerings!

Family-Friendly ROKU! Warning, some will appeal to 20 year olds!

I had one of them, a kid, only she's a young adult now.  It wasn't that long ago where I had to pick and choose programming and you can choose which channels to put on your TV, as opposed to setting up parental controls and hoping they don't watch something confusing across the street.  I can only make recommendations of channels I have limited knowledge of, it is up to you to test the waters and if you don't like a channel, go to the asterisk on the remote, press it, and follow the prompts to remove it!  Movies on any of the channels may have material you don't choose, but it seems most or all of pornographic channels are private channels you in fact have to search to locate.  For my mini tour of Roku, see my first video blog at: http://tvwithoutcable.blogspot.com/2012/03/roku-mini-tour-tv-addiction.html

Firstly, look in the channel store.  There is a row of channels called "Kids & Family," but be prepared some of this entertainment will make twenty-somethings smile or the little kid in all of us.  First the freebies.  Disney has a video channel, with clips from TV shows, Kidlet has free TV episodes most or all of which are cartoon shows (limited time offer), Khan Academy has subject teaching videos, The Bazillions with animated music videos and live performances.  Now you know your kids are grown up and you are getting old when you don't recognize the next best entertainment for kids.  I had to "google" The Bazillions.  Iggy.tv described as family-friendly and not embarrassing to adults, blip.tv independent "home" content, Party Rockers reality tween scene dance shows from Delaware, and Kid Paint (reminds me of Mario Paint)!!  At minimal cost:  Sudoku Art, Nature Window TV, Superman Classics  (1940s cartoons), Baby FirstTV (higher end at $4.99/mo.), Timeless Toons (24/7 live from FlickStream from 30s to 90s), Pets.TV, Ameba, some of the "Science and Technology" choices, Netflix at $7.99/month as a channel has Anime and Children & Family movies categories with Phineas & Ferb, Teen Spirit, cartoon movies, Lemonade Mouth, Iron Giant (good for all ages), and more, plus Netflix has some ABC Family movies mixed in.  Nowhere TV has a Kids and Family area with podcasts from DragonflyTV, Cartoon Network, BabyShiz, Sprout, Sesame Street, Kid Videos, Inside the Magic:Disney, EarthTouch and more.  If memory serves, I think PlayOn had some kid friendly offerings, see my blog http://tvwithoutcable.blogspot.com/2012/03/more-roku-channels.html  Also, Spiritclips has the ultimate in family entertainment with many Hallmark Hall of Fame films for about $3.00 a month.  See you soon for more hints on how to have inexpensive or free TV and movies and cartoons! 

Roku: mini tour & TV addiction

MANY people before me have created blogs and sites about Roku, some with great screenshots.  If my embedded video doesn't work, see it at: http://youtu.be/FGq1OG6uu5I .  I simply wanted to save money, so I set up an experiment to see if I wouldn't go stark raving mad without my sound box to keep me company and sing me to sleep.  TV is like "boxed company," sad huh?  I was raised with TV in every room (except bathrooms); I admit it, I was addicted to THE BOX.  Why isn't there a teleholics outreach or a 5-step program to set us free?  Roku is a portable streaming device that offers an alternative so our living rooms don't go silent and our brains can get their daily fix of movies or TV shows.  Here are some of my screenshot photos:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/collegemum505/?saved=1  Here is one of them:

I began my journey with old analog TVs and no antennas.  Pulling my cable connection for me literally meant NO TV.  I had to do it in steps, just like an addict.   A little Roku box on an old analog TV with a game or video channel (under ch. 2) plus 2-3 yellow, white, maybe red A/V openings, and high speed Internet are all that are needed to see series, movies, news.  Add an amplified antenna and a digital converter box and you may get some local stations too, it was so exciting when that antenna pulled in TV at no monthly cost!  Add that antenna to a newer HD TV and voila!  Roku has Audio-visual or HDMI connections.  Come back soon to learn more tips about Roku, TV alternatives, Free shows & movies on the Net.

More Roku channels!

My last posting showed how to get free Nowhere TV.  Some additional TAPED material on Nowhere TV includes: daily taped Boston/New England area news and weather (channel 4, 7, Fox25) and WMUR (temporary issues), Lifetime (8 movies and some TV shows), taped sports and international news stations, kids and technology programming, taped broadcasts of Conan, Jimmy Fallon, archived old movies and television and more.  


CRACKLE is another free channel which is also available on the Internet.  It includes movies from 1980s to 2010 (21, Passengers and more), and TV shows from 1960s (All in The Family, Seinfeld, Married with Children, Archangel, Anime and more).  


I tried a free trial of HULU plus and was careful to cancel (done online) before my month expired (normally $7.95/mo.).  Regular Hulu offers free TV and movies online, HULU plus is streamed straight through the roku (and maybe Xbox 360) to TV.   This link claims a 2 month trial but does suggest double-checking--http://freebies2deals.com/2011/09/free-2-month-trial-to-hulu-plus.html .  I didn't have to involve Facebook as this offer mentions.  I have found a way to get local basic channels without roku or cable so most of the TV show offerings on Hulu plus didn't appeal to me.  


An alternative to Huluplus on TV for those with a very fast Internet speed and newer computer is Playon TV at http://www.playon.tv/content-channels .  I suggest not buying playon UNTIL you try it, and there is a 2 week free trial (may have to officially cancel)---going to download.  It includes: 
                                                             There are additional plug-ins too.  Playon streams through a middleman, the Internet, so speed is more critical.  My older computer and, or slower Internet speed (1.6mbps) had a delay in sync and, or in video motion speed despite lowering video speed.  If you like it, at the moment there is a roku plus cost offer for a license (read more of what that offers).   Follow along for more tips, channels, and how to reduce or cut the cable cord, keeping in mind cable versus satellite versus Internet costs (and whether contract and how long it is).
  

Cable-less, some movie channels on Roku

First I want to give credit to the screenshot in my first blog to: http://deviceguru.com/roku-screenshots/  Check it out after understanding the basics.  I learned today that Comcast customers have a new alternative coming out that may compete with Netflix-http://news.yahoo.com/survive-post-starz-netflix-194922104. html as a little less expensive.  Netflix effective today has broken their contact with Starz, but they will have other offerings that they claim are comparable.  Netflix is month-to-month without a contract, basic membership for streaming only is $7.99/month and can be cancelled at any time.  Netflix like some of the other sources I will mention can be accessed through the web, but the point of streaming devices is to watch it on TV.  Amazon.com has an amazon student for 6 mos. free of 2 day free shipping on some books/items for students, and they had me join that on one email and get a free month trial of Amazon Instant Video (Prime) on another.  If I want to join after my free month, then I can get half price as a student ($39/year) through my amazon student membership for prime movies/TV and other movies/TV at cost.  There may be another fee for Amazon student after 6 mos, but upgrade is part of amazon instant video prime fee so if I join the instant video I get amazon student benefits with it- http: //www.amazon.com/ gp/prime?ie=UTF8&* Version*=1&*entries*=0 .  If in doubt as to what you are buying or agreeing to press the "contact us" button on the right and after answering a few questions and providing your number, they will call you.  Vanguard Cinema, Crackle, Popcornflix, Inmoo.com, Openfilm and others can be accessed for free on Roku or the web mostly with just Movies, but Crackle has TV too.  There are a succession of other free movie channels mostly at the roku channel store, mostly of old films including Moonlight movies, Drive-in classics, Retrovision, and PubDHub (Gold version at cost, careful what you click into).   This is the icon for Nowhere TV.

Here are lists of some of roku's private channels: http://www.roku-channels.com/, http://hiddenchannel.com/ & http://streamfree.tv/apps/rokuchannels.php.  Private channels get added through your roku.com account or a link. http://streamfree.tv/apps/roku-private-channels/all-private-channels/nowhere-tv-20-thread.html leads you to Nowhere TV which I will discuss more next time.

Weaning off cable and buying a Roku

I started my quest to pull the cable cord weeks ago.  I only owned a series of old analog TVs so I knew no cable initially meant no TV reception without a streaming device or a new HDTV with an indoor antenna.  I bought a Roku (available from www.roku.com or www.amazon.com) but PlayStation 3, XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, some Smart TVs, TiVo, and other devices can stream Netflix and some other channels too.  My first research was finding which device worked for me, and checking into Internet options.  I chose the roku because it had many channels and chose a wireless connection at a slow 1.6 Mbps which barely handles it and wouldn't work as well with a computer on at the same time.  I tested it before I locked in at the rate, and I know speeds of 3-10-12 Mbps would add to faster downloads, but I was trying to save money.  It sounds as though an Ethernet cable may be usable with some Roku models, but double-check on this.  For $49.99 (free shipping) I bought a Roku LT, knowing higher models come with other features and Angry Birds game.  There were no monthly fees, just the price of the Internet service and the box itself.  I connected my Roku through my computer with help from their customer service number--1-888-600-7658 available Monday to Sunday 8am-8pm.  The Roku is played on a game channel or channel below channel 2 so make sure older TVs have that.  You will also need a yellow, white, and red plug opening (or a yellow and white one) on an older analog TV or a HDMI opening (and cable) on a newer HDTV.

The Roku shows a screen like this, which after you pick some channels will be clicked into here.  To add channels you either go to the channel store on the list above or go to your roku.com account.  Many of the 300 or more channels are free, some have tiny or small yearly fees or one-time fees or larger monthly fees.  Some also offer a trial week or month to try them and there are also a significant number of private channels (some free) that can be added with an available code.  Here are 4 pages of private channel codes--
http://streamfree.tv/apps/rokuchannels.php.  After I felt I could imagine life without cable, I cut my service down to local channels first and later had the courage to give up my cable.  I will share more about some of the channel trials and specific channels when I blog next.  There are even many free movie channels!