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cutting the cable cord


xlr8tn

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Well....direct tv to be more specific but close enough.

 

Looking for your experiences after having done this and what you used. I'm just starting the research process and history has shown I'll be doing this for awhile before actually doing anything about it.

Few things I'm not sure about. How much am I going to miss just hitting the guide to see what's on and picking something? It's not real often I sit down to watch something specific. I just surf until I find something or watch something I have on the dvr. I do know I'd miss the guide....just not sure if you get used to not having it after a while.

I spent some time reading tonight on dvr's and streaming boxes and what not. It's a ton to take in and compare. Going to have to break it down into chunks. I do like the idea of a dvr you can connect to the internet to see out 14 days and set things to record. Pretty much only works for stuff over the air as far as I can tell so hard to justify the costs.

 

I currently have a fire stick with kodi and use it sparingly because frankly it's a pain in the ass to use and the streams are hit and miss. Football games this fall were a trainwreck on it....I think only twice I had a decent stream that didn't buffer constantly. I know the streaming would probably be about the same but I'm curious if skystream (https://www.skystreamx.com/products/skystream-one-android-tv-box-cable-cutting-package) is more user friendly. Any of you guys tried that one? Also kinda wondering if something like sling tv or something like that wouldn't work better for me. Still a subscription service but much cheaper than direct tv.

Any and all advice/experiences appreciated.

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We have had PlayStation Vue (similar to SlingTV) for over a month now and enjoy it so far. They have a number of packages, but what drew us in was the Big Ten network, many other sports channels, and a variety of other good "standard cable" channels for $35 / month. We use a Roku on one TV and a Chromecast on another, and both work well. The Roku has a legitimate "guide" type experience actually, and if you use the PS Vue app on your phone there is a simar experience with the Chromecast. There is some local network TV content (we get live CBS 10TV) but I guess that varies based on area. The other network channels aren't available live for us, though an on demand menu of already aired content is included.

 

Between PS Vue service and a decent HD antenna, we don't feel like we have lost a whole lot from legitimate cable.

 

For what it's worth we pay $45 / mo for 60/5 internet through Spectrum (time warner) $35 for PS Vue, and $10 / mo or whatever it is now for Netflix.

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We have had PlayStation Vue (similar to SlingTV) for over a month now and enjoy it so far. They have a number of packages, but what drew us in was the Big Ten network, many other sports channels, and a variety of other good "standard cable" channels for $35 / month. We use a Roku on one TV and a Chromecast on another, and both work well. The Roku has a legitimate "guide" type experience actually, and if you use the PS Vue app on your phone there is a simar experience with the Chromecast. There is some local network TV content (we get live CBS 10TV) but I guess that varies based on area. The other network channels aren't available live for us, though an on demand menu of already aired content is included.

 

Between PS Vue service and a decent HD antenna, we don't feel like we have lost a whole lot from legitimate cable.

 

For what it's worth we pay $45 / mo for 60/5 internet through Spectrum (time warner) $35 for PS Vue, and $10 / mo or whatever it is now for Netflix.

 

We have the same internet (60/5) through Warner but pay $80ish. Who do I need to blow to get it for $45? I read those links Mitch but they're getting fairly old and this stuff changes pretty frequently. This is gonna happen in the next month or so. Tired of paying so much for something we don't really need. I've also just came to terms that we'll have to give up some things but for the money saved it's worth it.

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Sports seems to be everyone's sticking point.

 

A couple years ago we cut the cord. I went with the Tablo for an over the air DVR and I love it. I pay $50/year for guide service for that. I plugged a 2TB drive into it and it's been awesome. Since it connects to your network you can watch TV on your PC/Tablet/Phone/Whatever. I also picked up Roku 3s for the TVs so they can get the TV feed as well. With the Rokus that gives us Netflix and Amazon on the TVs too.

 

That has worked well for me. My wife is the sports nut in the house and that wasn't getting it for her, so she signed up for SlingTV. That seems to be a decent option to cover sports. It has a bunch of other channels as well. I'm not real impressed personally. Much of the time you cannot fast forward (although you can pause and rewind). You get pretty consistent commercials. Limited playback, almost like regular TV without a DVR. I may look next year into some of the Roku sports channels like the NHL network or NFL.

 

I'm pretty happy with what I have, but sports will probably be your sticking point regardless of what you do.

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I haven't cut cable yet but have WOW and only pay $120 for tv and cable. Internet is 60/6 and we have the 200 channel package/hd package. No DVR and 3 boxes since our 2 of our tvs internal tuners will not work. For everything else we use a firestick with Kodi installed.
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Sports seems to be everyone's sticking point.

 

A couple years ago we cut the cord. I went with the Tablo for an over the air DVR and I love it. I pay $50/year for guide service for that. I plugged a 2TB drive into it and it's been awesome. Since it connects to your network you can watch TV on your PC/Tablet/Phone/Whatever. I also picked up Roku 3s for the TVs so they can get the TV feed as well. With the Rokus that gives us Netflix and Amazon on the TVs too.

 

That has worked well for me. My wife is the sports nut in the house and that wasn't getting it for her, so she signed up for SlingTV. That seems to be a decent option to cover sports. It has a bunch of other channels as well. I'm not real impressed personally. Much of the time you cannot fast forward (although you can pause and rewind). You get pretty consistent commercials. Limited playback, almost like regular TV without a DVR. I may look next year into some of the Roku sports channels like the NHL network or NFL.

 

I'm pretty happy with what I have, but sports will probably be your sticking point regardless of what you do.

 

I read on the tablo last night. Seemed like it had it's pros and cons to me. Not a big fan of it all being wireless...wish it at least had an hdmi out option. I also just wonder how much we would use it since it's basically a dvr for over the air only and if you're streaming say a sitcom those episodes will all be available on the stick so now you're basically talking about $200+ to record the news. I still have some reading and learning to do about it I think as I didn't spend a whole bunch of time on it last night.

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FYI, the DVR functionality wasn't a requirement for me, so I don't have anything to replace that with our setup.

 

As for $45 60/5, that's a standard offering through Spectrum right now:

 

https://www.charter.com/packages

 

As always if you bundle it with other shit it's cheaper still, but there cheaper cable packages are pretty lacking with respect to sports. Hope that helps.

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We're cutting the cord when we move to the new house. Everything we watch is pretty much available on line. The tough one us Formula 1. Looks like it's live or wait to torrent. Hopefully with Bernie the Dinosaur gone and the other changes going on in the upper ranks, F1 will start catching up with the times.
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We're cutting the cord when we move to the new house. Everything we watch is pretty much available on line. The tough one us Formula 1. Looks like it's live or wait to torrent. Hopefully with Bernie the Dinosaur gone and the other changes going on in the upper ranks, F1 will start catching up with the times.

 

Nathan was really worried that he would miss F1. We havented watched a race since we cut it.. even when it was on Normal TV. he doesnt miss it at all and has become more involved watching other series that are available online.

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Meh, i can understand missing the guide portion of traditional cable services, but other than that i have had zero issues cutting cable. Its been 3 or 4 years since.

 

With a decent set of rabbit ears you can get like 30 channels free. Some of them might be dumb but whatever. You get the important ones in HD so yeah.

 

Ive been using kodi for years. The stream not found thing does get annoying but it comes with the territory. I have completely stopped watching sports through there and have been using reddit exclusively lately. If you have a chromecast or a long ass HDMI cable you can easily watch it on your TV. 90% of the time the streams are in 720p, which is just as good as what you would receive through your cable provider.

http://reddit.com/r/nhlstreams

http://reddit.com/r/nflstreams

http://reddit.com/r/mlbstreams

http://reddit.com/r/nbastreams

etc...

Adblocker plus is always recommended when viewing those streams.

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I read on the tablo last night. Seemed like it had it's pros and cons to me. Not a big fan of it all being wireless...wish it at least had an hdmi out option. I also just wonder how much we would use it since it's basically a dvr for over the air only and if you're streaming say a sitcom those episodes will all be available on the stick so now you're basically talking about $200+ to record the news. I still have some reading and learning to do about it I think as I didn't spend a whole bunch of time on it last night.

 

You can go wireless or wired, you just need a Roku or something similar to access the box. It does work well over the Wifi here at the house. My wife wanted a TV in the kitchen so she could watch football and such while cooking. I put up an old LCD TV I had and a roku and it works great.

 

I watch a few TV shows that are on regular TV, so this saves me having to wait a year or so for them to pop up on Netflix. It was a little pricey to set up, but I figure within a few months it had payed for itself in what it was saving me on DirecTV.

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I am 100% cutting the cord when my contract with DirectTv is up (end of March I think?). Hell, I might not even install a satellite at my new house since it'd only be for a month.

 

Right now I have Netflix ($10/month), Amazon (I get it for the shipping but the stream is a nice touch, $100/year) and Hulu (share with someone). My girlfriend has HBOGo, WatchESPN and an Apple TV. Also, I've got a FireStick with Kodi and she has a Chromecast, so between the 2 of us, we're more than covered.

 

I do think I'll do Sling TV for $20 a month. I don't really give a shit about DVR, so that's not a sticking point for me.

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We're cutting the cord when we move to the new house. Everything we watch is pretty much available on line. The tough one us Formula 1. Looks like it's live or wait to torrent. Hopefully with Bernie the Dinosaur gone and the other changes going on in the upper ranks, F1 will start catching up with the times.

 

Liberty Media is already talking about worldwide streaming, thank fuck.

 

One thing to consider for the UBER heavy streaming users, IIRC WOW is the only ISP that doesn't currently have any kind of throttling or data caps. They will sometime soon, but everyone has them and utilizes them.

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7 days free trial, if you can't take 2 minutes to sign up for the free trial then you don't deserve it's awesomeness ..... seriously best site I've ever used for HD streaming that works with all my tv addon's like firestick, roku, etc....

 

BTW, it also streams new movies as well... so up to date tv shows and new movie streaming and if you get in on one of their specials, it's 69.99 a year.... can't beat it.

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We've just got Netflix and Playstation Vue. We get just the basic cable channels (no box) directly to the TV since no live NBC, ABC, or FOX on PS Vue. Do have CBS now which is nice

Its been awesome and we're saving about $60/mth

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  • 1 month later...

wanted to bump this for a small update. I still haven't dropped direct tv yet but I'm getting closer. After looking at everything I think I'm just going to go with a fire tv loaded with kodi and over the air for locals.

 

I did find a pretty cool add on for kodi. May be common knowledge to everyone but if not trakt.tv is worth a look. Think of it as a super favorites folder kinda deal. You sync it with whatever you stream with and then can load sitcoms or movies into it with your pc and it'll serve as a dvr of sorts. It will also sync across devices so you have the same things on all devices. Just worth a look if you're not aware of it. I've been messing with kodi quite a bit the last few days.

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