So I’m giving a community seminar later this month in how to get rid of cable and replace it with streaming options. I’ve got plenty of experience and material, but I thought I’d trawl here for (1) interesting cord-cutting stories and (2) tips and tricks you learned getting loose or getting the most from streaming entertainment.
Your solutions for news, sports and kids’ entertainment solicited, along with any secret ways to get Comcast et al. to shut up and let you cancel on the best terms? The secret word that will let your cable provider switch to a customer modem without argument? Great free channels you’ve found on Roku etc.?
I’ve never cut the cord, but have heard that if you tell the cable company that you’re moving to a place where that company doesn’t offer service, they won’t attempt to retain you as a customer. So I’d suggest saying you’re moving to Europe or Asia.
But the problem is that you need fast internet to stream, so you will probably want to retain the internet service from the cable company as cable internet is, usually, faster than DSL. (And I’ve heard that it’s more profitable for the cable company to provide you internet than for them to provide cable television, so at the corporate level, they’re not very upset over the cord cutters.)
We didn’t get cable when we moved back to Chicago and AT&T didn’t have the same uverse package available that we had out in the suburbs. I decided we might as well just stick with what we could get from Netflix and streaming over the internet, and we did that for a couple of years. Amazon has since added Prime streaming, and I was already a Prime customer, and I have a Hulu account as well.
I still get DVDs from Netflix, that covers most of what I can’t get streaming.
I use this website:
to see if something I want to watch is available to stream on the services I have access to.
Next month, it will be two years since I cancelled cable, so far saving me $1800. More than enough for my round-the-world plane fare this summer. I got Manila and Addis Ababa instead of South Park.
I’ve never had any hassle with using my own cable modem. Does anybody? My provider gives a long list of compatible modems (and there are more they just haven’t bothered to list/check).
If you are an Amazon Prime customer, then Amazon Fire TV is highly recommended. In addition to free stuff there’s $ new stuff too. And you can do all the usual Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc.
They are essentially Android boxes so you can run a ton of your favorite apps as well.
Amazon is good at making deals with others. For example, you can watch the CW now for free (with ads, of course).
One of many examples: I like using the PBS app to watch a bunch of their stuff. No ad problems, natch.
As far as real OTA solutions, I’ve posted about using an antenna, tuner card and NextPVR to do a DIY PVR.
It’s … not such an easy thing to do or to keep running right.
But there are boxes by SiliconDust, etc. that can simplify things for $.
The amount of stuff available on the OTA side channels is surprising. Esp. if you love old TV shows. (And if you love* L&O*, we get a channel just for that.)
OTA is a problem here - some spots have five or six “green” channels; others have none. Even fairly high on a hill, my one quick test showed one weak station.
I’m generally presenting for TV watchers, not computer-centric viewers. But I am pointing out that smartphones, tablets and computers make dandy personal TVs, and family TVs on a large monitor. (I am actually giving the presentation from my phone, using Acrobat as the platform. That will also let me skip over to Netflix, Hulu etc. to answer questions.)
“Smart” TV’s are not smart! You can’t connect a keyboard or mouse to most of them (LG says you can to some of theirs.)
Soooo… Get an Android TV box. This basically makes your TV into a cell phone without the calling part. But otherwise you can do anything you can on your cell phone. And that includes downloading apps from Google Play. (You can’t do that with “smart TV’s” because they are not Android.)
I bought a MINIX U1 Android 4K TV box along with the optional A2 Lite remote with keyboard on the back. Quite pleased with this! The only problem is everybody and their brother is buying one, so everyone is sold out!
I have yet to see a smart TV that was anything but useless gimmickry. Most disc players actually have better streaming stuff built in. The interfaces are terrible and limited, and rarely if ever updated.
It’s a little lumpier to surf, but not terrible. If you’re an addicted surfer, cable might be the best choice (as it is for heavy, multi-channel viewers and sports junkies).
There are many commercial-free options: $4 buys you no commercials on either Hulu or CBS All Access, and it’s becoming a more common option.
Haven’t had trouble pausing on all the major providers. Can you name ones that are troublesome?
Houseguests can live with what they’re offered, or their own Stick on a secondary TV.
Yep. I advocate people using the streaming options they might already have (smartphone, tablet, computer, disc player, game console, smart TV), checking out OTA reception (very poor for most of my town) and trying to adapt to the new model before cutting the cable line.
The Pause, FF, REW capabilities may be different between the different channels. Streams with commercials may disable some or all of those capabilities. I thought SlingTV didn’t allow pause on their live streams. CBSN doesn’t allow anything. A lot of the “free” channels on Roku have commercials and they may limit it (Crackle?). I can’t remember for sure since I don’t watch many of channels with commercials.
And even if they allow FF/REW, it’s not very well implemented and every channel does it differently. With your DVR, you FF and you see the content in fast forward. With some streams, you don’t see the content as you FF. They show a time counter at the bottom moves and then when you stop, it buffers to that location. It can be cumbersome to FF to a specific scene.
It’s generally easiest to watch shows you’ve recorded on your DVR. Streams like Hulu+ are great, but it’s messier to find the new episodes of the shows you want to watch. With the DVR, you go to recorded programs. With Hulu, it’s a lot more browsing around.
And every stream is different in how they organize their shows. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. all have their own ways. When you want to watch a handful of shows from your DVR, they’re all there in “Recorded Programs”. But with streams, you have to know where to find Show1 on Amazon, Show2 on Netflix, etc.
Not to dissuade anyone from cord cutting, I’m 3? years into myself, but it’s not as easy as cable TV. Some people don’t mind the extra effort, but other people wouldn’t want to bother with all that and it wouldn’t be worth it. I personally love it and would only go back to cable if it was practically free.
No question it’s a different… process. But given that you can cut your entertainment cost from $250 or more to around $100, even with multiple provider subscriptions and some PPV thrown in, and have no contracts (for the most part) and generally more control… I think many people would switch if they knew it wasn’t the mickey-mouse “watch TV using your WinVista computer” of a few years ago.
I know I have a fair number of RSVPs for my seminar, and that’s in a small town.
I don’t browse for anything specific in Hulu. I search for it, and if it is a program I’m going to watch every episode of, I add it to my Watchlist. Every time a new episode is released, it shows up there.
I do all of my Hulu & YouTube watching at home through my Chromecast on my dumb plasma TV. I watch Netflix through my blu-ray player, I like the interface better.
Talk at me about Chromecast. I don’t quite get it from the web sites and such. Is it an entirely “dumb” device that easily casts Android phone and tablet video to the TV, or is it something more?
The cost from there can be zero. But I’m figuring an average of $20-25 in subscriptions and PPV. And, of course, the internet connection has other value, so you could in fairness pro rate its value for streaming.
You can find some network channels which are standalone and don’t require an existing cable subscription. Off the top of my head, I think these are free, standalone streaming channels:
CW
Fox
PBS
ABC+NBC may have some limited standalone streaming
Comedy Central (?)
There are likely others as well. They usually have limited on demand content and may be a few days behind live TV.
I cut the cord about the same time. Went with DSL for $30 a month and bought a Roku. With Roku, I have access to Comedy Central, not full access as I don’t have cable, but I get the Daily Show and South Park, the day after they air. I also get 24/7 streaming news with CBSN, the NASA channel (which I didn’t even get when I had cable) and Poker Central (mostly old WPT, HPT and PAD episodes). There are many other channels but those are the ones I use the most.
