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I'm new to this here fancy streaming tv thing. I bought a Roku do-hicky device that allow one to pick up a lot of stuff. Most just a warmed over steaming pile. I joined Netflix just to get a load of what it's all about. Don't know if I'll keep it though. Some of the stuff I've watched I end up fast forwarding through because the characters are either tedious or annoying. Like Lost in Space. The Mist was a total bust, unlike the movie which was very compelling. Any who, I watched a western that was pretty unique, a series of vignette stories out of the wacky minds of the Cohen bros.. I'd been delighted though if the first story, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs had been the subject of the whole shebang. Just about the most untypical gun slinger one could imagine. What a hoot he is. The saloon scene..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0ZEmLosVXE It's all way too short lived, our run in with old Buster. This puts a kink in whether or not I'll stay on with the soon to be more expensive Netflix.
Sounds like I need to give that show a try. After reading your comments, I found it on Netflix and watched the preview. It was hilarious! Look around on your Roku box. There are a lot of free services, like Pluto, Crackle and several others. Roku even has its own streaming service. All those are supported by commercial advertisements, much like the old television broadcast model. And of course, there is Netflix and Amazon Prime, as well as many other fee-based services. They usually cost about $10/month and some have a TON of commercial-free movies and TV series. Netflix and Amazon have even started their own production companies and are making movies and TV series. Netflix has done literally hundreds, most with big-name actors. They're giving Hollywood a lot of competition, probably scaring the hell out of them too.
Oh yeah, I've spent most initial viewing time just going through menu's. I quickly glommed on to the freebies. There is though a bit of redundancy with content. And quite a bit of the free content is strictly B grade material. But, I understand the intent. A sense of value. One can augment their air tv with this cheap technology. Never has there been such a choice a viewer can make for so little investment, if they have fast enough internet. I'm particularly lucky. I live in an area that was the test bed for Google fiber. My initial investment for hookup has never incurred any billing. I'll probably stick with Netflix for a while and see if over time the content involves me enough. Buster Scruggs has upped the ante considerably.
P.S. As an aside for B movies. I'll recommend one that I was always curious about but until recently had no means to view. A joint Norwegian, German and Australian production that was partially funded through a fan base. Iron Sky is a tongue in cheek satire whose premise is Nazi's developed a revolutionary propulsion to allow the true follower's to escape to the back side of the moon. Where they scheme'd for 70 years to return to earth and reclaim their Reich! The movie pokes fun at politics and culture. America's president is a Sarah Palin type character with stuffed wild critter's and exercise equipment in the oval office. It's all a complete farce, but well visualized with top notch cgi. For a B movie, about as good as it get's.
Quick digression - You're really lucky to have good internet. Because as you've said, "Never has there been such a choice a viewer can make for so little investment, if they have fast enough internet." You do need fast and reliable internet for video streaming. I initially resisted all real-time streaming technologies, e.g. VoIP (voice) and video over IP. Because the whole IP protocol is designed to be fault tolerant in a way that precludes real-time signals. The packets can (and will) arrive out of order. They may not ever be lost, but if they're sufficiently delayed, then they are "lost" in the real-time stream because the feed has passed the point in time that the delayed packet was needed. That's why buffering is so important for a video feed. It delays everything long enough to (hopefully) wait for long-lost packets. Since the video feed isn't really real-time, it can be delayed and treated as though it were a download. That plus fast internet is a requirement for video streaming. Live audio and video feeds are still plagued with the lost packets problem. But streaming content is a hybrid approach that isn't really live, more like a download. Still, streaming services need good internet to prevent choppy playback, broken with those annoying "buffering" messages. - Sorry to digress. Now back to Buster Scruggs and other neat things to watch on Netflix.
Thanks for the digression. I never knew the technical implications for what VoIP can present, but what I've encountered with my phone service. Strictly to save money and keep a semblance of a LAN line. I get delays and clicking, but it's as cheap as you can get. My internet is at a minimum for what the requirement is for streaming. No problems so far. But like I say. NO FEE's! Yet that is. As a thrifty consumer I'm living fairly large with what I have.