Cord cutter

[Oildudeny]

How many here, have cut the cord with tv and gone to streaming?

Wife did almost 3 yrs ago.. streaming costs have gone up substantially especially with livetv package..

Wife is considering going back to cable TV.. I say leave it alone cause we'll have to pay box rental fees.. For me I don't care much for cable, if I want to watch something I find a show on tubi or Plutotv.. I do enjoy having the fox stock channel however I can use the web or yahoo app on the firestick to follow stocks.

 

[blufeb95]

Just be careful when you eye over the advertised rates because if other cable companies are anything like Comcast, they hide $20-30 worth of the cable costs in "Regional Sports" and "Broadcast TV" fees.

 

[JHZR2]

Just be careful when you eye over the advertised rates because if other cable companies are anything like Comcast, they hide $20-30 worth of the cable costs in "Regional Sports" and "Broadcast TV" fees.

Yes, comcast is such a rip like that. Ive never paid for TV, granted I have the benefit of living in the suburbs. But even if not, I would NOT want to pay to watch commercials. That's the line I draw... When I can buy the five or so channels I have interest in, with commercials omitted, for just a few dollars to provide it, I might subscribe to "cable". Until then, no thanks.

Even though Im in the suburbs, I think the channels have dialed back the strength of transmission, or modern TVs are more sensitive. One thing I did do is sign up for Locast. Locast is a repeater, intended to allow people to stream local TV over the web. It does provide a more consistent picture than the OTA broadcast, at least with the antennas that we have. My TV in my walk-up attic gets pretty good far reaching picture, but my living room TV is a bit more iffy because of the direction of the antenna, trees, storms, etc. Locast is the one thing I would pay for.

 

[Lubener]

I went one step further back in 2006, I cut the cord and put a rubbish picked antenna on the roof and never missed it. I can pick up 38 stations. I filter out about a third of them. I have been happy with what I can watch.I can't see paying money to watch commercials or tv in general.

 

[BeerCan]

I went one step further back in 2006, I cut the cord and put a rubbish picked antenna on the roof and never missed it. I can pick up 38 stations. I filter out about a third of them. I have been happy with what I can watch.I can't see paying money to watch commercials or tv in general.

I could be happy like that except for my need to watch hockey.

 

[skyactiv]

I haven't had cable TV for a few years. I get all the local channels with an antenna. Wife subscribes to Peacock to watch The Office.
Peacock has some good movies, too. I watched The Deer Hunter for the first time last week. We also have Apple TV and Amazon prime.

Sports is evil and some guys will do anything to watch it. The networks know it and put a NFL game on Nickolodeon recently as an example.


OTA pay TV is coming folks. ESPN will be an OTA pay channel in the future on ATSC 3.0
The networks will put more and more and more good content on pay to watch networks.

 

[Skippy722]

We ditched DirecTV a few years ago and went strictly streaming and couldn’t be happier. If I’m paying for a service, I don’t want ads, or the ridiculous “sports network” fees from the local channels I can otherwise pick up for free if I had a desire to watch sports.

We also have YouTube Premium, no ads on any device. I watch most of my content on that.

 

[Quattro Pete]

No TV subscription here for the past 2 years, I think. Don't miss it either.

The only streaming service we pay for is Netflix. We also get Prime Video as part of our Amazon Prime membership. Lots of free content out there.

 

[henni]

How many here, have cut the cord with tv and gone to streaming?

Wife did almost 3 yrs ago.. streaming costs have gone up substantially especially with livetv package..

We pay for just Internet and maybe 10 channels on Xfinity that costs us with fees & taxes 67/mo and do not have a TV or any equipment rentals.

All global TV programs have been online, free or Ads, for the last decade. We watch any Canadian/US/European/Asian/Australian TV show within 60 minutes of it having aired (without any advertising) in HD format on any phone, tablet, laptop. If we want to see live news, we can stream via HDMI or wireless connection to one of our large panel LCD's. We have no external subscription of any kind to any service.

We can watch any Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime and dozens more for free without any subscription to same. Same with any network shows like Paramount, Universal, CBS All Access etc...

Similarly, we ported our landline phones for 24 hours to a mobile number at AT&T, paid Google a one-time 40/fee to port number over from AT&T and installed an ObiHAI box to our router and have free calling and faxing in US & Canada without any monthly fees. Any incoming calls are automatically analyzed, text is parsed & filtered and if a legit call, email is generated to multiple addresses with the call data. We can also use our old in-house phonesets to make outgoing calls for free anywhere in US & Canada.

 

[JC1]

I cut the cord last Feb. I don't miss paying $100 a month for cable. I Bought firesticks for all the tvs and since I have prime and finally subscribed to Netflix. I Also have an IPTV service. There are tons of options. I had invest in a mesh network ($150 one time cost) In order to have stronger wifi signals throughout the house. This year I also got a VPN (shark surf) which allows me to have vpn on unlimited devices.

If you search for alternatives on Youtube you'll find a ton of options.

We also ditched the home phone.

 

[alarmguy]

How many here, have cut the cord with tv and gone to streaming?

Wife did almost 3 yrs ago.. streaming costs have gone up substantially especially with livetv package..

Wife is considering going back to cable TV.. I say leave it alone cause we'll have to pay box rental fees.. For me I don't care much for cable, if I want to watch something I find a show on tubi or Plutotv.. I do enjoy having the fox stock channel however I can use the web or yahoo app on the firestick to follow stocks.

Cut the cord to pay TV before most people even knew what it meant 10 years or more ago.
and ...
We just cut the cord to the internet and most people reading this have no idea how or what the heck I am talking about (read on)

Attic antenna distributes all major network stations and their side channels to the 5 or 6 TVs in our home with better quality then any pay TV company can. All together 30 channels through our antenna. On our main TV we have a DVR just like a cable company gives you with a program schedule, records and schedules exactly like ANY pay TV providers box does.

Then with NetFlex, Hulu and Apple TV (in a trial right now but would be $6 more if we keep it) for less then $20 a month streaming through 5 or 6 Roku players in our home gives us way more TV and better programming then we can watch in a lifetime.
On top of that our daughter shares her Amazon Prime password with us for Prime TV and we share our Netflex password with her.

With that said, we all spend money on stuff that is worth it to us. For my wife and I, paying for TV isnt worth it, for others it is. That goes for anything in life, there is no right or wrong. My wife and I are ALWAYS at the cutting edge of technology and we love it. Its why we now have something that I know no one in this forum has yet, but in a couple years many will.

We just cut the pay cable internet service, No more landline internet service which will most likely go the way most landline phones have gone!>
We now have TMobile Home Internet Service through our local cell phone tower. Our Spectrum/Charter service cost 50% more then TMobile @$50 a month actual payment and T mobile speeds are way faster.
I have a complete thread on it in the electronics section of BITOG.

My wife and I watch one or two quality streaming shows or movies in the evening and that's it, plus sometimes just turn on the TV and see what's on locally.

 

[Touring5]

I haven't had cable in 3 years. During the college basketball season I subscribe to a streaming service. I've used Playstation Vue, Hulu live, and YT live. I liked Vue the best, but it's kaput. YT live is good, but I'm not comfortable giving money to any company that promotes censorship. For some reason I had quality issues with Hulu.

I watch some of the "oldies" channels OTA, but not a lot. I've watched NFL games and truthfully, seeing the promo commercials for network shows I don't know why anyone would watch such garbage.

Streaming was cool when new, but like always the mega-companies get involved, kill competition and ruin it.

 

[Oildudeny]

I can only get Cablevision optimum/Altice.. has something to do with the cables on the poles and township garbage.. I can get fios internet and if I were really hard up satellite TV which I looked into their crazy pricing scheme.

 

[double vanos]

Internet only here with a TV that has apps loaded into it. Quite frankly the Pluto and YouTube apps cover nearly 100% of my viewing. Also have digital antenna but only for 1 hour of local news a day. Stick a fork in cable, it done around here....

 

[BAJA_05]

Been done did that 4 years ago. Bought an RCA Yogi antenna -- cut an aluminum 8 ft. 1 inch round pipe at work -- used existing DirecTV mounting bracket. Get 49 local channels with that antenna and have 100 mbps. of streaming service. Saved multiple thousands of dollars already!!!

 

[ls973800]

Just 3 weeks ago I heard about a streaming service which provides several hundred channels. They include local and national. There are 56 channels which can be recorded and older shows less than 7 days replayed. The service for $39.99 does not include the recording or "lookback" but the $49.99 service does. Both packages also include Showtime, HBO, Encore, and numerous other movie channels.

I signed up and have been using the service since then. They allow a 2 day free trial with no credit card needed for the trial. They are a bit "wonky" in some of their layout and ways to do things. However, for $49.99 a month they are well worth if for my wife and I. Just need internet service to use it. You can watch on a TV, phone, computer, etc. Not sure how many at a time but at least two. No equipment needed.

Although they do have a referral system where if someone gets 5 or more people to sign up, that person gets the service for free as long as those 5 remain subscribers. I AM NOT SOLICITING NOR ASKING ANYONE TO SUBSCRIBE THROUGH ME!!!!! I am only passing on what I have found and feel it is great value.

Eyestream TV

 

[Oildudeny]

I tried 2 amplified antennas no luck getting channels.. I was able to pickup 1 PBS channel. I would just be happy getting metv and fox business

 

[wag123]

When I cut the cord I put up an outdoor antenna and purchased Roku devices for the TVs. There is a lot of content available on Roku for free. I also added Philo for my streaming cable channels, it gets 63 channels for $20/month, all of them are good cable channels (like all of the Discovery network channels), and none of them are home shopping channels. The only downside to Philo is that they don't have the sports channels (like ESPN) or cable news networks (like CNN, but they do have Cheddar), but that is how they are able to keep the cost down. They also allow 3 simultaneous connections, and they have the DVR feature and look back feature (which is something that I use a LOT because most of the previous episodes are available). Something else that I like a lot is that when you tune to a show that is already in-progress, it starts the show at the beginning (with the option of going live). With what I have, I do not miss cable TV or it's exorbitant price. Eyestream TV looks interesting.

 

[BAJA_05]

I forgot to mention -- I have two 4K 3rd generation Fire Sticks also. I can watch HBO/Cinimax/Showtime -- all pay channels and "any" sporting channels for FREE. Trick is, knowing someone to program the Fire Sticks to do that. Go on filelinked.com once you a Fire Stick -- you can program them yourself.

 

[mccandish]

We have an antenna for OTA, and use the free portions of Roku (Pluto TV and YouTube primarily). YouTube has an amazing amount of content.