| Author |
Message |
Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Sunday, August 10, 2025 - 12:55 pm 
ok, I am pretty sure I figured out how to save $90 and still be happy. Let's see.
I got a used Tivo Bolt Vox with 2 room extenders. I'll start with the Tivo subscription.
I can record my locals over the air with Tivo.
$12.50 Tivo (annual cost split monthly)
$55.00 xFinity cable for 5 years
$18.99 Hulu no ads
$17.99 Netflix no ads
$16.99 HBO MAX Prime add-on (Includes TRVL and DSC and more)
$12.99 Paramount+ Prime add-on (Includes Showtime and more)
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$134.46 Total.
I don't count my Amazon Prime because I signed up for free shipping and didn't know they had video.
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Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Sunday, October 05, 2025 - 10:11 am
Looks like Hulu will be a stand alone app only until the end of the year. Then, if you want to watch any of its shows, you'll have to spring for Disney.
I better start binging now!
Disney officially shuts down Hulu after 20 years
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Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Monday, October 06, 2025 - 1:30 pm
Naja, I saw your post yesterday when I made my post.
Today, I was looking into getting a tivo so I can get an antenna to watch my CBS shows for free, and I saw this! It was posted just a little while ago. Strange timing. <insert eeiry music>
TiVo Confirms It Has Stopped Making DVRs, Marking the End of an Era
So, now I'm looking into a Tablo.
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Wednesday, October 22, 2025 - 8:53 am
awwww 
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Thursday, December 04, 2025 - 10:43 am
So we’re back into reducing our combined internet, tv, and home phone costs. Right now we have a total AT&T bundle, even our cell phones are AT&T though not part of our home bundle. Should add that we really aren’t talking about “cutting the cable” but reducing our costs and improving our internet. I actually was shocked when my wife told me our home bundle cost us $400 per month and I already knew our internet was limited to a pitiful 50 Mbps.
Long story short is we are seriously considering Spectrum for our home bundle. They are really our only other choice since there is no other provider in our community. Total cost for Internet (1 Gbps), basically the same multichannel TV package, and home phone would be $200 per month. Sounds like a no brainer but after being with DirecTV since 1998 it actually is hard to give up that familiarity. Obviously we can learn a new interface but at the same time it’s not an exciting aspect of the change. I’ve read several reviews and a number say getting used to Spectrum’s interface took some time and maybe isn’t as user friendly as DirecTV’s. The counter is cutting our costs as Mrs Mack approaches retirement early next year.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-26-2000
| Thursday, December 04, 2025 - 7:33 pm
We only kept our DirectTV a couple months before we got rid of it more than 10 years ago. I can't remember what we hated about it, but we really did hate it.
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Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Thursday, December 04, 2025 - 9:32 pm
Mack, maybe, when you call to cancel your direct tv, they will give you a really great deal to keep them.
It seems to happen a lot when people decide to cancel their service with these companies.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Friday, December 05, 2025 - 4:51 am
I did call DirecTV and spoke to what they call their loyalty department. The agent was actually very nice but there wasn’t much he could do for us. DirecTV is now pushing their streaming service but he checked and our AT&T provided internet is below their recommended bandwidth and AT&T has no plans to bring fiber to our area. Basically Google has invested so much in the area that AT&T doesn’t want to compete with them locally. Google on the other hand has no immediate plans to install fiber in our part of the county focusing more on the San Antonio city limits. Shame is Google laid fiber within a block of our community to reach a community that is in the city limits but won’t for now bring it in to our community. Pretty much means Spectrum’s hybrid fiber/copper service is the only available option. Mrs Mack and I talked last night and I’m calling Spectrum today.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Saturday, December 06, 2025 - 1:09 pm
Well we did it and signed up for Spectrum. After 25 years with DirecTV I will be closing that account once the Spectrum TV is up and running. Cut our bill in half and hopefully improved our Internet and lost nothing from our TV. They install Monday afternoon.
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Juju2bigdog
Member
10-26-2000
| Saturday, December 06, 2025 - 7:45 pm
Congrats, Mack.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-06-2000
| Saturday, December 06, 2025 - 11:33 pm
I cancelled my Spectrum setup at my rental room. Recently reactivated my Spectrum setup at home.. They put me on vacation status COVID a year!
I have cable, internet, wifi landline and cell phone with them.
I had decided to give up the landline and the guy at the Spectrum store said but you have had that number for so long.. you could switch that to a cell phone. I don't need two cell phones. He said you could put thst number on a flip phone for $2.00 a month (landline was $25 a month). I didn't jump on that so he said he could lower my monthly bill by $100 a month for a year so I took that. I haven't had time to set up the flip phone.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Sunday, December 07, 2025 - 4:49 am
We moved our home phone number from AT&T to Spectrum. We’ve had that number for 22+ years and we have a lot of accounts that use that number as the primary number and it would be a chore to contact all of them. Plus, for at least the next 90 days, Mrs Mack’s work uses that number for things like emergency notifications, etc. With Spectrum they wrapped it up in our bundle so not sure of the cost but they advertise it as $10/month.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Monday, December 08, 2025 - 11:59 am
Well the Spectrum cable install has been put on hold. The cable drop is in my neighbor’s yard and I wouldn’t let them carve up my neighbor’s yard without talking to him.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Monday, December 08, 2025 - 2:10 pm
Well Change 2. My neighbor said it was OK and the installer was still here waiting for them to send him to another job. He got his stuff back out and we now have Spectrum. OMG is it fast!
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Wednesday, December 10, 2025 - 7:29 am
Spectrum cable all buried in the yard and we’re up and running. I’m redoing the wi-fi distribution system in the house to take advantage of the faster Internet speeds. Will take a few days to get all the audio visual equipment reset to the new router and password. Also have to work in the office to reset computers and printers. It’s amazing how much of our equipment is linked to the Internet. You buy them one at a time so at least I never thought about the total number. Should keep me out of trouble for a few days.
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Wednesday, December 10, 2025 - 8:10 am
I am counting the days when I can drop Xfinity! 19 days.
I have decided to go with YoutubeTV and Google Fiber. One thing holding me back was that I only have one smart TV in the living room, and the rest are regular. So I bought this little ROKU device.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BKCDXZC
I'll sign up for YoutubeTV shortly before I move to get all my season passes in place before I get rid of Xfinity. Otherwise I won't remember them. If the device works well, I'll get another one of those ROKU things for the third TV. One nice thing is that if I start renting out a room again, it will be easy to add streaming TV to their bedroom.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Wednesday, December 10, 2025 - 8:53 am
I have two smart TVs and two not so smart TVs. Spectrum gave me two XUMO boxes for the two not so smart TVs. XUMO is pretty much the same as ROKU. I haven’t set them up yet as I want to get the new Internet fully up and running. We have a pretty big house so I have to get the extenders up and running first. I’m actually still running my AT&T Internet parallel to the Spectrum until I can transfer all our devices over to Spectrum.
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Thursday, December 11, 2025 - 11:20 am
I signed up for YouTube TV last night and all the stuff online said you get one week trial, but when I signed up I got 3 weeks free trial. So I have 3 weeks to test it out.
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Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Thursday, December 11, 2025 - 11:53 am
I’ll be very interested in hearing what you think about it.
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Bbpeach
Member
07-06-2005
| Thursday, December 11, 2025 - 12:35 pm
I’ve had YoutubeTV for a couple of years now. It took a little adjustment but I’ve had no problems with it (with the exception of the recent dispute with Disney where none of those channels were available for two weeks). Things that I like is it orders the channels you use the most at the top of your guide ie. the most viewed channel is at the top of the guide, then next viewed, etc. You don’t have to set up a favorites list or anything. Also, you can search for shows that aren’t on currently and still add it it your watch list and whenever it is set to air it will record. For instance I’ve been in an old movies mood, searched for them but they weren’t showing then, but a month or so later they show up. A somewhat minus, is that since you are choosing shows rather than show and time, it will show old episodes in your scheduled recordings. They don’t show up in newly recorded items, just in the schedule so only the new episodes show up in newly recorded. For instance, old Chicago Fire episodes are shown on TNT, so they will show on the schedule but only the one on Wednesday night on NBC will show up on newly recorded. So depending on whether you look at your schedule, might trip you up.
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Friday, December 12, 2025 - 3:59 am
Bb, is there any way to make the library items record reruns as well as the new shows?
And how do you get to a channel quickly when it isn't there with your most used channels yet? For that matter, how to you get to the tv listings quickly? I feel like I have to keep searching around.
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Bbpeach
Member
07-06-2005
| Friday, December 12, 2025 - 9:13 am
It records all the shows, new or rerun. How you access them is different. Using Chicago Fire for example, go to the library and if it’s a new episode it will show up in the New for You tab. If you’re looking for older episodes go to the Shows tab in the library and browse episodes. Above the episodes it shows the different seasons available. Pick one and it will show all those episodes.
Getting to the guide is different depending on your tv/remote. I’m using a fire stick so I hit the “return” button. It should take you to the main screen where it has “Library. Home. Live” at the top. Go to live and it should bring up the guide. You can change the order of the guide but clicking on the 3 lines in the left corner of the guide. That will give you the option of default, custom, most watched, A-Z, or Z-A. I’ve never set up a custom lineup, but I assume it’s like the favorites setup I had with cable.
Admittedly, I don’t do a lot of exploring on how to do things faster/better. In my younger days I was better about it, but now I’m just like if I find a way it works I’m good lol. Scrolling is probably the thing that bugs me most. No fast way to go a day ahead or page up/down, but again that may be more the limitations of the fire stick remote. Anyway, hope this helps you at least.
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Friday, December 12, 2025 - 11:57 am
Thanks! I'll practice on it more tonight.
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Saturday, December 13, 2025 - 5:30 am
Things went much smoother last night with YoutubeTV. I don't know if it's the little ROKU device itself, or the design of the YoutubeTV app, but FF and RW are so smooth and quick and remote response time is instant. With my Xfinity boxes, you can sometimes wait 5 or 6 seconds for the highlight or scroll to move on the screen, or for the reaction of clicking on something when using the built in apps. It's torture.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Saturday, December 13, 2025 - 8:08 am
Learning the new Spectrum TV app. Way different than DirecTV and a bit of a learning curve after 27 years. I can’t say I like it as well but it will work just going to take some time to get used to it. Mrs Mack was on her way home from Washington, DC so I had pretty much all afternoon and early evening to learn my way around the app. Internet speed is incredible like 1.1Gbps versus 50Mbps from AT&T.
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Sunday, December 14, 2025 - 8:39 am
Bbpeach, I don't see a way to extend recordings. So I have the Chiefs games set to record every week, but will it record the whole game if they go over?
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Bbpeach
Member
07-06-2005
| Sunday, December 14, 2025 - 9:27 am
I don’t know. I’ve never recorded sports so I don’t even know how you record a specific team playing. I assume it is different programs all the time?
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Naja
Member
06-28-2003
| Sunday, December 14, 2025 - 9:43 am
Yes, I can record a specific team just fine. But games never end on time. There doesn't seem to be a way to extend the recording. Like on my Xfinity box, I choose to record the games with an extra 90 minutes. But I don't seem to have the choice to extend the recordings for youtubetv. I'll see what happens when it records the Chiefs game today.
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Bbpeach
Member
07-06-2005
| Sunday, December 14, 2025 - 9:43 am
Out of curiosity I googled that question and it says that for major things like nfl games it will cover the extra length. It is “smart enough” to adjust the length. For more minor live events it may not. So I guess it should give you the whole game!
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Sunday, December 14, 2025 - 9:48 am
There are times when I just also choose to record the program that is on right after the program that I'm recording, since I can't figure out any other way to be sure.
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Bbpeach
Member
07-06-2005
| Sunday, December 14, 2025 - 10:41 am
I think the biggest difference in both mindset and technology is how it handles recordings. Cable, at least when I had it, was much more set on recording a program on channel XYZ at 12:00 until 3:00. If it started/ended late, too bad. It started at 12:00 and ended at 3:00 no matter what. Whereas YouTubeTV focuses on the program wherever/whenever it airs. I know I wondered about that during Big Brother when things were running late, but I don’t remember it being a problem. Of course being on the west coast it doesn’t happen often like on the east coast.
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