Adding a bedroom TV (Passport)

[JRTJH]

Originally Posted by mfifield01

I run a Fire TV (new model) for the living room TV and Fire TV Stick for the bedroom. It covers a great deal of content through a few methods. I have my home Time Warner box connected to a Slingbox. Through Slingplayer on the Fire TVs, I can watch any cable show on the road (if the ATT signal is good). Also, I setup a wireless router with a hard drive connected to it. I have movies, TV shows, etc. from various sites on it. PlayOn can record from sites like Netflix, Amazon, etc. and you can save them to the hard drive for later usage.

I suppose reading this post "aged me" 15 years. I recognize most of the names and products, but have never even seen them for sale in this area, much less used them. For us, the "smart TV" hanging on the wall is a "Dr Jeckel/Mr Hyde" in that it has two personalities, one with satellite TV and one that we can't connect to anything because our "wireless internet" is so severely limited. We're still "relegated" to either dial-up or "bandwidth limited" satellite internet. There's no cable, no 4G and certainly no "unlimited internet download capability" within 20 miles of us. Certainly there's no capability to download to a hard drive for later viewing. And, where we camp, there's nothing but "1 bar reception", so forget trying to connect at speeds where "ATT signal is good"..... In much of the UP and northern Michigan, Verizon has 3G service with limited capability, ATT has service in the larger towns and very "spotty service" outside of town. At our house, we have one window that we can stand in front of and get 1 bar on ATT and usually can get 2 or 3 bars of 3G Verizon service in much of the house.

Trying to operate a system as you've described would mean moving to a larger metropolitan area, or at least to Traverse City, Petoskey, Gaylord or Cheboygan, and then, only inside the city limits. Cable is "non-existant" outside those areas.

My thoughts are that trying to keep this kind of "connectivity" is more like "moving suburbia with you rather than escaping it for the weekend..... I suppose everyone has their priorities, but that much "sophistication in entertainment" ??? When reading your post, I was imagining a cable service truck following your camper, laying cable as you turned the corners so you could maintain connectivity.

WOW !!! To think of the "new things" that have "passed us by" since we moved to the woods where we've only heard one siren in 7 years.......

[mfifield01]

Originally Posted by JRTJH

I suppose reading this post "aged me" 15 years. I recognize most of the names and products, but have never even seen them for sale in this area, much less used them. For us, the "smart TV" hanging on the wall is a "Dr Jeckel/Mr Hyde" in that it has two personalities, one with satellite TV and one that we can't connect to anything because our "wireless internet" is so severely limited. We're still "relegated" to either dial-up or "bandwidth limited" satellite internet. There's no cable, no 4G and certainly no "unlimited internet download capability" within 20 miles of us. Certainly there's no capability to download to a hard drive for later viewing. And, where we camp, there's nothing but "1 bar reception", so forget trying to connect at speeds where "ATT signal is good"..... In much of the UP and northern Michigan, Verizon has 3G service with limited capability, ATT has service in the larger towns and very "spotty service" outside of town. At our house, we have one window that we can stand in front of and get 1 bar on ATT and usually can get 2 or 3 bars of 3G Verizon service in much of the house.

Trying to operate a system as you've described would mean moving to a larger metropolitan area, or at least to Traverse City, Petoskey, Gaylord or Cheboygan, and then, only inside the city limits. Cable is "non-existant" outside those areas.

My thoughts are that trying to keep this kind of "connectivity" is more like "moving suburbia with you rather than escaping it for the weekend..... I suppose everyone has their priorities, but that much "sophistication in entertainment" ??? When reading your post, I was imagining a cable service truck following your camper, laying cable as you turned the corners so you could maintain connectivity.

WOW !!! To think of the "new things" that have "passed us by" since we moved to the woods where we've only heard one siren in 7 years.......

I typically download shows to the hard drive at home, so I don't have to use (or rely) on internet connection. The setup is mainly for watching games live and keeping the kids entertained. I don't care that much about TV when camping. Though it is nice to have streaming music.

[whitmw]

From another site, I copied all my DVDs to a seagate wireless hard drive. I use Slyfox to make the DVDs readable ande Handbrake to covert the movies and so far I have 365 movies copied and have only used 25 % of the drive. Watch movies through that and a Roku.