SoCalPatrick
Member
I'm sure everyone has found a little cubbyhole somewhere.
| TV/MOVIES/MUSIC I only have cable in the fall. So, what's some good FREE options for watching movies and TV series?
- Thread starter SoCalPatrick
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SoCalPatrick
Member
I might pick up Amazon Prime. Reviews?
PurlJam
Member
If you get Amazon Prime, I suggest Yellowstone. I have it, IMO it's worth it. Halo is also better than I thought it would be, and there's Better Call Saul and quite a few other good ones, if you've never seen them.
rocknthefreeworld
Member
I have about everything. For most you can go to their site to see what is showing.
Prime has some good stuff, but it is FULL of garbage. Tons of it. And they have a bad habit of showing you stuff in their list that is not free mixed in with stuff that is.
HBO Max has TONS of good stuff from new to old. It includes no live channels so take that into consideration. It also ignores a lot of prior HBO content that they don't feel fits their image anymore.
Paramount+ is very similar and is a must if you like CBS shows or Star Trek (also the Yellowstone prequel 1883 is only on there going forward). They do include your local CBS, CBS News, and a bunch of other "live" channels. They are mostly preprogrammed things like a channel just for SpongeBob ot one for Classic TV (showing The Love Boat right now).
I watch more Peacock than the others due to them having SyFy and WWE but they also have a lot of newer movies (The Northman is on there right for example). They also have a live selection of channels but oddly not your local NBC. It is all preprogrammed stuff like WWE, random movies, true crime, etc with a few news headline channels thrown in.
Hulu and Netflix have fallen by the wayside for me, I rarely watch them. But I do catch a lot of Disney+ for the Star Wars content.
ESPN+ (part of the Disney-Hulu-ESPN+ plus package Verizon gives me) is actually really good. It doesn't necessarily give you the live channels of ESPN/2/U/SEC/etc but it does have a lot of live ESPN3 and ESPN+ stuff as well as replays and back catalogue of a lot of their shows.
Discovery+ is my wife's thing. I occasionally watch it but not much. It has most of Discovery various channels stuff on it, but no live channels and sometimes it is months or longer before stuff shown live becomes available. It will be rolled into HBO Max at some point.
AMC+ is actually garbage. There is so little on it worth watching that I hate I spent what I did, which was like $20 for a year. I will not be resubscribing once my year is up and I would have cancelled if they refunded anything.
Curiosity Stream is absolutely fantastic if you like Documentaries.
BTW. If you are looking for a particular show, go to JustWatch.com and search for it. It will tell you what service has it. And I suggest rotating services if you are only going to have 1 or 2. See what is on and get the ones you like each month or two.
EDIT: Sitting here not reading the FREE part like an idiot. PlutoTV, Roku TV, Stirr, NewsOn, Peacock has a free tier with commercials. Plex, Tubi, Vudu.
Prime has some good stuff, but it is FULL of garbage. Tons of it. And they have a bad habit of showing you stuff in their list that is not free mixed in with stuff that is.
HBO Max has TONS of good stuff from new to old. It includes no live channels so take that into consideration. It also ignores a lot of prior HBO content that they don't feel fits their image anymore.
Paramount+ is very similar and is a must if you like CBS shows or Star Trek (also the Yellowstone prequel 1883 is only on there going forward). They do include your local CBS, CBS News, and a bunch of other "live" channels. They are mostly preprogrammed things like a channel just for SpongeBob ot one for Classic TV (showing The Love Boat right now).
I watch more Peacock than the others due to them having SyFy and WWE but they also have a lot of newer movies (The Northman is on there right for example). They also have a live selection of channels but oddly not your local NBC. It is all preprogrammed stuff like WWE, random movies, true crime, etc with a few news headline channels thrown in.
Hulu and Netflix have fallen by the wayside for me, I rarely watch them. But I do catch a lot of Disney+ for the Star Wars content.
ESPN+ (part of the Disney-Hulu-ESPN+ plus package Verizon gives me) is actually really good. It doesn't necessarily give you the live channels of ESPN/2/U/SEC/etc but it does have a lot of live ESPN3 and ESPN+ stuff as well as replays and back catalogue of a lot of their shows.
Discovery+ is my wife's thing. I occasionally watch it but not much. It has most of Discovery various channels stuff on it, but no live channels and sometimes it is months or longer before stuff shown live becomes available. It will be rolled into HBO Max at some point.
AMC+ is actually garbage. There is so little on it worth watching that I hate I spent what I did, which was like $20 for a year. I will not be resubscribing once my year is up and I would have cancelled if they refunded anything.
Curiosity Stream is absolutely fantastic if you like Documentaries.
BTW. If you are looking for a particular show, go to JustWatch.com and search for it. It will tell you what service has it. And I suggest rotating services if you are only going to have 1 or 2. See what is on and get the ones you like each month or two.
EDIT: Sitting here not reading the FREE part like an idiot. PlutoTV, Roku TV, Stirr, NewsOn, Peacock has a free tier with commercials. Plex, Tubi, Vudu.
Last edited:
Yes the Roku search feature will provide many free programs. It's summer time, who wants to watch a bunch of TV?
Rolltide24
Member
You lost me at “WWE”
TerryP
Staff
I just finished the fourth season of Cardinal on the Roku Channel. Crime/drama genre. (I didn't realize it was based on Giles Blunt's books. I've seen them, seen his name often, but never cracked the spine on one of his books.)
Line of Duty is what I'm in the middle of right now. Roku carried seasons one through four but went premium with season five and six.
This is a great point; true, to an extent. JustWatch points to services but aren't they all premium? I don't recall seeing DailyMotion listed when I started looking at other options for Line of Duty.
"Line of Duty > season five > episode one > daily motion" is how I pulled that up to continue. Ads are a bitch but I'm more of an active listener, 'corner of my eye' viewer on TV series.
Just to see what happened ...
yellowstone > season one > episode one > daily motion
rocknthefreeworld
Member
That stuff is great background noise while I do other stuff on my tablet or phone. I couldn't tell you the names of 90% of them and the rest only because they are still around from 20+ years ago. But damn do I love some stupid wrestling.You lost me at “WWE”
rocknthefreeworld
Member
It has some non-paid options but I believe it relies on the streaming companies to connect to them. So it has things like PlutoTV, Filmrise, Plex, etc but it has more premium ones.
ReelGood is another like them, but suffers the same issue in that providers have to add themselves to the service through APIs.
XXL TideFan
Member
I have what seems like a zillion choices for free with the apps built in on the tv. Vudu links (if you want) with your Walmart account to purchase movies.
TerryP
Staff
I'd forgotten about them until stumbling across a link earlier this week: Hoopla.
Years ago I used to use the local library to check out movies: a lot of full TV series allowing patrons to "binge" before "binging TV" was a thing.
I have no clue how much Hoopla offers. I'd look, but I also have no clue where my library card is stashed.
Years ago I used to use the local library to check out movies: a lot of full TV series allowing patrons to "binge" before "binging TV" was a thing.
I have no clue how much Hoopla offers. I'd look, but I also have no clue where my library card is stashed.
rocknthefreeworld
Member
Check if your library does virtual cards online. Some systems now offer that. You can't check out books at the actual library, but you can check out eBooks and use Hoopla.
TerryP
Staff
Ha! That's one of the things that caught my attention with C-19. After they closed the local branches they started issuing e-cards...until.
Last September was the deadline to turn in e-cards for a "real" card. They'd gladly exchange those cards ... if you went to specific branches none of which are convenient for anyone.
rocknthefreeworld
Member
For a public library, they sure are trying to keep people from using them. Makes me wonder if an Aubie runs it and all the books are colored in already.
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