Switching to streaming tv....

[Handsome Rob]

For the first time in 9½ years, I now have a reliable internet provider at the house. Up until now, all I've had is my cellphone & things like Netflix, Prime tv etc... we're concepts I wasn't able to appreciate.

However, I'm now able to stream stuff & do the whole internet tv deal & I was wondering:

How many of you have made the switch away from Direct tv & gone totally digital? Is there anything you miss? Any regrets?

I'm thinking I could save myself $200+ a month, but as yet I'm not familiar enough with Netflix et al to know what's really going on/how to use it properly.

[Chucktshoes]

The big question is what’s your attachment to live sports?

[Erik88]

I haven't had cable in almost a decade. Obviously I don't miss it. My generation is also being blamed for killing cable which I'm fine with. We have Netflix and it provides more than enough entertainment for only ~$15/month. They have really stepped up their game in the past few years with Netflix exclusive series. If you have Amazon Prime you also get access to their streaming service. We actually cancelled our Prime but I know some people like Amazon streaming a lot. 

[quedz]

https://www.komando.com/?s=+streaming+tv

[Handsome Rob]

52 minutes ago, Chucktshoes said:

The big question is what’s your attachment to live sports?

Literally zero. Never watched a team sport in my life, can't imagine a scenario where I ever would! 

[Chucktshoes]

14 minutes ago, robtattoo said:

Literally zero. Never watched a team sport in my life, can't imagine a scenario where I ever would! 

 This makes cord cutting significantly easier.  Get rid of the cable, find the streaming services that provide enough content for you, you may wanna try a few different ones during the trial periods, and go from there. We have Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon prime. All three have different things that they offered to us and are therefore of value.  Really though, just cancel the cable and then figure out what you like from there. 

[bersaguy]

I cut cable a year ago because their pricing was getting crazy and I just bought two antennas as a temporary plan till I figured out what I wanted. When I programmed the TV's to the antennas I found I got all the local channels along with about 35 other channels and so far I have been not missed cable at all but have saved a bunch of money and just watching what the antennas provided. I will look into some of the other stuff soon just to see what they offer. The only things I really miss on cable is the Discovery channel, the History Channel, and Biography channel. Does any of the programs mentioned above offer any of those?   

[Schadenfreude]

I'm screwed the only decent internet provider in my area is the cable provider & they won't give you decent speed unless you bundle a bunch of crap you don't want/ need

[btq96r]

For the last four years, I've been using an over the air antenna (think the old bunny ears, only the signal comes in 1080p HD) and a Roku with Netflix, Hulu, HBOGo (comes with my Comcast package), and other cool streaming apps like PBS. 

 

Tullahoma not be the best location to get the OTA signals, though, @robtattoo.  Should check out what you can pick up through this link, and then you'd probably have to get a solid outdoor antenna, and run it through the cable jacks in your house.  I did that in Murfreesboro, and picked up all the Nashville channels fine.  I'd imagine you'll get more Chattanooga stations, though.  Stay away from the indoor ones, they're really only good if you live in the city where the signals are transmitted. 

https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps

This is the antenna I had, worked like a charm, all I needed was a long coaxial cable to run it from where I had it mounted to the cable jack outside the house.

https://www.amazon.com/RCA-Compact-Outdoor-Antenna-ANT751E/dp/B0024R4B5C

 

Between these steps, and using my own cable modem/wifi-router, I've save an awesome amount of money from going to Comcast or Direct TV.  And I've never missed what I gave up.

 

[Johnny Rotten]

I live in the same area, have dish been on the fence post to try out youtube tv..

[Handsome Rob]

I'm sure some will wince, but we just signed up for AT&T U-Verse. We HAD to switch over the business phone lines & we've gone from a business phone bill of $153/month to $115/month, plus the Wi-Fi internet thing, so basically....free internet.

This literally happened on Saturday & I hooked up my steam-powered laptop (with ropes & sinew) to the tv this weekend & had a look at stuff on Amazon Prime & that works like a charm. I'm assuming that Netflix/hulu/whatever we'll work just as well through one of them stick thingies.

[Ronald_55]

@robtattoo

Look today some of the streaming devices are on sale today. 

Amazon Fire stick with voice remote $25

Google Chromecast $21.25

Roku stick $30

 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Ronald_55

[No_0ne]

8 hours ago, Chucktshoes said:

The big question is what’s your attachment to live sports?

You can get sports packages through Sling TV for an extra $5 per month.

One of the things I like best about streaming TV is the no-contract thing.  For example, when Game of Thrones runs, I sign on for a couple of months to HBO Go, when that's over I cancel. During times of the year when I'm busy, I can cut back, at other times I can add what I want. I spend much less, and actually use what I pay for now.  I've been off Dish for several years now, as for cable, it's not a thing out here in the boonies anyway ...

[TripleGGG]

Hulu is offering a 99 cent per month for 12 month offer through today. It has limited commercials on that plan but a great way to try Hulu.

https://www.hulu.com/welcome

 

[Murgatroy]

I cut the cord several years ago. I get my news via Google, and I filter from there. We have Netflix, Prime and Hulu. We do however have upgraded internet speed as we do a lot of gaming and have many devices on our network. I think we pay $60 a month on internet. $14? on Netflix. I do 80% of the shopping online, so I consider Prime for shipping and the Prime Video is just a nice feature (I think it comes out to $10 a month with the new cost.) We got Hulu as well a few days ago at the $12 a year thing. So yeah, at $90 a month I am not missing anything. I also live close enough to a large city and we receive like 30 station OTA in HD. In all fairness I pay for the Prime and my wife pays for the Netflix and internet, so I am not sure what she pays, but I know she doesn't complain, so it can't be much.

[Murgatroy]

2 hours ago, robtattoo said:

I'm sure some will wince, but we just signed up for AT&T U-Verse. We HAD to switch over the business phone lines & we've gone from a business phone bill of $153/month to $115/month, plus the Wi-Fi internet thing, so basically....free internet.

This literally happened on Saturday & I hooked up my steam-powered laptop (with ropes & sinew) to the tv this weekend & had a look at stuff on Amazon Prime & that works like a charm. I'm assuming that Netflix/hulu/whatever we'll work just as well through one of them stick thingies.

We use Roku boxes/sticks just because we are used to that form factor. $25 a TV single time cost. They all stream the big ones, Netflix, Prime, Hulu and all the other boutique ones as well, including Sling. If you are into premium channels you can do HBO Go and Showtime and the others as well. I add those to my Prime subscription for a month at a time to catch up on Shameless.

[Jeb48]

We have used an outside antenna for about 3.5 years that gets us about 40 channels some duplicates but takes care of a lot of our viewing needs. We have Netflix for 1 device and 1 disk at a time for around $14 and just signed up for the .99 cent deal with Hulu today. gives more TV than we should be watching. We are streaming over DSL with a 7MB limit so we don't do super high res stuff. I have one of our old computers hooked to our primary TV and stream most of our viewing through that. I have a newer computer with a 4 at a time tuner on it and record pretty much everything we watch OTA and run it through some software that tags most of the commercial for easy removal.

[Danger Rane]

It's been 3 or 4 years now since we cut cable. No regrets at all and we have been happy to see more and more options for those that don't want to go the traditional cable/direct TV route. We have internet through AT&T that we have been very happy with the speed and reliability. For news channels, sports channels, and some discovery channel type stuff we use YouTube TV for $40ish per month. For most TV shows and some movies we use Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Danger Rane

[DaveTN]

Watching TV for me is a bigger hobby than guns.    So I don’t see me cutting the cord anytime soon. But I’m certainly “digital”. Xfinity X1 is simply rock solid and bad azz. All the channels, DVR, On-Demand, phone, ~300Mbps internet. I wish the cost was less, but I just can’t give anything up.

[reed1285]

Im kinda surprised nobody has mentioned directv now. We had Charter for a few years, but recently got the "your promotional period is coming to an end" letter stating that they were raising our bill about $60 more a month. I gave them a call to "threaten" turning off my service if they couldn't get it back down to what it was, and they would not work with me. So I switched.  My brother started using directv now about a year ago, and every time I went to his house I was impressed by the channel selection and user friendly layout, so I was already aware of the service. Word of warning however, it is not perfect. At times it can be glitchy and slow, but for the most part we are very happy with them. They have 3 packages that I can remember. The first one is 45/month, then 55/month, and the last one is 65/month if I remember right. Obviously with more money you get more channels, but even the lowest price package channel list is impressive. We chose the middle package and added on hbo and it is 65 and some change per month. Definitely not the cheapest option out there, but we are happy. We are getting all of our favorite channels we had with Charter. We have two small kids, so unfortunately decent tv is not something we can really do without if we want SOME peace and quiet in the house  The on-demand stuff is so much better than we ever had with Charter as well: much more selection. May be worth checking out for you. They have a free 7 day trial as well so if you decide its not for you cancel within the first 7 days and no harm no foul. 

[Ronald_55]

On 11/27/2018 at 2:37 AM, Danger Rane said:

It's been 3 or 4 years now since we cut cable. No regrets at all and we have been happy to see more and more options for those that don't want to go the traditional cable/direct TV route. We have internet through AT&T that we have been very happy with the speed and reliability. For news channels, sports channels, and some discovery channel type stuff we use YouTube TV for $40ish per month. For most TV shows and some movies we use Netflix and Amazon Prime. For any movies or TV shows not covered by the previously mentioned I wait for it to come on later. 

FIFY

Never admit anything. 

[gregintenn]

If it weren't for the wife and kids, I doubt I'd even own a television.

[Danger Rane]

8 hours ago, Ronald_55 said:

FIFY

Never admit anything. 

Good point Sir... fixed it.

[wewoapsiak]

We have a low tier ~30Mbps internet connection and have no issues streaming to two devices at once. Philo is the streaming service we went with, I think we have the $20 / 50+ channel plan. Since we don't watch sports, it works great for us using a roku. The only thing lacking is CBS for my wife's murder porn addiction, so we also subscribe to CBS live or whatever it is. We're saving ~$130/month by getting rid of cable.

[No_0ne]

9 hours ago, wewoapsiak said:

We have a low tier ~30Mbps internet connection

Lol, that would qualify as a major upgrade in speed for me ...