Another cutting the cord thread

UTfball68

UTfball68

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2008
Location
Granite Quarry
I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to cutting the cord and ditching cable. I know I see folks say a lot of stuff I don't understand, or know if it's something I'm going to need. What I do know is, my Spectrum bill is at $200/month now...$15 of that is for a land line I don't even have and $65 is for 200mbps internet. Maybe I'm stuck in the 90's but I've never been a huge fan of satellite service either.

We don't watch much tv, but what I do want is...college football...movies...kids channels...a couple stations the wife likes.

The wife already has Amazon Prime, and I'm told I can already use that with our smart tvs. From there I guess Netflix is still the deal for movies at what, $10/month. I've been looking at Sling for the actual channels, and looks like I can get the blue and orange packages for $50ish/month (and some others a la carte). But what I can't figure out here is if I want to watch an SEC game on CBS or a big time night game on ABC, do I get these games or is that part of the local programming question marks. From what I'm reading online some stations aren't live either...but for the low low price of $5 you can upgrade that station...is that tied in to the local programming stuff too?

So if I go that route, I'm still spending $125/month. Based on what I've read here, if I'm doing all that streaming, I'll need to buff up my internet now as well, how much? And then I also see mentions of Kodi's and Hulus and Firesticks. What exactly do these bring to the table that those others don't??? I assume that additional cost would ultimately bring me back to the same ballpark I'm in right now then anyway.


Looking at all this makes my head spin and feel like at the end of the day I'm going to be +/- $20-30, so why go through the hassle? What am I missing?
 
UTfball68 said:
I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to cutting the cord and ditching cable. I know I see folks say a lot of stuff I don't understand, or know if it's something I'm going to need. What I do know is, my Spectrum bill is at $200/month now...$15 of that is for a land line I don't even have and $65 is for 200mbps internet. Maybe I'm stuck in the 90's but I've never been a huge fan of satellite service either.

We don't watch much tv, but what I do want is...college football...movies...kids channels...a couple stations the wife likes.

The wife already has Amazon Prime, and I'm told I can already use that with our smart tvs. From there I guess Netflix is still the deal for movies at what, $10/month. I've been looking at Sling for the actual channels, and looks like I can get the blue and orange packages for $50ish/month (and some others a la carte). But what I can't figure out here is if I want to watch an SEC game on CBS or a big time night game on ABC, do I get these games or is that part of the local programming question marks. From what I'm reading online some stations aren't live either...but for the low low price of $5 you can upgrade that station...is that tied in to the local programming stuff too?

So if I go that route, I'm still spending $125/month. Based on what I've read here, if I'm doing all that streaming, I'll need to buff up my internet now as well, how much? And then I also see mentions of Kodi's and Hulus and Firesticks. What exactly do these bring to the table that those others don't??? I assume that additional cost would ultimately bring me back to the same ballpark I'm in right now then anyway.


Looking at all this makes my head spin and feel like at the end of the day I'm going to be +/- $20-30, so why go through the hassle? What am I missing?
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Ill add my two cents as someone who hasnt watched live TV in a while. When my wife and I got married we never got cable or satellite. We got one of those antennas just to watch the news. We have netflix and Amazon. We had sling and liked it. Only problem is we didnt watch it enough to justify it. We have a small TV that sits in a closet, only gets used on the rare occasion we host guests.
 
I use netflix and prime. Wife is a student and we got prime for 1/2 price. I will probably drop netflix soon, they are jacking their prices and the quality of movies and shows is really not there.
 
We have netflix, hulu, prime, and hbo go. I think we are paying around 60 a month for all of that. We have chrome casts on 2 of our 3 tvs and the third is a smart tv with all that built in. If I want to watch a game, I usually go to a bar or a friends house.
 
We have Sling, Prime and Netflix. Bout $50/M

Sling is great, and you can add whatever channels you want. I could honestly get by with just the local channels on an HD antenna, I watch those often too.
 
We have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Sling orange (just so we can get ESPN/Hallmark) and a cheapo antenna for the networks. Works out to $50 a month. Between all of those, there should be something for everyone in your family. We never have a shortage of college football games to watch.

We've got a Firestick and a Roku device that came free with Sling when we signed up, but if you've got smart tv's then I don't think you would need those devices.
 
I like college football too much to cut the cord. I like being able to flip between several games. That’s pretty much the only reason for keeping cable for me. I watched a special on North Korea last night. First time I’ve watched tv in forever. Every tv in the house is on either Nickelodeon or nick jr for the kids.
 
I have DirecTV Now. I chose it because it had a lot of kid channels for my daughter, discovery and history channel for me (apparently hard to find in a streaming service) and it has DVR which my wife loves. It's on the more expensive side of streaming options, and I understand that they are changing their channel lineup for new subscribers. We also have prime and Netflix, but will probably drop Netflix when Disney comes out with their own service.

Duane
 
CLRracer said:
I have DirecTV Now. I chose it because it had a lot of kid channels for my daughter, discovery and history channel for me (apparently hard to find in a streaming service) and it has DVR which my wife loves. It's on the more expensive side of streaming options, and I understand that they are changing their channel lineup for new subscribers. We also have prime and Netflix, but will probably drop Netflix when Disney comes out with their own service.

Duane
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That's what we have. It's pretty good overall. I don't like the way the control works. I like to flip between two shows and it's hard to do with the service.
 
obullfish said:
@UTfball68 200 mbps is plenty of speed to do what you need but depending on placement of the router and the size and design of your house you may need to add some wireless mesh extenders for coverage.
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All tvs are on the first floor within view of each other...wifi works great currently surfing the web. The innernet/shawn said when you're streaming that much stuff you need more juice, but I can wing it for now. Only concern was I believe that 200 is plugged in to the wall with an ethernet cable. I thought there was some standard factor that reduced speed for every wall or X amount of feet away from the router. But again, all this stuff is above my head, I just know I hate slow internet and buffering.
 
Get a roku and an antenna. We share a Netflix, Prime, and HBO account with friends (HBO is getting cut after GOT). The Roku channel and "Pluto TV" offer plenty of free stuff as well. The only sports I really want to watch I can stream on YouTube or the MotorTrend app.
 
UTfball68 said:
So can you answer the questions 1) which channels are impacted by live viewing and 2) On a Saturday morning in the fall if I want to Georgia on CBS, will it be broadcasted???
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Not sure what you mean by "impacted by live viewing", but if you're asking if you can watch a show on CBS using sling, that's a no. I think the only network channels Sling has are NBC and Fox, and those are only in certain markets. The antenna is for watching network tv. The thing I like about sling is that you can cancel or modify your package anytime. If you really want to get as many games as possible, you could change your package to get all the ESPN's, FS1, FS2, Pac-12 Network, ACC Network, SEC Network during football season, and then get a lower package when football season is over.
 
We cut cable recently and only kept Prime and Netflix which we had before anyways. Cable/Internet bill was $170 a month with one HD DVR. Now is $70 a month for just internet at same speed as before. On Apple TV, and perhaps others, you can but an all access pass to some single channels. For example CBS is $10 a month for live streaming and next day on demand for shows with no commercials (you can also access a lot of older episodes of their shows all on demand).
 
I forgot to mention DirecTV now does have the local channels live. It's basically like having satellite TV without the dish.

Duane
 
jcramsey said:
Not sure what you mean by "impacted by live viewing", but if you're asking if you can watch a show on CBS using sling, that's a no. I think the only network channels Sling has are NBC and Fox, and those are only in certain markets. The antenna is for watching network tv. The thing I like about sling is that you can cancel or modify your package anytime. If you really want to get as many games as possible, you could change your package to get all the ESPN's, FS1, FS2, Pac-12 Network, ACC Network, SEC Network during football season, and then get a lower package when football season is over.
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Thanks and yes, that's basically what I was asking. CBS always has SEC games on. SEC/ACC games are primarily what I watch...so if I can't get that programming on Saturdays, it's not even worth me looking any further. But I didn't know if they even had CBS/ABC, or if it was delayed 24hrs, but I could spend $5 to get live viewing, or what the deal was.
 
You can watch cbs/abc/nbc/fox free with an antenna. That hasn't changed
 
Ron said:
You can watch cbs/abc/nbc/fox free with an antenna. That hasn't changed
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Is that the analog box set up with rabbit ears or little black wire looking thing or whatever they’re using these days? I think I’ve seen one antenna set up on a tv in the last 25 years.
 
UTfball68 said:
The innernet/shawn said when you're streaming that much stuff you need more juice, but I can wing it for now.
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No, like 15 Mbps for HD, maybe 70-80Mbps for 4K. Your internal WiFi will be the limiting factor.
 
Ron said:
You can watch cbs/abc/nbc/fox free with an antenna. That hasn't changed
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Careful with all that. Some folks (Vizio, for example), don't sell televisions anymore. You have to come up with some kind of standalone tuner.
 
shawn said:
Careful with all that. Some folks (Vizio, for example), don't sell televisions anymore. You have to come up with some kind of standalone tuner.
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True...fancy monitors are the move of the day.

There was actually talk of a class action lawsuit around that a while back. Apparently in the ?60s? The fcc defined what a Television is in some legal proceeding. And lots of folks are selling things as TVs today that don't meet that definition. At least that's what the internet lawyers claimed
 
Yes another plus for Sling is the availability of old episodes. You have to watch the commercials and don’t always have the ability to pause or rewind, but you can catch every episode of Truck Night in America and many other shows pretty much any time.
 
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