Xfinity Flex and Peacock TV

Peacock TV is the new
streaming service from
NBC/Universal.

NBC/Comcast/Universal/Whateverelse has made the move into streaming in a big way. They have a thing called Xfinity Flex, which is a streaming package that comes with Xfinity Internet. Well, mostly. More about that in a bit.

The other thing is a streaming service called Peacock. You know, like the NBC logo. More about that in a bit. First, back to Flex. 

Xfinity Flex came available last September. However, I wasn't eligible for it. Well, not easily. I had a special streaming package that included Internet and local TV channels for a really good price. I didn't watch the local channels, and didn't care about the local channels, but that special promotion meant I could get Internet and local TV cheaper than Internet alone. It also stopped the Comcast Website from showing any packages available for me. As I was happy with my price, I didn't worry too much about it. I didn't see that Flex would bring much new to the table for me anyway, based on what I saw. I was interested, but not going to go through the hassle of everything, particularly after the China virus lockdown.

Recently, my Comcast bill arrived, and it had gone up. The 1-year special was over. So, I went online to check for a package that was more to my liking regarding cost. Only, still no packages showed for me. I scheduled an appointment at a store, because you have to do that now. And some stores have closed, so the three nearest were two in Savannah and one in Hinesville. The nearest available slot was in Hinesville (same day), so I made the drive.

The nice lady hooked me up and I ended up paying less that I had been paying with my Internet-Local Channels package, even before the special pricing expired. So, yeah, I was happy with that.

And, I got Xfinity Flex included, as they had been promoting.

Now, there's not much to Flex, unless you're new to streaming, in which case, it's actually a pretty good way to start that.

They give you a streaming box for no cost. That's a good thing. A second, third, etc. box is another $5/month. The box is really nothing all that special. It's inferior to a Roku or Apple TV, for instance, but it's okay. It's an Android-based device, and while it's a decent box, it's not as responsive as a Roku or Apple TV.

Also, the device doesn't really have an app store. It has some apps preloaded, but you can't add more. The Apple TV line was kinda like that up through the 3rd generation devices, but even then, you could hide apps from showing. Flex doesn't have a large number of apps, and you can't add more or remove (or hide) any. But, it has a decent selection of apps: Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube (but not YouTube TV), Sling TV, CBS All Access, major standalone movie services (HBO, Showtime, Starz, Epix, & Cinemax), the most popular free (ad-supported) linear services (Pluto TV, Xumo, Tubi, FilmRise), and more. While there is no app store, the selection of apps installed is a good selection.

Oh, and of course, it has Peacock TV. More on that in a bit, I promise.

The Flex remote is okay. The D-Pad is not nearly as good as Roku or Amazon Fire TV, but it works. It has voice control, but I don't care about that. I don't use it on Apple TV, Fire TV, nor on Roku, so I'm not interested in using it on Flex, either. Just a personal preference.

So, if you are a Comcast Internet subscriber, and you want to get into streaming, Flex is a good way to go. And, you get Peacock Premium (the middle tier) included.

And that finally brings me to Peacock TV.

The service is NBC/Universal's answer to Hulu and CBS All Access. Personally, it looks better than the CBS offering, and is cheaper than that service, but it isn't going to replace Hulu for me any time soon, if ever.

The app comes with Xfinity Flex, but it's also available for Apple TV, Chromecast, Nvidia Shield, Mi Box (and other newer Android TV devices), Xbox One, Playstation 4, and newer LG or Vizio TVs. Notice that the two largest streaming platforms, Roku and Fire TV, are not supported. And there's nothing to indicate they will be supported any time soon, as all parties are taking a hard line. Until suddenly, one day, they decide to play nice. 

Anyway, there are three tiers of Peacock TV service: Free, Premium, and Premium Plus.

Free is what it sounds like. It's free. The content includes commercials. And, while it's a lot of content, it's not everything. I've seen it said that the free service has anywhere from ½ to ⅔ of the total Peacock TV library. Worst case scenario is still a decent library of content, around 7,500 to 10,000 items of content (TV show episodes or movies).

Premium is the entire library. Everything. That includes sports, all current season episodes, and movies. And here's the kicker: if you are an Xfinity Flex subscriber, it includes Peacock Premium. So, this is the tier I have. Flex is included with Xfinity Internet, and Peacock TV Premium is included with Xfinity Flex. And, it is a decent amount of content.

Oh, if you don't get Premium included, it's $5/month to upgrade from Free to Premium. Is it worth the upgrade? Maybe. If you try it, I'd suggest just using the Free service (unless, of course, you have Xfinity Flex and get Premium for free) and noticing how much you are actually missing out on. The Premium-only content is marked with a purple feather icon in the corner. If you decide you'd be okay with paying $5/month (or $50/year) for the Premium content, it's not a bad price for the bigger library. Cheaper than either Hulu or CBS All-Access. And, to me, better than CBS All-Access. But still, I'd see if Free is good enough. The price is certainly right.

Premium Plus is the top tier. It's the same content as Premium, but you don't get ads. Mostly.

Due to streaming rights, a small amount of programming, Peacock channels, live events, and a few TV shows and movies, will still contain ads.

Premium Plus is another $5/month. So, if you can deal with commercials -- some people can't; I can because I'm an adult and cheap -- save the $5 and watch commercials. Or let the commercials play while you ignore them.

Disney+ streaming deals? Maybe.

In case you haven't heard, there's a thing called Disney+. It's a streaming service that will launch in November. It will contain a lot of Disney content, naturally. And, that's a lot of stuff. Disney owns a whole bunch of stuff.

In the meantime, Disney has been removing their content -- not all of it, but bit by bit at least some of it -- from other streaming services. Netflix is slowly losing content, but whether or not all Disney content will eventually leave isn't known. But, with Disney's new streaming service, there will be a streaming home for the massive Disney catalog.

What brought this up is a couple of things. I grew up watching Disney, so Disney movies and Disney parks hold a special place for me. Sure, a lot of things Disney does I do not like, but if I stopped watching everything from companies that did something I didn't like, I would watch nothing. So, I enjoy their movies and parks, by myself and with the grandchildren.

The other thing is that Disney+ offers an introductory offer for the service. But, of course, there's a catch. You gotta sign up for three years in order to take advantage of the special price. And the deadline for the offer is a full two months (maybe more) before the service launches.

I figure I'll subscribe, at least for a while, to see if I like the service. And, I suspect I'll like it, at least enough to keep paying the $5.99 a month (that's the regular price, not the discount I mentioned. That works out to $3.92/month.

What complicates things is that Disney has other offers going on. They'll be offering three services -- Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ -- for $12.99/month. Since ESPN+ is $4.99/month and Hulu is $5.99/month, that would mean I could get Disney+ for essentially $2.01/month. But, I don't want or need ESPN+ every month. I only care during football season, since some games I want to watch will be on that service.

The other thing is that I also upgrade my Hulu from the $5.99 service to the $44.99 Hulu Live service -- adding $39/month to the cost -- during football season. That's so I can get ESPN, which is where many of the games I want to watch will be shown. I don't need Hulu Live the rest of the time. Of course, there are other options for adding ESPN to my streaming capabilities, the cheapest of which is Sling TV, which, with the Sports Extra (ESPNU, ESPNews, SEC Network, others) runs $35/month. To me, spending the extra $4 for Hulu Live vs Sling TV makes more sense because of the recent issues with content being pulled from Sling during Dish contract negotiations. Dish owns Sling TV. To avoid that, I upgraded my Hulu to the Live service instead.

So, the complications to the Disney+ special offer are related to the bundle of Disney+ with ESPN+ and Hulu, the fact that I only use ESPN+ part of the year, and the fact that I upgrade from Hulu to Hulu Live during part of the year. That made running the numbers challenging. But, hey, I like a good challenge. Here's what I found.

One assumption I made was that I would subscribe to Disney+ for three years, whether the 3-year deal, the one-year price, the month-to-month price, or the bundle price. Regardless of how I did it, I would do it for three years. That made it easy to compare.

The next is that I would keep Hulu the whole time. I expect that to be the case, as I've had Hulu since 2010, when it was called Hulu Plus.

The next assumption is that prices would remain the same for three years. That's a false assumption, but I only have current prices available, so I went with what I have.

Finally, I had to run the numbers two ways in order to fully compare. One way was with adding a live streaming service (for ESPN channels) during part of the year, and subscribing to ESPN+ only during that same time. The other was keeping all services all year. I don't expect that to happen, but I ran the numbers to see what would happen if I did. The idea is that if I found it cheaper to keep the year-round rather than drop them during off months, I would. Spoilers: It's not cheaper to keep them, but I didn't confirm that until I ran the numbers.

Here's what I found for having Hulu year-round, Disney+ year-round, ESPN+ during football season, live streaming with sports channels during football season.

Paying full price for all services ($5.99 Hulu, $4.99 ESPN+, $5.99 Disney+, $39 Hulu Live add-on), it's $55.97/month during football season, and $11.98 the rest of the year. That totals $363.71/year, or $1,091.13/3-years.

Same, but pre-paying for a year of Disney+ instead of month to month works out to $361.83/year or $1,085.46/3-years. That's less than a $2/year savings.

Same, but getting the Disney bundle year-round, and adding Hulu Live during season is $350.88/year or $1,052.64/3-years. That's a little more savings.

Same, but getting the Disney bundle in season, and paying full price off-season, works to $301.88/year or $905.64/3-years. That's more of a savings.

Same, but using Sling TV with Sports Extra instead of Hulu Live is $281.88/year or $845.64/3-years.

I also ran the numbers keeping everything year round, and that increased each total by 74% to 107%. Yep, nearly double in many cases and more than double in some. So, I'm not going with the year-round option.

What does all this bunch of numbers mean? Well, it means I'm going to pass on the three-year price for Disney+ and use the three-service bundle. I'll upgrade to live sports during football season and cut back during off-season. Which live service depends on price and special offers. Sling TV will sometimes offer specials if you pre-pay for several months. I've done that in the past. That may be something to consider if you are looking at something similar.

For now, I'm not going the cheapest route, but it's not much more than the cheapest. If you're looking at streaming, run the numbers before you buy into a long-term contract. It may save you some cash in the long run.

Pluto TV

I think I have a new favorite cord cutting app. Pluto TV is one I've had for a bit. It always had something interesting on it, but now they've got a lot more.

If you aren't familiar with Pluto TV, it's a live linear streaming service. What that means is that it's kinda like cable TV in that there is stuff playing on different channels at different times. It's just like traditional TV in that way, except it's streaming.

Now, it's not the same channels that you'll find with Comcast, Spectrum, or any cable service. But it does have a lot of content that's similar. They have added content from Viacom recently to their list of Pluto TV channels.

Content from MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Nick, CMT, Spike -- yes, Spike is back -- and others join the lineup that has included more and more movie, including some pretty good films. There's also news streams from CNN, CBS, NBC, Newsmax, Sky News, and others. I love the MST3K stream, the Rifftrax stream, and so much more.

Rather than try to list everything they have, and considering that what interests me might not interest you, I'm gonna suggest you check it out. Go to their Website or go ahead and download the apps to your phone, tablet, or streaming device -- including Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, and others -- and give it a watch.

If you're a cord cutter, or looking to cut the cord, give Pluto TV a shot. You might like it.

Cable again

I have cable TV again.

That's something I never expected.

You see, I'm a huge advocate of cutting the cord. I'm generally not a fan of cable TV. Or satellite TV. Since January 2011, I've been watching TV mostly by streaming content. But, suddenly, I now have cable TV service.

Let's get some stuff out of the way first. I'm paying for Internet and TV (by whatever means) at two locations. At one location, I dropped cable in January 2011 when, after crunching all the numbers, I determined that I'd save $65/month by dropping cable and moving to streaming. Now, that $780/year ($65/month x 12) was not full savings. I had to buy a Roku. And a TV antenna. And I had to buy a few TV episodes that weren't available by other means. Still, I had a large net savings for the year. So, I was happy.

New offerings came available. Hulu expanded. Amazon Prime streaming expanded. Netflix expanded. Services like Sling TV came along. All that just reinforced by decision to drop cable. Everything was great.

Later, I began paying for Internet and TV (by whatever means) at another location. That location was serviced by an entirely different cable and Internet provider.

At the second location, I found that I could get a decent broadband Internet connection plus local channels cheaper than Internet service alone. Yeah, I didn't believe it at first, but sure enough, that was the case. Which meant I didn't have to shell out anything for an antenna. I'd get Internet service cheaper, and could watch local channels (which is all I would have picked up from the antenna anyway), and it wasn't a bad price.

Every 6 to 12 months, I'd have to take my happy butt down to one or the other of the cable offices -- I get better results in person because of my charming personality -- and renegotiate a price. After my experience with the second provider, I learned to check for packages that aren't advertised. And, that continued along for a bit. Well, it continued until late September.

In late August or early September, I'd add Sling TV with the Sports Add-on so I could watch college football. After the season, I'd drop Sling TV. Sometimes, I'd use DirecTV Now or one of the other streaming services if they had a great deal on a package or offered a free streaming device. I ended up with several Apple TV devices or Roku devices by doing that. Still got a Roku in the box, never opened.

Recently, one of the locations had gone up, meaning the 12-month "special" had expired. So, I marched myself down to the cable office and started negotiations. This time, when asking about the cost of services, I found out that I could get Internet and a basic cable package -- not a locals only/lifeline package, but one with ESPN and other cable channels -- for a decent price.

I calculated the cost of Internet plus Sling TV with Sports Add-on against the cost of Internet and Basic Cable. And, what do you know? The Basic Cable package was cheaper.

Now, before I ran to sign up for that, I checked into a few other things, such as how well authentication against apps on Apple TV or Roku -- I didn't bother with Amazon Fire TV or Android TV, since Apple TV and Roku are over 95% of my watching -- and found out that they'd work. The local cable company even supports that single sign-on for many apps on Apple TV.

My streaming service that included ESPN was going to renew today, but last week, I got the cable service going, and now I've dropped my streaming service in favor of cable TV. Which surprised me.

If you had told me that I'd be going back to cable, I'd've told you that you were crazy. You still might be crazy, but telling me I'm going back to cable has no bearing on that assessment. Because here I am. A cable user.

I feel so dirty. But I'm saving money.

Took 'em nearly eight years to get the message.

Crash! Pop!

The late afternoon storms we have in southeast Georgia this time of year aren't usually anything more than an irritant. Sometimes, the storms will change plans, such as not going to an outside event. Most of the time, though, it doesn't really mean that big of a deal. We're used to them, after all.

Not so, this week. The storm got my Roku.

I've had a Roku device for some time. Not the same device. I've upgraded over the years. In October, I bought a new Roku Ultra. It replaced a Roku Premiere that I got free with a Sling TV subscription. The Ultra is a better device, and has a wireless remote. The Premiere (since discontinued), is a good device, but doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the Ultra, plus, it has an IR-only remote.

Anyway, I got an Ultra in October, and it's been a great device. Until this week, when the storm got it.

I was off work, and sitting there watching, I don't know, maybe something on The YouTube. The rain had started, and there was thunder and lightning, though not too close. Then, it was close.

There was a loud crash and flash, followed immediately by a loud "pop" from behind the direction of the TV and the screen suddenly going dark.

As I was thinking the lightning had taken out my TV, a "no signal" message came up. Okay, the screen was working at least. Maybe an input? Maybe the Roku?

I looked at the Roku carefully, and noticed there was no light. So, at least the Roku was dead.

I checked the other devices. I've got an Apple TV, a Fire TV Stick, and an Android TV box (MiBox), plus a TiVo connected to the TV. They were all working. Just the Roku was affected.

I pulled my older Roku Premiere out and hooked it up. It worked. That meant the HDMI input on the TV was fine.

Now, I needed to find out if it was the Roku Ultra, or simply the power supply to the Roku Ultra. Replacing the power supply is $10. Replacing the Ultra is $99.

So now you might be asking why didn't I use the power supply for the Premiere on the Ultra?

No, really. Go ahead and ask. I'll wait.

* * *

Well, since you asked, there's a simple reason: they don't fit.

For a while, all the Roku boxes -- first and second generation devices -- all used the same power supply, model number PW-01 for those keeping score.

Roku changed that beginning with the third generation boxes. They used the new PW-09 power supply, which had a different connector.

The Sticks had a different power supply, the PW-03, and the new Ultra (model 4660) had a still different power supply, the PW-11.

My current inventory? Roku Ultra model 4660 (PW-11); Roku Premiere (PW-09); Roku 2 XS (PW-01), and Roku Stick (PW-03). These different devices use different power supplies.

After some thought, I decided to not immediately replace the Roku Ultra. But thinking long term, I decided to move my Stick from the guest TV to the main TV, and put the Premiere in the guest room. After doing that, I was back up and running.

I did order a spare power supply for the Ultra. It was $10, but if that fixes the Ultra, I'll get off cheap. If not, I'll eventually buy a new Ultra and have a spare power supply for it.

[Edit: The new power supply arrived, and the Roku Ultra doesn't work. *sigh*]

For now, I'm using the Roku Stick on my primary TV. That means I can waste my time again with my Roku.

Speaking of which, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is calling.