Absolutely no streaming in my life.

[Sophrosyne]

I have a large 4k Blu-ray collection.

I have over a dozen so far that I paid an average of about $4 each for.

 

[Want To Be Chef]

I sometimes stream radio stations on the internet when I am away from the area I live in.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I sometimes stream radio stations on the internet when I am away from the area I live in.

I stream a few talk shows over bluetooth from my phone when I'm working outside.
When I'm lazy I stream a radio station over my TV using the iHeart radio app. It is easier to use it when I'm in bed and don't want to get up to use a regular radio.

 

[Want To Be Chef]

I have a 40 something inch 4k smart tv (it is not connected to the internet) which is connected to a Ultra Blu-ray player.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I have a 40 something inch 4k smart tv (it is not connected to the internet) which is connected to a Ultra Blu-ray player.

I don't have a 4K Blu-Ray player.... just a 2K player and 5DVD Sony Changer and Philips DVR hooked to my 4K tv and it is hooked to the internet and I'm using the apps mostly Pluto TV, youtube, and Tubi and at time Xumo. All of these streaming apps are free (with commercials) and IMO worth looking into as all have on demand streaming of movies too.

 

[Miles]

Apparently, Amazon is trying to force its users to stream rather than download mp3s. I reached my limit a few days ago, and haven't been able to find a way to download the last song I purchased. Looks like I'll be buying my music elsewhere. And yes, I'm trying to do the right thing (support the artists) by paying for it despite free options elsewhere.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Apparently, Amazon is trying to force its users to stream rather than download mp3s. I reached my limit a few days ago, and haven't been able to find a way to download the last song I purchased. Looks like I'll be buying my music elsewhere. And yes, I'm trying to do the right thing (support the artists) by paying for it despite free options elsewhere.

I never bought into the idea of digital music downloads as unless you download and save them and back them up there is no reason something cant happen to the place you bought them and are no longer able to download them again. If you buy the CD and store it you can rip it as many times as you need to and when you die you can will the CD to someone so even if your computer or digital device craps out you have a hard copy. What also is nuts is many old albums you can buy the CD cheaper than the MP3 downloads and I've heard they also give you the download on top of that (or used to?).

 

[Sophrosyne]

Streaming is a way to thwart hard copies of movies and music which there is a market out there where you can buy second hand movies and music hard copies for a fraction of the digital downloads and often get the digital copy for free (movies). It used to be if you bought a CD from Amazon they gave you the MP3 download for free. Not sure that is the case now. I don't buy into "the cloud" either it makes you dependent on someone else for what you put there and open to hackers and search warrants from government agencies to check your stuff out without you ever knowing it.

 

[Miles]

I never bought into the idea of digital music downloads as unless you download and save them and back them up there is no reason something cant happen to the place you bought them and are no longer able to download them again. If you buy the CD and store it you can rip it as many times as you need to and when you die you can will the CD to someone so even if your computer or digital device craps out you have a hard copy. What also is nuts is many old albums you can buy the CD cheaper than the MP3 downloads and I've heard they also give you the download on top of that (or used to?).

Most of the vinyl I purchase includes MP3s as part of the deal. I wouldn't be surprised if they also do that with CDs.

Several of my MP3s are from the '90s. In some instances, they've held up better than my CD collection. They're backed up on various drives and other devices, so it's unlikely that I'll lose them.

My intention was to assemble a collection of a group's individual songs. Just my favorites, without buying the entire albums that they're from. For around $1 per song, it's convenient.

For car listening, I haven't found anything that beats a simple thumb drive. It's smaller and lighter than my CD collection, not to mention easier to skip between artists, albums, and individual tracks. Along with the ability to interface with phones and USB drives, my car's stereo also has a CD changer. The CDs don't get as much play in the car or at home.

While I appreciate CDs for their sound quality, they take up space, and are prone to damage. While it sometimes makes sense to buy them used, and then rip the songs to use the digital files elsewhere, I don't necessarily need to have more CDs taking up shelf space. I also only have one stereo that plays them, and I mostly just use that feature around the holidays. It also plays cassettes, which get even less play than the CDs.

Unless I'm using a record player at home, which is a rewarding experience in and of itself, I prefer digital music. Preferably owned by me, rather than streamed. I like the newer technology, but I prefer to own the files and not depend on a network connection if I don't have to.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Most of the vinyl I purchase includes MP3s as part of the deal. I wouldn't be surprised if they also do that with CDs.

Several of my MP3s are from the '90s. In some instances, they've held up better than my CD collection. They're backed up on various drives and other devices, so it's unlikely that I'll lose them.

My intention was to assemble a collection of a group's individual songs. Just my favorites, without buying the entire albums that they're from. For around $1 per song, it's convenient.

For car listening, I haven't found anything that beats a simple thumb drive. It's smaller and lighter than my CD collection, not to mention easier to skip between artists, albums, and individual tracks. Along with the ability to interface with phones and USB drives, my car's stereo also has a CD changer. The CDs don't get as much play in the car or at home.

While I appreciate CDs for their sound quality, they take up space, and are prone to damage. While it sometimes makes sense to buy them used, and then rip the songs to use the digital files elsewhere, I don't necessarily need to have more CDs taking up shelf space. I also only have one stereo that plays them, and I mostly just use that feature around the holidays. It also plays cassettes, which get even less play than the CDs.

Unless I'm using a record player at home, which is a rewarding experience in and of itself, I prefer digital music. Preferably owned by me, rather than streamed. I like the newer technology, but I prefer to own the files and not depend on a network connection if I don't have to.

I have probably 400 CDs in boxes in a spare closet stored. I rip all the songs on my computer and go through them all to correct any tag errors on the MP3 files and put all the songs from each single CD in a folder and if more than a CD in a set a main folder with sub folders per CD. I then check the all the songs for duplicates and take the dupes out of my main MP3 storage directory. I then play back the songs on my computer and rate them from 1-5 and when I'm done I copy the files to my phone putting them on the SD card I have all songs on there and play lists that play songs by rating in various categories plus the player app allows playing by artist and album and so on. I have bluetooth speakers, headphones, and when the old car stereo in my vehicle would no longer play CDs or FM stereo and my old 30G Ipod battery died I bought a new car stereo that supports bluetooth playback. I also have a small bluetooth speaker that takes a 32GB SD card with most of my better songs on it. I also backup my collection on an external hard drive.
Streaming songs from the web is not my thing either as I've been out of range of a cell tower often and not even able to make a phone call at work due to no cell coverage anywhere within a mile having songs stored in local memory. My car stereo does have a usb input in the back but I haven't bothered to get a large enough one to suffice and have a lot more control using my phone as the app has a built in equalizer to tweak the sound even more if needed and I can swipe through songs quickly to find one that interests me.

 

[One Old Soul]

I watch YouTube on my TV only for educational purposes.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I watch YouTube on my TV only for educational purposes.

I just wish I was able to attach a full size keyboard to my TV so I could type in searches easier than using a remote to scroll a character chart plus some option to sort by date etc. Youtube on my tv puts a lot of stuff that is years old that is "popular" over stuff that is new and less popular.

 

[One Old Soul]

I have a smart Blu-ray player with internet connection and I am signed up to YouTube.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I have a smart Blu-ray player with internet connection and I am signed up to YouTube.

I don't consider bluray players as an alternative to a smart tv or streaming service box these days as they have limited support for apps and only the apps on it when you buy it are available you can't add more or update them either and can't surf the web like on a smart phone and some smart tvs (not mine). I have a sony 2K bluray player that has 3D support (useless to me) that I tried the streaming on it.... pretty much youtube is about the only thing that I was interested in that worked. There were other apps that didn't work at all. Best to buy a blu-ray player for ONLY playing discs..... not streaming. I think my major problem I'm having with my smart TV is overload. There is over 120 apps on it that is getting harder and harder to keep track of and on occasion they move them around from my lineup and I have to move them again. I typically have the top apps I would need showing on the home page and scrolling more to find others and the pay to watch apps shoved down nearer to the end.

I've no experience with other smart TV sets or streaming devices but I think most smart TVs are going to all apps away from the external devices. I'm saddened that companies are are pretty much slowly abandoning Blu-Ray support. I kept hoping for a blu-ray changer with smarts that can store the menu system in memory if a disc so swapping between discs can be done without reloading them from scratch. Sony did make a blu-ray changer but it was way too big I think 99 BD capacity and a $1000+ price tag. People don't realize that having faster memory and processors in Blu-Ray players mean better performance and faster loading of the Java code as most BDs these days have custom menus and if they do have Java menus and don't add code to offer a resume feature then you would have to pause the BD instead of stopping it so as to not lose your place.

 

[One Old Soul]

Mine does 3D too which I don't use.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Mine does 3D too which I don't use.

3D was clunky and needed high end hardware to work well which is no longer available. I think there was only 1 4K tv made and it cost something like $7000 at the time and likely will stay very expensive in the future. I have about 30 3D blurays only because I got them second hand and they have a 2D version also in the set. I also have a half dozen 3D DVDs and the red/blue glasses and tried it out once which leaves your vision in your eyes separately discolored for awhile after that. I think you can still get 3D viewing but only with VR type goggles not a TV screen.

 

[One Old Soul]

I have decided to disconnect my Blu-ray player from the internet due to the fact that it was slow when streaming. Since I have a large Blu-ray, CD and DVD collection, I also decided to not stream anymore.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I have decided to disconnect my Blu-ray player from the internet due to the fact that it was slow when streaming.

What slowed down?

 

[One Old Soul]

I think my internet service is not very good.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I think my internet service is not very good.

Could be. Search on youtube for internet speed test and see how fast your connection is