Steel Guitar Channel on my T.V.

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 21 Jun 2014 3:37 pm

I recently got rid of Direct T.V. and bought a Roku. I get over 1000 channels on T.V. free now. I tuned into Pandora, and typed in "Steel Guitar". Now I hear instrumental steel guitar any time I want. I turned on the T.V. and heard a lot of Jimmy Day, Buddy Emmons, Bud Issacs,Leon Mculiff, and many others on my television audio. Best Buy and Wal-Mart sell Roku. It works from wireless internet. All you need is internet service and a wireless router for you phone line. Your phone company provides the wireless router. I paid $59.00 for my Roku 2. Once you buy Roku you have a free ticket to 1000 plus channels. You can also purchase programs. There are lots of radio stations you can pick-up that have real country music on them. Now I can listen to Johnny Bush, Justin Trevino, Mel Tillis, Bobby Flores, Ray Price, Wynn Stewart,Mel Street and all the singers that have pedal steel. It is wonderful. No more monthly T.V. bills.

Wayne Quinn · Post by **Wayne Quinn** » 22 Jun 2014 3:45 pm

Keith I have wireless inter net now would that work for me.

Todd Goad · Post by **Todd Goad** » 22 Jun 2014 6:06 pm

Can you get the same channels as you did with Directv?

Darrell Schmidt · Post by **Darrell Schmidt** » 23 Jun 2014 3:20 am

If you have internet you can use Roku. I have it on all my tv's.
And no you can not get direct tv channels.You can some of the shows, but there is price involved. I can not see going back tonany form of cable.Have good set of rabbitt ears for local stations.

Darrell Schmidt · Post by **Darrell Schmidt** » 23 Jun 2014 3:21 am

If you have internet you can use Roku. I have it on all my tv's.
And no you can not get direct tv channels.You can some of the shows, but there is price involved. I can not see going back tonany form of cable.Have good set of rabbitt ears for local stations.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 23 Jun 2014 5:04 am

This is OK for someone in a metropolitan area where they can get the local TV stations over the air.

For those of us in the "boondocks", who can't get over the air reception unless we put up a large outside antenna we would still need basic cable to get the local channels.

In my situation, in Florida with the threat of hurricanes and high wind, an outside antenna is not a real good alternative. I see very few outside antennas around my area.

Dale Rottacker · Post by **Dale Rottacker** » 23 Jun 2014 5:22 am

Would you get HD channels?

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 23 Jun 2014 7:04 am

You don't need Roku for Pandora, a web browser or smartphone app does it.
I'd never tried to tune Pandora for steel guitar.
My favorite webstream music service is Slacker, since it adds "similar artists" like all other streams, but Slacker will allow you to mix dissimilar artists in one channel (if you like more than just Ray Price and Buck Owens).
Denise has a channel made up of, among others:
Bob Dylan; Tom Jones; Osborne Brothers; Richard Thompson; Mills Brothers; Sister Rosetta Tharpe; Lloyd Green; Mahalia Jackson; Harry Nilsson; Blossom Dearie; Georgie Fame, and others in those veins. Oops. Forgot CSN(Y)
http://www.slacker.com/station/custom/2 ... 1396923388

Roku, like Rabbit or the other "free TV on your internet" services, just aggregate what's out there in one easy to find place. If you already know what's there, you don't need their service. It's worth it, though, if you don't know what's out there.

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 23 Jun 2014 7:15 am

Yes Jack, you must have an antenna to get local channels. I get 13 local channels with my rabbit ears and I live out in the country.
There are all the news channels on Roku, but the important news may be a day or so old. Wayne, if you have wireless internet you can get Roku free. They do require you to have a credit card number. That is in case you want to buy something. Jack you must really live in the boon docks land. I thought T.V. towers reached everyone. I just have rabbit ears and I get 13 local T.V. cannels here in the Ozark Mountains. Dale, most of the stuff is in HD. I am NOT selling Roku. Just trying to let people know about something good. Most people think that it can't be real, or that there is some trick. I can assue you it is for real. I do not miss Direct T.V. When the bills came this month--I DO MISS THE BIG DIRECT T.V. monthly bill. I get a lot more stuff on Roku than I did on Direct T.V. and it is free. I listened to steel gutiar on T.V. audio all day yesterday. Heard Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Day, Lloyd Green, Tom Brumley and many others. They feature instrumental albums, or instrumentals from albums. I heard a instrumental cut from a Earnest Tubb album--RED TOP. I heard RASIN THE DICKENS with Emmons from a little Jimmy Dickens album. Keep in mind guys--I am not selling or promoting anything! I am only trying to tell you about something that is free and wonderful. If you hate GOOD FREE things, then don't believe me. Even my close friends think there is some catch to this. There is no catch to this and it is much better than Direct T.V. Plus I get over 1000 channels free. Best Buy has Roku and so does Target stores. Please don't shoot the messinger.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 23 Jun 2014 7:17 am

Keith, I'm 65 miles north of Tampa and about the same distance from Orlando. None of the broadcast stations come in where I'm at with Rabbit Ears.

There is a station in Ocala, 35 miles away and I can't even get that.

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 23 Jun 2014 7:35 am

Jack,you don't have to get rid of anything to have Roku. You can hanve Roku in addition to Direct T.V., Dish T.V., cable, I-Phone, I-Pad.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 23 Jun 2014 7:49 am

Here in the Bay Area, all the local stations went digital and we have to buy a conversion box. No rabbit ears or antennas here. After you buy the converter, all local stations are free. I wasn't real impressed when I looked at the Roku channels list, but I might give it a go. I need to research the available channel more thoroughly though.

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 23 Jun 2014 9:56 am

It depends on your watching habits as to whether or not this will suit you. I am a big fan of the MLB package, Mad Men, Hell On Wheels, Walking Dead, House Of Cards, Game Of Thrones, HGTV in general, Downton Abbey, Falling Skies, Justified and a few others. I economize by using Apple TV, NETFLIX and renting series on DVD. I can rent the whole season of a series for about $9 on DVD at Family Video.

There are other issues. To stream shows without pauses I had to upgrade my internet to Road Runner Turbo at $45 a month using my own modem. The nice thing about Apple TV is that it mostly downloads then plays giving you pretty high video quality and DD 5.1 with little degradation.

For those of us with larger screens (75" for example) only Apple TV, DVD's, Blu-Rays and DirecTV have excellent resolution pictures. I've used Timer Warner, Dish and Amazon streaming and the video quality on larger screens is pretty bad.

For those that enjoy TruHD, Dolby 7.1 and more upgraded sound formats Blu-Ray's are pretty much the only way to go and Family Video's rentals still provide the original Blu-Ray sound tracks.

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 23 Jun 2014 10:18 am

Richard, with newer televisions you don't have to have a converter box, they accept digital signals.
Roku may not work for everyone,especially for those with 6 foot T.V. screens, and for those exceptional people that can cook breakfast with their I-phone---but it works for me. Yesterday I heard Tom Morrell on Roku. I gained a new respect for Tom's playing. I had forgot how really great Tom was. Heard a lot of steel players in the 1940s on Roku. Seemed to me Jimmy Day was one that reflected some on the older style, and could also play the newer pedal style. They play that Steel and Strings album Jimmy did a lot on Roku. Jimmy was at the top of his gamde when he cut that album.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 23 Jun 2014 10:33 am

I think you get the same thing from Pandora regardless of what device you're using. My Samsung Blu-Ray player has the Pandora app (and YouTube too). Google TV has it. You don't need a Roku to get Pandora music.

Roku's pretty good, though, I gotta admit.

Keith Hilton · Post by **Keith Hilton** » 23 Jun 2014 12:30 pm

I think you are right bob. But----We should not forget those out there who are still using flip phones. I think the bottom line is how much you are willing to pay for the service you get. Fancy I-pads I-phones, and Androids cost money. Phone plans where you get free phones cost money. Cable Television costs money. Direct T.V. and Dish T.V. costs money. Roku costs as little as $49.00, and that is all--no monthly payment. I personally want rid of monthly payments, unless I get something good for my money. The only catch with Roku is you have to have phone service, plus Inter Net, and that costs money. For me personally, I got fed up paying a big monthly bill for Direct T.V. when there was nothing on there I like to watch. Plus Direct T.V. for no reason raised my bill $20.00 a month. When I complained they cut out several channels I had been getting.
If you have a service that gets you T.V. programs you like,at a price you think is reasonable, by all means stick with that service. I guarantee you this: When more people find out about Roku, Direct T.V. and Dish T.V. are going to have to offer more for your money. I am going to have to bale out of this conversation. My Mother died and I am headed to visitation at the funeral home. Then tomorrow is Mother's funeral. So for now--- end of discussion on Roku. I hope I have helped someone.

Wayne Quinn · Post by **Wayne Quinn** » 23 Jun 2014 3:59 pm

Thanks Keith. for the information. .and iam so sorry to hear about your mom.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 23 Jun 2014 5:08 pm

Richard, with newer televisions you don't have to have a converter box, they accept digital signals.

I don't have a newer TV and have no plans to ever buy one. I basically stopped watching TV about 3 years ago. I do miss things like sporting events and some of the cable stations like History Channel, and stuff like that. But I don't miss it enough to with cable or satellite dish.

Lane Gray · Post by **Lane Gray** » 24 Jun 2014 12:21 am

History channel has gone downhill in the last few years.
Most of the channels have websites with many episodes of their shows on them.
Neither Roku nor Rabbit (nor any of the similar systems) offer anything you can't find elsewhere for free (although I hear Roku is considering getting into producing content), but as B0b finds it useful, and it's safe to say he knows his way around the interwebz, it obviously IS handy to have a service that organizes the video and radio streaming options (kinda like what TuneIn does for radio on any platform: I use it at home and on the road)

admin · Post by **b0b** » 24 Jun 2014 7:46 am

I'm closing this because Keith has bailed, and the conversation isn't about steel guitar video anymore (partly my fault .

)