Just to provide a little closure, I went with a 43" Vizio Smart 4K and am using my wireless for now. TV and wall mount just under $400.

Setup was painless, picture quality is amazing. Haven't actually streamed anything to see if latency will be a problem but going by the online setup speeds, I don't think so.

Thanks for all the advice!

For Netflix and Amazon Prime (as well as youtube and numerous other streaming movie and TV channels; some free, some require subscription) I am totally happy with a Roku.
I actually have 3 Rokus, and they all work equally well; it is just a matter of whether you want an earphone jack and a "point anywhere remote".

The video quality depends mostly on your internet/wifi setup. With Centurylink 20 Meg internet speed I got "adequate, but barely"
streaming with occasional stuttering and delays. With 40 Meg it is totally seamless almost all the time. That is with a 1080p HD TV, 2 other computers, two laptops and two smartphones occasionally operating simultaneously.
I don't have a 4K TV yet, so I can't comment on that.

quote:

Originally posted by lkdr1989:
For just streaming Netflix/Prime:

Amazon Fire TV, $70 new or about $53 used:
https://www.amazon.com/all-new...300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Ethernet Adapter for Fire TV, $15:

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-...300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

You should have plenty of room in the budget for a nice TV.

^^^This is the setup I have on both our TV's (different ethernet adapter, but same concept). So long as you have enough internet speed you should be good to go.

And as noted previously, the Alexa feature on the Fire remote is only usable if you opt to use it. I never use it on either of my TV's because I have the same attitude toward these smart 'snoopers' that you do.

quote:

Originally posted by Crom:
For Netflix and Amazon Prime (as well as youtube and numerous other streaming movie and TV channels; some free, some require subscription) I am totally happy with a Roku.

As I alluded to, earlier: I've a love/hate relationship with Roku. We've a Roku 3 and it's "just ok," IMO.

It streams everything we want (Netflix, Amazon Prime, OAN) just fine, but the UI is clunky. This is perhaps exacerbated by the fact I'm using a universal IR remote, rather than the WiFi Direct thing.

The other problem, for me, is Roku will only stream HLS (HTTP Live Streaming), which means it can't be used with things like the Silicon Dust HDHomeRun without an intermediate server.

So we're probably switching to Xiaomi MiBox Android TV streaming devices, despite the fact Goggle's kind of on my shit list

quote:

Originally posted by Crom:
The video quality depends mostly on your internet/wifi setup. With Centurylink 20 Meg internet speed I got "adequate, but barely"
streaming with occasional stuttering and delays. With 40 Meg it is totally seamless almost all the time. That is with 2 other computers, two laptops and two smartphones occasionally operating simultaneously.

Can't emphasize this too much.

I'm watching a live stream monitor for my HDHR device, right now, and one HD channel (1080i broadcast) alone is running around 16Mbps to my MiBox.

We have 50/10 mb/s business class service. We've never encountered stuttering with Netflix, AP or OAN. Occasional buffering, but very, very rarely. When we were still on 17/3 we'd occasionally buffer on Netflix.

I believe wireless network performance to be key. I've a Ubiquiti UniFi AC AP Pro located smack in the middle of the home. In testing the HDHR device on the outside antenna, where I have no hard-wired connection nearby, I simply plugged the HDHR tuner into the 802.11a/n (5GHz) bridge, there, then streamed separate 1080i channels to both the MiBox and my iPad. 5GHz utilization was at about 46% and never missed a beat.

I think I posted this elsewhere, but I subsequently torture-tested that AP's and bridge's 5GHz performance, as follows:

• Fired-up Netflix on the BD player, which is connected via that bridge, and had it play an episode of something
  
• Connected my laptop to the bridge and initiated a large-ish binary download to my local network server
  
• Flood-pinged the bridge from the LAN
  
• Ran repeated speed tests from my iPad (connected via 5GHz) until the laptop upload finished
  

Results:

• Speed tests averaged 57mb/s down, 11mb/s up on the tablet (I'm paying for 50/10), 20ms ping time
  
• Flood ping had 20764 packets transmitted, 20710 received, +40 (0.2%) duplicates, 0.3% packet loss
  
• Got 29mb/s upload speed on the laptop. ifconfig -a indicated no network errors on the laptop's Ethernet interface
  
• No disruptions or buffering in the feed to the BD player were observed (my wife was watching it)
  

During the test the 5GHz utilization on the AP hit 89%. (That AP was supporting an additional iPad, two iPhones and two wireless cameras at the same time.)

I've seen people with lesser WiFi routers complain of not being able to stream smoothly or reliably on a single device on a relatively unloaded WiFi network.

for your smart tv if it has (it should) a usb port pick up a wireless usb keyboard to get rid of using the remote to enter text/numeric streams on Netflix, Utoob, Hulu, Prime etc.

Linky thingamaggigy

I run one with my Matricom Gbox and its much nicer to stroke in "Game of Thrones" into the search box, and use the mouse pad vs the remote.

Good tip, HRK.

Entering logins and passwords for Netflix and AP was a pain.

I use a wireless keyboard on my computer and have a spare for the old WinXP computer I can't bring myself to throw away.