Does anyone here have or use an internet TV box? We are thinking of getting one and want to get a few opinions on them. Our current TV/phone/net costs about £70 a month but if we buy an internet box we can scrap that and spend maybe £20 on just phone/internet a month xx
I don't have one, but I am aware of them and there are just a couple of things to consider before purchasing:
* Streaming content over the internet (especially in HD) will use up a lot of bandwidth, so you are going to want to make sure you have a contract with unlimited bandwidth.
* If you are thinking of replacing something like Sky/Virgin Media etc with a internet set top box, unless it has freeview in it, you need to be aware if your phone/internet goes down, you will also lose the service to your box.
* Also, dependent on your area, you may experience poor streaming speeds during those peak times when internet usage is at it's highest (usually in the evenings).
I use an Apple TV - I have a massive collection of movies and TV shows on my Mac which I can access from any TV in the house. I have access to Netflix and all the On Demand catch up services (iPlayer etc) I can stream direct from my device to the TV. I rarely watch Sky anymore and I would save £50 a month if I dropped it. However, until I get fibre broadband rolled out in my area, my 3mb connection isn't cutting it at the moment :(
Depends on your broadband speed really - as David says, anything under 5MB isn't worth it.
We have Freesat, which I find covers most of our needs - you get most of the Freeview channels (although not some of my favourites, like Dave), and with the internet connection you also get iPlayer, ITVPlayer (unless youi're in Scotland), 4oD, Demand5 and even YouTube. I can also stream downloaded stuff from the computer (i.e. porn!) and use it as a music centre too. Not bad for a subscription-free service! Obviously you need a satellite dish as well as the internet, mind... 
It would be nice to have some pay-as-you-go stuff like NetFlix on it, and there is talk of that happening as they're still developing the service.
It's fine for us as we don't watch a great deal of TV and are not sports addicts, and for a one-off purchase and install cost it's hard to beat. If you want a lot of sports you could look at the BT YouView deals with BT sport?
We have a mixture of things.
- A TV that is Internet connected with iPlayer, YouTube, Sony's movie app, streaming for all the media in the house
- A Freeview recorder which also has iPlayer etc
- An XBox which also has all the above, but also has Netflix
I would try to get a look at the different options because some things are much better than others. We use Netflix a lot and the catchup services a lot, but some things we watch through the TV and some things through the XBox.
As has been said, the main thing is bandwidth. Check with BT because they didn't tell us that our exchange had been upgraded, but I checked, we had, and two weeks later we're on 74 MbPS
I have a Roku box in the bedroom which is great for Netflix. It also has iplayer, demand 5 and as of yesterday, 4od.
It also has access to some porn channels which is great for the bedroom.