A little help with cord cutting (Canada)

Blind Owl

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Hey dudes and dudettes,

We're cutting the cord. The cost of big cable is ridiculous in Canada.

So, I need some help. I've got this fancy new NVIDIA Shield, but I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I keep googling ways to use this thing, but all the apps/services that are suggested aren't available in the play store.

Does anyone here have any experience with cord cutting and Android boxes? How the heck do I get myself setup on this thing so I can utilize more than Netflix and Prime?

Thanks in advance,

Owl.
 

Printimus

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Normally you want both your PC and your shield connected to the router via wifi. It helps if the PC is connected via ethernet cable though. Nvidia "should" have some sort of setup/tutorial guide on how the rest works. Never had a shield personally, but I do have a steam link, it works pretty good.
 

Lorddarthvik

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I don't own a shield but run a raspberry pi3 box with moonlight software that acts like a shield.
As @Printimus said, you should first RTFM, and get the box paired with your pc.
Than you could try adding pc apps on your pc to the shield app list (there is a button to add non-shield apps to the list). This way you could stream whatever to your TV via shield. You could, in theory, get an android emulator running on your pc running Android apps that are not available on the shield and stream it to your TV.
As for how to get non-shield apps running on the shield itself, I have no idea.
 

glockjs

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i'd start with getting a tablo or hdhomerun for over the air stuff. tablo if you dvr or hdhomerun if you channel surf a lot.

kodi should be available to you.

you could get a vpn to get access to US services. the good thing about having an android box is you can side load just about anything as well.

also this looks like a good resource for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/canadacordcutters/
 

Blind Owl

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Normally you want both your PC and your shield connected to the router via wifi. It helps if the PC is connected via ethernet cable though. Nvidia "should" have some sort of setup/tutorial guide on how the rest works. Never had a shield personally, but I do have a steam link, it works pretty good.
Hmmmm, ok. I'll try this out when I get home today. Thank you Print, you beautiful bastard you.

I don't own a shield but run a raspberry pi3 box with moonlight software that acts like a shield.
As @Printimus said, you should first RTFM, and get the box paired with your pc.
Than you could try adding pc apps on your pc to the shield app list (there is a button to add non-shield apps to the list). This way you could stream whatever to your TV via shield. You could, in theory, get an android emulator running on your pc running Android apps that are not available on the shield and stream it to your TV.
As for how to get non-shield apps running on the shield itself, I have no idea.
I had no idea this was a thing. I'll have to research it now, figure out how it's done. Thank you.

i'd start with getting a tablo or hdhomerun for over the air stuff. tablo if you dvr or hdhomerun if you channel surf a lot.

kodi should be available to you.

you could get a vpn to get access to US services. the good thing about having an android box is you can side load just about anything as well.

also this looks like a good resource for you: https://www.reddit.com/r/canadacordcutters/
Ok, I've seen the OTA stuff. Need a tuner and antenna and HD for storage. Good stuff. Also, that reddit page . . .I believe the newest post there is from Lil' Ol' Owl. Haha. I have yet to explore all the responses I've been getting. Thank you.
 

glockjs

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Ok, I've seen the OTA stuff. Need a tuner and antenna and HD for storage. Good stuff. Also, that reddit page . . .I believe the newest post there is from Lil' Ol' Owl. Haha. I have yet to explore all the responses I've been getting. Thank you.

it's probably also important to note if you plan on having any roku's the tablo is the only way to go. also not sure if it's the same up there but if you know somebody that pays for cable and doesn't use their online stuff you can use their login to get access to stuff like hbo, sports channels etc.

between nextflix/hulu and some other services like funimation/vrv with the addition of an ota channel i think it's been like 6-7 years since i cut the cord
 
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maynard

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Amazon Fire Sticks are easy to root so you can load any content providers apps

as mentioned, with a Virtual Private Network you can spoof a US IP address for US-only content

I got around Major League Baseball's regional restrictions by routing through Great Britain
 

Bambooza

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We went the way of the Amazon fire after trying out Apple TV. I have to say as much as I enjoy not having commercials, there is still a lot of stuff I wish I had access to legally as a lot of shows are not available, and especially sports.
 
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Sraika

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personally i dont even bother with cable or any alternatives (other than less-than legal ones, at least)
i'm fairly certain my parents have both a roku and a chromecast at their place, tho, so i'll ask them if they have any tips

i dont actually know anyone with a shield, but it sounds pretty cool

if you're not using vpns and the like to get around regional blocks then that's a very useful thing to be able to do, so i'd suggest learning how at the very least
 
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at-2500

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I'd also recommend taking a look at Plex, it is similar to Kodi in that it can index your TV shows, movies and music, but you can also (if the PC it is running is on) stream the stuff from anywhere you are. They have an awesome web app, Apps for all the devices and while being free, provide a monthly or lifetime paid offline sync functionality and more stuff.

In addition to that, they lately have been working on more plugins for live TV, DVR etc but I have not tried any of that stuff and it has probably a better selection in America than here in Germany.
 
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Thugari

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I'd also recommend taking a look at Plex, it is similar to Kodi in that it can index your TV shows, movies and music, but you can also (if the PC it is running is on) stream the stuff from anywhere you are. They have an awesome web app, Apps for all the devices and while being free, provide a monthly or lifetime paid offline sync functionality and more stuff.

In addition to that, they lately have been working on more plugins for live TV, DVR etc but I have not tried any of that stuff and it has probably a better selection in America than here in Germany.
I installed plex, after i got tired of looking for something to watch from looking at hundreds of dvd's and blu ray. now i have a server and plex. End result all my family's phones, tablets tv's are all linked to it. we use it prety much daily
 
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Bruttle

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Hey dudes and dudettes,

We're cutting the cord. The cost of big cable is ridiculous in Canada.

So, I need some help. I've got this fancy new NVIDIA Shield, but I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I keep googling ways to use this thing, but all the apps/services that are suggested aren't available in the play store.

Does anyone here have any experience with cord cutting and Android boxes? How the heck do I get myself setup on this thing so I can utilize more than Netflix and Prime?

Thanks in advance,

Owl.


Welcome to a cable free world! It's absolutely amazing. We cut the cable a couple years ago and never looked back. Streaming sites offer such a massively better service at much less cost. To be honest, I just dont think cable tv has a place in this world anymore. It's an archaic service that refuses to change with the times.

For our equipment though, it's pretty basic. We have a media pc that pipes hdmi to various TV's around the house (via ethernet adaptors). We also use a logitech k400 for the "tv remote". So the media pc can be controlled from anywhere.

The biggest hurdle for us was popups. They're freaking everywhere. Sites have even started blocking IPs that use add blockers. Its ridiculous. We solved that issue with the installation of a "pi hole". Its a raspberry pi based DNS server. It has a constantly updated blacklist of add sites. It's basically a hardware level add blocker that simply doesn't allow a connection for the ads. As such, the add block detection doesn't detect it.

Also, since it works as a DNS server, all local traffic through our router runs through it. So any wireless devices are passively covered by this ad blocking. So even a friend that hooks into our guest network wont see any ads. It will just register as an incomplete connection in the little add windows on sites.

The rest is just finding which sites to use. Netflix and hulu are a must (hulu just dumped crunchyroll in favor of a funimation partnership btw). Most tv shows also offer streaming episodes from their network site. There are also about 10,000 free streaming sites that rotate in and out of relevance (actually only a half dozen are worth your time, look to reddit for the most recent and relevant).

The end result, once you get the hang of it, is that you can stream anything you want whenever you want. Feeling nostalgic for some Top Gun? It's just a few clicks away. Want to go back and marathon Firefly? Look it up on your favorite site and less than a minute later you're streaming episode one.

The world is a magical place for nerds right now.

EDIT: My media pc is nothing special. It's just an old i3 workstation that I bought from a local office sale for $50. I added a $50 graphics card, a 50gb ssd and loaded up an old copy of win7. Since I only stream (and never store media on my drive) it is more than enough for my purposes.
 
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Xist

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Not sure if it works in Canada, but Hulu is pretty cool. I mainly use it so I can watch sporting events on my phone. It's subscription tho so who knows how it compares to the cost of cable.
 
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