Have you looked at the websites of all the local news stations and national networks of interest?
We cut the cable over a year ago* and there’s only two things I miss; mindless channel surfing and late night TV. Often, I’d be flipping through channels and happen upon something that grabbed my interest. That doesn’t happen anymore because the free digital channels we get are about as interesting and diverse as the old ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. Now I have to actually look for a show or genre and then decide what to watch. Sometimes, randomness can be interesting.
As for late night TV, I’m an Insomniac. I often looked for a channel (not a specific show) that a could chill or fall asleep to. With DTV, we had the east coast and west coast feeds of Adult Swim, so I could watch the east coast feed and sleep/pass-out with the west coast feed.
*We have a Roku, Wii, XBox360, and PS3 that we use as “cable boxes.” We have Netflix, HuluPlus, and digital antennas we use as carriers.
As someone who is also preparing to drop cable…
Can anyone explain to me what Plex is? I googled it, and everything I found seems to say it is a way to manage your content. As in, stream media from your home computer/network. We have a Playstation with the PS3 Media Server, so I assumed I wouldn’t need it. But I keep seeing references on other sites to Plex having its own “channels.” People are saying they are able to get content from HGTV and other cable channels. So how does this work - does Plex come with a subscription to additional content, or does it connect to torrents, or what?
As I understand the disscussion thus far, if I were to dump cable I’d lose access to:
Top Gear (BBC America)
Game of Thrones and other series (HBO)
Episodes (Showtime)
Walking Dead (AMC)
And I would have to wait a year to buy them on disc or download.
Besides movies, the only other things I watch are Masterpiece and Nature. This sounds like a bad deal for me, right?
Speaking of dropping cable, is there anyone who provides high-speed Internet access beside my local cable company? I suspect there are local small companies but is there anyone who provides just the Internet access and no content and are they cheaper than cable providers?
If I dropped my cable I would miss on demand. That’s it.
And you don’t need cable for on demand. Get a ROKU box (or apple TV, I presume) and there are a TON of options for streaming on demand, movies and tv shows.
No one could really say without knowing where you live; but the phone company is a high probability option.
Only you can figure that out. Take the amount you’re saving and multiply it by the time you’d have to wait to see what you want to get a good starting point. In my case I saved around $130/mo by cutting cable; I added cost back in by subscribing to Hulu Plus and Aereo so let’s just say $100/mo. If someone gave me the choice of $1200 in pocket each year, and waiting to see the above shows; or no money but getting to see those shows immediately; I’d always pick the money in my pocket. YMMV
I didn’t want to drop cable without a DVR for over the air programming. So I got a Tivo with Lifetime service. It was quite a bit of money, but over the long run, I’ll save quite a bit ($500 for the Tivo and Lifetime is like 5-6 months of Cable TV [I still have cable internet]).
I have Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu to fill in the gaps if need be (of course that drops the payoff date of the Tivo - but I had Netflix before and Amazon Prime is mostly for the shipping - Hulu was the only one I got after getting an antenna since it allowed me to see a show if the weather was really bad and the antenna was not picking up the channel super well, though that is mitigated with the Tivo Roamio).
You will only miss getting $150 deducted monthly from your account. If your lucky you will quickly stop watching TV all together and, within 2 months, have detoxed and recovered from the worst addiction you will ever have. You will then watch TV only in waiting rooms and during national emergencies which is enough. You can then select monthly movies in the theatre and even move toward plays, symphony, comedy clubs or summer concerts at the amphitheater without guilt or withdraw.
If your really lucky you will move to a country where TV has no value at all and you will spend evenings and weekends with friends and loved ones socializing face to face and maybe gain the ability to laugh, cry, hug and kiss with real lieve human beings!
Not while video games are so fucking much fun I won’t.
Here’s an interesting article on Lifehacker which compared the availability of the top 250 TV shows (according to IMDB) on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus. They found
Netflix has 54 exclusive shows
Amazon Prime has 17 exclusive shows
Hulu Plus has 29 exclusive shows, but only 6 have older seasons
Amazon and iTunes have about 90% of the shows available for purchase (and Google Play has about 2/3)
Here is a comprehensive list of the availability of the 250 shows:
So you find out things like Justified is only on Amazon Prime and Dexter only on Netflix (plus both available for purchase on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play)
It’s been a week since I dropped my DirecTV and I’ve been watching less TV overall, but when I watch, it’s something deliberate and good. And even if I have to pay a couple of bucks to watch something, it would take a while to catch up to the $100 I was paying every month for hundreds of stations I never looked at.
I did sign up for Netflix at ~$8/mo and I’ve had Amazon Prime ever since it came into being. Haven’t paid for any other stations, and the Roku has lots of them.
This is the only reason I can’t drop cable, dammit…come on people get with it, put the LIVE sports games online already!! :mad:
I doubt that will happen. Live sports are the most expensive channels by far in any cable lineup. I understand that most people who are not sports fan, like myself, pay an outsize portion of our cable fees for them. So the cable providers are going to fight like hell to keep the live sports off the Internet because it’s their bread and butter. Sorry about that. (I personally am not all that interested in sports.)
So true!
I moved my old TV down to my man-cave in the basement but didn’t get a second cable box, I just hooked it up to the Roku (and Xbox). I have a clock on the wall above the TV, but I always automatically look for the time where the cable box would be (under the TV).
This is a very timely thread for me; I finally got high-speed internet at home a couple of weeks ago, and I will drop cable very soon.
The most startling discovery so far: for the over-the-air channels (that I can get–I’m still experimenting with moving the antenna around my apartment), I get a far better picture with an antenna than I did with cable. I realized that since I wasn’t shelling out for a pricy HD package, Comcast wasn’t bothering to transmit anything in HD, yet several local channels broadcast over the air in HD for free. Ooh, shiny!
Someone mentioned missing the Daily Show. If you have decent internet, just wait until the day after broadcast and you can watch it for free on the show’s website (plus ads, of course, but different ads from the TV. I’m not missing the endless Xfinity promos!)
I do think we’re coming to a time (if we’re not there already) when cable and satellite TV will be kept in business by sports fans, with everyone else using some kind of streaming method.
Look into getting a Roku 3. It facilitates streaming to your TV.