| Author |
Message |
Willwillbee
Member
09-19-2001
| Sunday, October 22, 2017 - 3:28 am 
I don't think I've ever paid for cable, I'm much too cheap for that or was too busy for TV when I had a real life. In the past few years, I haven't lived alone (or had a real life) & enjoyed watching (others) cable TV.
My current housemate got into financial difficulty at the same moment when the cable company's first year "discounted rate" was up. The cable company wanted to go from $130 to $180 for ISP/TV but even continuing the $130 wasn't really an option for the next year.
I convinced her to try to give up cable - she could go back to another year at the discounted rate *after* 30 days, if she didn't like the other options.
She absolutely insisted on having her team's baseball games - from spring training to the World Series, which is 9 months a year.
So I bought new indoor TV antennas - one expensive & 2 cheap (& I can't tell the difference in picture quality between them) & researched how to watch her team.
We've been so pleased with how well the little paper thin indoor antennas have provided local broadcast channels. I even use one in the basement with no noticeable difference. These are a far cry from the rabbit ear types I tried decades ago.
I found out you can (legally) stream cable like channels over the internet with services like Sling, Playstation Vue, DirecTV Now, Hulu Live, Fubo & You Tube TV. All have access to the regional sports networks in one of their options.
The great thing about these services are they are contract free & all have a free trial. Pricing starts as low as $20 a month with Sling Orange but for my purposes with needing the regional sports network, the lowest was $25 but DVR service was an extra $5 & extra stations that I wanted were an extra $10. Adding ESPN would have been an extra $15, which she decided against.
All that is required is a streaming device (to watch on a regular TV), which can be purchased for $30 & up. Luckily, many of the streaming services offer free devices with prepayment of 2-4 months.
The first streaming service we signed up for was DirecTV Now at $50 a month because they offered a higher end streaming device free with 2 months service. I don't watch a lot on a regular TV, but this service was insufferable - with freezing & buffering & errors. They offered half price for a month if we came back & we said NOOOOOOOO! My housemate said she didn't even want it for free.
In theory, DTV Now would be my preferred option - they have ALL the channels we both wanted at a fair price of $50 but it was too frustrating to try to watch & they still don't have DVR service yet.
We tried Playstation Vue (which is supposed to have the best picture quality) with their 5 day free trial & Sling & couldn't really see a difference BUT since we have a data cap & only 10mbps ISP, we have all TV's set on medium quality instead of full HD. Luckily neither of those streaming services had the problems of DTV Now.
Now that baseball season is almost over. We plan on just having Hulu & Netflix for $24 a month. We could get Hulu for a year at $6 a month but they play the same commercial over & over - it's like water torture, so we spend $12 a month for the commercial free version.
We've cut our bill in half of the cable companies "special introductory pricing".
Got to admit, it's not as easy as cable, but it's not that hard either. To me, paying over a $100 a month for TV is nuts. My housemate is very resistant to change but she's figuring it out.
There are free & very low price options (like Hulu & Netflix)
Years ago, I watched free Hulu & it was wonderful, next day episodes of almost anything I wanted to see. Now it's just ABC, NBC, Fox & (I think) the CW providing next day episodes. Not worth it to me.
Here's a good guide if anyone is interested.
http://www.cordcuttersnews.com/cord-cutting-101-beginners-guide-cord-cutting-2017-edition/
& here's a great site that helps choose which service fits your needs allowing you to mark "must have" channels & "would like" channels.
https://www.suppose.tv
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Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Sunday, October 22, 2017 - 4:37 am
Thanks for the info. My sister is trying to find a cheap alternative for tv in the garage. She got Sling last week to try, but she is probably going to cancel it. It keeps going out and there's lots of buffering. We thought it might be our internet or modem, but looking online, it seems lots and lots of people have the same problems all over the country. On one site, in the comments section, someone posted that they think the cable companies (who control the internet services) are probably slowing down their service until Sling pays them money to stream their service. The person said they did that to Hulu and Netflix and they ended up paying them to get good service.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Sunday, October 22, 2017 - 5:46 am
More info in TV Clubhouse about TV watching here.
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Willwillbee
Member
09-19-2001
| Saturday, November 04, 2017 - 6:05 am
Grooch - we only have a 10mbps ISP & have 3 people streaming at the same time, so had to lower the streaming quality. We had no problem with Sling, Playstation Vue, Hulu or Netflix. DirecTV Now was a problem but it wasn't just us.
HD streaming can take 5-12mbps - medium quality is about 3mbps & standard def is about 1mbps. With us only having a total of 10mbps that only allowed 3mpbs each. I did a test on Charter which I thought was supposed to be 100mbps & we only got 20mbps.
I would suggest changing the setting on Sling & Netflix & all you can to Medium quality or standard definition if the problem persists. I would also suggest changing the bandwidth of each Roku device using the "secret" code to access the Bit Rate Menu & change each one so they aren't competing over bandwidth.
5x HOME
3x Rewind button
2x Fast Forward button
http://bgr.com/2016/06/01/roku-secret-menus-how-to-access/
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Cass_cat
Member
05-09-2011
| Monday, November 04, 2019 - 12:25 pm
There's been a discussion in Cancellation/Renewals regarding this subject.
I'm hoping to resurrect this thread.
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Eroica
Member
07-28-2005
| Monday, November 04, 2019 - 12:45 pm
Cass,sure hope someone can give us guidance. Just got my bill today and it jumped to $200. I have internet, phone and tv. No premium channels or dvr. This is nuts.
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Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Monday, November 04, 2019 - 12:46 pm
The problem with cutting cable is you either have to steal stuff (to put it bluntly) or you end up paying a lot of small fees to a variety of sources.
Though some networks in Canada are offering shows over the internet that are funded by commercials as opposed to a monthly subscription.
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Sunnyday
Member
08-07-2014
| Monday, November 04, 2019 - 2:30 pm
Hulua is reasonable priced. I have Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix and Britbox. Combined they are still alot cheaper than cable. If you're a sports fan you're out oh luck with these stations. I use rabbit ears for the NCAA tournament, it's the only sports I watch.
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Sunnyday
Member
08-07-2014
| Monday, November 04, 2019 - 2:33 pm
I use Roku, they offer plenty of free channels. Roku doesn't cost anything.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Monday, November 04, 2019 - 5:30 pm
Jimmer, exactly. "...you end up paying a lot of small fees to a variety of sources."
Lately I have heard and read about wars going on among streaming services. They're competing for viewers. I currently have Amazon Prime, Netflix, CBS All Access, Hulu commercial free, Showtime, HBO Now, and Acorn. I'm not going to renew Acorn. Going to sign up for Chicago's PBS station WTTW's Passport streaming service instead.
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Jimmer
Board Administrator
08-29-2000
| Monday, November 04, 2019 - 6:50 pm
I agree it’s a tough call. It’s all expensive but I do enjoy TV and while we go out occasionally, going out is far more expensive. I’d like to see the price come down a bit more though.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, November 04, 2019 - 11:18 pm
I pay a lot, but do get cable, lots of non basic channels, HBO, SHOWTIME, TMC, landline with NoMoRoBo, Wi-Fi for computer, multiple tablets, even cell phone.. And streaming.
So that is a lot of entertainment.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Tuesday, November 05, 2019 - 5:21 am
Sea, is it a true land line or VOIP?
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Roxip
Member
01-29-2004
| Tuesday, November 05, 2019 - 7:54 am
Apparently I now have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu and DirectTV, although I only use DirectTV for TV viewing (my daughter in college uses the others). Sooner or later I will have to make decisions about what to keep (Amazon Prime is just a bonus of my Amazon shopping addiction so that's probably not going anywhere) but I'm so TV addicted that it will be hard.
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Tuesday, November 05, 2019 - 8:45 am
Sunnyday, Amazon sent me a Roku device by mistake, and when I called them, they said to just keep it, but I have no idea what to do with it.
Can you give me a brief primer? 
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Sunnyday
Member
08-07-2014
| Tuesday, November 05, 2019 - 9:28 am
Go on line and type in roku hookup, you will get step by step instrutions. Mine is one of the older models so the screen may been different than yours. On mine a screen will come up, home takes you to the shows you have picked, settings is where you put Internet connection in. When you are set up go to screening channels. They have a list of offerings by categories, top, tv, movies free, etc. Click on what you want and add it. If you still have cable there are even more options but if you're like me and have cut your table there are still many channels available.
If you have a specific question I will try to answer it for you. I really enjoy mine.
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Tuesday, November 05, 2019 - 11:17 pm
It is probably a VOIP, though it seems ok being called a landline.
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Mack
Member
07-22-2002
| Wednesday, November 06, 2019 - 4:58 am
We now have this “massive bundle” and I quite frankly don’t probably want to know what it cost. Our house phone (VOIP) and Internet, our television (DirecTV satellite), and cell phones are all through AT&T. We save some money that way but it’s not cheap. About the only thing we could get rid of is the satellite and I suppose we could go with a less expensive cell plan but not happening.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Wednesday, November 06, 2019 - 6:54 am
NoMoRoBo does not work on a true land line. I can't turn off the robo, etc. calls so I'm stuck with them. But I don't want VOIP.
Got a "Windows" call at 7:10 a.m. GRRRRRRRRRRR
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-30-2000
| Wednesday, November 06, 2019 - 9:10 am
NoMoRoBo doesn't always work with Comcast/Xfinity either. It's a pain in the ass to get them to fix it.
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Wowprincess
Member
09-04-2006
| Thursday, November 07, 2019 - 10:52 am
I just renewed my Xfinity contract when I moved last month into a new house. I'm paying $215 for TV, plus HBO & Showtime, landline, 1Gig Internet and Monitored Home Security.
Considering I know the price/cost of what Home Monitoring costs through ADT, I actually don't think what I'm paying as a bundle is horrible.
The nickel/diming of all the streaming is getting old. There needs to be some consolidation I think.
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Cass_cat
Member
05-09-2011
| Thursday, November 07, 2019 - 11:41 am
That is not a bad price.
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Teachmichigan
Member
07-22-2001
| Saturday, November 09, 2019 - 5:45 pm
We tried both Sling and Hulu for the one week free trial thinking we might get rid of our DirecTV. Neither of us liked Hulu's DVR service compared to Tivo. Sling had weird packaging so we liked that even less (and no locals, and our rural location near the lake means we get nothing on an antenna).
However, DH called, DirecTV, said we were cancelling because of their high rates, got booted to a manager, and then got us a reduced rate for the next 12 months and free NFL Sunday Ticket.
DAMN good thing we did as Frontier came out to fix our slow Internet and broke it completely. Took them FOUR weeks to get another tech out to fix it. We'd have had NO TV had we made the switch! We have a FireStick, Amazon Prime, and Netflix and figure it's more than enough. I only subscribe to the Acorn channel ATM, but we'll get Starz via Amazon when Outlander starts back up.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-24-2003
| Saturday, November 09, 2019 - 10:22 pm
Teach, another TiVo house?! I've had TiVo since May '04. It's the best DVR. Never tried any other. Don't need to.
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Grooch
Member
06-16-2006
| Monday, September 19, 2022 - 8:07 am
This cutting the cord thing is getting expensive!
Now, if I want to watch old seasons of Vanderpump Rules (which until yesterday was free on Hulu) I now need to upgrade to Hulu free tv which is bundled to Disney and ESPN (neither of which I will ever watch) and it costs $70 A month!
I wonder what else I won't be able to watch anymore on Hulu.
And all these other services are bundling up and forcing you to pay more. Whatever happened to ala carte and choice?
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