I simply cannot make sense of all of the options available to me. I think that, when you reach a certain age, technology progresses beyond your ability to understand it - that’s why my dad’s remote is covered in take except for the on/off button, the volume button, and the channel button. I’m not that bad, but trying to understand all of this cord-cutting business is making me consider that maybe I’m close.
Here’s what I want: the ability to watch my shows, and possibly the 5-10 previous episodes of my shows, the same way I watch them now: when I’m ready, via my DVR (or whatever the equivalent is). This includes both cable TV (Science Channel and all that) and network TV (NBC and all that).
Whatever you choose, it’s still going to come via the internet, so you’re going to need decent broadband service.
A streaming TV service like Roku is going to give you the most options and easily integrates separate providers like Netflix, HBO Now, Amazon Video, etc. Whether or not you save much money will depend on which services you want.
Cutting cable requires some compromises, and changing the way you think about watching TV. We ditched cable over a year ago - here are my observations:
You need to check your current contract and ensure you can get out of your current arrangement, or “unbundle” your cable TV, internet, and phone services. You will still need internet with wifi and presumably a cell phone service.
You need to either have an internet-ready smart TV (e.g. Android), or have a TV that can accept a USB add-on that enables connection to the internet, usually via wifi.
In order to fill-in some of the things you currently have via cable, but only the things you want, you will need to subscribe to such services as Netflix, Hulu, etc. Netflix has most series that are shown on the networks, plus a few of their own. Hulu mainly has TV shows. There is also youtube (free). I am not sure about the Science Channel if they require a subscription.
A compromise with cutting cable is sports channels. Most of them require subscriptions, so if you add a bunch of sports stuff you will be eating into your savings from ditching cable, if budget matters to you. If you don’t subscribe to ESPN, for example, no Monday Night Football. No NBCSports?, no Tour de France or the Olympics.
You can still get over-the-air TV from your local stations - it is all digital now and digital antennas are inexpensive. This will allow you to watch local news, and network-broadcast sporting events, for example. All for free.
In changing the way to think about watching TV, you don’t go to watch TV any more, you go to watch a specific show. Instead of surfing thru the channels on cable and landing on something random that happens to be on at a scheduled time, you surf thru the vast amount of online content looking for something specific, and you can watch it any time. On Netflix, episodes queue-up one after the other and you can easily spend a whole day binge-watching a season of a series. There is no need for a DVR because the internet is your DVR.
I just did this myself. Saved almost half the cost of what I was paying for my satellite service, and got better programming. I’m not paying for nearly as many unwanted channels now.
This can be complicated, though. What services (satellite, internet, cable) do you have now?
All streaming devices connect to the TV via a video connection (usually HDMI, sometimes composite). Some of them can get power from a USB connection and others get power from a wall wart, but they all need a video connection, not only USB.
You need to figure out exactly what cable channels you want, and what your expectations are for viewing them. Do you NEED to see “Drunk History” the very same week it came out, or can you wait a year and watch it on Amazon Prime? Do you NEED to see “Turn” when it comes out? Or can you wait for Netflix?
As for things like the Science Channel, I don’t know. Roku and Apple have a long list of cable channels that they can pull content from. But I’m not familiar with the availability, whether or not you need a cable subscription to sign in, etc.
Depending on what you want to watch, you may not be able to cord-cut and get exactly what you want while paying less. Broadcast networks you should be able to get with a digital antenna but cable networks (including the Science channel) often require you to sign in with your TV provider to get access to their shows on their websites. Some require either a cable subscription or a Hulu/Sling/Playstation Vue subscription. Some allow a standalone subscription to their streaming service (HBO Now). Netflix can be good- but you won’t get current episodes of any non-Netflix series. For example, the most recent season of Law and Order SVU is the one that ended in May 2016.
There’s really no easy way- you have to determine which channels are important to you, how important they are to you and how much it will cost to replicate those particular channels. It could in fact be nearly as much as cable/satellite - Direct TV now is between $35 and $70/month and even the $70 plan may not cover every channel you want.
They do - but you can’t watch current-season episodes.
Many networks (even cable-only ones like AMC) allow you to watch the latest episode or two from their website, or from an app on your Roku (or whatever device). You may be able to go even further back, but I’ve found that the site usually requires you to connect it to your cable provider’s account. So if I wanted to watch older episodes from the current season, but my cable bundle didn’t include that channel, I’m out of luck until it (hopefully) comes out on Netflix or Amazon Prime.
So, for current-season stuff, you have to be on the ball and watch things the old fashioned way - when they’re broadcast (or shortly after).
One of the reasons we haven’t made the plunge yet is that we do enjoy flipping channels and catching things somewhat at random. We’ve gotten into quite a few series that way - mostly on the nature / science / home improvement channels. And the channels we do watch: not all of them are available through the various streaming methods.
Here’s what I had, versus what I have now after cutiin the cord:
THEN
Dish Network (America’s Top 200), One Hopper, Two Joeys = $122.00/mo TOTAL = $122.00/mo
NOW
Sling (Blue + Lifestyle Extra) = $30/mo
NetFlix = $12/mo
Hulu = $12/mo
DSL Upgrade from 3Mbps to 12 Mbps = $10/mo TOTAL = $64.00/mo
I already have Amazon Prime ($99/yr) so I didn’t include that. I also purchased PlayOn for $39 (one time charge), and three Roku Streaming Sticks for $39 each (one time charge). PlayOn acts as my DVR.
This gives me all the channels that I care about and then some.
As has been mentioned upthread, doing this takes a bit of adjustment to how you watch TV, but my wife and I got used to it quickly and we’re very happy with this.
I just used a pair of wire-cutters and cut the wire off … still got 3 channels, all garbage … next thing I did is bought a $10 antenna and now I get 11 channels, 9 of which are garbage … but it’s all free, thus saving the $100 per month to get 782 channels I would never watch …
I do watch Comet sometimes … but that’s intended to be garbage, those old MST3K reruns are a hoot …
I cut the cord a couple years back, bought a Roku box, and put up an antenna for the local stations. I subscribed to both Hulu and Netflix to decide which one I really wanted to use. I’m still subscribing to both, as well as Acorn (British imports). The 3 together are far cheaper than cable.
You may not be happy if you are a sports fan, or really want to see your shows up-to-date instead of when they appear on the streaming services like Hulu and Netflix. For some reason, before I cut the cord, I was tending to watch network shows only after they got syndicated to cable channels like A&E anyway. For sports, you will have to use something like Sling TV to get ESPN, or switch over to your antenna for whatever games are carried on broadcast in your area.
Be aware that with major, nationwide internet/cable/landline phone providers, the savings are all in the bundles, so cutting back to just internet may not save you much, and can actually end up costing you more. I have Verizon FiOS internet and cable, and when my 2-year contract was up I explored their internet-only options and turns out it would cost exactly the same as it did with the cable; the cable was essentially free. The only thing that actually reduced my monthly costs was to keep the cable but cut back to the “local channels”-only plan.
Sling seems interesting. Is there an online guide or anything to see what is playing on the channels at that moment? I mean a guide like cable has - accessible via the TV, not something that I need to pull out my phone or computer to get.
While I’ve not cut the cable cord, my understanding from friends who have is that this is one of the big trade-offs. If live TV (particularly sports and other things that aren’t on the broadcast networks) is important to you, you may not be able to easily replace it with streaming services.
This is true, but with an important caveat: distance from the transmitter is a big factor now.
In the days of analog TV broadcast signals, if you were some distance away from the station’s transmitter, while your signal might not have been crystal clear, you’d still get a signal. Digital signals work differently; you either have a great signal, or, if you’re too far away from the transmitter, you get nothing at all.
We did this a couple of months ago after several months of planning and prep.
First, I was fairly sure we mostly watched network TV (mainly CBS). I went through our DVR schedule and wrote down all the shows we record and watch (we don’t do anything live but football), and then decided how I could get each show.
Most of the network shows you can get the next day online for free (with comercials), so I paid for Playon (as mentioned earlier) to record shows off the internet (and you can choose commercial skip). That has worked beautifully. You need a good internet connection and a good PC to run it, but after that, it rocks.
Some shows are not available the next day (ABC and Fox tend to take a week to put them online). We already had Hulu, so that did not change my pricing to keep it to get the content the next day.
We already paid for Netflix and have Amazon prime.
We already had FireTV and FireStick.
When AT&T came into our neighborhood with 1 Gbs fiber for $80 a month, I dropped cable like a bad habit.
We had basic cable and internet for just over $100 a month, but in the last year, it had grown to $170 a month. We only had one cable box and no premium channels.
I went from $170 a month to $80 a month. I could add Sling or Playstation or one of the other live streaming services, but with what we watch, there really is no need.
So the short answer is, it depends entirely on what you watch and your willingness to either shift your viewing or give something up (I like the shows Alone and Forged in Fire but I am not going to pay $90 extra a month to keep cable nor am I willing to pay for Sling or anything else just for those two shows).
I’ve skimmed the answers and I’m not sure anyone’s address the bolded part yet. Depending on what you consider “your” shows, the answer to your question is “you probably can’t.” At least, not easily.
The problem is that there are lots of shows that just aren’t available via streaming services without a cable subscription. A lot of young people who gleefully talk about cord cutting are able to supplement their streaming subscriptions with their parents’ cable accounts, and that’s a dirty secret that not a lot of people are willing to admit.
If you watch shows on the classic big 4 networks, you may be SOL as a cord cutter. If you watch sports, you’re definitely SOL. If you watch any cable show that hasn’t made a deal with Netflix, Hulu, Crackle, or Amazon, which, let’s face it, is most of them, you’re SOL.
That doesn’t mean you’d be wanting for content, it just means you can’t cut the cord and expect nothing to change. I stopped watching The Daily Show, for instance, even when it was still Jon Stewart, because I didn’t have Comedy Central and it was a pain to have to go their website to catch up on episodes. I haven’t seen the new season of Rick and Morty because I don’t know where to find it. When my mom comes over and wants to watch Dancing with America’s Top Chef or whatever, I just shrug.
I can tell you that I subscribe to Amazon, Netflix, HBO, and my local PBS affiliate. That’s enough for me, and I have more streaming content than I could possibly watch. For that I pay about $45 a month, total, which is less than cable but not by a lot. And now I can’t talk TV with other people who aren’t also cord cutters, because we don’t have any shows in common.
No, you cannot make that happen. If that’s your criteria, you need to stay with traditional cable/satellite service. (Or rather, you can make some of it happen, but it will be a lot of work and cause a lot of headaches along the way.)
The difficulty is that with streaming, content no longer comes from a single provider.
Each network has their own streaming channel, which offers varying levels of features from each other.
Some streaming services (e.g. SlingTV) combine channels similar to cable, but they will have a smaller lineup and DVR capability may have limitations or not be available at all.
Some networks only offer a streaming channel if you are a cable/satellite subscriber. You may find that some networks cannot be independently streamed.
Availability of past episodes will be very spotty
DVR functionality is typically not present
Like you said, there are a flood of options to chose from, and they often have overlapping content. The major streaming options are things like:
Netflix - older movies, older TV shows, some original content
Amazon - older movies, older TV shows, some original content
Hulu - Current and past TV episodes from many networks
SlingTV - Like a cable provider. A small set of cable channels.
There’s nothing that provides everything like cable/satellite does. You’ll have to look at the options and decide what is best for you. The good thing is that many services are relatively cheap (under $10/mo), so you can sign up for multiple and still spend much less that cable/satellite.
I am so happy you posted this - I have internet only from FIOs and cable from Spectrum. After seeing this post, I checked and will save way more from bundling than I expected.