We have one because some friends gave it to us. We just hook it up to the internet and the tv. It has all sorts of "channels" you choose and then can scroll through. Netflix, Amazon "Watch Now" or Prime, Pandora, tons of different movie channels, radio channels, etc. Some things are free and some things cost money. I listen to my Pandora radio on the tv while doing housework. I order movies to buy and rent off Amazon and watch them through the Roku. If you have netflix streaming, you can watch anything from there, etc. My sister just bought a Blu-Ray that does the same thing and she loves it. There are many options of getting internet over your tv, this is just one way. A lot of new tvs have it built in now also.

That's what I was seeing when looking around the internet, no "standard" live shows. I also figured that was what you were using the antennae for? And how I'd use it. I think, I only want my local stations live for weather, news, etc., with the rest watching later.

I have the basic Roku.. have had it for (probably close to 10?) years and it works fine. That said, when I replace my tv one of these days, I'll update my streaming device also. I prefer Roku to apple tv and amazon fire because it will also stream Acorn.tv and Spotify. Yes, you will need to have a streaming device on each tv. I don't know that you need the super processing power of the ultra for old classic movies which aren't in high definition. I would think you'd be fine with a premier even the model below that. I am not an expert on these things though. I just know that my original Roku is running fine. I am surprised that you found a 4k tv that isn't a smart tv with either Roku or some other proprietary streaming software installed.

Hi Guys - so being the owner of a Home Automation/Low Voltage company just like the companies with attached quotes, a few comments that you can decide what you want to do with. (1) These quotes seem reasonable for what you are asking for (2) AV quotes will vary a lot depending on what is included and what is not. Pre-wire/trimout prices should be pretty similar unless someone is using a thicker gauge wire or not estimating the wire run lengths correctly (3) Equipment will vary the bid significantly. Distributed audio speakers (those not in a theater) don't have to be that nice as mentioned above however you can also go too crappy on your speakers as well and have some pretty significant buyers remorse afterwords. In-wall/in-ceiling speakers vary slightly in size across manufacturers so drywall repair costs need to be factored in as well if you go too cheap. Generally speaking we tell our clients to go with a speaker brand that has the same size speaker at a bunch of different price points with different performance and build characteristics. In so doing, you can chose the speaker that fits your budget with minimal to no cost to swap out. The most significant cost which you haven't covered yet is the amps and other head-end equipment that drives all these systems. (4) Security systems can be done cheaply or they can be done correctly. Personally we prefer to allocate a zone on the alarm panel per opening. In so doing, this makes trouble-shooting any zone issues easier for the client to do on their own and faster for the security tech to resolve. This means every opening is home run back to the security panel which does mean more wire. We could also daisy chain one wire to 4-6 openings in a room or area which would be much cheaper and less wire. However, when its time to trouble-shoot, it becomes much more of a headache as you have go through 4-6 openings to resolved instead of one (5) Wired Pro surveillance systems will have local storage rather than cloud based storage. As such, they will be in need of a hard drive, similar to a computer. As you might guess. the bigger the hard drive the more the cost. However, what is also true is that the bigger the hard driver the more history of camera footage you can save. Additionally, you can also save higher resolution footage on a larger hard drive. Cameras have an Mp rating on them most typically and the higher the Mp rating the more resolution you are capturing in camera image. As you might guess the higher the Mp rating the more they cost-- sometimes $400-500 per camera or more. More resolution means more detail and allows police/detectors and other to zoom in on any potential bad guys and get license plate numbers, facial details etc. With lower Mp cameras, they are cheaper but then a lot of this detail is lost. (6) Whole house Wifi is good to have and plan for but not to rely on for the reasons mentioned above (aka not secure and throttling your bandwidth compared to a wired connection). Up until the latest round of Wireless Access points, the more wireless devices you add to your home, the more they have to share a single 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz radio connection and the slower they will all go. It is only with the latest release of WAPs that feature 4x4 MU MIMO tech that you can truly experience lots of wirelessly connected devices connected to your network without throttling bandwidth. However this assumes that your devices are setup to connect in a MU MIMO configuration (any device older than a year likely is not). If these devices are not MU MIMO capable, then you will still run into the same throttling issue. Generally speaker we tell our clients that any device that permanently sits in the home should have wired connection to it with only portable devices and enter and leave the home being wireless. (7) If you are truly lost on how to compare bids and make an "apples to apples" comparison, hire one of the AV companies that seems the most trustworthy to you and have them design the system for you. Then have all 3 companies bid against that design. For large residential and commercial projects, this is typical, at least for us it is. (8) AV companies are selling expertise and design in addition to gear and wire. As such they are typically not going to break everything down in infinite detail so you can buy all your stuff online and then have them come back and install it. Most of the time, the expertise and design labor is built into each system of the project so they are not going to want to give that away for free any more than a lawyer or accountant would want to give away their expertise for free. I would be upfront about it and just ask them to line item how much their design/expertise labor is and what that includes. For example, does it include taking that pool contractor the last 6ft in terms of connecting his Jandy iqualink system to the internet when he can't do it on his own? Does it include wiring up your Nest Thermostat because the HVAC guy won't use anything Thermostat but he one he knows? What about a reconfiguring your Home Theater wiring as you decided to get rid of that cabinetry where the equipment was going? Or the electrician who doesn't know how to wire up the smart-switch you purchased-- who will install it now? In a nutshell, there will be quite a few things where a Home Automation/Low Voltage contracting companies expertise will be useful and worth the money paid for it. Hopefully you find this helpful.