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We were invited to the American Legion for a demonstration of Roku by a well known lady in these parts that does services and a gentlemen was present also. They tried to show us the system but most of the time the internet was so sporadic at the legion they could not show us much. They did tell us that the feed was from LA in the United States but did not refer to us what time programing would come on. The deal was you buy the Roku and if you signed up for a year you got a discount. So we did, the first week we had to program the Roku every day that we watched it, then for some reason we had a couple of weeks that it worked with very limited TV to watch. Then it all started with no programming for 1 week, then we finally get a response that they are working on it, another week goes by and they tell us how to update it, so we did and it worked 1 day and then had to take 2 days to program it again. Now that it is all up to date, it is all in Spanish, the guide is in Spanish and most of the programs are in Spanish, yes we need to learn more but when we paid for US TV we want English programs.

So many of us have asked for refunds and they say they don't give refunds. Real good business here.

We and many that signed up that day at the Legion say beware and don't work with this company because it is all about the money not the service.

Nothing against the Legion by the way, they had no idea like most of us.

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Don't blame the Roku, it's but a receiver. Your problem is the content provider, the company you signed up with. There is so much free content that the Roku delivers out of the box and many more private "channels" available. I recommend them to those that marvel at mine. Yes, I use Telmex and rarely get the buffering stalls.

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We have our own separate VPN service being received through a second modem and we pick our own content.  Very few problems with TelMex streaming.  Occasionally our VPN provider, Strong, gets blocked by NetFlix for a few days but then they get it back up and running.  No problem with anything else.

Angus is 100% right, the Roku is only as good as what it is hooked up to and unless you have both adequate speed AND some sort of VPN connection to the U.S. you are not going to get the U.S. content from many sites and if the streaming isn't above 3 or 4 you are going to have time out issues.

You're better off getting someone like ComputerGuy to help you set up your own VPN and access what you want to see and subscribe to through your Roku.

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This has nothing to do with the internet, my speeds are well over 10 and when I do get TV it works, the bad part is we don't get it for a week at a time because our provider cannot keep up!

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All well and good suggestions, but I think you are missing the point, something was purchased in good faith, the service is not happening.

I consider myself fairly well informed about streaming services, and I signed up as well, only to be disappointed in lack of current programing, movies that at best are third rate and several years old, an electronic programming guide that continually shows no available information, and the outages from the provider. We are now on the fourth or fifth content provider from lakesidetream, each one of those, requires a reset of the Roku, somtimes a complete factory reset.

Many have suggested Kodi, the Roku will not accept Kodi as an alternate. In theory and with a good provider, the Roku is very easy for a novice to program, and that is the beauty of using this device.

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Reading on TOB between the lines, it seems the provider is redistributing content without a license. An apologist of the service said it as, "The outages mentioned were due to the fact that Roku is constantly on the lookout to shut down streaming services, so the provider (someone in Mexico who pulls in the DirecTV signal and streams it) sometimes gets their channel blocked and has to start a "new" channel with a new name."

Roku does try to manage their channels so they do not have pirated content providers.

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On Thursday (22nd) I posted this:

Is LakeStream internet TV streaming service still in business?

I have a flyer with the name and cell phone of Cynthia Ornelas (331-075-2479) on it for this service but for 3 days only getting voicemail. Left a couple of messages and no response. I bought a Roku Streaming Stick in anticipation of trying this service. I only get between 4- 5 mg. download here in San Antonio and have my doubts anyway. I would like to know of the experience that anyone has had with this service and in particular with this low download speed. Gracias

I got exactly 3 responses. One telling me that Cynthia was "up North" caring for her mother (by the way she still has not contacted me). Another poster in San Antonio saying she gets "OK" viewing with 3 download and another posting a link that does not work. No complains and only 1 "OK". Also on the flyer it gives a 1 month rate of $25 USD (cancel at any time). I'm confused (not unusual)...where were all the disgruntled subscribers responding to my post or even all the happy users. If they roped in all those folks at the American Legion where is the uproar? And why would you sign up for one year when you could get a trial run for $25? One person here says "If it seems too good to be true....." and since I am paying $75 a month for basic Dish it probably is, and by the way it just started raining and of course I lost the satellite most likely the rest of the night. Other than that all is good.

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I'm the "apologist of the service" (according to Angus) who posted on the other board.  If you contacted LakeSideStream, they would find that characterization pretty funny, as I am constantly on their case for every outage/change/problem.  I only posted because Spot's original characterization implied it was a ripoff. I did not attend the Legion presentation, but I did attend another presentation, and they were very clear what they were doing.  As others have said, streaming is a cheap and questionably legal activity, so service may be spotty.  Resellers are just middlemen, so they can't guarantee anything. Buyer beware, as always. 

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One of the problems here is that there are a ton of different Android boxes, and finding out which one works the best is the hard part. So, one would assume that relying on a "provider" would alleviate the problems of spending hours doing research, having to buy two or three or more different boxes to find one that suits, setting up the software, hooking it up to the Internet, and updating it as necessary.

The very first one of these I installed was brilliant. It came from someone who purchased it in Canada and had already "fixed" the internals. It responded to a very weak Internet signal, instantly showed every program available (which were a lot), and never hiccuped.

Later, a very-qualified friend and I spent a couple of days hooking up and programming one of the "best" Android boxes for a friend, and finally gave up in frustration. This box was wired directly to the modem and to the TV, so WiFi wasn't even involved, which meant the strongest Internet signal available. But the box just couldn't handle the various bits of software properly.

And this "maybe yes, maybe no" situation reflects the current state-of-the-art of Android boxes. So if you are not a fan of tinkering like this, you would be wanting to hook up with a provider like the one being discussed. And considering the number of complaints being generated for this, it's quite clear that we are a long way from being able to count on the technology. What I want is something like my satellite or cable subscription: I hook up, and it's done.

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I think the big issue is the resolution you are streaming. We originally signed up with Roku, and their hundreds of channels, then Netflix Mexico, standard resolution (480) for 99 pesos per month. Plenty of shows, if you are like us, and haven't really watched TV for years. Streaming worked fine at 1.2 download. Now we have 10 download, and Netflix seems to have automatically upgraded us to 720 resolution.

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What you are getting Is all totally legal. What these other folks are talking about Is as one poster stated "questionably legal".

The content providers are constantly trying to disrupt the pirates. Just like the old days of actual physical piracy.

 

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1 hour ago, ComputerGuy said:

One of the problems here is that there are a ton of different Android boxes, and finding out which one works the best is the hard part. So, one would assume that relying on a "provider" would alleviate the problems of spending hours doing research, having to buy two or three or more different boxes to find one that suits, setting up the software, hooking it up to the Internet, and updating it as necessary.

The very first one of these I installed was brilliant. It came from someone who purchased it in Canada and had already "fixed" the internals. It responded to a very weak Internet signal, instantly showed every program available (which were a lot), and never hiccuped.

Later, a very-qualified friend and I spent a couple of days hooking up and programming one of the "best" Android boxes for a friend, and finally gave up in frustration. This box was wired directly to the modem and to the TV, so WiFi wasn't even involved, which meant the strongest Internet signal available. But the box just couldn't handle the various bits of software properly.

And this "maybe yes, maybe no" situation reflects the current state-of-the-art of Android boxes. So if you are not a fan of tinkering like this, you would be wanting to hook up with a provider like the one being discussed. And considering the number of complaints being generated for this, it's quite clear that we are a long way from being able to count on the technology. What I want is something like my satellite or cable subscription: I hook up, and it's done.

You are spot on! We don't have time to deal with all of this fixing, TV out and downloading, we just want to sit down and push buttons and have TV. Thank God we kept our Shaw as we are back to watching it most of the time because it works, for now!

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Yeah but the beauty of those gizmos is the amount of time you have to spend fooling with them. Less TV time and we all know we spend too much time doing that.

Well worth the cost.

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